How the author of Berserk changed my life for the better
Earlier this month Kentaro Miura the author behind the widely popular and influential manga Berserk, had passed away at the age of 54. To say this news has sent a shockwave, a tidal wave, whichever phrase you’d prefer, throughout the community of manga lovers would be an understatement. Hell who am I kidding? Fans of entertainment and art in general are all collectively and rightfully tipping their hats, toasting, and thanking this man for his contributions to the world. So I figured, yeah, I think I’ll do the same.
For full disclosure, I actually have not read the Berserk manga myself. I know, kind of odd right? How can I say that Berserk changed my life for the better if I haven’t even read it? Don’t worry we’ll get to that part soon since that’s what this story of mine is about. However I will say that I have watched and very much enjoyed the late nineties anime adaptation of the manga, so I do have an assemblance of familiarity with the material. For those unfamiliar let me give you a quick synopsis on the premise of Berserk.
Berserk is a dark fantasy action adventure story set in a medieval European inspired setting. It follows protagonist Guts, a lone skilled swordsman and mercenary, on his various quests throughout the lands. One of his earliest and most prominently well known story arcs is the time he spends with the mercenary band named the “Band of the Hawk”. Where we along with Guts are introduced to Casca, a tough no nonsense swordswoman. As well as Griffith, the intelligent and charismatic leader of the group. Two characters who become incredibly pivotal to Gut’s overall development over the story.
Now while having not read the manga I do know from close friends and acquaintances that the story spans many years past this initial arc. But this is the arc I’m most familiar with, I’m sure it’s the one many others are most familiar with as well, and it’s the one that’s been adapted in the anime. So if I’ve at all peaked your interest in Berserk and if you’re not a fan of reading, which would be odd since you’re reading this after all but that’s besides the point, I’d highly recommend the anime it’s very well produced and put together. But this is not a review of Berserk, this is, now time…to share with you how Berserk changed my life for the better, as it has for so many others.
Interestingly enough, it was not Berserk directly that changed my life, it in fact was another piece of media all together, and that is the video game Bloodborne. Now I know you might be slightly confused by this but bear with me you’ll see the point I’m trying to make here, Berserk didn’t change my life in the “traditional” sense you could say.
Bloodborne was a game that was on my radar for a long time, I’m a big fan of the Victorian era which that game had in its design from top to bottom. Horror and action games I also love and, I could go on and on and on but the gist of it is, this game looked made for me. And after finally getting my hands on it, and playing it, it did not disappoint at all, and I consider Bloodborne to be just one of my favorite pieces of fiction, from any media…just, ever.
But after playing Bloodborne multiple times, after getting about all I could out of the game, I thought to myself, this couldn’t be it could it? My curiosity led me down the rabbit hole that the internet so graciously is willing to supply day and night without a care in the world and eventually I was led, to Twitch.
I was not familiar with Twitch much at all back in 2015 when Bloodborne was first released, I mostly just grew up playing games and than after I beaten them I moved on with my life. I never got involved in online chat rooms or anything of the sort that many gamers, especially on pc, are very used to. This time, for one reason or another though, I decided that enough wasn’t enough and I wanted more so, I sought out other people who enjoyed this game.
I stumbled upon a bevy of streamers on Twitch with viewers ranging in the hundreds to the thousands, and at first I was taken aback by the novelty of it. It was just very refreshing and interesting, it’s tough exactly for me to accurately describe my initial feelings of the experience but needless to say I liked it. However, me being me with my own tastes, I wasn’t too keen on being in a chat with hundreds let alone thousands of different people, I just thought…what’s the point?
What’s the point in simply just watching someone else play, or not even have the chance to talk to anyone since comments scroll by so dam quickly. This is the whole reason I’m here after all. So…I scrolled down the long list of streamers until reaching near the very very bottom of the list where viewership was in the single to double digits, and through nothing more than just a whim, I clicked on someone else and….my life has never been the same since.
The streamer I ran into went by the name MissBeeHavin69 (hahaha ikr), she goes by simply MsBee69 now but she doesn’t do it alone. Her husband, who goes by the name King6d9, has helped her from the very start. And these two, are just two of the kindest, funniest, most thoughtful people I’ve ever met in my life, and have become two of the bestest friends I think I’ll ever have.
When I initially ran into their Twitch channel I was fresh out of high school, most of my classmates who I was close with had moved away, my romantic relationship at the time had ended, I still lived at home and my home life and work life was not as positive as I would have liked it to have been. To say I was down in the dumps would be putting it mildly, but thankfully out of all of the streamers I could have run into at that time in my life, I couldn’t be happier that I ran into them.
I’ve spent my free time in the years since going in and chatting about just, anything really with them, we bonded over our shared love of Bloodborne at first yes but it continuously blossomed as great friendships do. And now, going on about six years later, Bee and King’s channel has thousands of followers, they average good viewership numbers nearly every night that they’re live, they have an active Discord, they’re just doing very well for themselves as far as Twitch goes and…I simply couldn’t be more proud and happy for them, because they absolutely deserve it. Oh and, building a community of mostly chill and awesome folks who I’ve also become great acquaintances and friends with needless to say is…well there’s no words or phrase that do it justice really but, it’s just wonderful.
But now I hear you ask, what does any of this have to do with Berserk? Well here’s the thing, the game director of Bloodborne Hidetaka Miyazaki, is responsible for a game more popular than Bloodborne, one that even non gamers more than likely have at the very least heard of in passing, and that game is Dark Souls. And Dark Souls, it’s predecessor Demon’s Souls, and the whole Souls series of games in general is known for having a fair amount of its roots and inspirations come from none other, than Berserk.
Berserk itself, does not hold a special place in my heart like Bloodborne does for the various reasons I’ve already gone over. It isn’t something I think about on a daily basis, I personally have enjoyed the anime for what it had to offer but it’s not on its own impacted me in any special sort of way. But I would be a fool to say that Berserk isn’t important, it’s been important to so many people for so many years and will continue to do so. And this is the ultimate point I wanted to make here with this story that I’m telling.
Would Miyazaki had still made his Souls games and would they have been as successful and influential in their own right to allow Bloodborne to be developed and released if Berserk didn’t exist, who knows? Would my friends had decided to start streaming if any of these games never existed, who knows? Would I have perhaps eventually run into someone else, numerous someone else’s who would have been just as amazing as my friends, who knows? All I do know, is that the chain of events partially responsible for me being the person I am now, that led to me sitting here typing this story for you to read in the first place, would not have been set in motion if it wasn’t for Berserk. And of course more specifically Kentaro Miura.
Even though I’ve only seen a glimpse of what Berserk has to offer, having not read the manga, I do see what to me in my own interpretation of the story is the ultimate theme, one of perseverance. Without spoiling anything, Guts in both his backstory and the ongoing story is put through some of the most harrowing trials any one person could possibly go through, and yet despite all of it he keeps pushing forward no matter what, as life goes on.
I occasionally humorously imagine Miura sitting there illustrating and writing his work thinking to himself when presenting his story to the masses, “You think your life sucks? Ha! Have you seen what this guy has been through and he’s still moving forward so why can’t you? You’ll be just fine.” And yes, I will be just fine, all of us will be just fine. Not to mention, all of us, no matter how seemingly small or at first insignificant our contributions to this planet are, do make a difference, even in places and ways that no one could have ever expected.
This experience I’ve shared with you dear reader is proof of that. So rest in peace Miura, and thank you.
