Berserk Episode 1 Promo

By Chris Beveridge     December 09, 2003
Release Date: March 20, 2002



What They Say
In the castle town of Midland, a new king has come to power through treachery and violence. His demonic agents victimize the citizens unchecked, until the night when a battle weary soldier approaches the city.

Covered in a slew of weapons and countless jagged scars, he calls himself the Black Swordsman. The sword he carries is the size of his grudge against the king, and he hunts the servants of evil with unrelenting fury.

Contains Episode 1 Only.

The Review!
Media Blasters has started sending out a mini-DVD that contains the first episode of Berserk to retailers and others who receive their promotional materials (as well as some lucky folks at conventions). According to the paperwork, it looks like they intend to slip it in as an extra disc in some upcoming 16+ titles as well. Being a sucker for Berserk, we?ll review anything we get our hands on.

Audio:
For our primary viewing session, we listened to this disc in its original language of Japanese. I had been hoping the dub was on it to get a taste, but sadly it wasn?t. This is a pretty typical late night show that has a decent stereo soundtrack with some really spiffy moments of forward soundstage directionality. There?s a good amount of new sounds in here and not the usual recycled sounds you get in many shows. Dialogue and effects were both nice and clear.

Video:
By it?s nature, the show is fairly grainy, even the region 2 progressive set is. That tends to give it more of a film look that works really well for this show. The background animation is typically done in a washed out flat way, as the world the character inhabits in the first episode is always dark, always foreboding. Other than the grain, this disc looked quite good on our setup. On our TV/DVD combo, the grain was a fair bi stronger and caused some background artifacting.

Packaging:
The disc was sent in a small plastic sleeve, not exactly something we?ll rate.

Menus:
The disc contains no menus.

Extras:
The disc contains no extras.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The first episode of Berserk truly obeys the golden rule: hook the viewer and fast.

The shows opening episode is a great hook at that. The show kicks off with the lead character of Gatts entering the latest city he comes across and looking for someone. Gatts is a huge muscular man, the kind of anime male lead we haven?t really seen in a long time and is at times reminiscent of the men from Fist of the Northstar. Big, bulky, muscular, hard edged but not cartoony. The bad ass you really don?t want to meet.

As with any run down fantasy based town, the local ruffians make their way into the bar with some captive girl, making her do their bidding. Not one to really help, but also not interested in seeing women abused, Gatts makes a subtle appearance in quickly killing the men. The show then moves it focus to a local political who wants to eliminate him and someone from his past who knows him. This is all just background noise though, as we move with Gatts to the deep woods where he waits things out.

It?s here that we learn the supernatural nature of things as we find that Gatts has some tattoos of sorts on him. These demons have a definite control over him, and are using him for their own needs, but he?s using them just as well. Berserk is not a happy fun loving place to be sure, and everyone?s either someone to use or someone to kill. The show also features more blood in one episode than we saw in probably half of Rurouni Kenshin. Dark and edgy have been used to describe it often, and it?s accurate. This is a return to the mature male storytelling that?s been sloughed off in favor of the pretty boy and pretty girl shows of recent years that obviously make much more money.

But Berserk has that huge hook, in that the first episode gets you into the characters head some and gives you lots of action. The real payoff is at the end though when you realize as the flashback to his youth begins, that we?re seeing an episode close to the end of the series and not the beginning. The past is where the meat of the story is, the shaping of this character from a wiry but grim young man to a tough hard edged killer with a sword bigger than all outdoors.

This first episode preview is definitely something to get your hands on if you simply can?t wait for the first disc of five episodes. It?s a real tease though, because once you see one and the hints of the next episode, you?ll be even more impatient.

Features
Japanese Language,English Subtitles

Review Equipment
Toshiba TW40X81 40" HDTV, Skyworth 1050P Progressive Scan codefree DVD player, Sony STR-DE835 DD/DTS receiver, Monster component cable and Sony speakers.