Realism... (compared to other anime)

[Morbius]

How realistic do you feel Berserk is? In the way it depicts war and the battles its heroes engage in? In the way the aristocracy and politics works?

Aside from all the demons and stuff towards the end, that is...

The class system and the aristocracy seems to be very realistic. The snobbish behavior of the upper class to the mercenary soldiers of the Band of the Hawk and the way that they plotted and schemed against eachother. It seemed almost Shakesperean in its intricacy. Their rise to fame from the squalor of war-torn peasantry to the high life of nobility seemed very believable. Although, it took the godly powers of the behelits to releive all my doubts.

The fighting is definitely more realistic than most anime series too. The heroes actually get injured and tired while fighting. And their wounds aren't healed by the next episode. Their strengths and weaknesses actually make sense and are explained in a believable manner. The skills of the characters improve with each battle and thier appearance changes as well.

I guess I'm just sick of skinny teenage boys fighting large monsters and winning or heroes dodging bullets. Or giant machines that can't be damaged by any weapons. It's nice to watch an anime series where thing appear to obey the laws of physics and nature.

Of course, not everything is realistic. The fact that all the main characters seem to survive every intense battle even when thousands of others don't is a little doubtful. And the superhuman strength and endurance of some of the characters can, at times, seem a little hard to believe.

But for the most part I never shouted "Oh come on" or "Yeah, right" at my screen as I have in other anime series.

Anyway, I'll save the rest of what I wanted to say for when a few people reply...

[Rulakir]

I feel that Berserk is realistic compared to other anime out there. The depiction of war is really good, although I think they got carried away with the blood. Other anime series/movies have the heroes in big mechas, use magic powers or let them be some kind of super being, which is nowhere near reality. IMO, they can be fairy tales in a way because for the most part, they live happily ever after in the end, but that's not always true for some anime. Berserk is the opposite. It's realism shows how much of a living hell war really is. What was really interesting to me was Caska's role since she is the only woman to take part in battle in that time period because there were very little to no women in battle back then.

[MANTA]

You bring up some good points. Berserk is very realistic, and that element probably is why the show is so great. It is more engrossing to watch a realistic anime than one that is out of this world. I believe in a serious anime realism is important as it helps in making a great show (Jin-Roh is another example that comes to mind.)

While you watch most other anime, in Berserk you actually live the experience.

[gaspacho soup]

Of course, not everything is realistic. The fact that all the main characters seem to survive every intense battle even when thousands of others don't is a little doubtful. And the superhuman strength and endurance of some of the characters can, at times, seem a little hard to believe.

Not at all. Most of them died remember ;)

Except for Gatsu's unbelievable stamina + strength i'd say it's probably the 2nd most realstic anime i've seenr, ight after the kenshin OVAs.

[Alesil]

I`d say Berserk is the most realistic anime I`ve seen. Pretty much totally realistic if you ignore the absurd amounts of blood and the way weapons cut through plate mail like it was paper...

I personally don`t consider magic/demons/whatever unrealistic. I just consider it to be based in a world with the currently accepted laws of physics with a few extras (for example the existance of magic) added in. Unrealistic to me is people being hit by Fireballs and being only slightly cooked up (Slayers), people using the LowOrbitUppercut (Love Hina), definetly impossible martial feats (Kenshin) etc. Not that anybody should care, just sharing my views. :)

[Lurker]

I have to say I was most impressed with the depiction of a medieval european style court in a Japanese show. My only real point of consternation was that that realism didn't seem to carry over to the chain of command and structure of the military. It seemed to me that the naming system for the units was heavily influence by oriental traditions ("Blue Whale heavy assault knights", "White Tiger Knights", "Purple Rhino's", etc I don't think I've ever read about Edward III ever riding into battle with such units).

The structure of a medival army was a product of the feudal society of Europe. If you slept through your history lessons at school, I'll leave you to learn more about how a feudal society functioned, but basically the units that made up a medieval army were based around the types of soldiers that the nobles that had been called into battle were able to field. Most of those soldiers were the ordinary peasants who were forced to fight as part of their feudal agreement with their lord. For these peasants, a horse was too valuable a farm animal to risk in war (if they could even afford one, as most couldn't) thus they went into battle as foot soldiers. Many couldn't even afford armour.

Constrast this with Berserk where seemingly everybody fought on horseback and wore a full suit of armour. I also didn't see too many heraldic symbols being used to identify people, though I suppose the often bizarre styles of armour worn by some (ahem Adon) did just as good a job.

I know it seems like pointless knitpicking of a basically irrellevant part of an otherwise excellent show, but I just felt like pointing it out and otherwise wasting everybody else's time.

[Kero-chan]

I know it seems like pointless knitpicking of a basically irrellevant part of an otherwise excellent show, but I just felt like pointing it out and otherwise wasting everybody else's time.

I found your post quite worth my time honetly. I do think that Berserk was a bit over the top in the violence depatment. However, this should be expected coming from such a genre as this. It is ment to be over the top. The same way many found "Saving Privite Ryan" to be very graphic. In today's socitety prehaps the only way to get attention is to be just that. I have recently started to read the manga(I know this is not the manga forum so please bear with me) and found it to be just the same. Very violent and in your facee. Personaly I found this refreshing as has been stated before many anime latley have the charecters in mecha or not getting badly cut up or what not. Berserk helps to bring us back to reality (in a sense I suppose) to the true dangers of war and its conquinces. In that aspect I think it helped to bring an element of realisim to the show.

[Lurker]

If you get a chance, watch the interview with the producer in the extras section on volume 5 of the DVD. He explains that they wanted to do something that was different to the other anime's being aired on Japanese TV at the time and selected a late night timeslot so they could do something that would appeal more to adults and older teens. He also goes on to explain that, as Berserk was not the type of story he would normally animate, he chose it to add to the 'impact' it would have (I believe he's talking more about the impact it would have on the network programmers than it would on the audience. How many even take notice of who the producer is?). It's an interesting interview and sheds some light on how the industry operates.

[BrikHaus81]

The only thing that bothered me in the battle scenes was that the director took no time to set them up visually. I mean, you'd just have soldiers running around the battlefield killing each other. You'd have no idea where Guts was in relation to Griffith. And you'd have no idea whose force was winning until the battle was just suddenly over.

[Kero-chan]

That is true. Sometimes I wanted more of a set up to the battles themselves. I shall also have to go back and view the interview with the producer. The main thing that got a bit out of line was the constnat slow pans of people geting slashed and blood spraying. I guess it helped to give a bit more impact but I feel it was a bit over used.

[SamIam]

... well, factoring out a certain degree of non realism due to the fact that it is anime ... I would say that Berserk is a nice mix of the realistic and fantastic.

The portrayal of personalities, motivations and the overall sense of characterization IMO is more realistic than most other anime ... but this is also balanced by the shows basic premise in the supernatural (as a commonplace occurance) ... along with the warping of physics and biological limitations as we know them in this world.

... aside from the demons and magic ... Gutt's sword (like Zanza's) should be much to heavy to lift easily (if at all) let alone handle one handed or to generate enough blade speed for the type of catastrophic cuts that occurs in the series (completely through heavy armor and or obstacles no less). ... also take into account the limits on his ability to limit the range of motion of the sword once it is set into motion ... his opponents should see his telegraphed moves and easily be able to dodge the predicted path of such a heavy weapon ... well that is unless he is much, much stronger than the average man.

... how much does that sword weigh? ... I have seen posted figures between 400 - 750 lbs! ... (which is concievable given the sheer mass of iron involved ... so lets say the sword is 500 lbs. for arguments sake.

Based on what I could gather on the net, the average Midieval Long sword was between 25 - 30 lbs ... and even the strongest of knights could not completely cut through say the thick chest and back plates ...

so ... the difference in weapon weight alone is something like 20 to 1 ... add to this the superior speed and force (especially when one considers the cross section thickness and general bluntness of the weapon) ... and the extremely clean cuts (which points to extremely high velocity) and you have to add additional strength factor to something (wild guess) like what 25-40 times stronger than the average man?

... at a guess, that would be like an athletic man with martial training in his prime ( say 200 lbs ) fighting with full force against a 3 year old in plastic play armor.


thus ... Characterization/psychology = high realism
Plot premise = low realism

SamIam