How can I convince my friend to watch/read Berserk?

[Fradener]

Oh for-

It's not a contest! It's my personal record and only has meaning related to what I watch. If someone whose record is 400 episodes watches all 26 episodes of a series in one sitting, it doesn't really say much as they've set the bar much higher.

I think he's watched 6 episodes or so and I think I'm pretty much going to give up. He keeps saying things like "bored" and "wooden board characters" and "bad animation" and "zzz."

[Aetherfukz]

I'm with The Herald on this one, when I marathon something (and often even if I'm not marothoning it) I make it a point to watch the opening and ending themes once (and again when/if they change) and then just skip them. I can't imagine why you'd bother to watch the same opening and ending over and over again, especially in a marathon.

That's why the Black Lagoon DVDs had the best play all mechanism ever. If you chose play all from the menu, it would play the opening for the first episode on the disk, skip the ending, skip the opening and ending for all in-between episodes, and then show the ending for the last episode on the disk. Saved me something like 10-20 clicks on the remote every time and made the experience more pulp fiction-esque.

[The Herald]

that's the exact same thing that was on the DBZ DVDs, and they did it first

[Born_Loser]

If you have it, you don't need it. If you need it, you don't have it. If you have it, you need more of it. If you have more of it, you don't need less of it. You need it to get it, and you certainly need it to get more of it. But if you don't already have any of it to begin with, you can't get any of it to get started which really means you have no idea how to get it in the first place... do you ?
You can share it, sure. You can even stockpile it if you like. But you can't fake it. Wanting it, needing it, wishing for it. The point is, if you've never had any of it, ever... People just seem to know. (Watch Berserk!)

[Mail]

That's why the Black Lagoon DVDs had the best play all mechanism ever. If you chose play all from the menu, it would play the opening for the first episode on the disk, skip the ending, skip the opening and ending for all in-between episodes, and then show the ending for the last episode on the disk. Saved me something like 10-20 clicks on the remote every time and made the experience more pulp fiction-esque.

When I watched Black Lagoon I couldn't get enough of the opening theme. I'm not sure what it was exactly that hooked me but I absolutely loved it.

----->Back on topic..

I too have a friend in need of Berserk. I've mentioned the series to him several times but he's been noncommittal about trying it. The worst part is I just know he'll love it. While he's not really an anime/manga fan, he did watch DBZ and enjoy it so I know he's not averse to the genre. And he likes seeing people getting hurt in new and interesting ways. In fact, when I was reading it I sent him a few of my favorite pages and he liked them. I just can't get him to try it. I have no idea why. Ideas?

[Mail]

I hate one piece and naruto and bleach.

YES! Finally, those are so dumb! I hate when people say that Naruto is supposed to be the new DBZ, because it just ain't. It has all of the fighting and randomness that you could want from DBZ, but there are way too many main characters and not enough relationships, and things move too slowly. It takes forever for anyone to grow up! And at least in Dragonball you see Goku grow up, there aren't a million flashbacks. There are flashbacks in DBZ, but I don't know, they aren't so dumb. At least even the Naruto flashbacks are better than the ones in Gundam Seed Destiny, I swear only 30% of that show was new content. But Berserk has almost no flashbacks and that's why it's boss.

Talking about Bleach, I had a buddy who would refuse to watch Berserk because he said that Gut's sword was unrealistically big. But the dumb thing was that he confesses that Bleach is his absolute favorite anime. EVERYBODY IN BLEACH HAS HUGE ASS SWORDS! His argument is that Bleach is unrealistic and allows for huge swords. He won't even listen to the explanation that Guts has a big sword because he grew up learning with swords that were that size compared to his own size and weight. But in Bleach the swords are like ghosts or something so you need no muscle mass to hold em - take Ichigo for example.

Sorry for bringing this back up, but I just read through the thread and have to comment on this. I agree that Berserk is the best manga ever written in the history of ever, but it does have flashbacks. AN ENTIRE ARC OF THE MANGA IS ONE BIG FLASHBACK. That is all.

[Starnum]

This is very true, but a flashback of that magnitude and quality, almost doesn't count as a flashback. I don't mind a flashback if it's showing something new, or if it's very brief, just to show what a person is thinking.Though I hate long ass recaps before episodes and random flash backing to stuff, just to kill time.

[The Herald]

Technically it's not a 'flashback' perse, but a much better form and ancient form of story telling known as 'en medias res' which is Latin for in the middle of. Only very gutsy writers use this technique because it lets the reader know what's happening in the middle of the protagonist's progress. It's a lot different from when you get to see the end when all the cool shit is happening. The reason it is so difficult to pull off well is because for half the story the reader is expecting something, and the other half it isn't. With pop culture the only other example that comes to mind is God of War 1.

[papasith]

i have to agree with the herald, in berserk it was nto a flash back, as much a wat of telling the story. i mean lets be honest if the first part of the anime or manga did not exist imagine how you would react to zodd, or the eclipse. This is a story that takes DRASTIC changes and the first party was necissary to show you how messed up the world had become and keep you curious thought the background episodes to know how things became the way they where

[Mail]

I get what you're saying, but my personal definition of flashback is "going back to a previous point in the chronological sequence of a story," and going by that I still think it's a flashback. A masterfully executed flashback that only served to enhance the story, but a flashback nonetheless.

[Rolos]

Nope.
You see, a flashback is just, well, a "flash" of the past. Its supposed to give you a brief glimpse of the past.
Of its longer than that, if it goes on to tell a significant portion of the story, then its not a flashback.
If the whole story is just one, big "flashback", then its called "Racconto".

PD: I just love technicisms.

[Istvan]

Nope.
You see, a flashback is just, well, a "flash" of the past. Its supposed to give you a brief glimpse of the past.
Of its longer than that, if it goes on to tell a significant portion of the story, then its not a flashback.
If the whole story is just one, big "flashback", then its called "Racconto".

PD: I just love technicisms.

However some would still point out that there were still "flashbacks" in Berserk, both within the Golden Age itself (to see things previous to the main storyline), and later, as when we see Serpico and Farnese's backstory. So there are flashbacks in Berserk, it's just that they're done so well we don't really mind.

[The Herald]

what i was getting at with the whole flashback thing, however unclear i was, was that berserk barely every 'clips' something that has already happened that we as the reader have already seen before. many other mangas do this, gundam seed and naruto most readily come to mind. when berserk does it it's stuff we as the reader have not yet experienced and that's why the writer feels the need to have us experience such events.

[Born_Loser]

*Whomp!* "Caught him flashbackin' again"

[Rolos]

what i was getting at with the whole flashback thing, however unclear i was, was that berserk barely every 'clips' something that has already happened that we as the reader have already seen before. many other mangas do this, gundam seed and naruto most readily come to mind. when berserk does it it's stuff we as the reader have not yet experienced and that's why the writer feels the need to have us experience such events.

Yeah, I know that.
The thing is, whenever he/she whines about how "But Berserk is full of flashbacks!" you can say "Berserk has no flashbacks. Berserk presents tome cases of In media res and Racconto. And thats it.
If by episode 18 you don't remember that well what happened in episode 3, thats your problem, not the author's"
Not only does it sound cooler and is less viable to scare your friend away from Berserk, it also, for the most part, true, so you wont have him/her complaining about how you lied to her/him later.

[Starnum]

what i was getting at with the whole flashback thing, however unclear i was, was that berserk barely every 'clips' something that has already happened that we as the reader have already seen before. many other mangas do this, gundam seed and naruto most readily come to mind. when berserk does it it's stuff we as the reader have not yet experienced and that's why the writer feels the need to have us experience such events.

I think the word you were looking for there was "anime". There isn't a lot of flash-backing in those manga. However, the respective anime are full of them, so that's probably what you meant.

Really that's what it is. You don't see a lot of flash backs in manga, unless it's to do exposition, or very briefly to show what the person is thinking or remembering. However, you see it all the time in anime, usual as a way to fill time. >.>

[Mail]

what i was getting at with the whole flashback thing, however unclear i was, was that berserk barely every 'clips' something that has already happened that we as the reader have already seen before. many other mangas do this, gundam seed and naruto most readily come to mind. when berserk does it it's stuff we as the reader have not yet experienced and that's why the writer feels the need to have us experience such events.

Yeah, I know that.
The thing is, whenever he/she whines about how "But Berserk is full of flashbacks!" you can say "Berserk has no flashbacks. Berserk presents tome cases of In media res and Racconto. And thats it.
If by episode 18 you don't remember that well what happened in episode 3, thats your problem, not the author's"
Not only does it sound cooler and is less viable to scare your friend away from Berserk, it also, for the most part, true, so you wont have him/her complaining about how you lied to her/him later.

I'll toast to that.

[hbi2k]

Not to bring the argument back to semantics, but "flashback" is defined as, "a device in the narrative of a motion picture, novel, etc., by which an event or scene taking place before the present time in the narrative is inserted into the chronological structure of the work."

The length of the event or scene is irrelevant to the definition. If the chronological progression of the narrative is broken by flashing back to a past event, then returning to the main flow of the narrative, a flashback has occurred.

In media res also has nothing to do with it. (Sorry, Herald, "en media res" is a misspelling.) Berserk does indeed begin in media res, and then it flashes back to Guts' birth and childhood. But that has nothing to do with the fact that it began in media res. You can start in media res and never flash back, relying instead on dialogue or other methods of exposition to fill in what had come before. For example, in the Lord of the Rings books, past events such as Sauron forging the rings are usually revealed by having a character like Gandalf or Elrond explain them to the viewpoint character(s), which are usually the hobbits.

Berserk has both in media res AND copious amounts of flashbacks, because the two are not mutually exclusive.

However, I believe what Herald was originally complaining about more than flashbacks per se are REDUNDANT flashbacks common in a lot of anime in which we flash back to something we've already seen, sometimes as recently as the previous episode or earlier in the same episode. Berserk VERY seldom does that: almost every substantial flashback in the story is there to present new information to the audience.

[Mail]

So the best way to get someone into berserk is to have them watch the anime first? I don't want to try threatening or poisoning my friend because he might take me seriously..and get back at me. He carries at least three knives on him at all times and I know he owns a handgun.

[Istvan]

So the best way to get someone into berserk is to have them watch the anime first? I don't want to try threatening or poisoning my friend because he might take me seriously..and get back at me. He carries at least three knives on him at all times and I know he owns a handgun.

Well naturally the specific method you use has to be tailored to the individual friend in question. For a friend who goes armed like that you might want to focus more on the less violent/coercive ideas on this thread.

[Mail]

*Update*

He read the first ten pages of the first chapter and said it was O.K. I had forgotten about his incredibly short attention span. He said he's willing to read more of it but I don't think it's a priority for him. I know he would like the story in its entirety and he'd love certain parts of it, but how am I supposed to get him through it?

[The Herald]

the story in its entirety is not finished and if he has a such a short attention span as to not care about 33 books worth of berserk out there it's probably best not to get him into it because as far as we know there is no end in sight. so far berserk has barely come into its third act, if even that yet.

[Mail]

Perhaps I should qualify the attention span comment. He's not ADD (well, maybe just a little ). It's just that unless something immediately caught his attention as awesome he doesn't really give the time to look deeper into it. If I can just convince him that it's worth reading he'll be hooked, but so far my occasional reminder has been met with indifference--he has some other hobbies and he doesn't feel like giving Berserk the time it deserves.

[lon3vvolf]

Guys, I just got my girl to watch the first DVD of Berserk. Shes never watched anime or read manga. I never really pushed her to watch it, but I just talked about it once in a while and said how much of a fan I am. After some time she got a little interested in it wanting to know why I'm such a huge fan. It was actually her idea... so I eased her into it. I told her on the surface its just about a guy with a big sword that goes around killing things, but on a much deeper level its got the whole free will vs. destiny concept. She got interested after the opening quote, you know the one, "In this world is the destiny of mankind... blah blah blah."

She picked up on the story pretty quick too. After the fight with the snake baron she asked if this whole story was a flashback... and I was like FUCK.. how do I not screw up the whole show for her... so I told her it was going to show how Guts got to that point. Then she asked if he had the brand as a kid. I tried to deflect again... Anyway we watched the first DVD and she really wants to know what happens.

But the best part was she picked up on something else in the story, her words exactly "Is that one guy[Griffith] gay? Why does he always plan to attack from the rear? And Why did he want Guts to be his rear guard? Is that a penis on his armor??"
Shes awesome!

[dialdfordesi]

Nice, lonewolf, sounds like a keeper!