Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the channel! Unfortunately, we haven't heard anything new about the Berserk manga, so let's talk about it again to find out how this great work was born! Before starting the actual serialization, the author had submitted a one-shot story to a contest organized by the publishing house Hakusensha, which would later publish the entire Berserk series, to allow the editors to evaluate his style and ideas. Obviously the story was appreciated, since it then gave rise to a manga that was published for over thirty years, but this first story presents some differences from what would later become Berserk. Known as “Berserk: The Prototype” and published in the West only in 2006 by Dark Horse Comics, this short story allows us to discover the author’s initial and only sketched ideas. It's interesting in itself because it will let us discover how the Berserk manga really came to be, but in this video we'll do something more: we'll also make a comparison between the prototype and the very first part of Berserk, focusing on those aspects that Miura then kept in his main work and those that he modified: we'll see in detail how a masterpiece is born. The story begins on a road lined with impaled skeletons. Here is walking a warrior dressed in black with an eyepatch, who is talking to a certain Puck hidden in his saddlebag. Soon after we see some bandits attacking a girl; almost immediately they are pierced by arrows and the girl is saved by the black warrior. It seems that the warrior saved her only so he could easily steal some food from the carriage she was traveling in. Attacked from behind by a surviving bandit, he cuts him in two with a giant broadsword. The black warrior offers to take the girl home in exchange for food, and along the way Puck emerges from the saddlebag: we thus discover that he is an elf and that the black warrior is called Guts. Puck jokes with Guts, and the girl says that the warrior can't be a bad man since an elf is next to him. Having brought the girl, who we discover is called Frikka, back to the village, Guts receives a well-deserved dinner in exchange and here he learns the story of Vlad Tepes, the lord of that place. According to Frikka's father, Vlad Tepes was a madman: he had 500 prisoners impaled, not only soldiers, but also women, children and priests; but the wartime was even better, because now the lord has decided to take some girls from the village. He says they will become his servants, but in reality he slaughters them: their corpses have been seen washed down the river from the castle. Frikka will be the next one to have to go to the castle, that's why they sent her away from there. Guts isn't particularly impressed by the story, and just asks for more food. During dinner, two villagers show up and ask the black warrior to kill the local lord. Guts refuses, saying that the people of a small village like that couldn't pay him enough for this endeavor, adding, "This is stupid!! Why should I risk my life for people I don't even know?!" When he refuses, an old woman also tries to gain his mercy, asking him to avenge her granddaughter killed by Vlad Tepes. He replies: “I have nothing to do with just and generous chivalry.” Guts leaves, and Frikka follows him to apologize for telling everyone he was a very strong knight and to ask him for something as a souvenir. He says he has nothing but weapons and gives her his eyepatch. Puck tries to convince him to help the villagers, but the warrior reminds him of the only reason that drives him on: to avenge the death of his mother, eaten and torn to pieces before his eyes by them. “Killing them is all that keeps me going . I have no time to waste on other people.” Who “they” are is unclear at the moment. At this point, however, Guts sees the carriage in which Frikka is being taken to the lord's castle, and on it there is a symbol. Just seeing him, Guts' attitude changes completely . Inside the castle we meet this Vlad Tepes, a fat man whom Frikka finds repulsive. Frikka senses something strange, she suspects that he is not human. But immediately an arrow pierces Vlad Tepes' eye: the black warrior has arrived to face him. A trap hurls spikes and pointed spears at Guts, but the warrior survives; He draws his broadsword and says: “I will tear you to pieces, dog of Vuana.” Upon hearing this name, Vlad Tepes begins to transform into a monster, saying: “The lord of us who are not human, the most powerful god in this world… the name of the ancient lord of darkness Vuana! How do you know this name? Who the hell are you?” Vlad Tepes took the form of a horned monster with hairy legs. Guts lunges at him, cutting a stone in half, but the monster grabs him with one hand. “Didn’t I tell you I’d tear you to pieces?” Guts then tells him in a challenging tone, then reveals a mechanical arm that hides a cannon: he shoots the monster and finishes it off by cutting it in two with the sword. The dying monster says, “Impossible. There ’s no way a human could defeat me, an apostle of Vuana…” Guts then shows a scar on his right chest. That is the mark of sacrifice to Vuana, says Vlad Tepes, but then the palace collapses and interrupts his words. Guts, Frikka, and Puck escape safely, and the story ends with Guts declaring war on his enemies, the Apostles of Vuana, the ones responsible for his mother's murder: "I'll give them the flesh and blood they want. While I 'm at it, I'll shove some steel in their heads." It should be noted that in the English translation, flesh and blood is “flesh and blood,” a pairing that also appears in a Berserk panel and which, as we will see, is very important for discovering a source of inspiration for Kentarō Miura while he was at the beginning of his work. Now that we know Berserk: The Prototype, let's discover the context in which the work was born. In 1988, Kentarō Miura was only 22 years old and still a student. He studies at the art academy of the prestigious Nihon University, where he was admitted after submitting a post-apocalyptic manga entitled Futatabi, which means “Anchor.” Apart from Futatabi, Miura had until then only dedicated himself to a work entitled Noa, which was not successful, and was drawing the manga “The Wolf King” whose story was written by Buronson, famous for “Fist of the North Star”, illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. So at that point Miura was just an emerging artist and didn't yet have a story of his own, one that fully represented his tastes and what he wanted to tell. The opportunity arose thanks to a competition held by the Manga School of the publishing house Hakusensha, which would then serialize Berserk in its magazine Young Animal. When it came time to submit your work to the competition, what inspired you? The very peculiar idea of a knight with a mechanical arm is believed by many to be inspired by the real knight Götz von Berlichingen, a German knight who lived between 1480 and 1562. Even the names Götz and Guts are very similar. Despite this, Miura denied it and said he discovered the resemblance only after drawing his character; We don't know if he didn't want to admit that he was inspired by a historical figure or if the idea actually came about independently, but it's clear that Miura has always drawn on historical events for his ideas. For the broader plot that he will later develop in Berserk, Miura said he drew inspiration from Guin Saga, a series of epic fantasy novels written by Japanese author Kaoru Kurimoto, which features a mysterious leopard-headed warrior named Guin. The series has surpassed 100 volumes and holds the world record for the longest fantasy epic ever written, so in a way this also explains why Miura attempted to create an equally long and majestic work: he was confronted with a model that was truly difficult to match, at least in terms of its immense length. But this is a model that can be compared with the Berserk that took shape in the serialization, a broader and more detailed story. So what inspired the aesthetic, setting, and short plot of the prototype one-shot? At that time, Kentarō Miura was just an emerging artist: he had no certainty that he would actually have the opportunity to write a great story of his own. He understood that he had to focus on something with impact, something that would immediately strike potential publishers. While he's never been forthcoming about his sources, he stated in a 2002 interview: "I wasn't really thinking of anyone when I created Guts. But if you're just talking about his looks and not his personality, then I guess Rutger Hauer was the model. I saw him play a mercenary in a medieval film, 'Flesh & Blood,' and I really liked him in that movie." And in fact the protagonist of the Berserk prototype has facial features modeled on the face of actor Rutger Hauer. The film “Flesh+Blood” in Italian “Love and Blood”, is a historical adventure film released in 1985. The film is set in Italy in 1501 and imaginatively reimagines the story of the company of mercenaries in the pay of John Hawkwood, known in Italy as Giovanni Acuto; This film is characterized by an extremely dark atmosphere in which the events take place: the characters are mostly immoral, the violence, blood and crudeness of the scenes are its most characteristic aspect. The film was one of the biggest commercial disasters in the history of cinema: costing $6.5 million , it grossed only $100,000. Although it was later reevaluated, like many cinematic flops “rediscovered” only later, the young Kentarō Miura had the idea to bring various elements of this film to success, many more than he himself claims. Not only is the character’s face inspired by the actor seen in the film, but also the setting and themes of the prototype were certainly influenced by Flesh+Blood. It is no coincidence that Miura pays homage to this film both in the final panel of the prototype and in an important point at the beginning of Berserk, as I have already indicated before: a clear sign of the film's influence on the initial idea. For the role of the antagonist, the young Miura did not risk presenting a completely invented character. In the same interview, he stated: “I thought about writing a story based on Dracula. I’m talking about Vlad Tepes, the real Dracula. I wanted to use real historical documents.” And in fact his character presents some famous traits of Vlad, halfway between history and legend: he impales his enemies and kidnaps girls from the villages he governs. The publishing house liked this prototype, and Miura obtained permission to publish a more extensive story. But what does it maintain and what does it modify? If you already know the beginning of the Berserk manga, you will have noticed many similarities with the prototype, but let's do a detailed comparison to see what Miura kept and what he eliminated or changed, to understand the true genesis of Berserk and how a one-shot prototype transformed into one of the best manga of all time. First of all, let's note that Miura already knew a lot about how to make someone curious about his story: the story begins in the middle of events and the reader is catapulted into the middle of the action; The story is full of references to a larger universe (the backstory of Guts' mother, Vuana, the apostles, the mark of sacrifice) that make you want to know more, and the ending contains a "declaration of war" from the protagonist, which foreshadows many more bloody battles. The first chapter of Berserk begins very differently from the prototype: it opens with Guts in bed with a woman, who transforms into a monstrous being. Miura just pushed the accelerator a little! You can immediately notice that Guts no longer has the brand on his right chest. Having more space at his disposal, Miura tells us how Guts met the elf Puck, an event that in the prototype was given as already having happened; It is significant that he also pushed the accelerator in the characterization of his black warrior, making him even more of a " war machine": while in the prototype he wielded a common crossbow, here he uses a repeating crossbow directly installed on the mechanical arm. Design-wise, Berserk's Guts is almost identical to the prototype: he doesn't have an eyepatch, however, he simply keeps one eye closed. The “Dragonslayer” sword, which has become iconic, is obviously the same, even if here numerous plates are dedicated to it to show it to us in detail; The phrase "it was too large an object to be called a sword. Too thick, too heavy, and too crude. It was nothing more than a huge block of iron" appears right from the start. Miura chooses to focus on the most memorable details of his character, probably those that had most impressed the same editors who had evaluated the prototype and those that make him appear stronger and more violent. For this reason, a big difference is also Guts's character: in the prototype he is dark and bloodthirsty, but also endowed with a sort of cynical irony that makes him laugh with Puck and in some ways makes him resemble the classic adventurer protagonist of a manga for children, in Berserk he is absolutely serious and conveys the idea of a man at war with the world. Not least of all, in Berserk he is already known as “The Black Swordsman”: this makes it clear that in his world he is not just anyone, but his fame has already spread, while in the prototype his exceptionality could only be perceived in the final clash with Vlad Tepes, much more subtly. This increases our desire to know more about his past, something Miura will indeed tell us about in the most important narrative arc of the story, and other mysterious details scattered throughout the first chapter, such as the appearance of the demonic fetus, contribute to this. The mark of sacrifice appears on the neck instead of on the breastplate, and has also changed shape slightly: while in the prototype it was rounded, here it has angular lines. Many have wondered about the sources of inspiration for Berserk's mark of sacrifice: most theories hold that it was born from the superposition of the two runes of the Futhark alphabet, Algiz and Ôþalan, the second of the two reversed. From this they try to attribute some precise meaning to the brand; Moreover, a Reddit user noted in a 2017 post that it is also very similar to the monogram of Christ, a symbol that overlaps the Greek letters Chi and Rho, as it appears for example in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. I don't know if Miura knew these references and if he wanted to connect to one of them, nor if he wanted to attribute a meaning to the symbol, or if they are just reconstructions made after the fact by fans: seeing the prototype, it could be that Miura simply took up the brand already used and simply made it more angular; in the case of the round mark present in the prototype, it is very likely that it is a stylization of the phallic symbol present in depictions of Baphomet, a dark deity. I know this seems like a crazy and absurd connection, but references to Baphomet are constant in the Berserk manga, so there's a real possibility that the original inspiration for the Mark of Sacrifice was that. In the transition from the prototype to the final work, Miura may have simply modified the softer shapes into more angular ones, perhaps to visually recall the runes, but we remain in the realm of hypothesis. Aside from this aesthetic change in the branding, which might be difficult to fully understand, the last major changes concern the expansion of the characters' roles, due both to the fact that the author had many more chapters to introduce them, but also to a substantial change in approach to worldbuilding and the choice of what to portray. In the prototype the antagonist was directly based on a historical character, Vlad Țepeș, better known as Dracula; As much as horrible things were said about him, we did n't see him do them firsthand ; finally, his personality and his transformation into a monster, although well-defined, did not stand out for their originality. The antagonist of the prototype is practically split into the first two antagonists, the Baron and the Count: the Baron is shown eating human flesh for dinner and impaling children with the tip of his axe, drinking their blood, before transforming into a cobra-headed monster; The Count devours people whole and turns into a strange slug, and in between we have already seen other monsters of all sorts: violence takes centre stage. At the same time, Miura makes a wise choice for a fantasy author: he creates original enemies, without direct references to already known stories: the reader is thus ready to immerse himself in a completely new world. References to the real story will still be scattered throughout Berserk, but at a later point in the story and in a non-invasive way. Note that in the prototype there was no reference to the Beherit and the God Hand, aspects that are fundamental to the story of Berserk; Guts' motivation for revenge was linked to the death of his mother, killed by the apostles, while in Berserk Guts was born from the corpse of his hanged mother. In Berserk, the motivations for revenge will be different and the mother takes on a different role, becoming an important link with the concept of karma: being born from a dead body would allow Guts to evade karma, as you also mentioned in the comments under another video of mine, even if this is never fully confirmed in the story. Even karma, a central theme in Berserk, was not present in the prototype. All of this suggests that Miura developed the central points of his story only after the prototype had been successful, and also raises a question about the first possible ending conceived for Berserk: the prototype ended with a victory for Guts; perhaps Guts' victory was also in the original plans for the whole work, without taking away the fact that Miura may have revised his plans later. In the prototype, the apostles did not receive their powers from the Hand of God, but from Vuana, god of darkness: the name could be a mistransliteration of the Hindu deity Varuna, associated with the sky, or a name invented directly by Miura: if anyone knows and writes it in the comments, it deserves a million likes! Frikka, the damsel in distress from the prototype, was partly the basis for two characters in Berserk: Theresia, the Count's daughter, and surprisingly Griffith, with whom she shares the character design: if you too have always thought Griffith was drawn as a woman, well, you were partly right: he was born from the design of a female character. Beyond the appearance, it's difficult to understand what tortuous creative path leads from Frikka to Griffith, although some speculate that Griffith was originally intended as a companion for Guts, like Frikka in the prototype. The comparison between the prototype and Berserk makes us understand what made Miura's manga great: the violence and crudeness shown explicitly and taken to the extreme compared to the more limited initial presentation; having accentuated the dark and serious aspects of Guts compared to a protagonist already seen, simply characterized as a cynical and arrogant boy from shonen manga; the construction of a self- contained fantasy world and above all the ramifications and complexity of the backstories that the reader can only intuit. Certainly a fundamental reason for Berserk's popularity is its aesthetic aspects, but the unique design merges with the constant curiosity that keeps the reader glued: when we saw the mark of sacrifice, when we heard the name of the Hand of God, we hypothesized that behind every narrated event there could always be something much greater. When we understood that, unlike many other stories, this something was really there, the masterpiece was born. I hope you enjoyed this journey into the origins of Berserk! For many of the references I've made, you'll find a dedicated video on the channel: you'll find both the story of the real knight with the iron hand, Götz von Berlichingen, as well as other connections between Berserk and Satanism and an introduction to the Futhark runes, while a video on Vlad Țepeș, the real historical Dracula, will be released this Friday! Find all the links to these topics in the pages and descriptions! If you enjoyed this Berserk origin story , please subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications to stay up to date on upcoming releases! Thanks for watching!