Berserk

In a time when battles are commonplace to take place, a young man by the name of Gatts befriends another young man who lead the mercenary company of "The Band of the Hawks" named Griffith. In the first encounter, they were enemies, but after a fight to determine who was the best, Griffith decided to "keep" Gatts as one of his men in his quest to make a name of himself. While Gatts is the primary main character of the anime, it's Griffith dreams that initially drive Gatts will to live. Yet, through a sequence of events that occur, we realize that Griffith's ambitions are none too light. He is even willing to sacrifice all that is precious to him to try to reach the goal. How will Gatts respond to this?

Spoilers: Ok, warning, my opinion will be infused into this. It's a MAD whack ending. That's all I can say. The whole Band of the Hawks gets demolished. How? Well, it's just really funky. Of course it also explains how Gatts loses his eye and lower arm.
So Griffith is commissioned by this King to do a mission, and later the princess falls for Griffith. Griffith is basking in all his glory while Gatts is starting to find his self again and wants to break from the Band of the Hawks. The two guys face off to try to re-enact the besting match that they did on the first meeting to try to get their way. Griffith wants Gatts to stay, well who doesn't?? Being that Gatts is such a obedient and helpful guy. So Gatts wins and escapes from Griffith. Griffith gets a little nutzo and beds that princess who was heads over heels for him, gets caught, and is then jailed and tortured beyond repair. yup. That's the fact.
So Gatts hears about this pretty late while he is on out seeking for himself. In the end, whatever remained of the Bands of the Hawk attempt to break Griffith out of his jail cell. When they actually do that, the man they get is not the powerful young man. Alas, Griffith has had all his tendons cut, starved, his tongue gets cut off, was trapped in the dark, and whipped to be only a skeleton of a man. In addition, his face is encaged in a metal mask. Therefore, the Band of the Hawks is disillusioned and Griffith gets desperate since he is essentially crippled, mute and powerless. Hence, he calls on his charm necklace and enlisted the forces of hell to help him become what he once was. All the rest that follows is meaningless for me to summarize cause it's just way too brutal.

My Bias Opinions

Overall, this anime was superb. I liked how the battle sequences and strategies are laid out. I also like how the characters change in terms of characteristic as they mature.

One major thing I didn't get was the ending. What is the meaning of leaving everyone as the mince meat for Griffith? I mean, granted that he is totally incapitated now, but still, to go to such lengths is totally insane for my mind. To flip the world into a hell is in no way creative, but just mad.
Let me go find some more pics to illustrate what I mean instead... That's it for now... 5/16/05

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