Berserk - Dreamless
Thoughts On: Berserk (ベルセルク, 1997)
A directionless child fights for survival in a world at war within mercenary armies.
Unbelievably dismal, Berserk was a fascinating watch to follow Chainsaw Man with both sharing a similar thematic engagement of dreams and fate. Pitting the notion of will against destiny, Berserk uses brutal fantasy to investigate its ruthless characters' capacity for self-direction in the face of crushing coincidence and tragedy in an overwhelmingly unforgiving world. In many respects, dreams are a signification of corruption in this sable world with Guts' dreamless desire for survival and agency being the major marker of his humanity. He is blessed in many regards by his fatal bad luck as it emboldens and strengthens his individuality and enclosed vision on just himself and his personal humane impulses. So where he begins his journey haplessly serving another's dream, Guts comes to discover the beauty of an undefined life of action, articulated as sparks glistening from a struck sword. This profound consignment to the motion of one's spirit and the ripples through spacetime it propagates comes to embody the individuality upholding Guts' will under unending fatal dispassion; indeed, this becomes the passion of the scapegoat that is our primary anti-hero.
A scapegoat is unquestionably what Guts encapsulates as a blameless victim caught in the throes of the corrupted seeking to manifest their dreams. It is his brilliance and strength of self, most crucially his refusal to cease surviving, that destroys the dreams of those that are of the belief that their aspirations can only be built on the bodies and destruction of others. Such is the major corruption of every dream-bearer of Berserk. It is therefore the mercenaries who build their fortune off of bloodshed, Casca who strives for love through self-subjugation and the offering of her own and even her comrades' corpuses, and Griffith who paves his way toward a castle in the sky with a mountain of dead bodies, that surmise the corruptive character of dreams through Guts. Each blame and betray him at crucial turns for misdeeds entirely beyond his will all under the corrupt control of their aspirations; we then see Guts' mercenary trainer blame and try to murder him for injuries he sustains in battle, Casca blames Guts at many turns for knocking Griffith from his path, and Griffith blames Guts for destroying his dream, justifying his transformation into a demon. Guts is merely present as a dreamless survivor striving to make sparks in a dark world at each of these points and, though he is existentially and emotionally damaged by the blame he receives, is totally undue it. And such speaks to the metaphysical goodness of Guts' character despite his murderous immorality; it is because he only follows his path - one of the sword - with no desire to stack bodies for his own dreams that he is never corrupted or falters like his peers do. It is his trainer's own lust for money that leads to his injuries in battle, Casca's love of Griffith that eventually leads to her rape, and Griffith's desire for power that concludes in his downfall and transformation. Without misdirection, merely intention and sight on surviving light, Guts clears through where others fall. And such encapsulates the nobility of his dismal dreamlessness.
With incredibly subtle character development and ethereal images of violence, Berserk brings to life a powerful story of fate and dreams with near mastery. A spectacularly shattering experience of dark brilliance.
