Gone to the dogs.
What They Say:
Episode #3: “Night of Miracles”
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Guts races off toward his original destination, with angry wraiths in pursuit, along with Serpico at a distance. Farnese is a helpless passenger along for the ride. While she still can’t see Puck, she can see the monsters following them. Once they arrive at the fallen Lord’s mansion and are set upon by demon hounds the game is on, yet Farnese is gripped by terror as Guts gets to work.
The mansion has been taken over by an Apostle, one of the humans who traded their most precious person for the power presented by the god hand. Basically, they are horrible monsters. Puck is able to glimpse the specific events which turned the Master of Hounds through a memento in a ghastly trophy hall. The apostle attacks Guts in a fight too dark to make out and more talking happens than fighting. Wounded, but successful, Guts finishes off the monster. Farnese, still tied up and topless, runs for it.
She doesn’t get far before being attacked by the horse they rode in on. Saved from that event she finally lets go of her sense and is possessed by the same darkness infecting the rest of the place. Stripping (and making the scene ever darker to hide her exposed lower half), she gives herself over to her base character faults and sadistic tendencies, but Serpico breaks through at dawn and daylight banishes all before it. Farnese is not happy about her long night of nightmares and vows to kill Guts for putting her through all of that and seeing her at her most vulnerable. Serpico knows when not to follow his lady’s orders, as attempting to fight Guts is suicide.
The end credits run over a scene of departure because the episode isn’t over yet. We switch to the world at large as Midland is invaded by the Kushan Empire on the night of the King of Midland’s death. The majority of the scene is 2D animation with CG camera movements, but it’s not exactly smooth.
People watching this that are unfamiliar with the manga aren’t really going to notice the cut or rearranged plot points and what’s new to this adaptation. It was clear from the first episode that it wasn’t going to be a faithful adaptation, and for the most part the plot is still moving and making sense. Well, except for Puck’s line to Guts to do the monster in like he always does. In this version of the story Puck hasn’t been traveling with Guts for almost a year, just a week or so. How would he know the depths Guts has sunk to? Out of all the stuff to keep, why keep the rape horse? It’s so dumb. That thing was a goofy, terrifying monstrosity in the manga and supremely tasteless, and maybe because it was such a stupid thing it gets remembered. So they kept it and put it in a scene with about ten whole frames of animation.
Yes, the animation, or lack thereof, is still pulling down the rest of the production. Why does Farnese have nipples in only one scene? (There’s an obvious black bar across the bottom of one shot where Farnese is naked. I expect that will be removed in a disc release.) Why is everything so dark and framed on pieces of characters in a way that the viewer can’t tell what is happening? Well, the film student in me knows that it’s easier to hide terrible CG in dark scenes. That’s why movies with CG monsters from twenty years ago would disguise fights with plenty of movement in night scenes. Trying to make out what happens in the battle in the destroyed mansion is an exercise in futility. The voice acting has been solid for the most part, but the sounds effects are still weak. Why does Guts sword sound like pans hitting each other when it strikes the monster dogs? Where is the thunk of metal hitting meat?
In Summary:
This new adaptation of the continuing Berserk saga continues to disappoint. The budget to do this properly simply isn’t here, and the director isn’t up to the task of working with what he’s been given. The story in this episode, original to the animation for the most part, is not bad at all. The abridgment is the least of the problems happening here. The problems stem entirely from how it’s all shown. The animation, comically acted with poorly modeled CG marionettes hidden in darkness, barely conveys the action. There attempts to tone down some of the riskier bits are inconsistent. Some parts of this episode have so few frames of animation it might as well be a motion comic. Yet, it’s still Berserk, so like the worst sort of train-wreck, I can’t look away.
Episode Grade: D +
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
