Here’s your first look at the Berserk anime reboot

Anime. It’s a silly form of Japanese animation that is either a parable on becoming an adult or some show about a young boy with mental deficiencies and enough raw power to rival the gods of any pantheon. And then, there’s Berserk. It’s an anime series that is equally legendary for being downright brutal, unforgiving and more nihilistic than David Lynch’s high school diaries. Berserk is what happens when you take a medieval survival-horror and have it slashed to ribbons with a sword that is too damn massive even for Final Fantasy characters to wield.

You watch Berserk, and you’re never the same person again. The source material, a manga series from Kentaro Miura, has been running since 1989 and was eventually adapted into that infamous 1997 series that ran for 25 episodes. If that was your first taste of Berserk, it had plenty of sub-plot cut out, but the core storyline of the warrior Guts and his neverending quest for vengeance against his former brother-in-arms Griffith was still intact.

A more intact series that reset the tale would appear in the form of a trilogy of original video animations, a strange blend of 2D animation and 3D characters that was dubbed the “Golden Age” arc from 2012 through to 2013. It was more faithful, but only a short taste of the 37 volumes of story that have been cranked out so far.

Now, Guts is making another comeback in a new series that will follow the infamous “Black Swordsman” as he cuts his way through demons and humans alike.

That looks…frightening. Remember, Guts is just as much of a monster as the demons that he slays, albeit one that happens to be on our side. Miura himself will serve as an executive producer when the series debuts in July on Japanese TV screens. And I’m feeling a bit berserk with excitement for it. As long as the new series is unapologetically violent and free-handed with demonic dismemberment, violence and decapitations that is.

Last Updated: March 31, 2016