With Griffith transforming the world into Fantasia (merging the astral and physical realms), Guts’ quest shifts from revenge to restoration. The goal becomes reaching the island of Elfhelm to cure Casca’s shattered mind. Volumes 28-37 are slower, more melancholic. The horror becomes existential.
The series opens in medias res with Guts as the “Black Swordsman”—a one-eyed, one-handed, rage-filled revenant hunting demons (apostles). This initial volume deliberately alienates the reader. Guts is cruel, sexually aggressive, and nihilistic. He wields the monstrous Dragonslayer sword not for justice, but for cathartic slaughter. This section establishes the core aesthetic: a grotesque medieval world where the laws of men have been suborned by the supernatural machinations of the God Hand, demonic angels who oversee an endless cycle of sacrifice. Berserk Vol. 1-37
We meet Griffith, the charismatic and androgynous leader of the Hawks, whose dream of obtaining his own kingdom is magnetic. Casca, the fierce female captain who overcomes her trauma to lead, and Guts’ eventual lover. This section is a Shakespearean tragedy. The key theme is . Griffith believes a true friend is one who pursues his own dream, equal to his own. When Guts leaves the Hawks to find his own path, Griffith’s fragile psyche shatters, leading to a year of torture that destroys his body. With Griffith transforming the world into Fantasia (merging
Key moments include the Sea God battle, where Guts literally destroys a kaiju-sized demon from the inside, and the long-awained journey to Skellig. The emotional climax of Volume 37 is the ritual to restore Casca’s memory. After decades of real-world publication time, Miura gives the reader a devastating twist: Casca’s restored consciousness is so traumatized by the Eclipse that she cannot bear to look at Guts. His face, the face of the man who loves her, is also the face of the man who witnessed her rape and could not stop it. The final panels of Volume 37 show Guts, who has sacrificed everything to heal her, collapsing in silent, absolute grief. There is no villain to stab; only the irreparable fracture of shared trauma. The horror becomes existential
When Miura passed away in 2021, he left behind a monument to the idea that even in a universe of cosmic horror, a single man with a hunk of iron and a handful of broken friends can say “no.” Vols. 1-37 are not about reaching a happy ending. They are about looking into the Eclipse, witnessing hell, and choosing to walk forward anyway. That is the Struggler’s path. That is Berserk .