In a spectacular piece of Berseker fan art by comic artist Simone D’Armini, a reimagined Guts wields his iconic Dragonslayer sword with his telltale reckless abandon. The image would make a perfect model for a Guts statue. While Berserk’s creator Kenatario Miura may have passed, his work is still inspiring artists to this day.
Kentaro Miura’s long-running manga, centers on the wandering mercenary Guts, whose lifetime of pain, disappointment, and violence has given him incredible strength in battle while also impeding his ability to connect with others. For a while, Guts was able to find some peace of mind in the mercenary group he’d come to see as family, only to have its leader betray him and sacrifice the group to achieve his dream of unlimited power. As a result, Guts’ darker aspects resurfaced with a vengeance. While Berserk hinted Guts might find hope at the end of his journey, fans are still left waiting what the series’ true conclusion could have been.
In his conception of Miura’s iconic character, which he recently posted to this Twitter account, Simone D’Armini depicts Guts in a rage as he cleaves through a skeletal warrior with his ridiculously massive sword. An imp somewhat resembling the fairy Puck can also be seen flying by Guts’ side. D’Armini, who has worked on Elecktra for Marvel and Star Wars for IDW, perfectly captures Guts’ crazed bloodlust in his bulging eye and mocking frown of absolute contempt for the demon that dared to fight him. Perhaps most illustrative of the Guts’ rage and brutality is shown in the force of his strike against the demon. It cuts him in half in one colossal stroke.
In the manga, Miura uses a smorgasbord of dark lines and curves to illustrate the furious action of Guts’ sword-play in battle. The level of detail Miura achieved is truly a marvel, there is a good reason Berserk is often considered the greatest manga ever made, but this fanart takes the world of Berserk in a different direction. D’Armini provides readers with more comic traditional clues, such as the line drawn off the back of his Dragonslayer sword to show its action of chopping down on the skeleton. In keeping with the manga’s more mature-themed storyline, one aspect that, D’Armini maintains with Miura’s original style is the sheer harshness of the images.
While D’Armini captures all of the thematic aspects of Miura’s Gus, he does it in his own style. It’s smoother, less noisy, and more in the traditional style of a western comic. It’s a great interpretation that is sure to resonate with fans of manga. The image also provides a perfect model for a Berserker statue of Guts in battle.
