radio414

does this imply the existence of milktwists or milktimewarps depending on the dance moves involved?

Unfortunately, Carmen was right. If the seal actually exorcised anything about the dog skull, it would have burned up, and probably taken the skull with it too. Brian made a little “pah” sound and placed the skull back in the dirt -- still with the seal on it, just in case. He had just gotten ready to shovel the (thankfully small) pile of dirt back in when Kenneth decided that he wasn’t okay with whatever he thought Brian and Carmen were doing, and though Carmen did her best to try and soothe the situation over, in classic Carmen fashion, she really was only making things worse. Brian gave Kyle a nod that he hoped signified respect. “Apologies, sir,” he said, echoing Carmen but more sure of himself. “You’re correct, and we probably should have called 811 while we were out here too, but when your problem is a ghost dog and you stumble on some dog bones… you can see why we made some assumptions, can’t you? If you’re taking your car to the mechanic to get serviced, you want to tell the mechanic all that’s wrong with the car before they start tearing it open to look, right?” Klyde grunted. “Haven’t had to take a car to a mechanic in a long time…” he said, which made so much sense to Brian, one more puzzle piece put into place even if he couldn’t explain why. But Kaden shook his head. “Alright, but don’t start digging up holes everywhere.” “Wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” Brian said. The phrase was especially boy scout-ish, but better safe than sorry. “So long as there aren’t any other dead dogs we don’t know about, we’ll keep the hole-digging to an absolute minimum.” K. narrowed his eyes. “No, no other dead dogs. Wherever that ghost dog came from it wasn't around here. No more holes.” But he didn’t seem in the mood to keep an eye on the two, and he turned around and went back to his house. Brian watched him go, making sure he was back inside and out of earshot before he started talking smack. “Seriously, like, are there any more dogs, Kent? Maybe you only have one ghost dog now but how many ghost dogs in potentia do you have, Kent?” Whatever. If there weren’t dog bones there were probably human bones or something. He turned to Carmen. “I almost don’t want to fill in this hole now, but that’ll definitely make more ghost dogs. You know, if there is even one here in the first place. Give me a sec.” Displacing the same amount of dirt the second time was technically easier thanks to gravity, but not by much. “Alright,” Brian said. “The bonus of having a shovel is there’s now something we can whack it with, I guess. That’s not nothing. But you’re digging the next one and leaving the talking to me.”

The statue was no longer some enigmatic structure in Quinn’s eyes. No, the winds had shifted and it was now some evil thing to be avoided. Normandie bristled from being so close to it. Even from where he was, standing next to Bridget, Quinn could see the Ratffian’s discomfort, and she started to move in so Normandie at least would not feel isolated again. “I am coming, Normandie!” they said. It did not care about the mud all over hir clothing anymore. Quinn just wanted to be there for eir Pokémon. And yet, fae could not stop the Malamar from ramming into Normandie with a Tackle. It did get the Ratffian away from the statue, though, and closer for Quinn to be there and comfort her. Bridget’s new companion, a Solosis, leapt in the way of the Malamar’s next attack, throwing up a Protective barrier that bought them a little time. “You are doing well, Normandie,” Quinn said. “I know you have been hurting but we do have it on the ropes now. Just a little bit more.” Thankfully, Normandie was not the sort of Pokémon that needed to be told twice. She was already on her feet, and though she was scratching at her mud-caked fur that was somehow even more ruffled than when Quinn had encountered her in the wild, she still had that fire in her eyes. Quinn’s words were appreciated, but not necessary. The close proximity did allow the two to come up with another quick plan, though. The Malamar was still stymied by the Solosis’ Protect, though Quinn knew such defenses could not last for long. Normandie, at Quinn’s instruction, charged back into the fray. The Malamar saw her coming, and as Normandie weaved back and forth, it too oscillated across the Protect barrier to intercept as soon as she crossed through it. Whether to the left or to the right, it would be ready. But Normandie did not go left or right. Instead, she used the Solosis as a springboard, leaping on top of the ectoplasmic creature and over the Protect to Tackle the Malamar head-on. “Yes!” Quinn cried. It was just as the two had planned it. All that was left was to wait for the dust to settle and see if the Malamar had finally well and truly yielded.

←Previous Post Episode Seven -- The Sword’s Owner Or: The Love Triangle Becomes A Love Square Content Warning: This episode introduces Princess Charlotte, a sixteen-year-old girl who adult-aged Griffith is attempting to woo throughout the story. This is treated as normal by Berserk and, aside from naïveté on Charlotte’s part, is going to go completely unexamined. I mention it now in this otherwise tame episode in anticipation of it getting worse. Let’s take a brief moment to talk about the team who worked on Berserk ‘97. It won’t be too long, because I’d just end up reading off Wikipedia for half of it and cribbing from video essays for the other, but I wanted to do it so here goes. It takes a real nerd to know anything about Japanese animation studios, but I guarantee that anyone reading this has heard of something produced by an Oriental Light and Magic studio, which is an impressive guarantee for a name that Google says is inspired by Industrial Light and Magic (aka the Star Wars effects team) without any sources backing that up. It’s extra impressive given that it’s no longer their name now: it’s just OLM Incorporated. In recent years, they’ve had reasonable success over here in the English-speaking world with the “Komi Can’t Communicate” adaptation and a season of “Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro,” and if you’re a nerd like me, they did the Deltora Quest adaptation and have a unit dedicated to following Takashi Miike around. There’s Berserk, obviously, which is why we’re talking about them, but the reason they had the experience to adapt such a dark and twisted fantasy manga is because they had prior experience with similar material: Pokémon. That joke is cribbed from the Lady Emily video essay on Berserk but it’s too good not to repeat here. Perhaps the joke is backwards, because the production team that worked on Berserk wouldn’t work on Pokémon until 2006, but it does mean you get some pretty funny credit portfolios. The Chief Director of Berserk, Naohito Takahashi, has a key animation or storyboard credit on ten Pokémon movies and a few episodes to boot. But we can find some more connections by digging into specific episodes. Episode One of Berserk, The Black Swordsman, was directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki, a very prominent member of Studio Trigger and Studio Gainax before that, directing FLCL and the first half of End of Evangelion. Because everything ties into Utena, he apparently found time to do key animation on Episode Thirty-Seven of Revolutionary Girl Utena as well. On the writing side, the job of adaptation was split roughly equally between five screenwriters, including the current head writer of the One Piece anime, Shoji Yonemura. In fact, a majority of the screenwriters have a double-digit number of writing credits for One Piece, and one of the ones that doesn’t, Yukiyoki Ohashi, has several dozen Fist of the North Star episode credits instead. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me when I find these connections. The American film industry has a large amount of crossover as well, to the point that there’s a memetic number linking actors to Kevin Bacon -- and there’s no reason not to include the rest of the crew as well when drawing those connections besides some nebulous “sharing a camera with” definition. So many people work on a project, it’s not surprising that some number of them have done other well-known things. Perhaps what I should be doing instead is giving shows an Utena number. I don’t hate that idea. I generally want to give the credits that I can anyway. It’s never just one person, especially for something as massive as Berserk. Which reminds me, I should probably talk about the other people who drew the manga. Next time, then. The meaning behind the episode title takes a bit of work to get to, though, at the same time, we’ve done a lot of the groundwork already because it’s going to be drawing many of the same conclusions we already have been in previous posts. Which is good! It means I’ve been following along and properly relaying the facts to you as well. In fact, on my watch of this episode, I nearly missed the conclusion it was getting at because it felt like old knowledge at this point. But it’s good to reinforce it. Let’s start with the facts of the episode in sequential order. Griffith, thanks to his continued success on the battlefield post-knighthood has been causing quite a stir amongst the nobility of Midland’s court. Rumors include that he even fought a demon (though of course, magic isn’t real in Berserk, so that’s obviously fake) and that he is about to be made a member of the peerage (a notion so insulting to the existing gentry that it must be stopped at all cost). Despite the negative conspiracy that is a minor focus of the episode, this is still a net good in terms of Griffith’s goals. He is even developing a small contingent of favors, people within the court who are trying to ride the coattails of his rise to power. Of course, all of that excitement means Griffith has less time to spend with the people who got him as far as he has. When the Band of the Hawk commanders all try and visit him, they are barred entry. Griffith even laments this to Guts, though given how we’ve seen him pull everyone else’s strings to keep them complacent, he may be using a similar tactic here. “Oh, if only I could, but alas,” is a common excuse, after all. At the same time, when Guts does finally get time with Griffith, there’s a pretty big hint that this isn’t the case. When Guts asks Griffith why he charged in to fight Zodd, putting his life on the line to save Guts, Griffith hesitates. “I thought we settled this three years ago,” he says. “Do I really need a reason?” And, like, we know he has a reason, but this is a nineties anime adaptation of a late eighties manga, so… As much as I’d like to continue speculating on the sexuality of these fictional characters, I have already made the joke about a love square and I’ve already said who it’s with in the Content Warning. This episode introduces Princess Charlotte, who is Griffith’s best chance at seizing the throne. Her hand in marriage is the ultimate goal, and Griffith is very good at making you fall in love with him. The King notes that she is normally afraid of the warrior-types that have been populating the palace, but Griffith demonstrates a softer side of himself that endears him to her. To the Band of the Hawk, that’s one extra person competing for Griffith’s attention, and sure they might understand on a logical level why he is doing what he’s doing -- and some of them might even encourage it -- but that’s still going to matter emotionally. You know, like a love triangle. It is despite all of this that the meaning of the episode title becomes clear. Guts, reflecting on the events of the episode, including a moment of Casca lashing out that I didn’t deem necessary to cover (it’s mostly following through on the end of the previous episode, you can imagine what happens), finally resolves that yes, he is going to help Griffith get his kingdom, defying Zodd’s prophecy, not out of any sense of obligation to the Griffith who defeated him three years ago, but to the Griffith that has saved his life twice now. He has internalized Griffith’s invisible message, and now believes they regard each other as friends. In the words of another fantasy story, he is telling Griffith, “You have my sword.” The Sword’s Owner is Griffith. Also in this episode is General Coborlwitz, making another anime-only appearance to extend his mini-arc, but also a brief discussion about what Nosferatu Zodd even was. We know the answer is Apostle, but Guts and Griffith don’t have that language yet. The rumors say he is a demon, and Guts seems to agree, but Griffith instead calls him a “God.” Now, this is a dichotomy that’s going to run through basically the entirety of Berserk the manga, so I can’t get into too many specifics here, but because this is the start of the narrative throughline, I do want to point it out for those starting on that particular journey. I’ll try to talk more about it when I can. Until then, -r Next Time: Every man makes sacrifices for his ambitions. Especially when he possesses a young heart, he is unable to suppress the consuming hunger. Achieving glory for oneself, and crushing the dreams of another… Is this an unavoidable result of causality? ←Previous Post

“A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.” -Leviticus 20:27 (NIV)Despite the Bible’s several strict rules against mysticism, Melissa was generally neutral on sorcery. It was hard not to be, what with Fen and Trevor sharing in her living space, and the nature of her computer allies being, as the old adage went, sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable from the stuff. And it wasn’t like the Bible was a living document that had even anticipated any of those things. She didn’t even know how old the book of Leviticus was. It certainly predated her entire religion, though, and Melissa knew the majority of that time since its creation the whole thing had been picked over and reinterpreted. Meanings changed, even if the words stayed the same. But Morgan was making it really hard to keep that mindset. The hostility was one thing; Melissa could handle being called a peasant even if it wasn’t true, or maybe because of that. No matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t her class. And besides, she and Morgan were at odds. An insult was to be expected. Worse than all that, though, was her association with a lich. Melissa had complicated feelings about undeath, too, obviously, but the zombie Morgan she knew had at least been created. It wasn’t her Morgan’s fault she was a zombie. To Melissa’s understanding, it was generally a lich’s fault that it was a lich. Death was complicated, sure, certainly not something desirable (Melissa remembered Elizabeth here, or Gracie Stevens before her), but also not something to be avoided. It stunk of a soul realizing it wasn’t going to Heaven and putting off their inevitable wretched journey. Maybe that wasn’t proper theology (if there was proper theology on zombies, she would like to read it), but it was certainly how Melissa felt. Anyone who held a lich in high regard was similarly problematic. Of course, feelings didn’t solve the current problem of Morgan’s magic. Zadkiel couldn’t tire, couldn’t exactly struggle against the tug of gravity, but the extra weight was still an issue. Melissa briefly toyed with the idea of throwing herself out of the area of the effect. It was a maneuver she was comfortable with, after all, and if she failed, she could just have one of the angels catch her again. But she stopped before she gave the order. What was she thinking? This was exactly the sort of thing the computers in her head had expressed discomfort with. And she knew they would do it, but why would she do that to them? There were better options. She knew there had to be better options. Well, why not the other angel? It had always seemed to her that Sandalphon did not so much as fly but instead existed at a fixed point. Then the only point of failure would be her, and she could handle a few extra Gs. Down below, Fen was fending off the second skeleton of the evening, which only served to reinforce Melissa’s plan. Morgan needed to be distracted from making a third. She did exactly that, dismissing Zadkiel and letting herself be cradled within Sandalphon’s rings. The Ophan let loose another laser beam that Morgan deftly flew out of the way from. She looked upset, though. “How rude!” she said. “Jeeves is very sensitive about his inability to ice skate! And you!” She stuck an accusatory finger Melissa’s way. “If you're going to use tricks like that, you're going to make me have to stop playing around, you know! Either get with the program or else!” What program? Melissa didn’t remember being told about any program, malicious or otherwise, unless she was supposed to be going back to “knowing her place.” Morgan seemed assured of her effortless victory, despite all evidence that they were more at a stalemate than anything else. Even with her muted senses, Melissa could still feel the exaggerated pull of gravity. She dismissed Sandalphon and fell into the waiting arms of Zadkiel again, and the cherub turned that fall into a dive, swooping out of the gravity well and ready to give chase. Morgan did not make it easy, however, summoning more of the roots that had just been attacking Trevor which turned the chaser into the chasee. But it wasn’t like this was an impossible problem either. Trevor had solved it, so could she. Zadkiel stopped on top of one of the gravestones and Melissa had it set her down so she could wake back up. She got on her knees to say a quick prayer for the dead she was so rudely trodding over, and brought Zadkiel back so it could chop at the roots climbing up the stone after her. Okay, Melissa thought. This was something she had been working on. Time to put the theory into practice. She stayed kneeling as she faced Morgan “Or else what?” she managed. She lapsed into a trance between each word or so to allow Zadkiel to continue its work on the encroaching roots. “We’ve managed to avoid everything you’ve thrown at us so far, and I’m not the sort who’s going to get tired. If you have something to back up all your talk, you’d better show it.” Oh, she was so bad at this! Melissa’s intent was to either make Morgan realize the impasse and possibly enter some sort of parley, or goad her into making a mistake, but if this was going to be her level of trash talk why did she even bother? Maybe she should have leaned into Morgan’s terms, responding to the peasant crack by revealing her relation to Princess Gabriela von Draculesti of Romvania, but given how Morgan had responded to Trevor’s mentor -- someone even Melissa had heard of -- that might not have flown either. In any case, she had Zadkiel gather her up, and once again they took to the sky.

Motema Mabe Before Sibyl could attack the shield surrounding the central column again, two things happened. She probably saw the first one coming -- the steam cycled through the four quadrants of the room, flowing into the one she was currently in while draining from the adjacent rooms, getting pumped throughout the body like the heart analog that it was. But moving was made all the more difficult by the other thing Project Rubicon did simultaneously, or, to be more precise, what others did to Project Rubicon. In the battle around Project Rubicon’s exterior, Lachesis had finally managed to both generate a cord strong enough to withstand holding back one of Project Rubicon’s massive steps (“That was the easy part, thankyouverymuch.”) and find Brutes strong enough to anchor it while it could be tied around Project Rubicon’s legs. It was a bit of a juvenile maneuver, but it worked all the same. Project Rubicon tripped. This translated to the one cape inside the thing experiencing a brief sense of weightlessness before gravity shifted to the side and Sibyl crashed into the wall. Perhaps it was fortunate, then, that Sibyl had experienced rapid gravity shifts recently thanks to Cassiopeia. Maybe that gave her better odds of landing on her feet (or maybe she just made more feet to land on). Once she clamored into a quadrant that wasn’t soon to be full of scalding hot steam, Sibyl was greeted by two more steam figures. One of them stood on the wall that was the old floor, while the other kept itself aloft by standing on what looked like a steam approximation of a pair of frisbee discs, themselves spinning but otherwise motionless in the air. Project Rubicon was only getting hotter. Bazo Banga Light did not return to the room immediately after Aeon threw Ebony into the wall. It was more of a slow fade, emanating outwards from Ebony’s crumpled body going from barely visible to a dim light to regular laboratory settings. Some of the people in the room had barely moved since Aeon had last seen them. The comatose Morana was still lying on the lab table and the two Battle Labs scientists had moved into the far corner from Thessa, one pushing against the other in an attempt to be as far away from everything as possible. Dvno and Caesar were both on the ceiling, the former still gasping for air but recovering. Caesar, meanwhile, was desperately whispering instructions into his earpiece. “DOWN,” Dvno said, directing the letters Aeon’s way, and her subjective gravity increased tenfold, not that it probably mattered much to her in her current state. “BACK,” he said, and the pull tried to force Aeon away from him and Caesar. It was clear that he was just holding back the inevitable, but he still seemed determined to do so to the bitter end. Meanwhile, one detail perhaps overlooked but still very much present in the lab was how the controller near Thessa’s feet still visibly glowed, even with all the lights back to their normal capacity. It was hot to the touch, too, if anyone dared touch it. Salaka Bien All the lights in the office came on at once, and Minos yelped at the sudden change in the light level, or perhaps it was in realization at just what Override had left for her in the swap. But she didn’t ask for takesies backsies or anything like that, so it was clear she was starting to formulate some sort of battle strategy. What Minos had left behind for Override was a square of open computer desks, all still pulsing with information, all still broadcasting somewhere. With the lights on, it was harder to see the ghostly apparitions controlling all of the computers, but they were still there and Override could still catch glimpses of them hovering in front of all the computers that were still working just like there had been one behind his previous opponent. A string of computers, seemingly at random spots throughout the office, had been destroyed, mostly by way of a kick to the monitor and a few more through the computer case for good measure. There was smoke coming out of the broken computers and their monitors, but what was perhaps more worrisome was the smoke coming out of the computers that were technically still intact. Whatever was broadcasting through them was clearly overloading something, and if they weren’t forcibly shut down, things were only going to get worse. OOC

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Episode Six -- Zodd the Immortal Or: I Can Make Either A General Zod Reference Or An Immortan Joe Reference Take Your Pick Content Warning: This episode comes off as one of the ones they spent less time on, what with all the dramatic zooms on matte paintings instead of motion (they don’t even bother animating Zodd’s mouth most of the time), but in all those mattes is probably the second-most gore in the Golden Age. It isn’t that much further than what you’ve already seen in the Black Swordsman episode, but still feel free to take a break if you get squeamish. I do want to cover the rest of Berserk even if the anime is only about a fifth of it because I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to do so again. The problem is that there’s the inherent spoiler of the Eclipse in the way, meaning I can’t talk about motivations as much as I would like, but that sounds like a writing challenge for future radio to figure out. Let’s talk about the Lost Children arc. Lost Children isn’t so much an arc as it is a continuation of the Black Swordsman story and transitioning that Guts into the one about to go through the Conviction arc that follows it. It’s one more story before we introduce the characters who will be following Guts around with the added bonus of Miura having five extra years of storytelling experience under his belt and a stronger idea of what Berserk is at this point. It’s here that Berserk starts to interrogate its central thematic premise a little bit more. How can you face reality when reality is so bleak? The Lost Children arc deals with this in a threefold manner. The most obvious is in the arc villain, Rosine. Rosine’s character is probably best described as a Changeling, that classic fable trope of being a mystical creature swapped at birth with a human and forced to live in a culture that she is neither a part of nor welcomes her. It's an ugly duckling scenario, but there are two twists. The first is that the duckling knows the story, and just can’t wait to become that beautiful swan creature that was promised to her. Rosine is obsessed with fairy tails. In one of the funniest panels in the manga, Rosine poses (nude, because Berserk) and declares “This is a fairy tale for children.” The second twist is that despite all the other fantastic elements that make up Berserk’s world, changelings don’t seem to exist, or, at the very least, Rosine isn’t one. She’s just a sad, abused girl who wished on the wrong rock that she was something else. Like the Count before her, Rosine’s apostlehood is a tragedy. Even if she has done monstrous things since that require Guts kill her, we can lament that things led to this. Mirroring Rosine is her childhood friend Jill, a girl in a similarly abusive situation but has managed to hold onto her humanity despite both that and Rosine’s “Elves” constantly attacking the village. Jill is also a mirror to Theresia, the Count’s daughter from the Black Swordsman arc. If you remember my description, Guts had to force upon her a reason to live, even if it was the self-destructive goal of revenge. Jill is stronger than Theresia in that aspect, given she has been enduring for so long already, but she does want to use Guts as an escape, demanding to follow him even if it means her death because she prefers it to the alternative. Her arc through this story is realizing through both Guts and Rosine that she’s doing the exact same thing they are, and life is better spent confronting her problems. If you’re very clever, you’ve probably figured out the third aspect of Lost Children’s thematic throughline already. It’s Guts, obviously. He is the main character of Berserk, after all. Guts is running from something too, using his quest for revenge as an excuse to not think about what he’s leaving behind. This is something he has to realize about himself as he fights onward, eventually being told outright by a blacksmith named Godo how much he is wasting his life. It’s an important turning point in Guts’ life. Once again, he realizes just what it means to have something worth fighting for. This leads into an arc aptly titled “Conviction,” which pushes the question further and finally introduces most of the deuteragonists we’ll see for the rest of Berserk. But that’s a story for another time. If I say the words, “Nosferatu Zodd is an apostle,” that probably gives a good idea of where this episode is going already. Guts and Griffith are ill-prepared to deal with supernatural forces despite how superstitious the common mercenary is to have heard of Zodd’s exploits already. Zodd the Immortal is the first sign (chronologically) that the world of Berserk even has supernatural elements that need confronting. If it weren’t for the Snake Baron (and the Count and the one from the first pages of the manga we don’t talk about), Zodd would have been a good introduction to the Apostle concept. After all, his apostle form is literally the Western conception of a demon, with horns and cloven hooves and an absolute lust for power in his battlefield domain. It is difficult to be even more direct about what these things are. At the same time, by having the Black Swordsman already under our belts, we can skip over all of the exposition that would otherwise be necessary for such a scene. If I were being cynical, I would say Miura was trying to have his cake and eat it too. But let’s actually buckle down and talk about the episode. It’s actually a close follow-up to the one before -- Guts charges ahead to protect the men under his command, and Griffith follows after him. Before, this was a considered part of Griffith’s strategy, but now we see that he would have done so regardless. It was in this episode that I noticed just how often the shots of Griffith wordlessly receiving information are framed through Casca’s eyes. It’s two reaction shots in one, really. This plays into the ending, which may seem like a step backward from the relationship change Guts and Casca had at the end of the last episode, but it is in fact an escalation. In the previous episode, Casca was commending Guts for keeping Griffith from harm, but now his “antics” (as she might call them) have directly led to Griffith being in mortal danger, protected only by the prophecy of his Behelit. And this is the core of the Zodd encounter. Zodd delivers an omen of doom to Guts: “If you and this man truly regard each other as friends, be mindful of this: When his ambition crumbles, you will be destined to face your death!” He also names the stone “The Crimson Behelit of the God Hand,” which, like, the fact that it has a name is ominous, right? Even without getting into the specifics of what that name even means which can probably again be inferred through context clues from The Black Swordsman, it’s proven twice now to be a spooky rock. But the moment it opened its eye in Guts’ hand could be dismissed as a trick of the light. Here, the Behelit falling out at just the right time is what stops Nosferatu Zodd’s rampage in the first place. The way Zodd acts, it is more like the will of Fate with a capital F. This is not the last time the Behelit acts like this. If Fate with a capital F does exist, it is certainly looking out for Griffith. We’ll get to that when we get to that. The last thing I want to mention is someone Guts talks to early in the episode: Gaston. Gaston is important to Guts as his second in command within the Falcon’s raiders, but there isn’t much to say about him besides “He exists. He’s his own person.” That being said, it’s very important to me to point him out when he shows up because he is frequently forgotten about. He barely shows up in other adaptations, to the point that a friend of mine asked “Who’s Gaston?” when Guts finally said his name aloud in one of them. Gaston isn’t very important in the grand scheme of things, even when contained to Berserk, but please remember him, at least for me. Next Time: Providence may guide a man to meet one specific person. Even if such guidance eventually leads him to darkness, man simply cannot forsake a cherished goal. When will man discover a way to control his own soul? ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

The problem with thinking that you’re almost done, Chris thought, is that all that adrenaline, all that motion keeping you alive, suddenly exits your body, and you’re just left with exhaustion. He knew that already, had always told himself “You can rest when the job is done,” and yet here he was having just fallen into that same trap. It wasn’t that he hadn’t already been breathing heavily, bruised and sore from a room of the dungeon, it was that he was starting to really notice. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. Another of those wrapped creatures was coming towards him. “Yeah, be with you in a second,” Chris said. Not that it would understand even if explained. Its arm was raised all the while like it couldn’t feel the attrition that built up when a normal human being held their arm like that. There was a reason Chris only raised his arm when he was about to swing it. And still, the creature approached. Chris got the feeling it would have been staring him down if it had eyes to see. He mustered up whatever energy he could find, some reserve hidden somewhere for moments like this, and pointed his sword back at the thing. He tried to stare back, before pressing in and ramming his sword into the top of the creature’s leg, right where the thigh would have met the hip on a person. Before he could take the lumbering swing destined as the consequence for such a maneuver, he stuck his leg up against the thing and kicked off, yanking his sword back out at the cost of sprawling out onto the floor. Okay, that was a bit stupid, but at least he was still faster than these things. Chris pulled himself to his feet. The monster had raised its arm again. There was nothing for it, Chris supposed. He moved in a curve this time, breaking left before wrapping around to confront the thing as he swung his sword to cut through the monster’s damaged leg. Once he was done with the follow-through, he pulled out a dagger just in case the monster had the poor sense to keep moving.

like is a strong word, but i think they're pretty neat

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Episode Five -- A Wind of Swords Or: A Game Of Thrones At Home This episode introduces a lot of what Berserk’s Golden Age arc is going to be about, which means it’s just about time to talk about some of Berserk’s inspirations. Some of them are obvious. If I say there is a character named Ubik and he’s one of several characters named after science fiction stories, that gives a general idea of what Kentaro Miura was reading during Berserk’s creation. Ubik is a deeply psychological novel by Phillip K. Dick about filling in knowledge gaps with the divine with an extra dollop of examining the very human problem of inability to move on after the death of a loved one. Berserk has both of those things. We could also talk about Berserk’s artistic influences. Kentaro Miura trained under George Morikawa and helped work on the boxing manga Hajime no Ippo, for example, and the Fist of the North Star comparisons write themselves. But there is one manga Miura attributes to influencing The Golden Age specifically that stands out above the pack. Amidst all this genre fiction and shonen manga, the work that influenced The Golden Age the most is a shojo manga called The Rose of Versailles. This is why I feel confident in pointing out the homoeroticism in The Golden Age’s primary relationship between Guts and Griffith. The Rose of Versailles is, despite what more literal and/or conservative-minded commentators might tell you, a deeply queer text. While it is largely a tale of the rise and fall of Marie Antoinette as Queen of France -- a story about how nobility, despite its power and decadence, is still beholden to the will of the people they rule -- it tells this story through a fictional perspective character named Oscar François de Jarjayes, a woman raised as a man to inherit her father’s estate. A good portion of the manga is Oscar trying to resolve this contradiction within herself. She is in a position of power as commander of the Royal Guard but is also under constant pressure to prove herself because of her outlier status. And wouldn’t you know it, Berserk has one of those too in Casca. Casca doesn’t get into this on the same level Oscar did (partially for some real shitty reasons), but there is a particularly famous line in a few episodes where she says, “I didn’t ask to be born a woman!” which I think speaks for itself if her appearance in the show so far hasn’t been evidence enough. Oh, and The Rose of Versailles in general and Oscar in specific is also a noted influence on Utena of Revolutionary Girl fame, because everything comes back to Utena. But this is not to downplay the political aspect, which as much as it would be funny otherwise, is where Berserk takes much of its inspiration. This is something Griffith shares with Oscar, someone who is always shown as being measured in her actions, accepting every possible outcome of a chaotic situation because she has thought it through to the best of her ability. Here’s an example: Early on in Rose of Versailles, Oscar is tasked with becoming an attendant to Marie Antoinette, but doing so would put her in the crosshairs of Madame du Barry, King Louis XV’s favorite, who has been exercising the political power of her position to torment Antoinette. This is a conflict that the Jarjayes family had been staying neutral over, but that’s not an option here. It’s a simple choice when laid out like this, a question of present versus future returns. Marie Antoinette doesn’t have nearly the amount of power in the court as du Barry, but she is first in line to be Queen of France. Whatever hardship Madame du Barry can throw her way can easily be swept away by the ravages of time, but that hardship still has to be taken into consideration. Griffith and the Band of the Hawk officially join Midland’s army in the middle of this episode, which stirs dissent among the gentry. We’ll get to that after the break, but suffice it to say that the next half of The Golden Age is about Griffith’s rise to power, how he applies a mind demonstrated to be a master of the battlefield to a different but no less tactical puzzle. As mentioned at the end of last week’s post, three years have passed since that fateful duel on the hill, which means a lot of this episode is playing catch-up to those three years. The biggest question among all of this is: How has Guts changed? It’s an interesting question to ask because the answer depends on who you are talking to. If you’re talking to Casca or Corkus, the answer is no. To them, Guts is still that same reckless person who cares only about himself and the glory of the battlefield. I should note, though, that they think this for two different reasons. Corkus thinks so because he can only see things through his ambition. It’s one of those “he can’t conceive of anyone else being any different from him” situations. He’s a pretty simple character to get, the “problematic uncle” of the named Band of the Hawk characters. Casca, meanwhile, is a character I’ve been dancing around for the past few episodes. I’ve called The Golden Age a love triangle, yes, but I haven’t really gone into the specifics of that dynamic. Your standard love triangle with a main-character Guts would involve both Griffith and Casca pining after him, but that isn’t really what’s happening here. The focus of the love triangle is Griffith. Casca is so devoted to Griffith because she is loves him. It’s an obvious fact, and one she’ll open up about eventually, but yeah it’s not blind loyalty to the cause that causes Casca to lash out when Guts does something gutsy. What Casca has picked up on, another pin i’ve had in the board for just this moment, is how Griffith is providing a lot of the emotional support for Guts that Casca has been pining for. “Griffith has never said anything like that to me,” she’s thought. In a word, she’s jealous. And the fact that Guts doesn’t seem to reciprocate Griffith’s feelings fuels that jealousy all the more. Speaking of this unrequited love are hints that Griffith is going to be good at the political game he’s about to be thrust into here. He gets Guts to apologize for his reckless charge from the beginning of the episode with barely a word, instead acknowledging the lapse in judgement with “I plan my battle strategy around your tendencies.” More importantly, when Casca and Guts are given the undesireable task of working together, he placates Casca with a very specific phrase: “I need you to do this.” So it’s not that Griffith is somehow oblivious to his own magnetic charisma, just that returning Casca’s feelings in any greater measure than that would not benefit his grand ambition of his own kingdom. There’s tragedy in that, but there will be time for Casca to explore that in more detail. Let’s return to the main question, then. Has Guts changed in his three years of service to the Band of the Hawk? I feel like this is a bit too leading of a question because the answer is yes, obviously. Casca accuses him of not caring about his men, and not only is that a false accusation -- the reason for his reckless solo charge is all but stated to be because the only person Guts wants to place in danger is himself -- but Guts reacts strongly to it, seizing Casca by the wrist and daring her to say it again. The Guts of three years ago would not have acted in the way he did in the supply raid, warning off Griffith from charging into Adon Coborlwitz’s trap. Guts used to want Griffith dead, remember. And it’s this last point that begins the reconciliation between Casca and Guts. When the dust from the explosive trap settles, Casca approaches Guts and apologizes for trying to head him off. “You were only desperately trying to protect Griffith,” she says. It’s the highest compliment she can give right now. But speaking of Adon Coborlwitz, we’ve got a whole swath of new characters to introduce. Adon’s introduction is actually a little early compared to the manga, but in a way that reinforces him as an arc miniboss, a lackey a bit too big for his britches below General Boscogne and the Governor. We’ll get to those in time, but it’s more important right now just to recognize that they exist. On the Midland side meanwhile, is the first appearance of Minister Foss and Count Julius, the two most outwardly antagonistic towards Griffith’s rise to power. The seeds of further conflict are sown, we just have to fight through a demon to get there. Next Time: In this world, there are certain things that exist beyond human knowledge. Humans worship such things as gods, or fear them as devils. And when one encounters such fear and agony, is this, too, simply fate? ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

If you're trying to save up for Mirri's Guile ($33), might I recommend saving up for Argothian Enchantress ($35) instead? There are a lot of the "enchantress" effect, but it's certainly one of the best. Other ones I don't see you playing are Tuvasa the Sunlit ($3.5) and Eidolon of Blossoms (50 cents) In addition to Copy Enchantment there's also Estrid's Invocation (30 cents), Clever Impersonator ($3) and Court of Vantress ($5). Really, any of the courts in your colors are cool besides Cunning. I notice you've got the other versions of this effect so here's the Propaganda propaganda ($1-4 depending on if you want Assassin's Creed art or not) I don't normally question a 37 land manabase but you've got three bouncelands in there (Azorius Chancery, Selesnya Sanctuary, Simic Growth Chamber) and a reasonable amount of card draw so do you ever feel like you're mana flooded? depending on how mean you want to be, because you have so few artifacts yourself, you could try Stony Silence ($2)

Normandie seemed to revel in her victory, however small it may have been. There was a fire in her eyes, even more than there had been when she had leapt from her Pokéball. Quinn recalled Nathaniel’s hesitation when Quinn had introduced Normandie to the group. This had been why, had it not? Normandie had had that same fire when fending off the Rattata trying to steal her hoard of berries. Quinn was starting to understand, it had not just been a survival instinct. Normandie was a Pokémon with something to prove. In a way, Quinn was content to help facilitate that. Their goals were aligned for the most part. Quinn just hoped that would stay after they inevitably ran out of berries. As Peat’s Bubble attack struck the Malamar, it reacted in much the same way it had the first time, glowing as the bubbles clung to its shell and becoming even more jittery as it darted around evaluating its next move. Quinn almost wanted to say something to Nathaniel about avoiding using that move, but xe did not know the Bearble’s capabilities and would rather assume everybody was doing their best with what they had. In fairness, Normandie was responsible for some of the group’s consternation with that errant Tail Whip. The Malamar shot forward and slammed into Normandie before Quinn could even warn her of the attack, certainly before Normandie could get out of the way. Quinn calling out her name did nothing to block out the high-pitch squeak she let out on impact. Thankfully, Normandie recovered quickly, pushing off to break contact with the Malamar and ending up near where Quinn and Bridget were standing. Normandie looked at Quinn, and it seemed to the ghost like she gave Quinn a barely perceptible nod. Their understanding of each other had deepened if only a little bit. As the Malamar retreated to the area near the statue, Normandie’s body began to glow. Quinn did not even need to name the attack. Normandie gave chase to the Malamar, pursuing it with a speed she never showed outside of this specific attack, though Quinn supposed she never needed to. Normandie’s path was a straight line, powering through the wet marshy areas and cleaving through the grasses. When she reached the central area, she leapt into the air, her glow from her Pursuit even brighter as she closed in on her opponent. Even from so far away (though trying to move closer where should), Quinn could see Normandie’s gleaming eyes.

Chris planted his foot to take a swing at the skeleton, but a massive wave of vertigo hit him before he could. He skidded a bit, and his swing was not as powerful as it could have been, ending up catching the skeleton in the ribcage and glancing off before he could cut through anything important. “Whoa,” Chris said, staggering back to just out of curved-sword range as he took in the new sensation he was experiencing. It felt like he was in two places at once, and not in the fun way that he wished for when he was busy (or the terrifying way that House Ellwood’s headmaid could be when child Chris was on the prowl). No, it was a specific spot. He was back over by Lana and Ziun still, and he was fighting the skeleton, and he had to pick which one to focus on. The skeleton one was more important. Chris put his magic string away, gripped his sword with both hands and bent his legs. At least that would keep his balance steady. He fell back on his fundamentals again. No flashy tricks like teleporting around to take out this skeleton, just get its sword out of the way and hit a spot where its guard wasn’t. Parry, then riposte. Their swords clashed and Chris felt like he was going to throw up but he stood his ground. He knew what the consequences for failure were. But it was only just good enough. He still couldn’t push back on the offensive. “Deep breaths, Chris,” he said. Only now was his vision starting to clear. He shook his right hand a bit to get the blood flowing again. Blocking was easier the second time, Chris thought. He was able to divert the skeleton’s sword, though he still didn’t swing back. He took a few steps around the skeleton and it rotated around to match. His footing was much more sure. Whatever had come over him, it was temporary, at least. The skeleton raised its sword a third time, and Chris blocked it out of the way before turning around and catching the skeleton in the side of the skull. The shock of the impact raced up his arm, and he had to remember to keep breathing despite it all. It felt good. He felt good again. Chris had to use almost all of his strength to get his sword back out, but once he did, he had access to the whole skeleton to swing at. Elbow joint, knee, shoulder. Chris aimed at them all until the skeleton had faded to dust. As soon as the skeleton had dusted, though, another coffin rumbled and opened. “Oh right,” Chris said, just now remembering his earlier portent that exactly this would happen. He to Lana and Ziun, but in turning he noticed that the exit was in reach with just a few more in the way, so he just cocked his head over that direction, and gestured with his sword a little too. “If we all go at once we can get through them quickly,” he said. He hoped that this really did mean the end was in sight.

“Do not allow a sorceress to live.” -Exodus 22:18 (NIV)“Powers beyond mortal comprehension” felt blasphemous somehow. Melissa couldn’t put a finger on exactly what it was. She supposed part of it was how her current companions took forms she might have thought beyond the ken of most mortal minds, yet, here everyone was, herself included, comprehending them just fine. Melissa had rationalized these away as facsimiles. She had no presumptions that whatever was inside of her was in any way divine, at least any more so than a human form, and humans could perceive each other just fine, despite her occasional wishes otherwise. It felt weird being the skeptic for once, but then again, Melissa supposed even Moses had to deal with court magicians. If she were particularly fervent, she could imagine Zadkiel and Sandalphon in much the same way as Moses’ staff-serpent, overwhelming and consuming anything “Morgan Reaperson” could throw at her, but no, she was here on Mauvache’s behalf, not God’s. She had Sandalphon follow up Fen’s pummeling with another beam, but she dismissed the ophan when one of Morgan’s skulls exploded into it. Morgan seemed like the sort of person who would mock her for the perceived instability of a summon, and it seemed reasonable to let her hold on to that assumption for as long as possible. Melissa realized it was a similar strategy to when she had been training with Rei. A good portion of that spar had been both of them just trying to suss out what the other was capable of, and Melissa had most succeeded when she’d had the element of surprise on her side -- when she’d found some new tactic that Rei hadn’t been expecting. “Of course it’s nice to meet someone as great as I,” Morgan said, finally recovering from her laughing fit. “If only you lot were half as exciting for me.” Melissa wondered if Morgan could possibly be negotiated with, if even to move the fight to somewhere that was less likely to desecrate a grave or twelve, but given what little she had seen of Morgan’s ability, they probably wouldn’t be so lucky. She also recalled that woman she and Devin and Morgan (zombie Morgan (two Morgans with undead connections had to be a coincidence)) had fought, how that woman had refused to listen to any sort of reason despite her best interest. There was a temptation to assume a pattern. This Morgan certainly didn’t make it easy to think otherwise. But no, Melissa thought. She wasn’t going to think like that. If there was an opportunity to resolve this amicably, she would take it. At the same time, they weren’t exactly working from a position of strength here. They had a numbers advantage in theory, but if Morgan was responsible for one skeleton, surely she could make another. They had to find something, though. For now, Melissa just tried to get their footing a little more equal. Morgan could fly? Well, so could Zadkiel. She brought out the cherub and fell into its arms as it took to the air.

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Episode Four -- The Hand of God Or: Featuring A Homoerotic Water Fight Just In Time For Pride Month Content Warning: This episode features an extended flashback of Guts’ backstory, largely centered around his relationship with his adopted father, Gambino. Gambino was physically and emotionally abusive to Guts, culminating in a scene where Gambino breaks into Guts’ tent and tries to kill him. Also in this episode, the King of Midland calls an enemy army “black devils” which in context is a reference to their dark armor, but also, given that the leader of this band of knights has darker skin (among other Tudorian dark-skinned characters), it feels derogatory enough to warrant a mention here. We talked about the general sound design last time, with only an offhand mention of Berserk’s Opening and Ending songs, so let’s talk about those while we’re still on the topic: They’re bad, thanks for reading. Okay, okay. When I made mention of Penpals’ “Tell Me Why” and Silverfins’ “Waiting So Long,” it was in reference to a sort of “90s-ness” that Berserk 1997 carried with it, a defense of hiring Susumu Hirusawa for the dark fantasy anime. In the week since then, I’ve found myself reckoning with the idea that fantasy in the popular consciousness did not have such grand reference points. The Ralph Bakshi-directed Lord of the Rings animated movie nearly had a rock opera, for example (“nearly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, the rock opera was in John Boorman’s United Artists script before Bakshi got a hold of the project and replaced the script with one written by Peter S. Beagle (yes that one), which is a story for another blag but the point stands). This also ignores that the Lord of the Rings is an American production of a British book directed by a Kiwi in his native country of New Zealand and that Fellowship of the Ring would not be in theaters for another four years. There were a lot of reasons to not even see any dissonance with an artificial soundscape in 1997, even if I do maintain it means something to the story that Berserk sounds like it does. At the same time, the reason that I’m inclined to factor in a little bit of nineties cheese into the decision is, well, the opening and ending songs are peak nineties cheese. Tell Me Why sounds like it was recorded in a garage (I mean this with as much appreciation for garage rock as can translate onto a web page), with such nonsensical lyrics as “Put your glasses on, nothing will be wrong. There’s no blame, there’s no fame. It’s up to you.” Meanwhile, Waiting So Long is, by some nebulous definition of the genre, a shoegaze song with a chorus that is just the line “I’m waiting so long” repeated four times. Both are full of non-fluent English, which means I get to note that the online Berserk fanbase near-universally refers to the “glasses” lyric as “grasses,” and I hope you can hear the derision in my words as I type that. But okay, let’s put some analysis glasses on and try and figure out something that aligns these songs with the rest of the text. An interpretation I’ve seen elsewhere is that these songs are somehow in-character to someone in Berserk, and I don’t hate that Idea. I have already come up against the question of “why are you following Griffith” in my own analysis, and so there’s a lot that can be done with that. It’s a question we’re still answering in the series proper, though, so we’ll be following this pin later. More distressing are the final lines in the OP, “It’s too late. It’s too late.” Although we are already vaguely aware of the tragedy coming around the corner, this repetition serves as a constant reminder, especially when we get to the darker parts of The Golden Age Arc. There’s some animation that reinforces this as well: a white flower consumed by flames. “Waiting So Long” as an in-character piece is also interesting to analyze at this point in the series because it is a song about death and loss and an inability to move on. We have seen Guts begin the healing process from his own traumas, but again, we know how this ends up. This one is emphasized by its visuals. The credits play next to a montage or slideshow of the named characters, evoking an in-memoriam. That’s a smaller touch, I think. It could just be as a reminder of who these characters even are, as the story focus narrows to its core three, but the two together certainly feel meaningful, even if the majority of the depicted characters don’t even die. I guess that’s spoilers, sorry. Feel free to guess which ones! This episode is a lot prettier than the past three. Maybe it is because I was watching this episode late at night, maybe it was because of the soft morning light spread across the first half, maybe it was just because Griffith is naked in it, but I felt there was a notable animation quality bump going on here. There’s nothing that would break a budget going on, just all these little touches that take a little extra time to draw. During Guts and Griffith’s gay water fight, for example, they didn’t have to include the frames of both figures from behind the water that’s about to splash onto them, but they did, and the show is better for it. The meat of the episode is again split into two areas of focus -- Guts gets his backstory even more fleshed out and the two scenes with Griffith warning us of his fated destiny in the form of his behelit and how his ambition to have his own kingdom plays into that. We’ll start with the former. When Griffith made the assessment that Guts was fighting to find a reason to live, it was a guess based on how Guts carried himself in battle. Here, we find out that that guess was accurate. Guts was found under the corpse of a hanged woman, and all sources indicate that he was indeed born under this cursed sign. He was found adopted by Cis (or Sisu depending on the translation, but I prefer Cis because it demonstrates that Berserk is very gay), and when she died soon after, Guts was raised by her husband, the mercenary Gambino. Not only has Guts been fighting for a reason to live, he has been doing this all his life. In the beginning, Guts is fighting simply for his father’s approval -- I mentioned in the content warnings how this relationship is abusive. The pivotal moment comes, though, when, after running away from the camp, Guts finds himself injured and surrounded by a pack of wolves. Even after accepting that he is likely to die here, Guts fights onward. At the beginning of the episode, Judeau notes that Guts might have found his reason in Griffith, just like everyone else who follows him. It has not been officially established yet, but given what we have heard from nobility talking about him, and the fact that he’s leading a mercenary band at all, we can infer that Griffith is of common birth. Perhaps the best piece of evidence from this episode, though, is how he talks about nobility. Griffith wants a kingdom for himself; the big selling point for fighting for him is the reward for meeting that goal. But he also talks in this episode about how even a king must on some level meet the expectations of his subjects. A person is still a product of the system they are born into. He makes the point also that you can’t choose to be born a king even if you want to, it’s just the guiding hand of fate. A natural question then arises: What is Griffith’s fate? We the audience already know from Guts’ hallucination during the Black Swordsman episode (and even more if you read the manga). That can lead into a postmodern take on storytelling where a character finds their fate laid out on the page and is really interesting, but in the moment within the story, Griffith is fighting to find that out. He has set his ambitions high and counter to his birth because that, he believes, will demonstrate what Fate with a capital F has in store for him. He is exploring the boundaries of what it means to be Griffith. In a way, this also circles back to the comment at the opening of each episode by Void, wondering if even this personal rebellion is preordained. For now, though, we have established another parallel between Guts and Griffith, both fighting to find out what the world has in store for them. Guts has, even at this point in the story, already rejected what Fate has in store for him. His utter refusal to die is his defining character trait. Griffith, meanwhile, has a fate more nebulous. It seems he has been dealt the role of a mercenary leader, but then again, he’s had his behelit since he was a child, which has its own dreadful fate attached. We close the episode with exposition about the actual war all these mercenaries are trying to make a living on. The Band of the Hawk has allied itself with the Kingdom of Midland in their hundred-year war against the Tudor Empire. We have already heard rumblings of what Griffith’s success on the battlefield might mean for them politically, but this is the first time Midland’s king has caught sight of their activity. Three years have passed since the start of the arc. Guts is one of Griffith’s most trusted companions. We have yet to see what that means, though, outside of offhand remarks, but there are another twenty-ish episodes ahead of us for that. -r Next Time: People gaze upon others for different reasons -- to protect one’s own happiness, to fulfill one’s own dream, and to simply survive. Is there ever a time where one can live his own dream without inflicting a wound on someone else’s heart? ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

It was good that Carmen took the lead on something. Technically, she had taken the lead on actually going outside too, but she’d been waylaid there by a fucking deer of all things, so at least she knew how to get back on track. He dutifully followed behind, checking up above in the treeline for any suspicious omens while Carmen checked the ground. Of course, that meant when Carmen did find something and stop, Brian nearly barreled into her. “Say something next time,” he said, ignoring the fact that she was saying something, and, in fact, was pointing at some turned-over dirt that she’d deemed worth investigating. Brian looked at the ground, then back at Carmen, then back at the ground, then back at Carmen. “You don’t look like the sort of girl who’d complain about getting her hands dirty,” he said. It wasn’t entirely true -- Carmen seemed like the sort not to want to do any work at all -- but he hoped the meaning of it came across alright. At the same time, he couldn’t deny a certain appeal at being asked to do “a man’s work.” “Alright, fine, I’ll be right back with a shovel.” He trudged back out of the woods, across the field, past the house of the guy whose name he’d already forgotten (Keith?), and back to Shiki’s van. Shiki was gone, of course, but the van had been left behind with all the miscellaneous stuff. Thankfully, a shovel counted as miscellaneous. He passed the house again, hoping Kenneth didn’t spot all that wasted movement, but also not willing to check if the man was standing by the window watching them, then went across the field, and back into the woods. There was a small fear of getting lost, of not being able to find Carmen again and making one wrong turn too many until the whole forest was alien to him and he couldn’t get out, left to the mercy of whatever was out here, but he found Carmen pretty quickly, it turned out. She didn’t notice him come back, though, because she’d found herself in another fucking staring contest with another fucking deer. “Hey!” Brian said, rapping his knuckles against the shovel head to scare the deer off and bring Carmen back down to earth. “We got work to do!” Brian had work to do, anyway, and he plunged the shovel into the patch of dirt. He hoped there weren’t any power lines or anything that a utility company might get mad about, but he dug in anyway, scooping dirt aside into a pile. It did not take long to find something, and Brian knelt beside the little hole he was creating to pull out a bone. It was too small to be a human bone, Brian thought, and he showed it to Carmen and placed it opposite the dirt pile. Pretty soon, he’d found another, and another after that. All of this, Brian showed and put aside until he hit the piece de resistance of the whole mystery: he put the shovel aside, got down, and pulled out a dog skull. “Well, that’s something,” Brian said, getting close to telling Carmen good job, but not quite. He grabbed a seal from Carmen’s box and stuck it on the skull. “Probably should put that back before it gets mad at us.”

It sounded like Bridget was saying something, but Quinn could not quite tell what that was, even while standing right next to her. It sounded important, but it was not the time or the place to ask for clarifications. The Malamar had reacted to Peat’s bubbles in much the same way it had to Normandie’s Tail Whip, and as much as that made sense, it was still frustrating. It was a three-on-one battle, but now the Malamar had enough speed to make up for it. Xe had to focus on what it did know. Cassiopeia was raring for another crack at the Pokémon, but Quinn could feel in their pocket that Normandie was just as ready, and with two Psychic attacks to deal with, Quinn opted for the Dark-type Pokémon in his arsenal. She was not sure she could catch the Malamar by surprise a second time with the same bait. They would have to try something else. Ze was starting to think of something, though, and as e stared at Normandie’s Pokéball in their hand, Quinn got the feeling that Normandie was figuring something similar. Cassiopeia did not return to her Poké Ball, but she did dutifully float to Quinn’s side as fae tossed out Normandie’s. The Ratffian popped out and hit the ground running, a purple glow already about her. She tried to stick to the more solid areas of the marsh, but she was light enough that it did not matter too much. It was not long before Normandie’s Pursuit caught up with the Malamar, and she crashed into the squid Pokémon. The Malamar wheeled around to face Normandie and directed a Psywave her way that she struggled through but did manage to shrug off, leaping forward and tackling the Malamar to the ground. She made sure to fight around the Malamar’s eyes, always keeping herself in its view. “Good,” Quinn said under hir breath. “Keep its attention. Draw it out.” The Malamar’s eyes widened, and it let out the gentle hum that signalled its Hypnosis attack. So close to the Malamar, it seemed like Normandie had to get hit. She ceased her assault on the wild Pokémon and her body went limp, eyes closed. Quinn bit its lip. Hypnosis was Psychic-type, yes, but even Dark Pokémon could be affected. He had known the risk, and he kept Normandie’s Pokéball at the ready to recall her if this did not work. Whichever the case may have been, the Malamar certainly believed its Hypnosis had finally affected a Pokémon. It chirped with glee, rising high into the air above the Ratffian before falling down, twisting like a drill to Tackle Normandie into the mud. But just before it could make contact, Normandie’s eyes snapped back open, and she rolled out of the way. With a hysteric squeal, she lunged at the Malamar again.

Bad Communication The second Minos heard the call, she ducked behind a cubicle, punched a hole in the wall to see through, and dug her hands in the ground ready to turn the office flooring into whatever additional support she wanted. Her eyes followed Override’s blaster into the darkness, desperately seeking out whatever hostile intent she could. Even Override was not immune from her watchful gaze. For a moment, things were still, the only sound emanating from whatever Override or his suit made. But it was only for a moment. The first thing that happened was that all of the computers in the office whirred to life, like a pulse, a wave of activations fast enough to appear almost simultaneous without the scale of a whole system’s worth of computers available to watch it travel from one end of the office to the other. For those in the room that could tell, they could tell that in the moment all of the computers turned on, they sent a signal, one hard-encoded and indecipherable, but they sure were broadcasting something. Minos didn’t care about all that. She cared more about the monitor right next to her now shining bright white light directly into her peripheral vision. Even if the light dissipated by the time it reached out of the cubicle, after so much darkness, it was practically blinding. From her crouched position, it was pretty easy to shoot out a kick, pulverizing the case and everything in it. The monitor did not shut down, though. Minos stood to square up with it, and she noticed a ghostly apparition floating just behind it. She did a spinning kick through the monitor, and the apparition disappeared. Meanwhile, the blip on Override’s radar also came closer. They were able to audibly hear it before the figure walked into view. It was a robot of sorts, though it looked closer to a mannequin in shape, or perhaps one of those artist-pose dolls with articulated joints, except the joints were empty, and the limbs just floated detached from the rest of the body. Individual fingers were separated from the hands, which were separated from the forearms, which were missing an elbow, and so on for the legs. It held now-familiar knives in both hands, and behind it all was that same shadowy apparition. All for Myself The inside of Project Rubicon changed the deeper Sibyl fell into it. Gone were the fleshy microtubes passing scalding hot steam around the body, now replaced by a warm metallic piping that coiled around until it dumped her out into a room that was shaped much like a mechanical heart. Its walls were similarly rounded at the corners, with partitions quartering the area leaving just a few openings to travel between the quadrants. Vents just like the one Sibyl came through were also all along the outside. All of the walls and partitions had more piping on them than could possibly be comprehended -- both a plumber’s greatest achievement and their worst nightmare. Some hydraulic tinker must have been proud. In the center of all of this was a column, which unlike the walls was an electrician’s nightmare instead. It was all connected, with all the expected lights and bleeps and bloops. The exposed wiring of the connections might have indicated some sort of fragility, but there was the soft shimmer of a shield protecting everything from the outside world. As soon as Sibyl entered the room, two things happened. The first was that the center column lit up like a pulse had just gone through it and it was now receiving information to relay to the rest of Project Rubicon. Many of the pipes shuddered as new blasts of steam shot through them, some leaking out at regulators or where the joints weren’t entirely welded together. The steam did not dissipate. The second event Sibyl had triggered was even more steam came flowing in through the other vents in the heart, and it was starting to fill up two of the quadrants, including the one Sibyl was in. Get Real Get Right As Aeon left the robot gymnasium to continue her hunt for Caesar, she ran into a familiar figure. Between the two of them, only Aeon could be surprised at the encounter. The other one had known exactly where and when he would find her. It was Bard, one of the higher-ups of G3, who had been there in the Sweatbox the day after Cassandra’s prophecy. Bard’s greeting to Aeon wasn’t exactly warm, but he did nod to acknowledge her and her mission. “He’s this way,” Bard said, beckoning her further into the darkness. He was much more confident than the last time she had seen him, in a way that seemed almost unnatural. It seemed like he knew what he was doing. “You don’t kill him,” Bard said as they continued along. He didn’t say, “Don’t kill him,” like, as an order from the top brass, he said it as a statement of fact. He gestured to his head. “At least, I don’t think you do. It always gets fuzzy involving you people, but that’s where I’m at right now. Maybe it doesn’t matter.” Aeon’s walkie-talkie clicked on. “Heyyy just checking on where you’re at,” Lachesis said, her voice a little crackly through some interference static. “Roy’s finally got his act together, so we’ll be in in a sec after y’all.” “Where they were at,” finally, was stopped at the end of a hallway in front of a door to one of Battle Labs’ many labs. “There are two non-combatants and three Gibbons in there,” Bard said. “Technically four, but I don’t think Morana’s body will be doing much of anything while they’re still fighting elsewhere in the building or keeping Project Rubicon from falling apart. Ebony’s the one with the darkness in most of the building, and then you haven’t seen Dvno yet, but you should be able to handle that too, especially since Caesar’s there and he can’t exactly turn his power off.” OOC

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Episode Three -- First Battle Or: We Love A Good Double-Meaning, Don’t We Folks? (i hate how the berserk wiki goes between the japanese title cards and the english title cards seemingly at random. i'm going to keep doing this to match the previous aesthetics, but wow do i hate it) I would like to talk about Berserk’s general music composition here because this is the first time it is made prominent in the show after the main menu screen of my Blu-ray. It has been present since episode one, but this is where the song Forces got lyrical subtitles, both in Romanji and in English. If you click that link, you’ll see a familiar name: Susumu Hirasawa. In addition to being the go-to composer for Satoshi Kon, he did all of the music for Berserk 1997 and has contributed a song to every following Berserk anime project to date. To make an overly general statement about a broad genre of music, fantasy music seems to conform to the instruments of its time period, or at least “time period” in the way that the past seems to all get flattened together -- several variations on the words “classical” and “orchestral” all lump together to create the idea of old music with modern sensibilities. Fantasy is a melodramatic genre, and the heightened emotions are represented by the music cues as well. Big brass ensembles for triumphant moments, woodwinds and strings for the downswings, etcetera. But the Berserk score, meanwhile, is synthetic, unashamedly so. In using a different soundscape, Berserk 1997 creates a different vibe from the expected orchestral score. What does that mean? One could argue it is intentionally dissonant. Forces is a triumphant theme, yes, -- indeed it plays in this episode as the Band of the Hawk tramples through the enemy camp, setting enemy gunpowder ablaze, but perhaps it still should not exist in this world. Even though the arc is called “The Golden Age,” perhaps the world is not as golden as it seems. Alternatively, the more modern score could be reminding us of more modern times. This is a flashback arc, after all. The manga never reached the point of synthesized music, but then again you don’t tend to listen to manga. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that it was the Nineties. Berserk 97 is an anime that is old enough to still have some small flashing lights in its OP. They could have just wanted something that sounded cool. We will have to talk about the OP and EP at some point during this blog (imagine I just did a big sucking air through my teeth noise here), but they do kind of justify that point. They’re very much a 90s affair as well. Perfect Blue was also released in 1997. Susumu Hirasawa was a known quantity. And hey, from a production standpoint, it sure is unique, isn’t it? If I were to just give a play-by-play of this episode, I would describe the two “First Battles” that make up this episode and that would be that. But that’s really what the episode is about, just the events. The episode is actually about neither of those things, it is an introduction to Casca first and foremost, with a small emphasis on Corkus. Each member of the Band of the Hawk is following Griffith for a specific reason. This is something that Berserk is very interested in. Some of these reasons are more specific than others. Corkus is the most obvious, even with the few moments we have spent with him so far, so I will start with him: Corkus is about as personally motivated as one can be. In any given situation, Corkus will choose the most hedonistic option. And this is true of all forms of personal pleasure, from money and women to status and power. He will also not take an option that promises more hedonism later over the one that promises some now. He is demonstrably a reasonable warrior given his status within the Band, but he also cowardly chooses to send someone else to assassinate Guts in his sleep. He’s not going to change, but then, he doesn’t exactly have a reason to. Casca, as mentioned previously, is absolutely devoted to Griffith, acting against her own interests if Griffith says but a word. Through her personal thoughts watching Griffith interact with Guts, we can start to get an idea of why. In my opinion, it is clear that she is jealous of Guts and the special treatment Griffith is giving him. Infatuation is not the only reason, however. Casca is a woman in a dark fantasy world, and her relationship to The Band of the Hawk does give her some amount of status. This is something that is going to be explored in later episodes, so we won’t delve too much deeper into this at this point. Put yet another pin on the board. We notice, however, a parallel. After Guts has been dragged into camp for a welcoming party, we see Casca has taken his spot at the top of the wall, looking down on Guts specifically. I should stress how much of a pun “Looking down on” is here. It is both literally true just by a factor of the location and figuratively true -- Casca will be one of the last people to trust Guts on any level. But we continue the parallel, perhaps Guts is already up there with Casca, at least in spirit. Last week, I said “Love Interests, plural,” and this is what I meant. Casca being placed up here is foreshadowing for that. Next Time: In this world, there is a flow of time that can never be recovered. Only by learning to suffer the sins of one’s past can one move forward. The sorrow in the furthest reaches of one’s memory… The sorrow just beyond one’s memory… Which is more heartbreaking? ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

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