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Lamest news to wake up to. I'm not even a huge fan of Berserk, but it's one of the most influential manga ever written. Dark Souls? Goblin Slayer? Fate/Zero's character designs? Cloud Strife and Dante's giant ass swords? All of these things were chalk full of inspiration and homages owed to Berserk and that's just a super short list. gak Warhammer Fantasy and 40k have more than a few passing references to the series absorbed by cultural osmosis I think. Guts is the original wielder of the ludicrously large sword of awesomeness. Probably the saddest thing is that Berserk may go unfinished, after Guts and crew finally got off the damn boat they'd been on for literal years (long enough that being on the boat became a meme).

Sad day for fans of manga, anime, and dark fantasy.

That... that just sucks. It's a series that has always deserved more and the same can certainly be said for Miura. Very sad news.

If one thing can encapsulate how influential his work really is, its worth remembering that Aerith's death was pulled almost directly from this series. Given how much that moment defined a generation of games... it's just a shame the source hasn't ever been fully appreciated.

Yeah, I woke up to this news and was shocked. The memes of Miura's constant hiatuses due to things like Idolmaster and him taking forever to finish it makes his sudden death so much impactful since nobody thought he would actually kick the bucket first before finishing it. It sucks because they just got Casca's memories back and now we'll be stuck forever with Guts never being able to have a chance to reconcile with her or having his revenge against Griffith. It's like if the Count of Monte Cristo just stopped before he even did anything in his revenge plot.

I was honestly expecting G.R.R. Martin to die first because he's way older and clearly uncapable of wrapping the plot threads in GoT.

I was about to make the same thread:

Theres a short mention tribute article on BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-57183034

Really sad we will never see the conclusion to the story. I hope he has a plot storyline draft written somewhere. I was really disappointed they didn't really do more high-quality animations. The OG series from late 90s was an absolute masterpiece in terms of audio and art style.

Absolutely gutted.

I was planning on buying all the mangas for colelction purposes later this year.

I’ve been told he has planned for this and has a chosen successor who’s got copies of all his notes.

 AduroT wrote:
I’ve been told he has planned for this and has a chosen successor who’s got copies of all his notes.

Yeah, I've seen comments about how he'd spent the past few months trying to plot out the rest of the story and training people to finish it. His health has been poor for years now (I wonder if maybe we'll see the industry start taking more care of its artists now that someone very prominent has been lost?). Maybe it'll see completion ala Wheel of Time at the hands of another.

 LordofHats wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I’ve been told he has planned for this and has a chosen successor who’s got copies of all his notes.

Yeah, I've seen comments about how he'd spent the past few months trying to plot out the rest of the story and training people to finish it. His health has been poor for years now (I wonder if maybe we'll see the industry start taking more care of its artists now that someone very prominent has been lost?). Maybe it'll see completion ala Wheel of Time at the hands of another.

Yeah, its been a chronic issue for the manga/anime industry that the artists are overworked to the point of hospitalization in some cases. I don't know how many years are shaved off from someone's life with the extreme work hours of being a mangaka, but there should be a much more sustainable way of creating chapters/volumes without having to effectively pre-plan the plot/storyboard years ahead in case of stuff like this happening.

Either way, I'm hoping we at least know how they're going to play with Gut's behelith and the Skull Knight's role in Gut's finally confronting Griffith again as part of the Godhand.

I've only really begun reading his books recently, but I did watch the excellent anime in 2013 but this is heartbreaking. Everything about Berserk speaks to me, his themes on existentialism and...everything seems to align with my world view and the similarities between Attelus Kaltos from Secret War and Guts and its themes with Berserk, despite never reading it before then, makes me think of Miura as kind of a "kindred spirit" of sorts in the most metaphorical sense.

Also, it saddens me that he will never be able to complete his work, work he spent so long making. Makes me realise I've got to keep up my writing no matter what as there'll be a time I won't be able to.

But no matter what Miura's genius will live on even if he cannot :(