The story of the ties that bind wandering mercenary Guts and his most Machiavellian majesty, Lord Griffith.

I watched the original anime some time ago, and believe me, it’s a doozy. Lord Griffith is one of those Antags you love to hate and hate to love and everything in between – he inspires those kinds of conflicting emotions. This is the same character who goes to the ends of the earth to get what he wants, what he swear he’s destined to have, and yet Guts and the rest of the Band of the Hawk have such loyalty and love for him, it’s beyond bearing when he does finally go bad. In a big way, too. It may have taken some time for him to get there, but remember that strange amulet he always wore ‘round his neck? – Lord Griffith sure didn’t forget. Anyway, the original anime if you can find it bears a watch, due to it’s excellent storytelling if nothing else.

This new incarnation of the story, where they take a Warner Bros. budget and do something extraordinary with the very first show, is even better. More or less exactly the same storyline – Guts is a past-tormented warrior soul who, after slaughtering a mass ton of enemy soldiers and refusing to join the Knighthood of the order he just won for, gets his dumbass a beat down from Lord Griffith and ends up joining the Band of the Hawk anyway. Lord Griffith is still cheerfully adamant about Guts being his, tall and self assured and yes he does still look like a girl (sorry), but now the visual difference is like watching the Avatar’d version. The battle scenes are amazing, it took me several minutes from the opening scene to understand that yes, this really is a re-telling with awesome spectacular visuals, of the same Berserk anime I watched however long ago. Guts is still grunty and a killing machine, but now his sword has special closeup attention, and the sound effects of his bones breaking when Lord Griffith womps his ass, are even better. Warner Bros. seems to enjoy redoing really good anime – look at Death Note. And of course it was a very smart move on Viz Media’s part to go along with the idea. These are apparently to be released as 3-part movies, Arc 1 coming out February 2012, Arc 2 slated for June 2012, and Arc 3 in unspecified late 2012. See all of em!

See Guts struggle and Griffith plot in Arc 1 The Egg of the King on Netflix now!