Berserk: Season I

This anime series based on Kentaro Miura’s popular manga displays a contemporary artistic style that is more aesthetically sophisticated than the identically named original 1997 series. The focus here is on the swordsman Guts, who travels through a hostile land in the years after a cataclysmic solar eclipse. Guts’s adventures get off on a violent foot, with a fight against a group of bandits followed by an attack from skeletons, and his imprisonment by the Holy Chain Iron Knights, who are suspicious of Guts’s origins and purpose. From there, things grow progressively crazier: Guts is caged but escapes with the help of an elf, only to be chased by vicious dogs, and then he saves a strange woman about to be raped by a horse. From there, Berserk serves up torture, more fights, episodes of madness, and incidents that challenge both good taste and good sense. While nothing here is suitable for younger viewers, adults with a sense of the absurd and a strong stomach may find this to be perversely amusing (the rapid action leaves little time to pause and question the inane plot twists or excessive blood and gore). And Guts is one of the most brilliantly enigmatic anti-heroes in contemporary anime. Presenting all 12 episodes from the 2016 first season in a dual-language Blu-ray/DVD Combo set, rated TV-MA, this is highly recommended. [Note: Berserk: Season II is slated for release on June 12.] (P. Hall)