The Manga Berserk

The manga Berserk is very dark, disturbing, violent, and intense. It has a lot of graphic sexual content. No one is spared. Women, children, men, all are attacked, sexually assaulted, brutalized, and suffer in the universe of Berserk. This came out decades before Game of Thrones was on HBO.

One of the many aspects I like about Berserk is the theme of perseverance and the human will. Despite extreme, overwhelming trauma, characters like Guts and others still keep living and going. Life is hard. Especially for the characters in the Berserk universe. Things don't magically and miraculously get better. Later in the story, Guts doesn't get his body fully restored, and everything works out. It's not a Disney Pixar movie. Guts carries that insanely large and heavy sword, a physical burden, and then there is the greater mental burden that is his life.

When I was 17 reading Berserk for the first time it was weird that Guts has this JRPG like group with Casca, Isidro, Farnese, Serpico, and Schierke. I'm 28 now, and as an adult I love Guts' new group more than the Band of the Hawk. After the tragedy that happens to the Band of the Hawk, he finds another reason to live and people who care about him.

Despite how terrible life can be, there is a reason to live. Or some people choose to continue living just because they choose to.

It's like the Japanese pottery kintsugi. The broken pottery fixed with gold. That is what humanity is.