Berserk’s creator Kentaro Miura has always been vocal about the different manga and anime series that inspired his work. While Berserk is truly one of its kind, there had been predecessors that put the seeds of such a concept in Miura’s mind.
Possibly one of the most notable among them was a Yuri manga based on a period of unrest in France. The manga in question had its own anime series long before Miura came up with Berserk.
Interestingly, the anime was rebooted after decades and a movie adaptation recently came out on January 31st.
1970s manga The Rose of Versailles inspired Kentaro Miura’s Berserk
Kentaro Miura‘s Berserk is rightfully hailed as one of the most popular manga series of all time. However, there had been bits and pieces of earlier works that had inspired the late mangaka to open up the floodgates of his mind. Such a work was Riyoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles.
Which, the mangaka claimed had shifted his entire perspective on the endless possibilities a manga can have. Although the genres of both works are completely different, Miura claimed in an interview that it had inspired him to add more depth to his characters.
Kentaro Miura commented on the same in the Berserk Official Guidebook (Berserk Fandom Wiki) published by Dark Horse. According to the late legend, while he had been clear on what he wanted to do with the protagonist Guts, he still had more nuances to etch out.
As such, during the Golden Age arc, he drew from works that focused on “sad and painful human relationships and emotions”.
It was a good opportunity, so I thought I’d switch weapons and come at it from the angle of The Rose of Versailles (by Riyoko Ikeda) and Kaze to Ki no Uta (by Keiko Takemiya). And as this was new ground for me, I figured maybe I could put people around me into the story, as well as memories from my youth.
Moreover, he also stated in the same interview that The Rose of Versailles also helped him create one of the most popular characters in Berserk. That is, Serpico, whom he claimed was “female readers’ ‘dream’.
My intuition was that he’s the kind of man they would want to have around. To be frank, he’s André from The Rose of Versailles. For a woman exhausted by society, he sees to her needs and considers her before all else. I thought this might be a woman’s everlasting dream.
Although Kentaro Miura spoke of the direct influences The Rose of Versailles had on his manga, there might be more parallels between both works. For example, both mangas revolve around a country going through unrest with the masses turning against the royalty as time progresses.
Moreover, both stories also are centred around soldiers, who, although serving the royalty, have their own morals and ambitions that differ from their lords.
The Rose of Versailles is recently got a reboot
As stated above, Riyoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles is centered around France preparing itself for the bloody revolution. With Mary Antoinette, the Queen, and Oscar François de Jarjayes, the commander of the Royal Guard.
While at the center of it are two women struggling with their identities, and relationships, the political and social unrest makes things that much harder for them.
Moreover, their differing ambitions and moral standpoints also play a key role until both of them are forced to choose what they truly believe in. Moreover, The Rose of Versailles’s Lady Oscar and Berserk‘s Griffith also work as each other’s foils.
Both of them suffer due to their association with the royals, however, whereas Oscar is a good person who cares for the people, Griffith turns into the main antagonist of the story with heinous deeds. Regardless, the 70s anime was recently rebooted for a movie adaptation after decades which was released on January 31st.
The tense but emotional narrative once again touched fans’ hearts, and the 7.9 IMDb rating is a testament to that. Thankfully, this seems to be a far cry from Berserk’s 2016 anime reboot which still seems to be a hot topic in the fandom.
The hype around such a magnificent piece of work had obviously been off the charts. As per CBR the result, though, turned out to be a poorly animated mess that became a victim of experimentation of combining 2D, and 3D.
What was even more unfortunate was the fact that one of the main attractions for the manga, the incredibly detailed battle sequences turned into junky messes that dragged without the fluidity and thrill they were known for.
In any case, the influence of the 70s manga is pretty visible in Berserk, and if Miura’s words are anything to go by, the former has only enriched the latter.
Berserk is streaming on Crunchyroll. The Rose of Versailles movie, on the other hand, was released on January 31st.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
