If anyone but Batman

[WolfOD64]

Except first thing he did was telling Terry to get off and never put suit again, and also he lost all his friends and lovers and was living alone and forgotten by almost everyone.

I'm sorry, was that supposed to be a counter-argument to a single thing I've just said? This doesn't denounce or legitimize a single thing I mentioned about Bruce's portrayal in Beyond. In fact, all it does is prove me even more right.

Bruce is living alone, cut off from the streets he once defended and suffering everything you've just mentioned...and he still manages to find time to make constant quips and dry, sarcastic comments to Terry throughout the show. His past and brooding didn't consume his character like it did in the Arkham games, and is precisely why THAT portrayal was infinitely better.

All you just did is highlight my point with a neon marker. Congratulations on elevating everything I just said as reinstated fact. You're practically doing my work for me.

Batman was never partially wise-cracking. Non in animated series not in films (well except for Batman & Robin, which is probably by far worst movie ever made.

You and I weren't watching the same shows, or reading the same comics, were we?

Whole Guts character was interesting as long as chemistry between him and other characters was present. But now, its gone. He only lives by his dramatic background, but doesn't really functions in new team as decent character.

So let me see if I understand this:

Guts goes from an anti-social loner to a mercenary with beloved comrades and brothers at arms, learns to live and fight for people outside of himself for the first time....then watches all of them vanish before his very eyes, spends an agonizing and lonely crusade trying to avenge them, to the point where he's cutting himself off from everyone around him in a coarse and heartless state of exile....and then, when he inspires a new team of people to follow him in admiration, and he isn't completely, 100% open or warm with them because he's both an anti-social, paranoid loner with trust issues the size of the Great Wall, and doesn't make friends with them immediately...despite recent chapters showing minimal bread-crumbs of him slowly breaching his wall of distrust and hatred to show compassion to them....

...and this somehow comes off as a poorly-written function for him?

What in God's name did you think was going to happen? You think Guts was going to skip among the buttercups with a brand new batch of "Bestest Friendsies" (people whose relationship with him over a few weeks couldn't POSSIBLY equate to the years he spent with the Band of the Hawk) people he literally just met, immediately after the crusade against apostles? A crusade, I might add, made him a cold, uncaring and dispassionate bastard to even his own spouse, as Goto rightfully criticized him to be....and this takes away from his character?

I know that exposure to both Metal Gear trash passing off as anime nowadays might've tainted your perception of this most basic element of basic story-telling, but there's this magical thing we have in the folds of a proper story:

It's called pacing.

If Guts immediately befriended people right after a period of hate-filled isolation, it would have the same, paper-thin feeling of shallow story-telling that every by-the-numbers Moe High School Soap Opera has. It would shatter the immersion. It would reduce his character to a whimsical, emotional stain. It would be lazy.

Which, given by the media works you glorify, only makes sense why you would look at it as bad writing.

Because they are not needed. News flash. If you want believable people, go outside and talk to them instead of complaining about stylised figures in games. There is whole world of them. Charactres are interesting because they go beyond realism and posses number of stylised trait, otherwise we should just sit and watch documentaries.

You ever hear of the "charactres" in a work called Lord of the Rings?

That little anthology of books you may or may not of heard of from your self-contained, pristine echo-chamber of bad anime and one-dimensional crap-shoots masquerading as characters, is universally-praised not because of its spell-binding world, its living breathing mythology, its conflict involving a multitude of high-fantasy races or depth Tolkein goes to describe everything from a blade of grass to an entire batallion.

It's praised because its characters---despite consisting of dwarves, elves, necromancers, and wizards---find themselves in a fantastic and stylized world, but have very real and very fleshed-out and believable personalities despite the fantastical nature of the story.

A character can be as distant, stylized, and miles above reality as he/she likes....what matters is if they're relatable. Characters like Dante and Solid Snake aren't unrelatable because they're some fantastical hybrid of human or demon, or the far-fetched product of military gene-splicing...it's because they're one-note caricatures spewing dialogue that would never once be uttered by a single rational human being, and displaying dumb and one-dimensional qualities that the audience can not and will not relate to.

If I can relate to an extra-terrestrial anthropomorphic cat like Lion-O from ThunderCats faster than I can ever relate to what Hideo Kojima claims to a human being in the form of Solid Snake, there's a definite problem in someone's narrative competence.

Time to hit real world: http://variety.com/2015/film/news/p...men-tell-no-tales-johnny-depp-d23-1201571012/

Old news, Methuselah. If you had done your research, you'd know that the entire team of script writers for the fifth film were brought in immediately to replace the ones in On Stranger Tides.

Know why? Because Johnny Depp openly stated that unless the writing improved, and the character of Jack Sparrow wouldn't be bastardized any longer for comedic effect, he wouldn't return for a sequel. It got to the point where he not only chose the writers, but had active involvement in the new movie's script...so much so, that he chose writers that were fans of the first film exclusively, where Jack Sparrow still retained dignity as a character...just like I've been saying.

So, yeah. The real world is sure sweet to wake up to....especially when I'm right.

HEre's a thing: origin story is only background of character. Characters may possess same origin but be different. And he never acted as murderous psychotic except of few instances in very first act. So duh.

Really? He didn't break out into murderous rampages at all after that?

Not in the fight against Rosine? Not in the butchering of innocent children as they visit him as ghosts?

What about the Chapter of the Holy Demon War? The one where Guts kills more Apostles than any other arc in the series, going as far as to recreate the Hundred Man Slaughter but with Trolls instead...fighting a livid battle with the temptress Slan, fighting in rabid rage against Zodd and Grunbeld for daring to call themselves the "New Band of the Hawk"?

Again...
The way you talk about Beserk...it just....

It's like listening to Anita Sarkeesian talk about video games. It's more funny than anything else. Ignorant and misinformed, but funny.

First is canon and tied to manga and second is partial adaptations, so deep knowledge there, for a fan of franchise

Uh, no. No it isn't. Kentaro Miura has repeatedly stated that the first game is not canon or tied to the manga at all, and is just a "what-if" scenario he penned himself. The second game is a partial adaptation, and even THAT has a non-canon scenario stuck in it.

And no. I'm not a fan of Berserk as a franchise in its entirety. I don't consider myself part of the fanbase whatsoever, but that's mostly because I don't like Berserk in every adaptation it has taken...just the original manga, and to a lesser extent, the films.

No amount of fan boyish rant changes facts. He basically turned into strong supporting figure, who from time to times struggles with control of his armour and has to rely on his team. He lost all his conflicting features and they barely mentioned as part of his past. Basically what left is shallow copy of his former self who only there to swing sword and look cool. And yes I read manga until gibberish kraken strolling before dropping it for good. Which started as strong history drama with interesting characters ended as shallow attempt at fantasy writing without any meaningful arcs for decades now. So put off glasses, truth is still out there.

Is that why Griffith's role as the protagonist is still the central conflict of the story, specifically because of what he did to Guts? Is that why Casca regaining her memory is still a pivotal narrative point, because of who she is and what she means to Guts?

He's about as much of a "strong supporting figure" as Luke Skywalker is in the original Star Wars trilogy. Everything going on in the story still directly ties to and involves him.

And by the way, the series DID NOT start out as a "strong historical drama". I don't know where or how you got that from. The dark fantasy element of the story was prevalent in the first four volumes of the manga, and the Golden Age Arc has been widely emphasized by the author as something that went far longer than he ever intended it to.

To decry Berserk for having fantasy elements is like decrying Hellsing for having Nazis in it. Have fun screaming at the bulk of the source material, bud.

Which makes me wonder how good you remember second game than. Because he barely talks in game leaving most of talking to Puck and most of the time he acts exactly as you described, as "screaming mating of death". He's much more more passive observer in this game than Batman in his last one (namely reason for all of this discussion)

I played and finished the second game just last week, and I can guarantee you that Guts speaks more in the second game than he does in the first. He talks directly to other characters, and shouts at his enemies in-game almost constantly...and doesn't talk to Puck so much as he does to Schierke. Not to mention how much he interrogates and argues with the likes of Charles, Slan, and the Band of the Hawk.

This is what happens when people ride on minimal knowledge and YouTube footage to supply for actual information about a series, and start professing it as truth to actual fans.

They look like vapid Otaku shrieking mispronounced verbiage at native Japanese speakers. A sad spectacle, to be sure, but an entertaining one, nonetheless.

As someone who has played both of the Berserk games, and has a pretty demanding handle on the manga's story, those games were oddly accurate, despite being games, and Guts was definitely more than just a grump the whole time. He's certainly got his extremely anti-social behavior, but he was never above making sardonic quips and showing he cared. Guts wasn't just a screaming machine of whirling black death, unless you were solely looking at the gameplay, where as a hack 'n' slash all you did was literally hack, and to quite a great degree, slash. Heck, that's even extremely authentic to the character because when he gets into fights he gets super serious.

I'm wondering, Innsmouth, if you're getting confused with a discussion of ludonarrative dissonance, though.

Don't worry. We hit ludonarrative dissonance right around when"Tony Montana is a mopey, tragic, brooding character", and "Guts is a power fantasy for kids" staggered in drunkenly into the conversation.

Seriously, I'd consider putting an end to replying, but this is just too much fun to listen to.

 

[Shadow]

Look, guys, this conversation is just one of those things we'll all never agree on. Can we all just agree to disagree and then move on?

 

[TWOxACROSS]

Can I just point out the absurdity of saying Guts is anything for a child audience? Berserk is totally not a shonen hero by any sense of the word.

 

[WolfOD64]

Can I just point out the absurdity of saying Guts is anything for a child audience? Berserk is totally not a shonen hero by any sense of the word.

Until this day, I didn't think anyone would ever have to.

Berserk has had a long-standing reputation in the manga/anime community for having the kind of twisted imagery and ultra-violence that only attracts a very, very particular audience. It has all the mainstream appeal of a Gorgoroth concert---not exactly on the kid-friendly, mainstream success of Mobile Suit Gundam or Bleach.

The only thing the shonen genre owes to Berserk is the now done-to-death Giant Sword trope...although, it makes far more sense for Guts to wield one than some wiry androgynous pre-teen bishonen hero, seeing how he's built like an entire herd of oxen.

 

[Innsmouth]

Can I just point out the absurdity of saying Guts is anything for a child audience? Berserk is totally not a shonen hero by any sense of the word.

he wasn't one until he was made into one. Nowadays there is barely anything in manga to justify it's 18+ rating. It completely lost what it once was, in contrast to much better mangas. No matter amount of hentai tentacles and naked lolis.
So lets see

I'm sorry, was that supposed to be a counter-argument to a single thing I've just said? This doesn't denounce or legitimize a single thing I mentioned about Bruce's portrayal in Beyond. In fact, all it does is prove me even more right.

Bruce is living alone, cut off from the streets he once defended and suffering everything you've just mentioned...and he still manages to find time to make constant quips and dry, sarcastic comments to Terry throughout the show. His past and brooding didn't consume his character like it did in the Arkham games, and is precisely why THAT portrayal was infinitely better..

Yeah we definitely watched different cartoons. Here people can see Bruce acting vs. Terry acting. And yes he never was wise-cracking in dire situations. He actually was probably more calm-headed and emotionless out of all Justice League. And actually this is what made him stand on his own.
His characters in Arkham games shown wide range of emotion It's just in your spite you refuse to see it. And whole argument "but in the cutscenes" is really laughable. As if cutscenes weren't part of the game.

​

...and this somehow comes off as a poorly-written function for him?

For somebody like you who gobbled many chapters in one breath it may come up as a good writing, but after waiting more than a 5 years for writer to write at least single meaningful chapter, I should just say Kentaro should just quit before he dies of the old age.

You ever hear of the "charactres" in a work called Lord of the Rings?

Did you ACTUALLY read LotR? Because that book from where most tropes are coming off, because it's characters are as one-noted and stylised as possible. There are good guys and bad guys. Also believable personalities? ROFL. Sorry but this is just a joke. So bunch of people with important missions run around wood singing songs in your world? I really dunno what you eating. Cosidering there is no main character in Lotr that falls into grey zone, no characters switching sides mid-book (yeah there was Saruman who was bad from the beginning) I don't sure you even knows what believable writing is. LOTR set standard for fantasy world, not for diverse and deeply humane cast. Film improved over it by making characters at LEAST not to fall in completely black & white separation.

Characters like Dante and Solid Snake aren't unrelatable because they're some fantastical hybrid of human or demon, or the far-fetched product of military gene-splicing...it's because they're one-note caricatures spewing dialogue that would never once be uttered by a single rational human being, and displaying dumb and one-dimensional qualities that the audience can not and will not relate to.

Oh, so a character like Solid Snake who actually changes himself over years isn't relatable, but Guts who remained in stagnated state for 5+ years is? Sad times for the world indeed.

Old news, Methuselah. If you had done your research, you'd know that the entire team of script writers for the fifth film were brought in immediately to replace the ones in On Stranger Tides.

old news? like 2o days old?

This is what happens when people ride on minimal knowledge and YouTube footage to supply for actual information about a series, and start professing it as truth to actual fans..

Yeah except I was following this franchise for more than a 10 years. And for anybody who isn't blind fanboy its obvious how terribly writing is sank. New characters are partially painfully written. Guts is flat icon with big sword striking cool poses for kids. Casca reduced to single motivation "KYRRRIE", Griffith barely appears and was so reduced to off-screen nemesis, that I think in couple more years nobody aside from fanboys will give a damn about him.
And yeah, ending of first game leads straight to chapter 23. And yep, I finished both games, though first one I dropped on final boss. But second I finished more than once and whole guts existence in there is reduced to shallow comic book figure.
Also, did NOT started as historical drama? Excuse me, just because lords were turning into monsters Kentaro written many medieval world problems, as public tortures, might abuse, lack of civil rights, etc, etc. If only you saw was cool guy with a sword. Welp. case closed.
In the end, brushing off characters of FF and MGS as one-dimensional and praising others like second coming, well…there are people with bad taste. You just happened to be one of them. Sadly I doubt you understand what good writing is even if it falls from the sky.

 

[WolfOD64]

Live & let live.

Please, do let's.

I'm going to be here for another decade if I have to explain Lord of the Rings now....which I really shouldn't.

 

[TWOxACROSS]

he wasn't one until he was made into one. Nowadays there is barely anything in manga to justify it's 18+ rating. It completely lost what it once was, in contrast to much better mangas. No matter amount of hentai tentacles and naked lolis.

Dude...a gradual change to a lighter tone does not erase how mature the series remains when it still contains extremely mature content. Guts could have become the cheeriest, Naruto-like moron around, but him swinging a sword through monsters and fending off some naked demon chick's sexual advances in a pool of blood and entrails will still make it for mature audiences only.

GTFO with your contrarian garbage :/

But, live and let live and all that jazz - I'M OUT!

 

[Innsmouth]

Dude...a gradual change to a lighter tone does not erase how mature the series remains when it still contains extremely mature content. Guts could have become the cheeriest, Naruto-like moron around, but him swinging a sword through monsters and fending off some naked demon chick's sexual advances in a pool of blood and entrails will still make it for mature audiences only.

GTFO with your contrarian garbage :/

Here's a lesson: if you intend to leave don't start talking. And if you don't follow manga, don't debate on it. Lesson's over.

 

[LordOfDarkness]

@Innsmouth, @WolfOD64, @TWOxACROSS: Enough, all three of you. If you can't discuss something without having to talk down to each other's intelligence, or finding the need to bring other examples into the topic just to prove you're right - is this what we need? Endless arguments to prove who is/isn't right all the time? I mean seriously, is this mature behaviour at all? Not to say you lot rarely get on or agree with each other over things anyway. It's no surprise you can't talk about things without the need to sound condescending in your tones.

I suggest that for the sake of the thread, you no longer continue this discussion - at least not here. If there's anything you'd like to continue to disagree over, instead of doing it here and dragging the thread down, please take it to PM's.

Should you decide to ignore this advice, I can't say that a warning won't be added or that you won't be banned from replying here. But I don't wish to see this happen again. There's a fine line between trying to make a point and having a dispute over something, a line that I believe has been crossed here.

For the rest of you, carry on.