4 out of 5

We’re getting there.

The next two installments of “Guardians of Desire.”  Miura’s linework is already vastly improved: more fluid and readable, with an insane amount of detail and action per page.  When things especially heat up – like parrying blows with a tentacle demon – the “speed” Mirua is trying to represent via tons of blur lines gets a little fudgy, but he smartly picks up the narrative to fill in some visual gaps in these instances.

Guts learns a bit more of the old man’s story – tortured at the hands of The Count – but is mainly listening to get his hands on the Behelit, which he explains is sort of a gateway to the demon dimension; Kentarō establishes the shadowy Godhand, who we’ll assume, for now, will be our big baddies.  Thereafter it’s a thrill-ride of insane battles with one unstoppable, mutating demon, peppered with the character nuance the first volume was missing (and what’s indicative of the development we saw in the anime); Guts’ standoffish attitude gains color as being actually due to something, or several things, as opposed to just badass character acting gruff.  The way he flips between silences and suddenly creepy, indulgent grins works along the same lines.  Puck, flitting around events, is still a bit of a weak spot, a narrational excuse for playing the sympathetic POV card against Guts’ seemingly single-minded grimness.  However, promising that Berserk will willingly waver away from the tropey line, Puck never simply becomes “bait” or actually tickles Guts’ empathy; every moment we’re sure we’re going to see the hero question something, he simply flicks Puck away, and tosses her (it?) a line about how everyone is responsible for their own lives.

The constant battle with the same creepo for a couple hundred pages drags a bit, but it sets an interesting standard up for how things may possibly proceed, in the sense that this is very “final boss” already, so it’s interesting to think about what comes after this.

A notable jump in story and character depth for volume 2.