3 out of 5

Berserk volume 5 captures an important transitional point in Guts’ story – and also contains the first appearance and foreshadowy predictions of Nosferatu Zod – and yet, as a collection, has the distinction of highlighting what feel like a collection of off-beats in the ongoing tale.  Which seems blasphemous to say about the four-parter of Zod, but – and this was true in the anime version as well – although the opening chapters of the manga feature the supernatural via the Godhand and Puck, we’ve spent pages (specifically The Golden Age) backpedaling into a more normal realm, only to have the immortal warrior Zod pop up out of nowhere.  Guts and Griffith discuss the oddity of such a being, but still, it feels like an example of Miura trying to develop his world and mythology after-the-fact.  With some more buildup, the Zod arc would be stunning. – it certainly has some of Miura’s clearest action art to date, which ups the momentum of the pages, and employs some excellent negative space work to keep Zod’s monstrous appearance sufficiently monstrous – but the sequencing as employed makes it feel like a post-script.  There’s a chapter prior to that – Wind of the Sword – that perfectly compresses into about 40 pages the change in prominence / attitudes toward The Band of the Hawk, jumping ahead 3 years post-Golden Age, and perhaps expanding that section to seed some Zod rumors and rumblings would have smoothed the flow out.

Prior to that we get the conclusion to the GA arc and battle, the next step in showing Guts’ shifting feelings toward the troupe he’s laid in with and Griffith’s peculiar dedication to him, but the battle’s spectacular end isn’t as spectacular when it’s separated from the previous chapters, assuming you’re reading the collections with a bit of a pause inbetween.  It’s not a sleight against the story itself, just the nature of splitting up the long-form telling of it into equal-sized books.  There’s also an important exchange between our leads that can cause confusion and/or giggles thanks to Japanese censorship regarding genitalia.  Miura’s solution?  Just draw the dudes junkless, like Ken dolls.  Because the nudity in this sequence is, I think, an important component for its implications regarding Griffith’s personality, I’m not sure how I feel about Miura’s approach, or rather, I can’t say for sure if blocking it instead of pre-censoring would have been better or cheaper feeling.  Anyhow, stepping back to the battle, the choreography can still be confusing when things get cluttered and motion lines obscure entire panels, but there’s an overall clean, compelling grace to Miura’s pages that keeps it from being a barrier.

Post Zod we get the start of Master of the Sword, which has some promising reflections on events that’s a reminder of the emotional / conceptual potential of the story, and an indication of themes Miura will continue to explore.

Definitely a necessary read, but sort of a dip in the pacing of things, mainly due to sequencing, and the way the story has been divvied up.