Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Giganto Maxia, Volume 1
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Kentarou Miura
BIRTHDATE: 7/11/1966
WEBSITE:
CITY: Tokyo
STATE:
COUNTRY: Japan
NATIONALITY: Japanese
https://mangabrog.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/berserk-artist-kentaro-miura-interview-i-actually-dont-think-i-could-let-such-a-long-grim-story-end-with-a-grim-ending/ * http://www.darkhorse.com/Blog/2124/giganto-maxia-debuts-winter-dark-horse
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born July 11, 1966, in Tokyo, Japan.
EDUCATION:Nihon University, Ph.D., 1989.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Comic book writer and illustrator.
WRITINGS
Created various manga including Berserk Prototype, King of Wolves (with Buronson), and Japan.
SIDELIGHTS
Japanese manga, or comic book, author and illustrator Kentaro Miura created the phenomenally successful Berserk manga series. Although the manga received limited success in 1990 when it was first released, after “The Golden Age” story arc began, the manga was recognized as a masterpiece and secured Miura’s status as a prominent contemporary manga artist. In 2002 he earned second place in the Tezuka Cultural Prize of Excellence for Berserk. Miura has also collaborated with manga writer Buronson who wrote the Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star) manga to create the King of Wolves and Japan manga. Miura also wrote and illustrated the epic Giganto Maxia manga.
Berserk
In 2003, Dark Horse began published Miura’s epic Berserk saga in English. Not for the squeamish, the story takes place in a violent medieval fantasy world where people are corrupt and paranoid and magic is rarely benign. A warrior named Guts is marked with The Brand that attracts spirits and the undead, and is doomed to become a sacrifice to the dark powers. However, he fights his fate and searches for a way to break his curse, cutting down any demon who gets in his way. His weapon of choice is a huge sword and his metal cannonball-shooting prosthetic arm. “This work has a style characteristic of other 1980s manga, with sparse dialogue, spectacular action sequences and gritty character art,” observed a writer in Publishers Weekly.
Guts’ companion is the androgynous and winged Puck the Elf who proves to be as much of an annoyance as a help using healing powers. Together they fight the Apostles, humans who have ascended into the demon rank by killing their loved ones. In a review of Berserk, a writer on the Mental Attic Web site praised Miura for the amazingly detailed artwork, strong cast, and complex world. In an interview on the Manga Brog Web site, Miura discussed using manga as a way to reflect the world around us, “Basically, people live their lives taking the stuff happening around them and breaking it down into something that makes sense to them, and for me, manga is where I talk about that stuff.”
Giganto Maxia
In 2016, Miura published the 2016 Giganto Maxia, his first new work in twenty years. The story that takes place 100 million years after the Great Destruction when Earth is nearly destroyed. The world is a wasteland where humans, demi-humans, and giant creatures fight each other for survival. The Empire of Olympus has created the Giganto, gigantic mutant beasts hundreds of feet tall, to kill adversaries and maintain dominance. Wandering this post-apocalyptic world are gladiator Delos and his agent, the child mystic Prome, who finds work for Delos’ fighting skills. They find themselves in a battle to the death with the titan Gohra. Their only hope is to become a Giganto themselves.
A Publishers Weekly contributor praised Miura’s art saying that he “once again pushes the boundaries of space and line, often filling the page with visceral expressions, [and] creative crosshatching.” The contributor also praised the writing which encourages people to strive to do better even in times of suffering. Reviewing Giganto Maxia, Chris Beveridge online at Fandom Post remarked, “The man can produce some visually stirring work on an epic scale that few creators are able to.” Describing fighting sequences, Beveridge said, “Miura’s detail and flow of it with the layouts and movements just make it captivating to go through, a true master of his craft.” In a review on the Review Fix Web site, Rocco Sansone commented that the book is a decent offering “with some nice art and interesting main leads despite the world not being original and the story needing a few more chapters to feel complete.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly March 8, 2004, review of Berserk, p. 52; April 4, 2016, review of Giganto Maxia, p. 67.
ONLINE
Fandom Post, http://www.fandompost.com (March 8, 2017), Chris Beveridge, review of Giganto Maxia.
Manga Brog, https://mangabrog.wordpress.com/ (December 14, 2015), “Berserk Artist Kentaro Miura Interview.”
Mental Attic, https://thementalattic.com (March 8, 2017), review of Berserk.
Review Fix, http://reviewfix.com (March 8, 2017), Rocco Sansone, review of Giganto Maxia.*
''GIGANTO MAXIA'' DEBUTS THIS WINTER AT DARK HORSE
08/25/2015 11:02am
“Berserk” creator Kentaro Miura’s new sci-fi/fantasy manga launches in 2016
From the immense imagination of Berserk creator Kentaro Miura comes Giganto Maxia, a science-fiction/fantasy manga of titanic proportions!
100 million years after the Great Destruction, life hangs on in the wastelands, with humans, demihumans, and massive creatures fighting for survival. With the Empire of Olympus using colossal beasts to crush their adversaries, only gladiator Delos, mystic Prome, and the titan Gohra can hope to stem genocide and heal the shattered Earth!
Giganto Maxia is Miura’s first new original work in over twenty years. Dark Horse Comics began publishing Miura’s Berserk in 2003. It has become an international sensation, inspiring wildly popular TV and film anime, and is currently up to the thirty-seventh volume.
Giganto Maxia is in stores February 3, 2016. Preorder your copy today at your local comic shop or through these fine retailers:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
BERSERK ARTIST KENTARO MIURA INTERVIEW: “I ACTUALLY DON’T THINK I COULD LET SUCH A LONG GRIM STORY END WITH A GRIM ENDING”
by mangabrog
zoddThis one’s a Kentaro Miura interview by Yukari Fujimoto, a writer/professor of gender studies and shojo manga. It’s a pretty old conversation — originally published in September 2000, which in Berserk terms is just before volume 20 came out. Lots of good stuff in it though: he talks about the friend who was the inspiration behind Griffith, how little of the story he had planned out originally, and why the Berserk world is, at its core, Japan.
This isn’t the full interview — just what I thought were the more interesting chunks of it. It was really long and a true bitch to translate into intelligible English, so I just don’t have the energy/interest to do the thing in full, at least not right now.
–When I first started reading Berserk, I was like, hey, this is Violence Jack! And then I was like hey, this is Guin Saga! And then when I got to the part where the demons swarm around Guts and tell him he belongs to them I was like, hey, this is Dororo! That’s just what it reminded me of personally, though, so I’d like to start by asking whether you actually did have any works like that in mind when making Berserk.
Miura: I was a manga reader. There are things that I’ve consciously borrowed from, but there are also things that have sunk to the bottom of my consciousness and pop up out of nowhere later. They’ve become part of me. Violence Jack and Guin Saga are things I was obviously really into, and I do think that Guin Saga was the biggest source for this fantasy universe. That atmosphere it has just stuck with me and now I think of it as the standard to measure things against, so I suppose you’re right.
–I see. How about the sword, then? It’s one of Guts’s main features. Did it not come from Violence Jack?
Miura: That comes from Shinji Wada’s Pygmalio. Also, I think it was in the Guin Saga spin-off The Snow Queen, there was this illustration of a two- or three-meter-tall giant wielding a sword. Guts’s sword is a cross between those two. It’s just the right size to be still somehow carryable, while giving that close-to-the-action feeling of violent men’s manga. I couldn’t make up my mind for a while, though, and Guts’s design went through quite a bit of change — long hair, wielding a katana, etc. After agonizing over it for a while I ended up with what he is now, and I felt like I really nailed it. All I had to do was somehow capture the swinging around of that sword and that pleasingness of it. I probably don’t know what I’m talking about given that I’ve only created the story for one manga, but when you do manage to hit upon that crucial something before you start, I feel like it works out.
–Absolutely. I wasn’t expecting you to be inspired by the sword in Pygmalio, though. I mean, Kuruto [the protagonist] does have a small body and carries a big sword, but the art and universe in your manga seems completely different. Then again, your editor did say that all kinds of surprising things appear in your manga in bizarre forms. (laugh) Like, apparently you’ve used Ranpo as reference when drawing. Of all manga, though: Ranpo and Berserk…
On the left, Ranpo (1978-1987), on the right, Pygmalio (1978-1990). Both are exactly what you’d expect from the covers.
Miura: Is that surprising? (laugh) I’m using it for the backgrounds, though.
–Ah, of course! That makes sense.
Miura: The thing is, when you’re just an ordinary manga fan not aiming to become an artist yourself, you get to choose whatever manga you like and read within your own safety zone. When you’re trying to become an artist yourself, though, that’s not wide enough. You won’t make it. So there was a time that I was trying to read as broadly as possible — which there’s a limit to, but I’d try to read basically anything that wasn’t painful to read, anything that people recommended to me, anything that was popular.
–When would that have been?
Miura: From high school to university, roughly. All kinds of books, manga, movies — as much as I could.
–Most aspiring manga artists don’t go that far though, do they?
Miura: The truth is that I sat at my desk drawing manga all the time and seriously lacked personal experience, and I felt insecure about that. Which is why I started thinking that I had better at least absorb as much of the stuff people recommend as possible.
–When was it that you feel you’d cleared the bar in terms of art? By which I mean, when was it that you started feeling satisfied with what you draw and your style came together for you?
Miura: Now, here’s the thing about drawing. When we were young and stupid, we used to copy stuff drawn by guys like Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and Fujihiko Hosono and practice drawing mangalike pictures. We were in fine arts, though. We used to have to draw things for class and I was pretty good at it, but I wasn’t very good at manga art. So I wanted to learn how to draw like Fujihiko Hosono, but I also wanted to make use of my realistic drawing abilities. And then meanwhile, I wanted to do an intricate story like Guin Saga, but I also liked how over-the-top Violence Jack was. All of that gradually coalesced into my current art style, I think.
You know how they said on [the TV show] Manga Yawa that I was bad at drawing? They’re absolutely right. Ever since high school, I’ve been trying all sorts of different things to combine being good at drawing reality with being good at drawing manga art. If I were doing a story like Fist of the North Star, I would be able to really concentrate entirely on just drawing well. The manga I want to create, however, has aspects to it that can be downright shojo mangaesque, and I wouldn’t be able to pull that off if I went all-out Fist of the North Star in terms of art. So I have to strike this balance between delicate drama and Fist of the North Star, and after much wrestling with this I finally ended up with my current art style, although I imagine that it will still be subject to change.
–Ah, so you try to give a certain delicacy to your art as well as the story. I actually have this personal theory that Berserk is really a shojo manga, but I take it then that it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise for you to hear that?
Miura: Makes sense to me. Shojo manga is all about expressing every feeling powerfully, and in that sense it’s not as contrived as manga for men. Men’s manga tends to come off as more calculated to sell well, whereas shojo manga are somehow just… fluffier. I realize that’s not a very descriptive word, but anyway, that might be something I have in common with shojo manga.
–You have fluffiness in common?
Miura: I guess what I mean is, like, in order to express emotions, logic comes second, whereas it’s usually the other way around.
Miura: [In high school] I was in a group full of people saying they wanted to be manga artists, but were actually busy getting girlfriends and getting into fights, so they weren’t really all that otaku. So I was basically the biggest manga nerd out of the bunch. It was a group of five, and I was pretty much the yellow ranger of the group: lagging behind in terms of emotional growth, but way ahead of the others in terms of drawing ability. I wasn’t capable of making a story that would really make anyone feel much of anything, though.
So that information coming from outside — the other group members’ love troubles and fights — was really new to me. Also, there’s the fact that people who go into fine arts tend to be people with big egos who all have something that they’re particularly good at, and so with these other guys showing off what they’re good at, I wanted to find what I could do. Drawing, I decided, was my only option. The only way I could keep on equal footing with these guys was to make my mark as a manga artist. It became this strange obsession for me.
–Is that idea that you had to stay on “equal footing” something that is reflected now in the relationship between Guts and Griffith?
Miura: Yes, it is, quite a bit. I don’t know what relationships between boys these days are like, but back in the eighties, boys were really obsessed with stuff like how good their friends were at things, how highly they “ranked” in comparison to their friends, etc. For boys, friendship isn’t about consoling each other. Sometimes you even try to take the other guy down a peg or two. But to break away from those friends would feel like admitting defeat, and you do help each other when you find some sort of goal. That’s where the Band of the Hawk comes from.
–I see — so, that core from your high school days has been transformed into the story in Berserk.
Miura: Right. I’d done some training to change that group of high school friends into a band of mercenaries by the time I was graduating university.
–And you took that formative experience and put it into the sprawling original fantasy world of Berserk. When’d you come up with that idea? How much did you plan out at that point?
Miura: I’d hardly thought any of it out at first. I had no idea how far I’d be able to run with just that original idea for the manga, and I really hadn’t come up with the idea for the Band of the Hawk at all. Aside from the monster-slaying black swordsman, I had this idea that it’d be easier to give him something to fight if I added the element of revenge to it, and that was about it.
–That’s true of the prototype story, but from the very start of the actual series we see Griffith’s transformed self as well as Apostles and the God Hand, so it at least certainly seems like you had worked out quite a bit of the universe before starting it, though.
Miura: It looks that way now in retrospect, but up until volume three all I had in mind was that it would be a story about anger. In preparation for starting this series, first I asked myself what it was that I had to pay attention to, and what I decided was that I would make sure that the character was angry. So then I asked myself how to make him angry. There are a lot of ways to depict anger — there’s the explosive kind of anger, but then there’s the kind of anger where your face just loses its color and goes expressionless. I decided I would just focus on expressing anger and hope I’d find something to work with.
So how well I could evoke the fascinatingness of an angry person was going to make or break the manga at the start. Now, how do I go about making Guts angry? Depending on the answer, he might come out looking like a scary monster and seem inhuman, or maybe he’ll be scary in a more human way. And so when the God Hand showed up in the manga, Griffith still wasn’t all that important yet.
–Really? I figured that you must’ve had the antagonism with Griffith in mind from the start.
864532Miura: I think there were a bunch of things overlapping in my mind, and they start coming together around the third volume of Berserk. First of all, if Guts is angry, there is going to have to be an object of that anger. So I asked myself what people get angry at, and, well, something you see a lot of is the murderer of one’s parents, but as I already said, I was someone who friendship mattered a lot to, so the idea of making the target of Guts’s anger a friend, or at least a man of the same general age, naturally came to mind. So I put that character in, but then I have to give the reason why Guts is angry. So then we have the Band of the Hawk, where I make use of my own past.
–So it was the idea of creating an “equal” character for your protagonist that brought out these things from inside yourself.
Miura: I’m not sure if this works as a lesson to take away from this, but like I said before, when you’re working hard on something, sometimes you just hit upon the right thing and it all starts falling into place. I myself am someone not very good at planning, but when you stop and think about the manga you’ve already made, I think you’ll find that there was some sort of reason behind it. Assuming you don’t have multiple personalities or something.
–It’s all connected on a subconscious level, you’re saying.
Miura: And if I dig into that enough, it comes together as a story. It’s not something done intentionally.
–Getting back to the topic of planning Berserk, though, there’s a long flashback arc that starts in volume three, showing things like Guts’s youth and leading up to the Eclipse. Did you at least have parts of that long story in mind when you started drawing, or did you just make it up as you went?
Miura: Back then it was more like I was making it up as I went, I’d say. I actually hadn’t planned for Guts and Casca to get together, you know — it just occurred to me partway through that it’d be more dramatic that way. As I remember it now, all I’d really decided at the time was that there’d be about five characters, and I’d make them similar to five of my friends.
–I see — so those five friends are the base models for the characters.
Miura: Pretty much. The only difference is, there aren’t any Griffiths or Guts in our group. There really was a guy similar to Judeau. We had a Corkus too, and a Rickert. There’s no Casca, though, since it was a group of guys. And then Pippin is me, in terms of physical appearance.
Kentaro_Miura–Ahh, I see. Alright.
Miura: The yellow ranger, basically. I’m pretty sure that was the role I played. On the inside, though — and maybe manga artists tend to idealize themselves, but — I would have Guts-like thoughts, or Griffith-like thoughts. Manga is a funny thing: rather than taking base models and inserting them into your manga unchanged, you can do things like break the models up and rearrange their different parts into all sorts of strange things.
–What exactly do you mean when you say you thought like Guts or Griffith?
Miura: So, for example, in terms of manga, I was head and shoulders above everyone in terms of drawing, but at the same time, I looked up to the guy who used to act as the leader. He was very much like Griffith in terms of ability: he was the type who put his money where his mouth was, and he even had a bit of that touch-of-the-divine feel to him. In terms of violence, though, I’d say he was very much like Guts.
He would go out and get into fights every day and then come to my house afterwards and say, “Alright, let’s draw some manga,” and then he’d go to his part-time job the next day, sleep deprived. He was a wonder. So in order to keep up with him I felt like I needed some sort of trick of my own, and I decided to work hard on drawing manga. Later on, though, I would find out that he apparently used to act violently the way he did because he was amazed by my ability at manga.
So then in university he gave up becoming a manga artist, and he decides he’ll do things that the rest of us will be jealous of — sleep with a hundred girls, get hired into a first-rate company, that sort of thing. And he manages to pull it off. Then he becomes an illustrator, and starts pulling in tens of millions of yen a year while he’s still in his twenties. But it’s still manga that he wants to do, so in the end he throws it all away and starts from square one in the manga industry.
–Wow, that’s an amazing story.
Miura: See, so up until that point, he’s Griffith. But then from there he falls and re-examines what it is he really wants to do, and so in that sense, that makes him Guts, right? Maybe Griffith and Guts are symptoms that affect boys. When a boy seriously tries to do something, he could become either one.
–Interesting — so you’re saying that you have both of them inside you.
Miura: They’re both there. When things start going well, Griffith starts sprouting up. If Berserk were to start to slip and fall, I’d probably go back to Guts. Anyone trying to build up something experiences both sides, I suspect. This is something I only realized talking about it now.
–So, about the Egg Apostle: I heard that he was created out of empathy for hikikomori or the uncool kids or something like that.
Miura: Okay, so for better or for worse, monsters constantly appear in Berserk, and there’s an old trope that the reason monsters are violent is because they’re sad. People like Tim Burton have really nailed that sort of thing, the sad but scary, and it’s something I want to do, too. And then you look at modern Japan for sad and scary, and you’ve got people who turn to crime, or are on the verge of it, or are at least scared that they might turn to it. And that’s something that I want the reader to sympathize with. By the time you’re in high school I feel like everyone has this fear that they might do something bad someday, or have something bad done to them. It’s something I still vaguely feel, even at this age. I think people these days tend to try to exclude anything that’s different from themselves. It’s the “Me” generation. But we can’t let ourselves forget that there are a lot of people out there who can’t speak up for themselves.
–I feel like that syncs up really nicely with the sense of fear in Berserk. It might not be on a conscious level, but I really find that there’s a lot of resonance going on between Berserk and the present. Do you watch the news much?
Miura: Yes, I like watching the news, I like documentaries. The main things I can’t bring myself to watch are dramas and variety shows.
–I can relate.
Miura: And in that sense I think I’m just like the kids in high school and university who can’t bring themselves to go out into public. I mean, I myself am currently living the life of the uncool, after all. (laugh) So I guess if I had a family or something then I’d make manga geared more toward family men, but for better or for worse I’ve stayed the way I am and I do think that comes out in my work.
–So, about all those refugees [in the Birth Festival storyline], when they’re hunting for heretics: I heard that you came up with the idea for them from when refugees in Yugoslavia or somewhere like that were in the news.
vol 18Miura: Back then I guess it would’ve been Yugoslavia, or maybe the Tutsis and Hutus. I’m not really sure. Anyway, it made me say to myself, “God, the world’s a really cruel place right now.” So part of the idea was that I’d put in something resembling those people in order to make things a little topical. But then it’s crucial that I make it so that it’s actually about Japan — my readers are reading from a Japanese perspective, after all — and so I use the refugees to show all sorts of things like how xenophobic groups can be, or how people will refuse to act for themselves and just wait for someone else to do things for them. The idea was to expand upon the bad aspects of groups in the present day.
–So those refugees are Japan, then?
Miura: Things from outside Japan do go into the manga on a superficial level, but the Berserk world is, in terms of the way it feels, essentially Japan. It started from a pretty core Japanese place right from the start.
–Wait, so you’re saying that while it may not look like it on the outside, Berserk reflects Japan on a mental level?
Miura: Something like that, yeah.
–This conversation is making me realize that there are a lot of surprising things appearing in surprising forms in Berserk: the refugees are actually Japanese, you’re influenced by Yumiko Oshima…
Miura: I don’t consider myself a special person doing something that only I can do, though. I think of myself more as pretty much just an ordinary person. It’s not like I’m looking at all kinds of stuff, either — I’d say I take in about as much as the average person. I suppose I do make more use of what I look at, though. I can look at things that most people would get nothing out of — some weird movie or something — and take something away from it, so long as there’s some sort of human drama in there.
Basically, people live their lives taking the stuff happening around them and breaking it down into something that makes sense to them, and for me, manga is where I talk about that stuff. It’s a matter of being able to connect it together into a network, I think. I don’t think of leisure and work as separate things — even what’s happening here right now will go toward the manga, in the end. It’s a matter of bringing everything out into the manga.
–I do think manga is a medium that could probably contain the whole world.
Miura: Right. So, I don’t think the information I take in is special, and I don’t think I’ve got an especially sharp way of thinking. I couldn’t do a manga that slices things clean in half — I do more of a brooding, writhing kind of manga. But what I think is unique to me is that I can connect everything together in my mind, and I can mull it over long and hard. Persistence, I guess you call it. Hence my haunting obsession with not letting anything go to waste.
–Roughly how far along are you in your overall plans for the manga?
Miura: I’m not sure — that’s something I worry about myself. The relationship between Griffith and Guts is about to start for real, though.
–Wait, it’s only starting now? So it’s all just been prologue up until now?
Miura: Well, no, I wouldn’t say it’s just been prologue. We’ve come to the part in the story where the score starts getting settled, though.
–Huh, so Guts and Griffith’s relationship is just starting for real! That’s exciting news. Surprising, but also exciting.
Miura: Yeah. It’s sort of been vacillating back and forth up until now, but now Griffith is going to come to terms with having become a demon. I basically see it as the beginning of the relationship between the two of them having become adults. And also, the demon child that Casca gave birth to is going to become something of a key point — despite the fact that I didn’t even plan for it to be Casca’s baby when I first drew it.
–Really?
Miura: I didn’t even have Casca in mind at the time.
–Ah, right. That means it wasn’t supposed to be a fetus at the start, then. And I guess there was no plan to have Guts lose his eye and arm the way he did, either…
Miura: None at all. That part was left open. Basically, I had planned that he’d have it done to him somehow by Griffith, and then a love story came into the picture, and taking that to its extreme just happened to fit together nicely with the climax. It’s not as though I had it planned from the start. And now it turns out that the demon child is similarly going to snap very usefully into place.
–Wow… hearing this stuff is really amazing. You say you didn’t really have things clearly planned out at first, and yet every little thing fits so snuggly into place without any plotholes, as if you’d had it all figured out from the start. It’s a great mixture of the intuitive and the logical.
Miura: It’s true, lately I’ve come to trust in my own carelessness. In my experience things often pop nicely into place even without having been planned ahead much. I do think it probably wouldn’t go very smoothly if I were to work with stuff that isn’t me, stuff that I’ve borrowed from elsewhere and simply stuck in, but there’s hardly any of that. Even when I do bring in something from elsewhere, I run it through myself and quality test it before using it.
–But I think a story that’s only being thought up afterwards wouldn’t generally fit together so perfectly. I mean, the demon child is — in a manner of speaking — the three characters’ baby. The fact that you’ve managed to take this thing that appears right from the start and turn it into a key point in the later story is sort of incredible. Is the way it looks going to change?
Miura: Yes, it’ll change — and the relation between Griffith, Casca and Guts will change a little with it. Plus, an actual witch is going to enter the picture soon.
–Is it even possible that we’ll see a happy ending?
Miura: I’d say it’s possible. I used to have the final moves planned out, but lately I’ve been thinking I’d rather figure them out when I come to it, so now it’s hard to say what could happen. Being the sort of person I am, though, I actually don’t think I could let such a long grim story end with a grim ending — like, say, having him suddenly die. I don’t really like that kind of entertainment. I’ll leave it to my subconscious.
–I see. I have a few more questions on Berserk’s mysteries, now. What was the “216 years” thing for the Eclipse about?
Miura: Ah, that’s just when solar eclipses happen at the same place.
–Oh, so that’s what it means.
Miura: Yeah, and if you divide it by a thousand years you get exactly five people. Just happened to work out.
–Interesting.
Editor: This guy at the astronomy observatory told us. And then, 216 is also 6 times 6 times 6.
–So it happens to be 6 x 6 x 6, *and* it’s a solar eclipse year? It’s got an almost numerological mystique to it.
Miura: Maybe that’s where the whole 666 thing comes from.
–Ah, true, like in The Omen. Oh, I get it now, so that’s why it’s the number of the Devil. Pretty well thought-out, really. Cool.
Miura: This is something a fan told me, but in a peasants’ rebellion or revolutionary war or something in Germany a long time ago there was this knight who used to fight with a metal prosthetic arm because he’d lost his right arm to cannon fire, and apparently his name was Gotz. But I only found out after.
–So Guts wasn’t based on him or anything.
Miura: Total synchronicity. ♦
Kentaro Miura
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kentaro Miura
Kentaro Miura.jpg
Born 11 July 1966 (age 50)
Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture
Nationality Japanese
Occupation Manga artist
Years active 1976–present
Known for Berserk
Awards Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize (2002)
Kentarō Miura (三浦 建太郎 Miura Kentarō?, born 11 July 1966) is a Japanese manga artist best known for his popular dark fantasy manga, Berserk.
Contents [hide]
1 Career
2 Influences
3 Works
4 References
5 External links
Career[edit]
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Kentarō Miura was born in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, in 1966. He is left-handed. In 1976, at the early age of 10, Miura made his first manga, entitled Miuranger, that was published for his classmates in a school publication; the manga ended up spanning 40 volumes. In 1977, Miura created his second manga called Ken e no michi (剣への道 The Way to the Sword), using India ink for the first time. When he was in middle school in 1979, Miura's drawing techniques improved greatly as he started using professional drawing techniques. His first dōjinshi was published, with the help of friends, in a magazine in 1982.
That same year, in 1982, Miura enrolled in an artistic curriculum in high school, where he and his classmates started publishing their works in school booklets, as well as having his first dōjinshi published in a fan-produced magazine. In 1985, Miura applied for the entrance examination of an art college in Nihon University. He submitted Futanabi for examination and was granted admission. This project was later nominated Best New Author work in Weekly Shōnen Magazine. Another Miura manga Noa was published in Weekly Shōnen Magazine the very same year. Due to a disagreement with one of the editors, the manga was stalled and eventually dropped altogether. This is approximately where Miura's career hit a slump.
In 1988, Miura bounced back with a 48-page manga known as Berserk Prototype, as an introduction to the current Berserk fantasy world. It went on to win Miura a prize from the Comi Manga School. In 1989 Miura started a project titled King of Wolves (王狼 ōrō?) based on a script by Buronson, writer of Hokuto no Ken. It was published in the Japanese magazine Monthly Animal House in May and July of that year.
In 1990, a sequel is made to Ourou entitled Ourou Den (王狼伝 ōrō den, The Legend of the Wolf King) that was published as a prequel to the original in Young Animal magazine. In the same year, the October issue of Animal House witnesses the first volume of the solo project Berserk was released with a relatively limited success. Miura again collaborated with Buronson on manga titled Japan, that was published in Young Animal from the 1st issue to the 8th of 1992, and was later released as a stand-alone tankōbon. Miura's fame grew after Berserk was serialized in Young Animal in 1992 with the release of "The Golden Age" story arc and ultimately the series became a huge success, making him one of the most prominent contemporary manga artists. At this time Miura dedicates himself solely to be working on Berserk. He has indicated, however, that he intends to publish more manga in the future.
In 1997, Miura supervised the production of 25 anime episodes of Berserk that aired in the same year on NTV. Various art books and supplemental materials by Miura based on Berserk are also released. In 1999, Miura made minor contributions to the Dreamcast video game Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage. 2004 saw the release of yet another video game adaptation entitled Berserk Millennium Falcon Arc: Chapter of the Holy Demon War.
Since that time, the Berserk manga has spanned 38 tankōbon with no end in sight. The series has also spawned a whole host of merchandise, both official and fan-made, ranging from statues, action figures to key rings, video games, and a trading card game. In 2002, Miura received the second place in the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize of Excellence for Berserk.[1]
Miura provided the design for the Vocaloid Kamui Gakupo, whose voice is taken from the Japanese singer and actor, Gackt.
Influences[edit]
Miura stated that the work that had the biggest impact on his own is Fist of the North Star.[2] The manga artist Go Nagai had a key element in developing Miura's style.[citation needed] Miura has also cited Susumu Hirasawa's music as inspiration.
Works[edit]
Miuranger (1976)
Ken e no Michi (1977)
Futatabi (1985)
Noa (1985)
Berserk Prototype (1988)
King of Wolves (1989)
Berserk (1989–present)
Ourou Den (1990)
Japan (1992)
Gigantomakhia (2013)
References[edit]
Jump up ^ "2002 (6th) Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prizes". The Hahn Library. Archived from the original on 2007-12-30.
Jump up ^ ""Berserk" Discussion Explores Kentarō Miura's Roots". Crunchyroll. 2016-08-12. Retrieved 2016-09-11.
Kentaro Miura
Biography
Mini Bio (1)
Kentarou Miura was born in Chiba City, Japan, in 1966.
While attending college at Nihon University, in 1988, Miura debuted a 48-page manga known as Berserk Prototype, an introduction to the current Berserk fantasy world. It went on to win Miura a prize from the Comi Manga School. In 1989, after receiving a doctorate degree, Kentarou started a project titled King of Wolves based on a script by Buronson, writer of Hokuto no Ken (Fist Of The North Star).
In 1990, the first volume Berserk was released with a relatively limited success. Miura again collaborated with Buronson on manga entitled "Japan". Miura's fame grew after Berserk began "The Golden Age" story arc and the huge success of this masterpiece made of him one of the most prominent contemporary manga artists.
At this time, Miura dedicates himself solely to be working on Berserk. He has indicated, however, that he intends to publish more manga in the future. The Berserk manga has spanned 35 volumes with no end in sight.
In 1997, Miura supervised the production of 25 anime episodes of Berserk that aired in the same year on NTV. Various art books and supplemental materials by Miura based on Berserk are also released.
The series has also spawned a whole host of merchandise, both official and fan-made, ranging from statues, action figures to key rings, video games, and a trading card game. In 2002, Kentaro Miura received the second place in the Tezuka Osamu (Astro Boy) Cultural Prize of Excellence for Berserk.
Filmography
Jump to: Writer | Music department | Art department | Miscellaneous Crew | Thanks
Hide HideWriter (7 credits)
2016 Berserk (TV Series) (manga - 2 episodes)
- The Holy Iron Chain Knights (2016) ... (manga)
- The Branded Swordsman (2016) ... (manga)
2013 Berserk: The Golden Age Arc III - The Advent (manga)
2012 Berserk: The Golden Age Arc II - The Battle for Doldrey (manga)
2012 Berserk: The Golden Age Arc I - The Egg of the King (manga)
2004 Berserk Millennium Falcon Arc: Chapter of the Holy Demon War (Video Game) (manga)
1999 Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage (Video Game) (original scenario - as Kentarou Miura)
1997 Berserk (TV Series) (creator) / (story)
Hide HideMusic department (1 credit)
1999 Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage (Video Game) (music supervisor - as Kentarou Miura) / (musical director - as Kentarou Miura)
Hide HideArt department (1 credit)
1999 Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage (Video Game) (original character designer - as Kentarou Miura)
Hide HideMiscellaneous Crew (1 credit)
1999 Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage (Video Game) (executive supervisor - as Kentarou Miura)
Hide HideThanks (1 credit)
1999 Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage (Video Game) (special thanks - as Kentarou Miura)
Personal Details
Alternate Names: Kentarou Miura
Giganto Maxia, Vol. 1
Publishers Weekly.
263.14 (Apr. 4, 2016): p67.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Giganto Maxia, Vol. 1
Kentaro Miura. Dark Horse, $13.99 (232p)
ISBN 9781616559472
The writer/artist of the infamous dark fantasy Berserk is back with his first new work in 20 years, a hardhitting fable
roughly inspired by Roman mythology. Delos, an exgladiator, and Prome, his naiadlike companion, are wanderers in
a barren, postapocalyptic world populated by humans, demihumans, and Gigantosmassive creatures in service to the
Empire of Olympus who can destroy the Earth or return life to it. Thrown into a fight to the death with a desert tribe's
most powerful fighter, goodhearted Delos sets about solving things via mantoman combat. But when the Empire's
army shows up in the village with a Giganto, Delos, and Prome must break out the big guns and become a Giganto
themselves. Miura's art once again pushes the boundaries of space and line, often filling the page with visceral
expressions, creative crosshatching, and clever sound effects, all with stunning results. The story, too, is masterly; it
reinforces the importance of striving to do better, even during times of suffering. Old fans and new ones will no doubt
soon push this to bestseller status. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Giganto Maxia, Vol. 1." Publishers Weekly, 4 Apr. 2016, p. 67. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA448902716&it=r&asid=970a3f3977f5c6dfae286db304e4f078.
Accessed 30 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A448902716
Berserk: Book One
Publishers Weekly.
251.10 (Mar. 8, 2004): p52.
COPYRIGHT 2004 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
KENTARO MIURA. Dark Horse, $13.95 paper (224p) ISBN 1593070209
This ultraviolent fantasy manga is the first in a series about a cursed lone wanderer with a tragic fate and a cast of biohorror
demons. Deserving its name, Berserk offers a montage of merciless violence and thrilling action sequences in a
blend of pure fantasy and graphic horror. Set in a netherworld of a science fiction Dark Age, the story's antihero is the
appropriately named Guts (he's shameless, relentless and all strength). Guts is on a quest to avenge a flesheating
demon ruler and lift his demon curse. Guts carries the sign of the curse on his necka mysterious brand that attracts
evil demons, spirits and the undead. Armed with a massive sword and metal cannonballshooting prosthetic arm, he
maneuvers through a cast of oddities: a pus and blood fetus monster, a giant cobra and an Alienslike biomechanical
monster. They all plague him in nightmares and waking life. Anyone who interacts with Guts is doomed, too, as either
his victim or the incidental sufferer of his demon adversaries, and he winds up leaving a trail of carnage in every
direction. Guts's unlikely companion, Puck, is an androgynous, winged elf who possesses magic healing powers, and
while Guts scoffs at the sprite, Puck proves to be an invaluable buddy. Published in Japan in 1989, this work has a
style characteristic of other 1980s manga, with sparse dialogue, spectacular action sequences and gritty character art.
The pencil shading and use of shadows lend an ominous tone, and the frenetic and intense pace make Berserk a strong
addition to the fantasyhorror manga genre. (Dec. 2003)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Berserk: Book One." Publishers Weekly, 8 Mar. 2004, p. 52. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA114169567&it=r&asid=66a9bb58f3ad7cfeb38b31c7c31dcbfc.
Accessed 30 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A114169567
Giganto Maxia Manga Review
Posted by Chris Beveridge
February 3, 2016 at 07:00 PM
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Giganto MaxiaA new path forward in a far flung future.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Kentaro Miura
Translation/Adaptation: Not Listed
What They Say
From Berserk creator Kentaro Miura comes Giganto Maxia, a science-fiction/fantasy manga of titanic proportions! One hundred million years in the future, the Empire of Olympus uses colossal mutant beasts to crush its adversaries. Only the gladiator Delos, the mystic Prome, and the titan Gohra can hope to prevent genocide!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Kentaro Miura has certainly delighted me across the years with his work on Berserk, though I’ll easily admit I fell out of the ongoing releases years ago due to the irregular schedule for it and the drawn out nature. But the man can produce some visually stirring work on an epic scale that few creators are able to – mostly because the ones that gain fame are those that work the weekly churn. Miura took some time off from Berserk to stretch his skills with this series back in late 2013 to early 2014, a seven chapter/single volume book that tells one particular tale. It’s the kind of exercise that’s good for a storyteller, particularly one mired deep within an expansive and decades-long work, as it lets them flex and break free from it for a bit.
The tale is the very loose kind where the less you ask about the details the better off you are. Taking place a hundred million years in the future, we’re introduced to a world where everything has been altered in a dark and post-apocalyptic way that’s reminiscent of Nausicaa to a degree. When a mass from space collided with the Earth it brought about the end times for man, resulting in small and unusual scatterings across the globe. It also gave rise eventually to the Giganto, massive creatures that are like sea creatures given to be hundreds of feet tall and massive in their power. Some of these giganto are controlled by the Empire that runs a hard and cruel nation that destroys so much that’s out in the wastelands, particularly as they try to gain control over more giganto that exist out there.
Where we follow the tale is with a warrior of the wasteland, a wrestler of sorts named Delos. Delos works with a little girl named Prome who is essentially his contractor, using him to achieve her goals. The pair are part of what she’s trying to bring about into the world with a new form of symbiosis as they’re able to become a giganto themselves. So what it wants to work through is showing the nature of their relationship as they end up at the sprawling and intriguing scarab beetle village where humans, the strain known as Myu, exist with the beetles. The outlying villages related to this have been hunted and destroyed for some time and the empire is closing in on them, which has Prome wanting to come there to try and see how they operate and if they’re part of how the world is changing.
That’s all a very loose look at the overarching storyline because there really isn’t a whole lot deeper than that, though you can easily read a lot more into it. Where it wants to spend its time, and wisely so, is with the expansive fight sequences. Early on we get several chapters showing the fight between Delos and the best warrior of the village and it’s just a sprawling wrestling match between two highly skilled and powerful people. There are some striking sequences in how it unfolds and Miura’s detail and flow of it with the layouts and movements just make it captivating to go through, a true master of his craft. Just as engaging but in a different way are the giganto fights move as we get a lot of incredible two-page and one-page spreads that just defy visually. There’s so much detail to it, so rich in layers and nuance with how it all works and the musculature of it, that you could easily spend hours poring over it as a lesson in how to create something incredibly dynamic.
In Summary
I was curious about this short run series back when it was first announced in Japan and I was thrilled when Dark Horse picked it up. Considering their strong support of Miura over the years with Berserk you could consider it a given, but you never know. What we get with this book is like a sliver of a far larger story, a snapshot of events that tease the larger concept but focus on what’s essentially a brawling book, and it works surprisingly well if you stick to that angle. The story is simplistic but it’s designed to be easily accessible. What makes it a thrilling ride to take is just the visual design and detail of the artwork as it feels incredibly rare to see this kind of work out there these days, even more so with what gets licensed in the US. This may not be a mainstream book but it’s the kind of book that really should be looked at for the greater appreciation of what the medium can produce from such a talent as Miura.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: February 3rd, 2016
MSRP: $13.99
Giganto Maxia Review: Solid
Posted by Rocco Sansone on 2/10/16 • Categorized as Books & Comics
Kentaro Miura is most famously known for his long-running manga “Berserk.” What some don’t know is that Miura has also created some shorter series while writing “Berserk.” One of them is “Giganto Maxia,” which is now available for the first time in America. The manga itself is pretty decent.
One hundred million years after a great cataclysm, the planet is hanging by a thread and it is all a giant wasteland. Delos, a former gladiator for the Empire along with a mystic named Prome, walk across the wastelands in order to defeat giants called Gigantos in order to rejuvenate the planet.
The setting isn’t all that original. In fact, there are plenty of post-apocalyptic settings in manga. This manga takes this setting and has the characters do everything to fix it. That sounds like a creative idea, but very little of it is here. This story is only seven chapters long, but it feels like it needs to be much longer in order to bring its full potential out.
Delos and Prome are probably the best things about this manga. Their interactions with each other are some of the best dialogue in the manga. The uncomfortable way Prome gives her nectar to Delos may incite a cheap laugh, but that cheap laugh is done so perfectly that the reader doesn’t care if it’s cheap.
The art may look similar to “Berserk,” but its tone is completely different. Whereas “Berserk” was dark, gory and had a lot of scary imagery and demons galore, the art here is more toned down. This is especially true with Prome who is a super cute lolicon character which makes certain scenes of her and Delos even more uncomfortable than they already are.
“Giganto Maxia” is a decent offering by Kentaro Miura with some nice art and interesting main leads despite the world not being original and the story needing a few more chapters to feel complete.
REVIEW: BERSERK
January 5, 2016 · by Kevin · in Books, Reviews. ·
If you were branded for death by evil spirits and you had to fend off nightmarish demons every night to survive, you wouldn’t last long. But Guts has, and continues to do so in Berserk.
Genre(s): Dark Fantasy
Writer: Kentaro Miura
Artist: Kentaro Miura
Status: Ongoing
Purchase At: Amazon
Good:
Amazingly detailed art.
Strong cast.
Deep and complex world and cosmology.
Masterful writing.
Bad:
NOTHING
Review
Berserk takes place in a grim medieval fantasy world. TV Tropes describes it as a “Crapsack World” and for good reason. In this world things can and most likely will always go wrong. Morality is skewed at best. Violence is rampant in all its forms, including sexual abuse. Nearly every major character in Berserk endures torture and rape at some point in their histories and while there’s the trauma you’d expect, the act itself is commonplace.
This is a world of magic as well, but rarely do you see benign sorcery. Most is foul and corrupt, performed by hateful beings and paranoid people. When burning witches and heretics is Monday Night entertainment, you learn to be paranoid and mistrusting with your special skills. There are demons all around the world, but hidden behind a veil, unseen by most. But the greatest proof of the world’s evil is the Apostles, humans who’ve “ascended” into demon-hood by sacrificing their loved ones.
Berserk
Guts, the Black Swordsman
But because the world is so dark do its heroes—or anti-heroes to be precise—shine so much. Guts, our protagonist, was a mercenary but after his leader and friend Griffith sacrificed their entire mercenary band to become an Apostle, raping the woman Guts loves in the process, he travels the world in search for revenge. The ritual marked Guts—he also lost an eye and one hand—and Casca, the female lead, as sacrifices but they survived, but their rescuer tells them that life will never be easy for them. The mark calls evil to them, to finish the job. He also seeks a way to restore Casca’s mind, broken from the trauma of Griffith’s ritual. She’s almost child-like, with barely any sense of self.
What makes the world of Berserk so interesting is how deep it is. Yes, it’s a horrible place but there are still good people to go along with the bad. There are Kingdoms and laws, affiliations and politics. Violence, distrust and paranoia are common but there is also kindness and mercy. Kentaro Miura knows how to craft a world and a story, making sure there are enough happy and lighthearted moments, and developing his characters through it so that when bad things happen you feel the impact. Many Dark Fantasy settings work on piling on the misery but forget that even in the darkest of moments there are also pockets of hope, moments of joy that make the bad feel so much worse. But Berserk handles it wonderfully.
Berserk
Look at the detail!
The world’s richness isn’t just for the mortal world. The entire cosmology, the planes of existence, also have his masterful touch, showing you the nightmarish landscapes of the lower dimensions and just by sight and descriptions alone, he evokes the beauty and peace the upper realms surely possess. Kentaro Miura doesn’t give us a black & white world, where good and evil have clear definitions but one where we constantly ask if something is righteous or not. Every character, including the main villain and every demon the characters face, has their own morality, their own views on good and evil. Some have clearly ridden the super-fun-slide of evil all the way down, but with others you can almost believe that if things had been different, then they and the protagonists might have been friends.
But Miura’s greatest strength as a writer is in his characterisation. No matter how lowly the person is, how insignificant they might be to the grand scheme of things, they will be full characters with motivations and histories. They have distinct personalities and you grow to care for them. Take the members of the Griffith’s mercenary group, The Band of the Hawk. You know they’re going to be ritual-fodder but as he tells the story of how things got there, Miura makes you care for these characters, shows you how their strength and weaknesses and teaches you how Guts changed from a loner to someone who valued his companions. Then he takes it all away from you and you hurt as much as Guts does, and his outrage at Casca’s rape becomes your outrage.
Berserk
Just looking at this gives me Carpal Tunnel syndrome!
The story isn’t just from Guts’ point of view, but we see others as well, even the villains. These chapters fill out information crucial to the story but without giving any of it away. Every major arc has brilliant pacing, with Miura taking just enough time to introduce the situation and build the characters while still moving things along so when they reach the climax, it’s a satisfying one.
But it’s not just in writing where Kentaro Miura excels but also in the art. I have never seen such intricate level of detail in a manga before. During the flashback segments of the story, in the Golden Age arc, you see the many battles the Band of The Hawk fought and in each of those you see the minutest of details in enemy armours, from symbols and emblems to the individual coats of arms of the Lords. Architecture is astounding as Miura draws even the tiniest of bricks that form the façade of a building. The details in the monsters bring out their horrific nature, or sometimes their hidden grace. You can almost feel the strain in Guts’ arms when he swings his massive sword from the way Miura draws him.
Berserk
Griffith’s Apostle ritual, the stuff of nightmares
The art helps tell the story as much as the writing. The pristine architecture and giant armies I mentioned help you understand the scale of the battles but also how things were and even how bright they seemed. The present is much rougher—and I don’t mean a loss of quality—with deeper shadows. The Kingdom of Falconia, a recent development, is bright and magnificent, but its shadows are some of the darkest Miura has ever drawn, to perhaps tell us of the dangers lurking within the city walls.
Conclusion
Berserk is a work of art, one that is still ongoing and one I will surely miss once it ends. Kentaro Miura is a master storyteller, in both writing and art, as his illustrations shape and convey his world as well as his writing. This is such an amazing manga, that I have to bring out another of these rare trophies, one for each genre/media.
After all, there can be only one.
TMA SCORE:
6/5 – Highlander!