If you are a dark fantasy fan, you would be no stranger to Berserk, Kentaro Miura’s lifetime work. The manga is a pioneer in its genre and fans hold it up to a pedestal. Miura conceived Berserk when he was in college. As usual, the creation was influenced by a number of elements, and Miura’s favorite creator was one of them.
You might know Sam Raimi from Evil Dead and the Spider Man trilogy, but did you know his creations inspired Miura in his journey as a mangaka? Infact, the mangaka was shocked once he realized the similarities between Evil Dead and Berserk. Was it a conscious decision? Or did Miura get a subconscious inspiration?
Kentaro Miura was Scared of a Copyright Strike on Berserk
Berserk is a beautiful story of a dark and gory era and the pain of its protagonist. It is such a brilliant manga that Kentaro Miura is often considered a legend for his story’s progression. Thus, if anyone suggested Berserk was in any way copied from or inspired by another work, fans would probably become livid.
Yet, in an old interview, Miura himself admitted that after submitting his draft for Berserk, he realized that the manga is too similar to another work for his comfort.
Back then [the late 1980s] I was still in college, it was the day I finished the first episode of ‘Berserk,’ and there was ‘Evil Dead II’ playing at theaters. So after I mailed it to the publisher, I went to see it. It was so similar to ‘Berserk,’ I was really surprised by myself.
Evil Dead is a horror comedy franchise created by Sam Raimi. Miura was a huge Raimi fanatic and in the first Evil Dead movie (1981) the protagonist, Ash, was introduced. It is this character who overlaps with Guts and some of his major characteristics.
The Parallels Between Ash and Berserk’s Guts
The plot of Evil Dead and Berserk are fundamentally different. However, the protagonists themselves are not so far apart from each other. Ash has become a cultural icon just like Guts. Both characters are trapped in a cycle of being hounded and tortured by demons. Miura and Raimi both have shown extremely sadist tendencies during the handling of their protagonists.
Both Ash and Guts have missing limbs that have been replaced with mechanical prosthetics. Guts lost his left arm while trying to save Casca. Ash loses his right hand after it is possessed by a Deadite, eventually forcing him to cut it off himself.
As a replacement for his original arm, Ash attached a chainsaw to his arm. Guts on the other hand also has a weaponized limb and was introduced with a mechanical arm, which also acts as a canon.
The similarities peaked during Army of Darkness when Ash was sent back to the Middle Ages and fought demons in castles and forests, much like Guts. Later on, Ash also carries around a slab of iron shaped like a sword which looks very similar to Guts’ special sword.
While there is no guarantee regarding who inspired what, it is always fascinating to find such influences between media originating during the same timeline. Rest assured, Kentaro Miura was never dragged to court for copyright infringement.
You can read Berserk on Viz Media and watch the anime on Crunchyroll. You can stream Evil Dead on Max.
