The legendary black broadsword, or Dragon Slayer, wielded by Guts in the Berserk anime is enormous in size and weight and is regarded as one of the most iconic weapons in anime history, requiring tremendous strength to wield. ”It was far too large to be referred to as a sword. Massive, thick, and heavy, with way too much roughness. It was, indeed, a lump of raw iron.” This is the sword’s official description. How would fans react if the creator picked a Japanese katana rather than the renowned sword? Yes, the creator confirmed this in an interview.
Creator Kentaro Miura wanted Guts to wield a Japanese katana
When asked about the sword, which is one of Guts’ key attributes, and whether it came from Violence Jack, Miura said,
“It comes from Shinji Wada’s Pygmalio. Also, I believe there was an illustration of a two- or three-meter-tall giant wielding a sword in the Guin Saga spin-off The Snow Queen.”
He asserts that Guts’ sword is a hybrid of the two. It’s just the right dimension to be convenient while still offering that close-to-the-action sensation of violent men’s manga. He couldn’t make up his mind for a time, and Guts’ design changed a lot—long hair, carrying a katana, and so on. After much deliberation, he arrived at where he is now, and he believed he had nailed it. All he needed to accomplish was capture the twirling motion of that sword and its pleasantness.
He continued to explain,
”At first, he simply had a bow gun linked to one arm, which he handled like a concealed weapon, but the impact was little. And his sword was originally from Japan.”
He had the notion of an Asian guy with a Japanese sword and an illusion on his left hand going around in a medieval Europe scenario, but when he reflected on it, the Dragon Slayer and the prosthetic arm cannon immediately clicked as the correct ideas.
He thought it struck an interesting balance in that it is more unbelievable than reality, but not so much that it destroys reality. It’s genuine enough to be beyond the realm of fantasy, and it makes us wonder whether we, too, could do what he does if we only trained our bodies hard enough. On the other hand, we cannot relate to someone who can fly. He claims he intended to convey the idea that someone with pro-wrestler muscles could swing the Dragon Slayer once or twice. As a result, he came up with the name Guts. ”Now, where do things go from there?” he asks, laughing.
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Mass Psychology in Berserk, Miura talks about the universal law of karma.
When asked to elaborate on his views on the laws of Karma, he said,
”Well, how do I put this? When you’re a cartoonist working at home, you sit at your desk pretty much all day. You get most of your information about the world from the news on TV. I think that’s how most cartoonists spend their days. And then I start to see the whole picture of my point of view towards all the problems that are happening in the world.’’
He believed that an average working man in an ideal world would have an issue of his own. He’d be concerned about his children’s academic performance.
But because Miura lived in isolation and only watched the news on TV, he got to see a broader context. He said he could see the world from a different perspective. He wasn’t referring to a specific occurrence. If he heard of a conflict in another nation or a massacre someplace in Japan, he simply looked at the world objectively. Spiritual sects and atrocities have recently been in the news, he added.
When he perceived such tales, he preferred to imagine what was happening rather than try to find an answer. He merely wanted to experience it in his own unique way. During the process, the concept became more apparent and refined. He claimed that he had already expressed this in an interview, but when he discovered Tsuchizoku and Futsuzoku, it inspired Berserk. He was working on Berserk while listening to the news.
And a few years later, in Berserk, he wrote on mass psychology. He believes that encounter inspired him to write about it in order to better comprehend it himself. In the beginning, up until volume five, he was still penning something he had thought of in college. As a result, his real life was heavily mirrored in the early stories. After a while, he began to see the big picture.
Source: Berserk wiki
