The fifth day of Scotland Loves Anime held such delights as the European premiere of the second Berserk movie: Battle for Doldrey, the international premiere (that's even before general release in Japan) of Nerawareta Gakuen as well as a repeat of last week's European premiere of Blood-C: The Last Dark.
The Berserk movie was once again graced by guests Naoyuki Onda and Fuko Noda who provided a brief Q&A session after the film which, despite a persistent issue with the synchronisation of the subtitles with the audio, was everything a Berserk film needed to be. Cleaving closely to the story set out by the manga but making some smart decisions on what to include and what to omit for a feature-length production.
The first time we are introduced to Guts' sword, the Dragonslayer, in Berserk is in the opening seconds as the master blacksmith Godo mends it. The first time we are properly introduced to it however is when Guts cleaves a brigand clean in two, taking out a solid wooden table and most of the floor with him. It's a monumentally absurd weapon, as tall if not more so than the wielder and likely just as heavy, outside of fiction it would be impossible for any human to wield.
For the 1997 anime at least, this introduction is misleading as the sword that we see for the remainder of the series is just as tall but not quite as absurd. It's not the only one of course - Guts grows up and events transpire which changes who he is and subsequently what he wields.
N.B. While this post deals primarily with the story covered by the Berserk anime series, allusions and non-specific spoilers regarding the manga are also made.
