Berserk fan-made anime has already gone viral

Tristan Stringer

A group of Berserk fans have aimed to create their own anime of the series, and they’ve received tremendous support for their efforts.

Any Berserk fan would tell you that the situation with an anime adaptation of the series is rather dire. The 1997 Berserk anime has a cult following and is considered the best adaptation we’ve received versus the poor attempt of the Berserk 2016 3D animated series, which, unfortunately, is the only Berserk anime that goes beyond the Golden Age into “modern” territory.

Since then, we’ve received a quality trilogy of films recapping the Golden Age that was given a release with new scenes treatment as a tribute to the late Berserk author Kentaro Miura. Still, apart from those releases, there is nothing else worth mentioning.

That is, until a group of fans came together to make a faithful anime adaptation of the Black Swordsman Berserk arc.

Fan-made Berserk anime recieves huge support

Since uploading in October 2023, this teaser has amassed over 1.2 million views on YouTube, with the project only gaining more support as time goes on. By proxy, this team of fans is solidifying their interest in a new Berserk anime.

The teaser trailer and the description state: “We aim to create a proper 2D adaptation of the stories that have been neglected of this medium, starting from the beginning.” We can imagine this is aiming to adapt the entirety of the Black Swordsman arc of Berserk, the prologue set after the Golden Age that kickstarts the series.

The 1997 Berserk anime briefly touches upon this arc in the first episode but is heavily cut down to the very bare bones of the arc, only including an early segment of the Black Swordsman arc, heavily censoring and changing details of the story. This fan adaptation may aim to recreate the Black Swordsman arc faithfully, and judging by the violence included in the teaser, this will be no-holds-barred regarding accuracy.

What supports this school of thought is the Studio ECLYPSE Twitter/X page with a post showing an image of Guts and a villain known as “The Count” in his apostle form. A famous scene not shown in anime before, despite the arc’s brief inclusion in the 1997 anime, further proves that Eclypse is striving for a faithful adaptation.

This collaboration of fans known as Studio ECLYPSE includes markReymer, who runs their own animation YouTube channel full of anime-inspired works, including recreating a scene from the infamous “Lost Children” arc of Berserk. All Berserk enthusiasts will want to watch out for this fantastic fan-driven project as more action-packed animation is planned for the near future.