Kentaro Miura, artist and writer, has died. He is world famous for Berserk, one of the greatest manga series of all time. He was only 54.
Miura was a master of both storytelling and art and through the 40 volumes of Berserk created an original and compelling fantasy saga that hooked millions of readers worldwide. It has spawned novels and films and anime series, and inspired countless other properties from manga to movies to video games. Berserk is currently still being serialized, and the story is unfinished.
As a lifelong fan of fantasy worlds Berserk grabbed me from the first moment I watched the first anime (which was released in the USA before the manga was translated). In time I would eventually own all the manga and various anime/movie series and I loved all of it. Much manga is disposable, forgotten about almost as soon as you close the book. Berserk is the very opposite – a work of importance that transcends it’s medium.
I don’t know much about Miura himself since he hid from the public eye and rarely gave interviews, and when he did he didn’t talk much about himself. But I’ve read him refer to himself as a massive otaku, and a manga fan from a very early age. He was apparently somewhat of a hikikomori as well (a shut-in) and enjoyed video games and reading other manga. The creation of Berserk was his life: he started in 1989 and rarely worked on anything else. Despite its length it’s clear the story was very considered and planned in advance, and I don’t doubt he had an ending in mind. In 2019 he said in an interview that the Guts and Casca arc ‘was over’ and that ‘the story is nearing it’s final chapter’, which would presumably have been the decades-long-awaited final confrontation between Guts and Griffith.
And now we may never see that happen, and I’m ok with that. Miura crafted a world so intricate and real that maybe it’s left to us – his readers – to imagine our own endings. Or perhaps we can imagine that it never ends, and the story continues forever, as Muira’s magnum opus will.
Rest in peace Kentaro Miura.
Well said, mate. He was a master.