Berserk fans looking to rewatch one of the more infamous adaptations of the manga can soon make space on their Blu-ray shelf for a new Golden Age release. Specifically, Berserk: The Golden Age Arc Memorial Edition, a new collection of the 2012-2013 films. Available to preorder now at Amazon and Crunchyroll Store, this film trilogy will be released in the coming months.
Amazon lists the release date as June 18 with free launch-day delivery for Prime members. Meanwhile, Crunchyroll marks the date as August 27. So unless Amazon really is getting the Blu-ray a lot earlier than Crunchyroll for some unknown reason, one of these dates has to be wrong. Preorders at Amazon currently cost $70, and you won’t be charged until your order ships. You’ll get the set for the lowest price offered between the time you order and release, so there’s still a chance that Amazon will wind up matching Crunchyroll’s generous discount that drops the price to $52.49.
The films in this release will feature both English and Japanese dubs, and for extras, you’ll get textless opening and ending songs in the two-disc set. While the cover art says it’s not final, it looks like this release will feature stunning art of Guts in a berserker rage.
The Golden Age arc of Berserk was an interesting experiment to revisit the manga. An anime adaptation originally aired in 1997, but made several major deviations from the source material, something the Golden Age films attempted to avoid. Far more faithful to the manga, the films mixed beautiful animation with CGI to mixed results, but overall, this is still a fantastic retelling of Berserk’s first major arc and it ends during the infamous Eclipse sequence. While the 1997 anime’s take on that brutal event is still horrifying, the Golden Age version is pure nightmare fuel in comparison. Some might say it’s almost as terrifying to watch as Berserk 2016.
Of course, if you’re a firm believer in Berserk 1997, you can get the show in its best format right now at Amazon. The Blu-ray release has regularly sold out several times since its initial release in March, but fresh stock of the 25-episode series is available again at Amazon and Crunchyroll:
Finally, you can never go wrong with the manga. The late Kentaro Miura’s dark fantasy series has been collected in several editions over the years, but the beautifully oversized hardcover volumes are the best of the lot.
