Anime Club: Berserk: The Golden Age Arc I: The Egg of the King

BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC I: THE EGG OF THE KING

DIRECTED BY: Toshiyuki Kubooka

GENRE: Action, Dark Fantasy

YEAR: 2012

COUNTRY: Japan

Guts, a mercenary, attracts the attention of the Band of the Hawk and is forced into joining the group after being defeated by its leader Griffith twice. Once the Hawks defeated the kingdom of Chuder’s Black Ram Iron Lance Calvary, they are recruited by Midland for its war against the rival kingdom. During one siege, Guts and Griffith encounter the demon Nosferatu Zodd, who notices the Behelit around Griffith’s neck and warns Guts that Griffith will be his doom.

I want to preface this that I have only seen very little of the movies and series in the Berserk franchise, so I am only a bit familiar with the background and lore of the franchise. By far one of the most popular anime franchises, The Golden Age Arc – The Egg of the King is the first film in the movie compilation that serves as a retelling of the Golden Age arc. The animation style is superb and definitely, serves as a standard for the technology at the time. Also, I would like to give a shout out to the voice cast, as their performances resonated with their characters rather well.

I have two major drawbacks and disappointments when it comes to The Egg of the King.  First off, while the art style was done really well, I didn’t feel that it resonated with the Berserk story as well as it could have. It definitely created a more stylized feel than the grittiness the Berserk is known for. Lastly, I didn’t enjoy the film as much as I could have because there is honestly very little action or anything going on. The Egg of the King is definitely no more than setting up for the rest of the Golden Age arc story.

PROS:

• Appealing animation.
• Main cast performance.

CONS:

• The majority of the story is just setup.
• Animation is too stylized.
• Quite uninteresting if you know nothing about the Berserk franchise.

SCORE: 5.5 / 10

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