The Black Witch
Casca and her curse which causes demons to gather near her results in Luca and the rest of the girls running into too much attention. Considering people are being burned at the stake or dragged off in chains for for being suspicious, prying eyes are not a real good thing.
Guts arrives at the camp and he gets show off his heroism. Yes he’s crass and lacking in charm but he still lives by a code of honor which tells him to step in and save those who can’t save themselves. He may not be Prince Charming but he’s still one of the best individuals to be introduced in this entire world so far. Seeing him step between an innocent person and a whip or run at top speed on his way to save Casca really make you want to stand up and cheer for him.
Isidoro and Puck get a lot of screen time together in this episode and proclaim their intentions to stick with Guts. This team up offers some lighter comedic moments complete with Puck giving Isidoro a teasing nickname. This does serve a purpose and helps to alleviate the extreme moments of violence and implied rape which can occur in the series. Still the off putting weird art style they employ to show the lighter side isn’t helping the difficulty with the dealing with the rough slapstick animation style which continues to be the biggest flaw of this series.
The episode is okay but really wins with the very last moments. The set up for next episode builds perfect anticipation for Guts to fight some demons and save Casca in the process. Hopefully the art will be a bit more balanced next time as well but it’s starting to feel like this might be asking too much.
Berserk is streaming on Crunchyroll.
