Kentaro Miura, the creator of the long-running and best selling dark fantasy manga Berserk, began drawing at the age of 10.
Born on July 11, 1966 to artist parents, Miura created his first manga entitled Miuranger in 1976 which was published for his classmates in a school publication. Miuranger spanned 40 volumes and he created a second manga in 1977 titled Ken e no Michi (The Way to the Sword).
Miura graduated from the art college of Nihon University in Tokyo in 1989. His most popular work, Berserk, was first serialised in Hakusensha’s Monthly Animal House in the same year.
It went on to sell more than 50 million copies worldwide during the span of his career. The popularity of Berserk inspired two TV series, a film trilogy and two video games. In 2002, he won the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize.
Its popularity also spilled over to the US market with publisher Dark Horse helming the English-language version of the manga. In 2018, Dark Horse reported that Berserk remains the top-selling series in its history, with nearly two million copies sold.
Unfortunately, Miura’s demise due to an acute aortic dissection on May 6, 2021 leaves the story of Berserk, which has spanned 40 volumes, incomplete.
As an artist, Miura was known for the intricate linework in his drawings and his stories that infuses sword fights and supernatural encounters with complex moral dilemmas and themes.
His style was distinguished by the obsessive use of minute crosshatching and extra textural details. His attention to detail and love for sweeping fantastical landscapes has been compared to the works of the Dutch Renaissance master Hieronymus Bosch.
“Miura ... fill[ed] those pages with an epic of boldness, elegance, horror, adventure, love, redemption, perseverance, friendship, humour – an epic of contradictions: beautiful, grotesque, whimsical, cosmic,” Dark Horse manga editor Carl Horn wrote in a tribute released by the publisher.
The legendary influence of Berserk can be observed in the world of games, manga, films, anime and even literature. Guts, the main character in Berserk, carries a massive sword and this character design has been attributed to inspire characters like Cloud Strife of Final Fantasy VII and Dante of the Devil May Cry series. Despite the stoic exterior, Miura also managed to flesh out the main character.
“Guts is a survivor of horrific sexual assault, [which] defines his early characterisation more than anything else,” said Kotaku’s Patrick Marlborough.
Other contemporary mangaka who cite Miura as an influence include Attack on Titan’s Hajime Isayama, Black Butler’s Yana Toboso, and Black Clover’s Yuki Tabata.
The influence of his work can also be seen in popular video games such as Dark Souls, Final Fantasy and Devil May Cry. Even the assistant director of Netflix’s Castlevania, Adam Deats, drew inspiration from Miura.
Many have praised Miura for his bold storytelling too. “He was willing to kill off a lot of named characters in one fell swoop to bring Guts to his lowest point,” said Deats. “Playing things a little bit darker and letting ourselves linger on things was something I always took from his work.”
For many fans of Miura, his passing is soul crushing. In light of this, Dark Horse’s Horn included an uplifting word to Miura’s legion of fans in the written tribute.
“By the millions he touched lives, inspired lives – put life into people, sometimes when we truly needed it. You who are his fans knew that already; some of Miura-sensei’s life is in you now. You are already carrying the story forward,” Horn wrote.
Berserk’s Volume 41, will be the first tankubon (collected volume) to be released since Miura’s passing, with a regular and Special Edition.
Slated for a Dec 24 release date, the Special Edition will include a drama CD featuring an adaptation of the Awakening arc from Berserk, which has never been adapted in the series’ multiple anime adaptations.
