what is the greatest manga of all time the answer to that question is one that varies widely from person to person there can't be a definitive answer to something so subjective however there are a few series you'd probably receive in response more than others popular series well-renowned legendary series there are many reputable titles by many reputable creators however the legend of one Series in particular the reverence with which this manga is held dwarfs the reputations of pretty much any other title you could name that manga is berserk everyone who watches anime and reads manga knows
of it every manga artist every anime director knows of it too it's probably your favorite manga artist favorite manga along with the manga itself The Man Behind it has become an icon in the manga industry his impeccable artistic ability in terms of both the visual aspect in The Narrative of his work as well as his lifelong dedication to the craft has cemented his legacy as one of the greatest to ever put pen to paper but much like berserk his life's work his story is one of immense tragedy this is the life of the greatest manga
Creator to ever live canaro [Music] [Music] mirira canaro mirira was born July 11th of 1966 in cha prefecture which sits on the coast of Japan's honu Island Mio was born into an artistic family his father worked as a commercial storyboard artist and his mother taught in art class this environment fostered mir's artistic inclination and allowed his skills to really Bloom as his mother taught her class he would sit at the back of the room and draw in his notebooks from an early age later in life he would also acknowledge that seeing his father's storyboards influenced
how he panel his manga in preschool mea was only doodling aimlessly but by the time he reached elementary school he was creating actual manga and he was set on doing it for the rest of his life knowing Mira's future work it's kind of hard to imagine anything else being the case I mean berserk is a manga created with painstaking dedication and detail it is a masterpiece that could only have been created by someone with a lifelong determination to draw manga so that decision mea made as a young child was not only well-placed but also beneficial
to the medium of manga as berserk would go on to inspire many of the stories that we know and love at the age of 10 Mir created a manga titled Mi Ranger a manga of which no copies exist so finding out any details on it is literally impossible but it ran for a whopping 40 volumes in his school's newspaper what this means is that mea was pumping out chapters of this comic every week for nearly a year straight at the age of 10 he was working according to a professional schedule though he obviously wasn't quite
at a professional level yet he would take a large step toward that just the following year at the age of 11 still in elementary school Mir would start up a second manga titled Ken enoi or the way of the sword on which he would use India Inc for the first time 11 years old and already learning to draw with ink and nib pens by the time mea was in Middle School his art was improving vastly and he was using professional techniques already it's incredible just how fast mir's work excelled just how dedicated he was from
a young age an age at which most children can hardly even focus on doing their schoolwork he was already drawing manga with Incredible passion and taking massive strides toward his dream in high school the progress towards his dream would Advance even further and at an even more exponential rate in his sophomore year of high school at the age of 15 he would meet multiple friends who shared his passion for manga chiefly among them Koji Mory this friendship with Mory would turn into one of the most important relationships in mea's entire life in 198 2 mea
and his group of friends would have their short manga projects published in booklets through their art school class and mea and Mori would work together on manga that ended up being published in fan magazines through their shared love of manga Mira and Mori grew very close encouraging each other with their works and spending much of their free time together years later Mory would recall what he called freeloading at the Mira family's home eating dinner and sleeping there many nights practically becoming a member of the family the two grew so close that mea would refer to
them as sharing one brain with the way they completed each other's IDE ideas other friends who were interested in drawing manga would come and go leading mea and mor to realize that none of their peers were quite as serious about manga as they were as the two Grew Older and graduated high school their lives strayed in different directions Mira continued to draw manga and pursue his dream whereas Mori stopped drawing for the time being it was around this time 1984 that Mira took on a job as an assistant for none other than George Mori Kawa
who would go on to create the monster of a series that is Hajime noo at this time mea was 18 more CWA was only a year his senior at 19 and already working on his first professional serialization long before hajim oo was even a thought in his mind this assistant work did not last very long though while mea was working for him morawa got a look at mea's artwork portfolio and was astounded by the quality of mea's work he took particular notice of a few illustrations within that portfolio illustrations of fairies a certain brand and
a dark swordsman wielding a massive blade morawa stared in awe before asking asking Mira what those drawings were to which Mira responded simply there what's inside my head after this morabo would dismiss mea as an assistant stating that there was nothing he could teach mea that he did not already know even at 18 mea had the foundation of his Masterpiece in mind and he had peers with more experience than him shocked by the level of his work throughout his adolescence Mira continuously displays impressive dedication and Excellence with his craft to a degree that is absurd
and indicative of a blooming genius but it doesn't just stop there there in fact as impressive as that all is it pales into comparison to what he would go on to accomplish in 1985 mea applied to Nihon Art University with a short project titled futabi which translates to once more and he was granted admission this manga would later win mea the 34th newcomer manga award in weekly Shonen magazine the manga follows Rick a normal citizen on a seemingly normal planet except it's not normal at all only men live there and when a refugee from a
planet of only women makes her way to Rick's World Rick doesn't even realize she isn't a man he has no clue what women even are the people of the two planets are meant to be kept apart so naturally she is treated as a convict and hunted down by government officials while under Rick's protection the two slowly Begin to Fall in Love and they decide to escape the planet in search of a better place where they can live in peace it's honestly a very touching story I can see why Meera was admitted to a prestigious art
school and won an award because of it if you're a fan of Mira I highly recommend searching out this manga online and giving it a read it's a fascinating glimpse into his Origins and it's also just a really solid enjoyable story later that same year his second official work was published in Fresh Magazine but it was not very successful the manga was titled Noah it followed a sort of wandering mech suit wearing hero type character on a far away desert Planet protecting and rescuing innocent people from Injustice to be perfectly honest the story for Noah
was not nearly as strong as futabi but there was one element of no that displayed mea's progression as a Creator something futabi lacked entirely action Noah has some very well- depicted and dynamic action scenes which leads me to believe that was the entire point of this one shot for meor to practice illustrating combat so while it may not have been successful in the eyes of Publishers or readers it was certainly an important piece of work for mir's development a few years later Mi would get a massive opportunity for his career the chance to work alongside
Ganson the writer behind one of mir's major influences Fist of the North Star the the project they'd be working together on was a short manga titled king of wolves it's unclear when exactly production on this manga began as it wouldn't be released until 1989 and aside from a single one shot mea would publish in 1988 he wasn't working on anything but it's clear that mea was giving this project a lot of time in attention as it was in production for at least over a year before being released despite that it wasn't the only thing receiving
mir's attention as I mentioned in 1988 while working on King of wolves Mira released a one-hot manga this one shot was undoubtedly the most important non-serialized work of mea's [Music] Life most of us know of Berserk as it is starting with the Black Swordsman Arc progressing onto the Golden Age Arc so on and so forth but the story we see on shelves at stores today isn't the first conception of Berserk in 1988 Mira published a one shot in Haku senta's monthly kamikami a one shot now known as berserk the Prototype the one shot was well
regarded by readers and it even placed second in the second annual kamic Kami manga competition the Prototype looks and feels like berserk a bit rough around the edges but still very much berserk and still more refined than his previous onot the imagery is the same as the Black Swordsman Arc character Concepts and Designs are ripped right from the Prototype tweaked a tiny bit and put into the later serialization of Berserk the tone is Bleak there's blood and gold guts is there Puck is there the dragon slayer is there hell even the count is there albeit
with a different form and even the brand of sacrifice is there like I mentioned before Mira had some of these Concepts in mind for quite some time and this prototype was in all likelihood an attempt at testing the waters seeing how well a story about his ideas would fare well needless to say it fared very very well and would be picked up for serialization but before that another of his Works would be published the mangam Mir was working on with baronson king of wolves would finally be published the year following berserk prototype 1989 king of
wolves was received with mixed opinions but despite that it would go on to receive a sequel in the coming years the art while good just is not on the level of mea's other work the line work and cross-hatching is not as clean the action sequences are not as interesting more modern critics describe it as such the only mildly amusing premise is basically an excuse for Mi to draw Macho sword fights and hordes of Cavalry it's important to note that meor was only responsible for the art on this manga which seems to be the most appraisable
aspect of it still I encourage you to read it for yourselves and form your own opinions the same things can be said about the two other projects Mira worked on alongside banson the forementioned sequel to King of wolves and a manga titled simply Japan which I'm going to bring up now despite them being published a little later in me's career for simplicity's sake or Oden or Legend of king of wolves would be published in 1990 to largely similar reception as the original the two manga will be collected into a single volume and be published that
way going forward in in 1992 The Duo published Japan again not great reception I do think it's important to note that the artwork for Japan was certainly better than that of king of wolves but the story just leaves a lot to be desired these three single volume manga would be the only works on which Mir operated as a part of a Duo which was certainly for the best with his next work miror would really get to flex his writing chops something he wasn't able to do with the previously mentioned titles and he would end up
creating one of the most legendary manga series of all time in 1990 berserk began publication this story follows guts a lone Warrior wielding a massive sword cursed by a brand in his flesh and haunted by demons he walks a gory path to Revenge slicing through monsters known as Apostles as he hunts his former friend now greatest enemy Griffith at the start of berserk we thrown grown into a dark medieval fantasy world unlike that of any other manga being published at the time when mea first began berserk he took notice of how most popular fantasy franchises
in Japan were aimed at children like Dragon Quest and how they removed dark elements he saw as intrinsically tied to the genre in order to be more audience friendly fantasy-wise mirira was inspired by the likes of Michael moro's elre Saga Kuku Moto's green Saga in 1982's conand the Barbarian film just to name a few all of which were much darker in tone than the state of Japanese fantasy media at the time some other big influences of Berserk were Mad Max the titular character of which being something Mira based the design of guts Fist of the
Northstar having arguably the largest impact on Mira's creative Endeavors as the similarities in art styles especially early berserk are extremely evident The Works of go NY but especially his work violence Jack Hellraiser Grims fairy tales even George lucas' Star Wars which miror states helped him learn the basics of Storytelling all these things combin into this weird dark brutal wonderful fantasy epic but as impactful as all this media was on mea there is one thing that pretty clearly impacted his work the most his friendship with coji Mori at the time mea began berserk Koji Mori was
no longer drawing manga the two would frequently meet with each other and mea being mea he would bombard Mori with manga ideas leaving my feeling embarrassed myi questioned whether or not this was some sort of intentional torture from Mira but when asked about it Mira simply responded that he did so because he knew his friend would come back to drawing manga eventually Mor spent several years is not drawing manga but even still those words mea said stuck in his mind after a horrific motorcycle accident my laid on the asphalt on the brink of death and
thought that there was only one thing he wanted to do draw manga after recovering Mor would go on to do just that he would become a successful manga artist just like Mira with titles like holy land and so say no Tiga and in many ways because of Mira Mory views Mira as someone who saved his life and there's an important reason I bring all this up because Mory in a way might have been a factor in berserk success believe it or not for the first little bit of Berserk publication it was not a massive success
the black swords Monarch the first section of the story is generally viewed as berserk weakest section now it's important to note that the weakest point of this masterpiece is still really damn good but something about it didn't attract the Japanese readers as much as the later sections of the story would honestly I'm not so sure why this is maybe guts was a bit too abrasive maybe the way readers are thrust into this world was a little bit jarring I really can't say but what I can say is that the Golden Age Arc changed that see
the Black Swordsman Arc ends on the reveal that guts is chasing a man or entity named Griffith someone who used to be his friend the Golden Age Arc begins with the moment guts is born and follows him through his young life eventually coming to focus on the relationship that forms between guts and griffith obviously we go into this flashback knowing Griffith will in some way betray guts but not knowing the extent of it builds this incredible anticip ipation that culminates in a truly horrific event now there's much more to the flashback than just that like
the beautiful and tragic story of love formed between guts and Casa but the force that drives the story that leads to the major decisions made by characters is the dynamic between guts and griffith a story of one man feeling unequal to another Desiring to be his friend but realizing the gulf between them prevents that would you be shocked to learn that this Dynamic was greatly inspired by the real life friendship between mea and Mory obviously it isn't a Wonder one Recreation of their lives Mira never pulls an eclipse on Mori but there are certainly similarities
the two are integral to each other's development one is highly touted and greatly successful the other is very skilled but receives hardly a fraction of the recognition the latter eventually veers off in another Direction only to come back later mea has even stated that the character of guts was in part inspired by coji Mori so while the details of what exactly happened between these two sets of individuals differ greatly it's that intense connection the way they drove each other forward that is the same and it really does make for an incredible story not long into
the Golden Age Arc berserk began to steadily gain popularity around the time the Black Swordsman Arch ended the magazine berserk was originally published in Animal House would go under and Mira was faced with two options either Focus his efforts on one of the previously mentioned works with baronson or invest in his original creation berserk and follow it through to the end he chose the ladder but he realized he would need to make some changes to the direction of the story in an interview Mira says no matter how fully formed the character of guts was in
my mind this was a new Ker's manga and it wasn't going to live up to Mr Bronson's established reputation I also like girls manga so I thought about changing my Approach by taking from stories with sad and painful human relationships and emotions until then I'd been charging down the Fist of the North Star route but that made it much harder to contend with the original himself it was a good opportunity so I thought I'd switch weapons and come at it from the angle of the rose of versid by roko Ika and Kaz toi no UTA
by Koo Takia and as this was new ground for me I figured maybe I could put people from around me into the story as well as memories from my youth that last line is really important and he'd expand on it by saying this I didn't especially have any teachers when it comes to manga so I didn't know what was proper I had always been under the impression that a manga artist dreams up things that don't exist in reality so I tried it and realized it was proper I was incorporating my own experiences and those close
to me so naturally there'd be feeling there and the lies would evaporate I think the Golden Age Arc went well that way and whenever I combine reality with imagination I don't view my own circumstances as being all that dramatic so I suppose I was able to strike a good balance I would do things like taking my high school manga buddies and dropping them into a mercenary band led by a guy who's working towards some goal but while I'm happy that it went well the purpose of this Arc was to give guts a reason for Revenge
so it occurred to me that I'd made a bunch of really great characters and they were all going to Die the characters introduced in the Golden Age Arc felt real partly because some of them were real and this goes back to what I was saying about the dynamic between gut and griffith one of the key elements of the Golden Age Arc success is how it rounded out the cast filling it with lovable characters that grew with the readers over time an aspect the Black Swordsman Arc severely lacked with that and the complex expanding story surrounding
the band of the hawk berserk popularity boomed leaders grew attached to the ark's cast but the thing about getting attached to flashback characters is that nobody is safe berserk fans of the time learned this the hard way with Griffith's betrayal during the eclipse nearly every member of the cast introd in the Golden Age Arc was killed off when asked about the impact that had on him Mi said this I was emotionally invested in each character so I felt more depressed than scarred and the story went way down in popularity with the readers around the time
of the eclipse many readers were Furious that I do such a thing to the characters they liked my editor at the time was concerned but also of the opinion that we just have to follow it through to the end fans of the time were outraged I think every reader of the manga was when they got to that scene for a while the popularity dipped but it wouldn't take long before berserk was back at the top of the rankings mea and his editor made the right call of following it through and eventually readers came around to
it realizing that what happened while tragic and heartbreaking was brilliant storytelling the Golden Age Arc is what established berserk as a truly special story to this day many people claim that it's the greatest manga Arc ever written but the success wouldn't stop there following the Golden Age Arc berserk would be nominated for the second third fourth and fifth installments of the Tesa Osamu cultural prize in 19989 9 2000 and 2001 respectively each year berserk was a finalist but didn't win until 2002 where it would share the spotlight with takahiko Ino as Vagabond in both 2001
and 2002 berserk was also one of the highlighted works in the manga division of Japan's media arts festival the success just would not stop it still hasn't to this very day but as with all stories nothing can be absolutely perfect something hard to ignore about berserk serialization is the immense amount of hiatuses from the start of its publication to 2006 berserk would run regularly putting out two chapters a month there was the odd break here and there but nothing extensive in 2006 however berserk would take a nearly 4mon Hiatus a running theme with berserk hiatuses
is that Mira rarely if ever commented on why they were happening much to the dismay of his fans hiatuses would become more frequent and longer eventually getting to a point where fewer than five chapters were released per year which is a pretty drastic leap from the 20 plus chapters per year that arcs like golden age in conviction saw even if it regularly released the quality of the content that was put out was undeniably great and getting even better too the most noticeable Improvement is the art which reaches such a high level you begin to question
if a human even drew it which is a major factor behind the hiatuses see the only time I could find mea speaking on the hiatuses was in an interview on oqu quest.com a link to which you can find in the description in this interview mea talks about shifting from traditional to digital art for berserk and how doing so not only tripped him up because of the process of learning the software but also because it allowed him to hyperfocus on details even more than he had been doing previously he recalls times where his editor snapped at
him for drawing pixel by pixel literally every single last pixel to add on to that around this time in 2014 miror was working on another manga titled giganto maxia from 2014 to 2019 berserk released only 25 chapters with no year seeing more than five and in 2019 Mira took Helm of a new project titled duranki for duranki Mira drew the story boards and directed his team of assistants that made up Studio Gaga a group of individuals that would become incredibly important to the story of Berserk eventually teaching them how to draw in his style with
his level of detail or somewhere approaching his level of detail the intentions behind this decision were never made clear never outright stated but all things considered I think it isn't unreasonable to say Mira was doing his best to prepare for the worst any manga artist that takes many hiatuses is of course very aware of the state of their story berserk was me's life's work it would be foolish to say Mira wasn't constantly thinking about the future of his story about all possible Futures including ones where he wouldn't live to see it end knowing the state
of its publication and how much story he had left to tell I think it's highly likely the training mea was giving his staff was specifically for a worst case scenario situation unfortunately the worst would come to pass and mea would never get to see berserk to its conclusion on May 6th of 2021 mea suffered an accuse aortic dissection a tear on the inner layer of the body's main artery an aortic dissection is a very serious condition very often is it deadly and unfortunately mea succumbed to the condition passing away that very day news of his
passing would not be made public until the 20th of May and upon its breaking it would shock the entire manga world it's hard to put into words the impact this had on fans myself included but what I can say is that the outpouring of respect and gratitude was unlike anything I had ever seen posts all over the internet video tributes players gather gaing in online games to mourn on mass even manga creators whose work was published alongside berserk and young animal magazine would come out and share their condolences many of these artists created short tribute
Comics remembering Mira and stating the impact he had on them but the most poignant among them was the one created by Koji Mori this short comic detailed The Experience Mor had growing up alongside Mira how Mira helped him become a successful manga artist and most importantly Express the tremendous love and admiration he had for his friend berserk is a once--in a-lifetime story it's inspired many iconic franchises and artists in one way or another and it's pushed generation after generation of readers forward reassuring them that hope can be found through struggling and persevering because that's what
berserk truly is it's a story about persevering about facing the incredibly cruel turns of Life head on and struggling through them and so it is somewhat fitting that the story of Berserk perseveres through the untimely passing of its creator the following year Koji Mori would direct Studio Gaga with a continuation of Berserk but before I get into the specifics of that continuation I'd like to speak a bit on the tragedy of Mira's passing mea's entire life was dedicated to drawing manga from the time he was a young child in elementary school he knew with no
uncertainty that drawing manga was what he wanted to do he worked tirelessly to improve he pursued making manga with every fiber of his being and created works so rich with emotion and soul that they inspired generations and changed the entire medium of manga from the time he was only 18 years old he had begun crafting the story of guts in his mind that character lived in his mind and when he got his first opportunity to do serialized work of course he chose that story that character because even at that stage he knew it was not
just a story he wanted to tell but that it was the story he needed to tell over 30 years the majority of his life he spent drawing and perfecting this specific manga taking whatever time he needed to make it as good as it could possibly be and he didn't even get to see it to the end when I say this is the greatest tragedy in manga history I do not say that lightly and I don't say it only because it is the loss of a legend I say it because it's the story of a man
nearly unrivaled when it comes to dedication and love for the craft to his work and somehow it's that man that doesn't get to finish his story by his own hands I can't imagine anything more horrible for a creative mind and it is the most heartbreaking story I have heard of in the artistic world like I mentioned in 20 20 22 young animal comics announced that berserk would receive a continuation in the coming months years prior to his passing mea divulged the entire story of Berserk to his closest friend coji Mori and similar to how mea
began training Studio Gaga to imitate his art style one has to wonder if this was a measure set in place in case the worst should come to pass since the release of chapter 364 in 2021 the Final Chapter that mea worked on 12 chapters have been released under this new team and while I can't honestly say it feels EX exactly like the berserk created by mea's hands I'm still very glad that this story will get to see an end it's almost certainly what mea would have wanted whether you want to follow the story led by
Mory or whether you believe berserk truly ended with chapter 364 you have that right but it's impossible to deny that berserk is in the best possible hands considering the situation the hands of a man that grew up alongside mirira began a manga career alongside mirira inspired Mira in many ways a man that knows better than anyone what berserk meant to mea and refuses to Let It Go unfinished to me that is incredibly touching and I will be following this story to the conclusion Mory guides it to
