Berserk Manga to Continue After Creator’s Death

The Berserk manga is set to continue following the death of its creator Kentaro Miura last May.

Miura’s close friend, Kouji Mori – the only person he told Berserk’s story to from start to finish – will take over the series and write only what Miura told him without any supplementary or filler stories.

In a statement offered on Twitter, the Berserk team saidMori has the “full support” of both the manga’s publishing company Young Animal and the team of assistants that supported Miura on Berserk, though it’s currently unclear how much more of Berserk (which began running in 1989) will be released.

Miura died suddenly from acute aortic dissection, a tear in the aorta branching off from the heart, on May 6, 2021, leaving Berserk unfinished and in the middle of an ongoing story arc.

The series will resume in the next issue of Young Animal’s magazine, and the next six chapters will conclude the Fantasia Arc. A new arc will begin after this, and though the publisher calls this period of Berserk “the last episode that we have put together”, it didn’t say how long the story will go on for, or if this new arc will be the final one.

“Upon resuming the series, our production team decided on a basic policy: Mr Miura said so,” the Young Animal editing department announced on its website. “This is what the production team kept in mind.”

Kentaro Miura (Source: IMDb)

“Before his passing, Kentaro Miura spoke to his close friend Kouji Mori about the stories and episodes he had in mind for Berserk. He also had similar talks with his studio staff and editor.

“He wondered, would everyone be surprised if I drew something like this? How about a character like this? Would this storyline be interesting? The talks were not meant as his last words, but were a part of his ordinary days as a manga artist.”

Young Animal also had access to memos and character designs created by Miura before his death, and said it was reluctant to end Berserk without sharing its complete story with fans. “We believe that this policy, although imperfect, is the best way to deliver the Berserk that Mr Miura envisioned to everyone as faithfully as possible,” it added.

Mori was friends with Miura since they were students, and the late manga artist shared the entire story of Berserk with him from its inception and throughout its three decade serialisation.

“I have a message and promise to everyone. I will recall the details as much as possible and tell the story. Also, I will only write the episodes that Miura talked to me about,” Mori said. “I will not flesh it out. I will not write episodes that I don’t remember clearly. I will only write the lines and stories that Miura described to me. Of course, it will not be perfect. Still, I think I can almost tell the story that Miura wanted to tell.”

He added: “I think people with good intuition would realize by now that I know the story for Berserk up to the very end,” Mori said. “Still, I cannot say that I can draw it because I know it. That is because only the genius Kentaro Miura can write a masterpiece like Berserk. However, a great responsibility has fallen on me.”

Following the death of his close friend, Mori wondered if and how he should share Berserk’s ending with fans, and at that moment received a text from Miura’s assistants who had the final, unfinished chapter he had worked on.

“The last few pages of the chapter were incomplete. Some did not even have the characters drawn on them. I took a look at the manuscript, without expecting much. Desperation can push people to create miracles; there it was, the completed manuscript for Berserk.

“‘Mr. Mori, will you let us do it?’ Miura’s apprentices, who Miura had been so proud of while he was alive, asked me straight.”

“Company Director Shimada, a mentor for me and Miura, also said, ‘If you do it, the company will give our full support.’ I thought, if I run away now, Miura would say: ‘I talked to you about it so much, but you didn’t do it!!’ Alright. I’ll do it properly.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.