As has now been made known, Kentaro Miura sadly died at the beginning of this May 2021 , leaving his great work unfinished. Berserk , in fact, is currently still far from the final chapter, although by now he was starting to move towards what could be considered his last narrative arcs, so we asked ourselves: will the series continue or will it be brutally interrupted? To talk about it let’s analyze the various possibilities and what happened to other manga and anime that over time have unfortunately seen their author die before the conclusion of the work they were working on.

Sudden interruption

One of the possible solutions to be implemented is not to continue the work , simply to interrupt it and not to resume drawing, leaving as the final chapter the last one officially created by Miura without therefore writing an appropriate ending. Although there are more valid reasons for making such a decision by the publishing house, including for example an economic return that is not sufficient to cover production costs, we assume that the only one actually valid in this case may be the ultimate will of the ‘the author himself not to let anyone else continue the story, but to end Berserk with his death. As frustrating as it may be for hardcore fans of the series, it would still be a request thatit should rightly be listened to and not ignored out of respect for the designer himself, simply having to be content with not having a real final resolution.

This is a solution that over the years has also been taken up for other manga, of course, just think of Kaze no Stigma by Takahiro Yamato , or the more famous Phoenix , the latest work by Osamu Tezuka , the famous “father of the manga”, author of masterpieces such as Astro Boy and Kimba the white lion . The mangaka, in fact, died before finishing his last work which was never taken up again by others; his last sentence made known before he died “Please, let me work” , said to a nurse while she was taking away the various nibs and sheets from the hospital bed to make him rest and not strain too much.

Berserk will continue following the master’s notes

Obviously, however, another possible solution is that another cartoonist, perhaps one of Kentaro Miura ‘s pupils , picks up the Berserk plates and decides to conclude the comic with the help of the publishing house. Usually in this case it is the original author who leaves notes on how he prefers his work to end, thus helping the various designers and screenwriters in trying to stay in the author’s mind and create an ending that is on the same length as the work. wave of the rest of the work. This would probably be the most desirable solution for everyone, both because it would pay homage to the author, and because in this way Berserkwould continue and receive a real ending so as to make the fans happy too, finally showing the final clash between Griffith and Gatsu.

Also of this possibility there have been various cases that have occurred in the past, for example we can take into consideration The Familiar of Zero , a light novel written by Noboru Yamaguchi , who unfortunately died from an aggravation of his illness while the manga was at volume 20. of 22, as the author had predicted. The mangaka, however, had left detailed notes on how he wanted to finish the work, and so the publishing house published the last two stories in the following years following his directives. A similar story also happened for the ending of Itazura na Kiss , whose author, Kaoru Tada , unfortunately died in a sudden accident. The husband thenhe communicated to the editors how his wife wanted the work to be completed , and they managed to create a suitable ending to close the comic.

Berserk will continue… but in a slightly different way

There would still be one last possible solution regarding the work: leave it unfinished and resume the events of the world of Berserk with a spin-off of the series that has other characters in the plot as protagonists. For example, you could create a narrative arc that traces the events of Caska inside the army of the hawks and before the arrival of Gatsu , also showing the various battles and the formation of the whole army when they were still a small group of mercenaries. Or another interesting insight could concern the other 4 apostles of the Hand of God : find out where they come from, what their history is and what their Eclipses were.. Or, even, it could happen that the publishing house decides that Berserk will continue to live, but through a new series, creating a kind of remake that, with the same spirit as the original one, manages to give a definitive ending.

Although it may seem like a particular decision to take to “continue” a work, this too has been reused several times in the past. Take for example Crayon Shin – Chan by Yoshito Usui : after the author’s death in an accidental fall, in fact, the manga and the animated series were left without a real ending. The publishing house then decided to start from scratch in 2010 creating New Crayon Shin-chan . Or, again, we could consider Doraemon ; the robot cat designed by the famous Fujiko F. Fujioand famous throughout the world, in fact, he received a similar fate. After the author’s death, however, given the great success of the work, the publishing house has decided over time to publish various spin-offs of the series and also a new animated series that is still in progress.

We still don’t know exactly if and how the Berserk series will continue, or if we will ever see an ending, but for sure we can say that it was a great work that has managed to thrill a huge number of readers around the world and that has influenced many great hits, such as the Souls video games . We can therefore do nothing but pay homage to a great artist and designer of our time, the master Kentaro Miura .