Damn, I wanted to like this anime more, but it's pretty hard to watch. It does a few things well. I really really like the music throughout, and the writing is strong enough to still give it that bite that we expect. That last scene after the battle where he's wandering off, it still gives me chills! The animation, though, is really unfitting at times and just plain bad at others. Watching Puck go between cartoon and real form looks hideous. How can something so likely high budgeted look so bad? I didn't fully mind the CG in the movies, and was hoping it would be fine, optimistic even, but facial expressions and things just look so uncanny. What's even worse is the sound design. I stand by what I said about liking the music, but jesus the sound design. Some of the dramatic music cuts just sound like somebody messed up and the sound effects… Then he's battering the skeletons I swear those are just pots and pans and it is noticeably bad. It sounds like he's battling a kitchen. Normally sound effects are taken from a variety of places to emulate things that are harder to capture (like slicing up skeletons with a giant sword), but when I can tell they're pots and pans, that's when they've failed.
There's just so much on here that feels downright amateur and it's a shame that such a great and classic series has to deal with this. I wonder if this is Miura's choice, since he has to have had a lot of offers before. I hate to say this, since I like seeing people take risks and new directions, especially with stuff I love like animation, but at this point I really just want a straightforward Berserk anime. I hope we can get one more do over with the better people at Madhouse at the helm or something.
