Welcome to Jeff Jeff's bizarre adventure Berserk Gaiden final episode.

We made it, We finally made it.

We're here and we have done it with our intrepid band of the Hawk.

To my left, uh, Commander Lucy James.

Yay, oh god, I.

Just life everywhere.

Maybe to my right, co commander, it's two more.

Hello, Everything is fine, nothing bad can happen.

With us, as always, Squire Jeff Backler, Hi, stay boy, Jeff back Well.

That happened.

That's why the way you could have said that, like right at the.

End of the episode, looks into the camera and he goes.

Well, that happened.

He looks into the camera and then it just goes boom boom boom bomb.

No, he looks into the camera and the music stuffs.

He goes, well, I guess you're wondering how I ended up in this situation.

He's like, mondays, am I right, Yeah, I love lasagna.

Yeah, exactly.

Something else it is we're flirting with Cannon and lore that anyway anyway, Garfield Golfield serious, No, no one, no one does anything with Garfield.

Always do And I guess played with the idea of making a video called I read all fourteen thousand Garfield comics, but.

Then you realize you have to read all fourteen thousand.

I would, and like three thousands took like four days.

You should you should do?

I read all fourteen thousand Garfield comics and all fourteen thousand and one Piece comics.

Is which one's better?

I feel like the film Nail is like Garfield's like having just defeated Loofy.

I think that could be pretty fair.

Year's funny.

I got I got a question.

How do we talk about the final three episodes after seeing the last ten minutes?

You know what I mean?

Like, how do you even get there?

Well, Jeff, I actually have a question for you that has kind of been i'm gonna say, haunting me for the last three weeks.

You know, Okay, I want to hear that.

Obviously, I too have been haunted.

Okay, when did you watch the episode?

Can you?

Can you give us the timeline of when?

How long you've been this morning?

Okay?

And these thoughts?

Yeah, Now, I've been dreading it too.

I've been dreading it for numerous reasons.

Okay, take us through them.

The first reason is because I've been unable to avoid knowing just by virtue of existing and living my life that something's coming okay, and it didn't happen.

In the last podcast episode where we covered episodes twenty one in twenty two, and I just through osmosis, have been able to absorb the fact that, like I, you know, I'm not ready for this thing.

Lucy goes, hey, don't let Stacy watch this with you.

I go, okay, now I'm trembling.

Now I'm trembling over this news.

Sorry for doing you, and sorry for doing your marriage of favor.

Jeff she I think she would have been okay, but but thank you for your compassion and foresight.

Tam bought me a T shirt many many months ago that was just like skull fuckery.

I don't know what it was.

It was completely it was pretty metal, and I was like, oh, this is kind of this is kind of dope.

There was like a dude on there who looked like a Mars Attacks alien and I'm like, I'm like, what the fuck I'm And in my back of my mind, I'm like, I the second you gave me this shirt, in my mind, I'm like, there's no way this isn't like exactly how brazerk ends I'm like, there's just so in my mind, I'm like, oh my god, like the whole world turns inside out and you know, Griffith becomes this exposed brain person and all of it, and I'm like genuinely kind of terrified because I'm just like, oh, I don't want to like see this transformation.

I don't want to like see this happen because presumably I'm looking at like the finale here, and what I know now, especially when I got the shirt, was like, ah, things are kinda they're gruesome, but they're just sort of just sort of like Game of Thrones gruesome, you know.

And I'm just like, you got nothing really to worry about.

And then to see that like nobody you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna like traverse dimensions and time and space, that was very scary to me, And up until this morning in the pit of my stomach, I've been, uh, I've been scared.

I've been a little like a you know, is the last thing I thought about last night before I went to bed.

It's like, Fuck, you're gonna have to wake up and watch these last three episodes of Berserk.

Who knows what kind of traumatic shit, I'm gonna see and uh, yeah, I gotta say, did not disappoint.

Yeah, that's okay.

So what I remember I have been haunted by your words last episode where you were like, and you know what, Stacy's really enjoying USERK as well, and I was like, oh.

It would have been very weird.

Also, schedules didn't work out.

She couldn't she couldn't be around okay this morning for it.

But like Jeff, I met Stacy and I thought she was a terrific woman.

I really really liked her, and I thought that we really got on.

And I had this horrible vision of you and Stacy watching that last ten minutes and then the credits hit and Stacy just turns to you and goes and John recommended.

This this is what your friend John wants us watching.

Yeah, because so.

If you'll notice, Jeff, we kind of spent a couple of years building you up to this, and this is not a scenario I would hurl anyone into.

This Absolutely felt like, yeah, I will say this like it felt like this.

It felt like I was left to my own devices in the deep end, right, It felt like this entire series that we've done here was all a sort of training montage for me to arrive at this point where I'm left to be exposed to what this show has to say, I guess and display in such a really, really deeply fucked up way.

Absolutely, it is one of the most upsetting things in media that I have ever ever watched.

And like, it's weird because I was kind of I saw screening a Perfect Blue last Friday, and I love that film.

I think it's a great film, And it's weird because it is just a harrowing, awful, like horrifying movie.

But it's like, there's things that are more explicit than Perfect Blue, but there's very little that is a more like emotionally upsetting than Perfect Blue.

Berserk's kind of both, like you are deeply invested in these characters and you love them and you care about them and you want them to be okay, but you also the imagery you're seeing is still some of the most fucked up imagery I have ever seen.

Like it's just a nightmare.

So the one thing I want to say that is on the top of my mind right now is like I understand how deeply loved this thing is.

I do find it a bit odd that the way at least this nineteen ninety seven anime series chooses to conclude and the sort of like deepest, darkest depictions of what it depicts, you know, uh, is sort of like how they choose to roll the final scenes.

It is.

It just sits a little bit strange with me with how wide spreadly sort of like celebrated this thing is so even though it is so gruesome and fucked up.

Now contrast to like the celebration of like a campy horror movie right where you know, something like an Evil Dead, which is like super gory, and but it's it has this self awareness of this like sort of like campiness to it, right where it's like, oh, we're having fun here, and berserk, we are not having fun here.

There's no fun.

Yet we are all like buying tickets to like the Gore Parade, and we're just sort of like, hooray, we all love this thing.

And there's something in my mind that I can't kind of like jump over.

I can't sort of like you know, vault over the fact of like, oh my god, what is wrong with everybody?

The first the first time I experienced the eclipse.

Was Jesus Christ is that what it's called.

It's called the Eclipse.

No, I know, it's just like it's it's just funny, okay, people experiencing the eclipse trauma.

Yeah, I've talked about a plenty in these in the in this podcast, But like I am.

I went to a double feature and saw the first two Berserk movies, which is which takes you right up until Guts leaves the Band of the Hawk, and then like the new movie wasn't out yet, and I did that.

That was all I knew of Berserk, and I went around telling everyone like Berserk fucking rules.

Everyone needs to check this out.

It's so good.

And then eventually the third movie came out.

I downloaded it.

I waited till I was lone one night, poured myself with glass whiskey and was like time to reunite with my friends in the Band of Hawk.

And I was like horrified and like yeah, disappointed, Like I was like, well, they fucking ruined the whole series, Like the Band of the Hawk are all dead, griffit's a bad guy, like Guts as fucked.

Cask is like just destroyed, and like I spent a couple of days being like kind of mad, about it, like the direction of the story.

I was like, this is not the Berserk that I love, you know, And again, yeah, this was the this was the films, And in the film you don't have that prelude, you don't have the bit where you see guts in the future, and no one ever gave me a God hands tea, Jeff, So I had no idea this shit was coming, and I was like bothered, Like I was for a while, I thought less of Berserk because this thing happened.

And a part of that was just I hated seeing the characters that I'd grown so fond of go through this.

Yeah, I'm with you.

It sounds like you felt like it didn't earn that, right, Like it didn't earn to end the way it did for you, or at least that like part of it, because.

I think I just didn't see why we were doing this, and it just felt like abjectly cruel.

Right.

Yeah, It's weird how it does sort of like bookend with this like demonry, right like it do you know, like you spent a lot of the meat of this sandwich just not thinking or worrying about you know, monsters, monsters.

Whereas that today I read the manga fas so for me, it was like it introduces monsters and then they go away for a long time when you go yeah, yeah, back in time, and so for me, I was just like, wait, that was a really weird opening and that's not really now it's about political and machinations in this war, and then oh, wait Zod is here or whatever, and then yeah, I think in the manga the way you read it, it's a lot The manga feels a lot crueler in terms of the world that you are in and the things that the characters come up against.

It feels a lot crueler.

And obviously the anime has to leave a lot of stuff out, covers a lot of it.

But like, I don't know, there's you know, there's that character we talked about last time.

The Folk depart Chef.

Like you were experiencing the light version of the eclipse.

Yeah, so very light.

Yeah.

I mean, my mind can wander.

I think I can square where we go here.

But like, is this so this isn't all of Berzerk, right, Let's.

Let's let's get to that at the end.

Let's talk about that at the end.

Because I'm okay if you tell me exactly everything else that happens.

Okay, well maybe.

Maybe not where the movies end, because.

The movie ends exactly where the anime ends.

Okay, yeah, maybe like them basically there maybe maybe maybe there's like ten minutes extra in there with Skull Night, Lucy, Oh well yeah, yeah.

So the there's two movies three okay, we' I.

Would say there's some there's some Jankee three D in those movies, but there's a lot of good ship as well.

Okay, and they cover.

Pretty much exactly what we just watched in terms of the season of the anime.

Yeah, yeah, got it.

But yeah, oh boy, I we'll get We'll get that.

Yeah, we'll get to it.

Just might like there were okay, look, truth be told, there was an element for me where it was like, t he it'll be fun to uh for for Jeff to experience all this kind of stuff, And that lasted precisely up until Stacey became involved, and I was like.

Oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no, huh yeah.

And I actually I was gonna message you, Jeff and be like he listen just about Stacey, but I'm glad you did, Lucy.

Yeah, no, like I still want to show it to her though, because I just I just wanted to.

I want her to see it.

I want to be like, this is this is this is the art that's out there.

What do you think?

Like I want her to be exposed to it, you know, yeah, yeah, your immediate life to share the horror of it with.

Yeah, Like I need to almost Like you're right, dam I have to like offload and outsource some of the PTSD here, you know what I mean?

Like, I don't even I've ever watched Berserk through at Michelle, and I'd love to.

Hmm, she was bought in at the end of that episode twenty one, I'll tell you.

I mean, it's fantastic story like it was good.

Yeah, yeah, little did she know.

But anyway, speaking of being bought in, it's the beginning of episode twenty three, and nothing relatively bad has happened yet, at least in context to what's going to happen.

We are the band of Hawk are staging a daring escape with Griffith, and I don't think it's really set in for any of them how bad a shape Griffith is in yet.

And I love this episode.

I think this is such a there's so much to this episode, and it's so tragic and sad, especially as you really, like, you know, the kind of the lower rank members of the Band of Hawk go from realizing Griffith's back and everything's going to be amazing to Griffith's never coming back.

Yeah, at least not the way they knew him.

How'd you guys feel about this episode?

I thought it was pretty good because I think it sets in place like this immovable plot porm.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I.

Think for me it was more just like how are you going to fit all of it in?

Genuinely, last night when I booted up my Sony PlayStation five, put the disk in, even just like lingering on the menu music, I was just kind of sat with a little bit of a dread and I had a glass of wine and I was just sat there and I was like, oh God, like forcing myself to press play a bit.

So for this episode, yeah, it was more that feeling of impending doom and every I think for me, as someone who knew what was going to happen, it just makes you like really focus in on those moments between all the characters, especially as they're talking about what their future could have been, what their future is going to be now, and you as the viewer, and certainly them as the characters, have absolutely no idea what the hell is coming.

And it's just like watching a car crash in slow motion.

And yeah, yeah, it's just bad to worse in it, like you know that it's going to get worse and worse, like this is, it doesn't end.

I think the interesting thing about it is if you have any sort of media literacy, you start to in your brain reconcile the fact that traditional story structures, given where you are in the series, should dictate that things start getting better.

But I feel like as you get closer and closerly and nothing gets better.

And that's where that kind of sense of dread that Jeff talked about came from comes from.

For a lot of people that experienced it for the first time, it's a not understand It breaks the rules of narrative.

Yeah, Like I remember when I was saying like where I had no context as to where this was going.

I was watching this part of the story and being like okay, But then so like I think, how does Griffith, How's Griffith going to recover?

How's our how's our boy gonna rally.

You know.

Yeah, And it's the same with the manga as well, where it's like you reach, you know, you're reaching towards the end of an arc and there's nothing uplifting happening that will kind of propel you into And I think for a lot of people this is their first experience or back in the day was the first experience of breaking the boundaries of what manga and anime traditionally are because everyone kind of has the same on ramp where it's a bunch of fun, cutesy ideas and concepts, and then eventually, just through gravitational pull, everyone makes their way to berserk and this is how it This is the first time I think that it kind of creates the idea that anime can be much much more than what we're used to.

Yeah, for sure.

It's it's it's sort of like the end is just like a black hole and you just realize like, oh, like you're just circling the drain, you know, and that's the end.

The end is the event horizon.

That's it for enough go ahead.

Yeah, I was gonna say, like, for a lot of people in the West, this is something I've been thinking about for a while.

But like people who don't watch animeo or read manga, I feel like this feeling that you're feeling, Jeff, and the feeling that we probably felt the first time we do it, it's what they experience when they watch Game of Thrones, you know, that kind of feeling nothing, something is not quite right in every scene.

And I think that if so, if anyone is listening that doesn't have that frame of reference and you have seen it, that is what it feels like where this is effectively the Red Weddings.

Yeah, I do think, oh, sorry, John, there you go ahead, Jeff.

I do think the quote unquote just really maybe watered down a little bit, like bad endings, right, Like, I do think like that has become much more of an acceptable kind of like variable in storytelling in the last like maybe thirty forty years or so, where Like I've just seen a lot more examples of that that have deviated away from the traditional kind of like hey, here are the stakes here, how we overcome persevere?

So I do think, you know, I know this anime is at least the anime that we watch is thirty years old, right, so, like, certainly it was probably a lot of people's first exposure to like not gonna be all sunshine and roses at the end of this.

But I do think, knowing what I know about contemporary storytelling and being in the exposure to like where things have quote unquote bad endings, you know, I think it prepares you in a certain way for this kind of stuff, and you have to, you know, prepare yourself right mentally.

But yeah, we're gonna stay John.

I guess when I watch like this in particular, there's a kind of feeling that, like you know, in so many stories, there is the there's the message that like the universe is good and that ultimately superior morality will win out and everything will be okay.

And that's always like a safety net in stories.

In a way, it's like that's always like a kind of feeling that it's like, Okay, things are only going to get so bad.

And then you watch something like Berserk and especially like you know, it's coming out like in the nineties, and that safety net isn't there.

Things can get as bad as they can possibly get, and you watch that happen here.

Yeah, and it's the fact that it's such an otherworldly way for things to go bad there's always I think throughout the rest of it, when you're talking about Shooter and Midland, it still feels like the characters have an element of control because they have Griffith as their safety net.

They have the ambitions of Kings and whatever is like that is something that they can and then obviously on the on the battlefield, that is something that they can control.

Whereas the fact that this ending goes off the rails, and I mean that in the way where it's like they have no control on that that they these are like like these incredible beings.

Like the size and the scale that's messed around with too, It's like you may.

Yeah, it's so out.

Of anyone's control, And I think that's that's ultimately what like as an adult, that's where anxiety stems from, right, and like as kids too, it's like you don't have control over a situation.

I think that's why the Eclipse is so effective in building that sense of anxiety, because of how grand the scale is, but also just how no one can do anything about it, Like it's just relentless.

The moment that Slam appears and she's like thee of a skyscraper, it's just like oh, this isn't like a battle.

Look, this isn't this isn't a fight.

Oh that's the big the big lady, The big lady I liked, of course.

Yeah.

I thought she was very better Jeff A couple.

It's very just like I was like, cool.

Cool wings, Stacy, get in here, you gotta see this.

I was like, look at hey, I thought, is it the fact that she's like hundreds of feet tall?

Yes, that too.

I like the you know, look, I also like the screaming floors.

We need more of that.

We need more squall thandless screaming floors.

Jesus, and like the faces in the sky.

Awesome, guys, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Yeah, I know, I know we're jumping so but I mean that's what I was saying.

Right, Yeah, yeah, okay, we'll get to it.

We'll get to it.

There's a moment very early on in episode twenty three that I just find so sad, and it's when the enemy guard captain basically kidnaps Griffith and he's like, here's your savior, and you just get this pathetic pan up Griffith's body and it just leaves looks like no, exactly he's he's he's several pepperami stripe tied together, and it leaves no illusions that like he is never going to be the same, ever, ever, ever, Yeah it is.

Again, it's there's a series of moments where you're like, how do they how do they get out of this pickle and make it happy again?

And it's just this is the first one where you're like, oh, I wonder how they're going to do this, and the slow realization that maybe they won't starts to come in to creep into the mind.

Yeah, And it's the.

Same thing that you What I love about it writing wise Buff and the Mango and here is it's a power to what most of the band of Hawk are feeling in that moment.

Certainly Caucus in the in these final moments, the character that people the audience is likely relating to most is Caucus, which is a great redemption moment for him.

A Caucus is just saying what we're all.

Thinking, Yeah he is, and we get with That scene is followed by just a scene where everyone's just sitting around at sunlight and like it's just it's setting in, Like what Griffith now is is setting in and Carcus is like the last holdout.

He's the last person to be able to come to terms with Like, no, this is fucked, and it's I felt bad for Caucus.

I felt bad for Caucus.

In the last in the last moments too, for sure.

But yeah, so did you feel bad for Caucus?

Which is maybe maybe you know that you know that person we talked about last episode with the Reddit account, Yeah you know.

Can I see where they were coming from?

Not in like the caucuses hot way, but like in a.

Right understand why we should just dm that things don't end well for you?

Boy?

Okay, it was weird when that was his last line.

Yeah, how's Caucus going to get out of this one?

That was weird as well, wasn't it when you said that that's I can solve?

But yeah, it's it just sucks.

And man, the fucking the scenes here between Kaska and Guts.

Like, oh, it's.

So awful, Like you can kind of see that there's like a way out where they can both just leave and be happy together and it's what they want, but they can't fucking do it.

Oh it kills me.

It actually, it makes me so sad.

I just want those kids be Okay.

The found each other and.

Yeah, yeah, and then I think the part I really love about this section story as well is the little bits where real Griffith is peeking through.

Yes, like you hear him, like you hear you see him.

Hear those two talk about like how they have to kind of stay here for him because he is now so pathetic and cannot take care of himselves.

And the look in his eye is insane, like this is the most insulting thing possible to Griffith.

Yeah, and it's the way that you know what is you know, I have to change his bandages and he falls on her, pushes it like I don't know energy, and it's just like God, even then, he's just so pathetic.

Yeah, and like the way the way that happens, and like she like even just puts her arm around him, just being like it's okay.

And it's like, oh, this is so bad.

Every part of this just sucks.

But yeah, it's really just sad.

And like I I think that even in the anime version, they've really done the work to bring us here, Like you understand the tragedy from every person's perspective of this, and I think it's it's great.

I really really think it's so good.

Yeah, the framing in particular, whenever you know, when God's and Cascar are kind of hugging and like talking closely outside and they're just the way that he's Griffith's eye is sort of framed looking through the tent, like the opening of the tent, and you can just like wordlessly understand it just how vehemently he hates God's Kaska himself in that moment, his situation, and then yeah, every.

Sense we're like, yeah, I think that's just gonna be the name of this show episode.

It's just U g H.

You's going to be that.

Griff It starts to have like visions of his younger self, but also like the nice he used to be, and the night's pretty much like, well, see you later, you're done, You're you're gone, and oh man, it it's it's horrible.

Like it's it's that feeling of like I guess the you ever, it's the feeling of like, Okay, this is going to be my future.

I've got this plan, I'm really invested in this relationship or a job or property or just whatever, and you're like, this is what it's going to be.

And then it doesn't work out and you have to let it go and it's so painful.

That is this scene like to a t Yeah, yeah, And then we get to me, like, what is one of the most devastating scenes of the entirety of Berserk Alternate reality?

Caska and Griffith, Oh, yeah, trying to desperately not to say that, but yeah, it's the life that they could have if they just left it all behind.

He even says it.

He's like, it would have been a fine life.

That's the fucking tragedy here.

They both would have been happy.

This would have been fine, Like, this would have been they could have made it work, and like you know, but then it's like there's like just these little pieces, like their son is called Guts.

Yeah, they're like the little vestiges of the life that they would never be able to let go of.

And like even Kashkascar, Oh, it's been a while since everyone visited.

I wonder what they're up to.

Another kind of not a she wouldn't have meant it as a bar, but it's absolutely not.

He would take it, but it's a Hey, your subordinates are all out there doing amazing things, and look at you you can't even feed yourself.

And she's talking about like can you believe we ever went on adventures?

Like it's just oh, we think him also Kaska as like a housemaiden.

She looks sensational.

Yes, yes, yep.

It's also weird because like that that it's weird to see grif Griffith imagining that because that feels like a Kaska fantasy more than a Griffith fantasy.

So whenever that pops up on was just like, who's whose dream is this?

Oh?

I think that's that's one hundred percent Griffith.

And I don't think it's as like fantasy.

I think it's his mind like trying to find a way to accept this future, and this little daydream is like the best thing he the best scenario he can think of, like in a realistic sense, and it's still not enough, like the fact that he would be happy is not enough, and fuck man, that is.

Like messed up.

It's like, oh, you think it's like one last chance of rationalization, right, or like accept a bit of like his flashing before his eyes all permutations of like what else could be?

And yeah, even that's not enough, like you said, yeah, but.

Yeah it just it just it kills me that not even happiness is enough, not even contentment.

It's like he has to have more than that.

He says, He's like, this would have this could have been all right.

Yep Uh.

He wakes up from that dream, having crashed his carriage, having a little little bailet appear in his soup, which really grosses me out.

For some reason.

It's funny that he the the way I did laugh.

The way they animated him, kind of being like ejected from the wagon, that was kind.

They just sort of have him like somersault in the air with like one frame a second.

I was just like, what, like, what are we doing?

All right?

I can't believe that thing finds him?

M h the Egg of the King, okay, I would have liked to have seen, like, I don't know when when does he lose it?

Someone pulls it off his neck and throws it down the sewers to do this fable and yeah, this is ugly.

It clashes.

Here's what it should have what we should have done here, Kaska should have like been holding on to it and then think of how powerful would have been if like she returns it to him right as he's having to still make this conscious decision to be consumed by evil and take his you know, dark destiny and accept it.

I just think, like it just finding I guess.

But the thing though, right, it's it's it's it's it's destiny, right, like it's just gonna find him, right, I understand.

Yeah, And there is a very famous line Tam, what is it?

It's like, oh, you cannot reverse the flow of causality or something like that.

But there is a big part of this where this was always meant to happen.

Right, which you still could have squared if Kaska was the one to return it to him, you know what I mean.

I think I think the the I think that would have definitely worked, but it does rob it of the like supernatural element of it, which I think is important to maintain and even kind of amp up in these final moments of.

Yes, I was waiting, I was like, how's this coming back?

Then?

Right like that the whole like I kind of made this this.

I was like, Okay, what are we going to do?

Like how what kind of fuckery will have to happen for this thing to just like appear?

And yeah, very Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, I think this is what actually George George what's his face token was inspired by the reader and was like.

Yeah, specifically the nineties anime as well.

Tim, Yeah, exactly, he was dead by then.

But it doesn't don't ask that, Ques.

I don't know, I like Jeff, I'm not a mathematician.

I don't know if those dates are or not.

But like I'm saying, sounds right.

It sounds right, and it sounds cool.

Yeah, very it definitely sounds cool.

Yeah, and uh so then like you know, Griffith, he finds he wakes up in a river and he just looks down and his arm is fucked up, and yeah, he just he has this moment of shock where he's looking at his broken arm and then he just laughs because yeah, what else does he have?

Like he's he's done, he's gone, yeah, and he's.

Uh yeah, where else is there to go for him?

Mm hmmm.

He then decides to attempt to h as the kids would say, un alive himself.

Yeah, the kids will say, he's chopped.

Yeah, yeah, we get washed Griffith.

Here, he's so.

Wide, he fell off so hot.

Yeah he did literally flop ear yeah m hm mm hmm.

But he can't do it.

He cannot take his own life, and it's like you can see that he even thinks that's pathetic.

He's like, Okay, I can't, I cannot even do this, and it's it's horrible.

And that's when he looks down and he sees the little egg tangled up in his.

Fingers, you fucking little egg boy.

With thenbably get like one of the most famous panels slash shots in Berserk, and it's Griffith holding out the bail at the sunset and the background the spike that he was about to impale himself on that shot in the Like the panel of it is beautiful as well, but that shot in the films is stunning.

It's so gorgeous.

It's stunning here as well.

But they're both.

They're both very good.

Did you guys hear that?

But yeah, I'm glad this happened for you.

That's I'm doing this through stream Labs and basically you can never whenever Excel a T shirt, I get a little notification.

That's incredible the person who bought two items.

Yeah, thank you.

Let me let me let me see here.

Shout outs to.

Sky, I love everything you're chewing.

Taking time for yourself and doing what you love will do.

Skuy, Thank you.

Very much, Thank you guy.

It was a pleasure.

Man.

It really would be a shame if I sold a T shirt during an inappropriate moment.

At least it was now.

At least it was now it's a moving target here.

Yeah.

The fact that that isn't the least inappropriate moment shows you what we're dealing with here.

The band of Hawk race towards Griffith and he activates the bail it.

He's like, you know what, fuck it?

But how does he activate it?

It just sort of happens or he just like makes a blood yeah, because I realize he has a flashback and it's like, oh, I'm going to need your flesh and blood for this thing to open up or whatever.

But like, yeah, I guess it's sort of like I think he says I submit in the dub.

Yeah, yeah, he says something.

Like he he definitely gives into it, and in doing so, I think the weird monster men start to appear before he does that, if I'm not mistaken, and all these naked monstrosities begin to kind of appear around him, and then then the land completely transforms and we are teleported basically to Hell, just this horrible nightmare place where both the ground and the sky are filled with the giant screaming faces.

I love it.

It's also one of the best depictions of Hell that I have seen in media.

Is just yeah, I want my basement to look like this.

This is awesome.

I thought, Yeah, I think it's cool.

I thought this was cool as hell.

Like it reminded me of eternal Darkness a little bit, where like every time you find the book The two, Yeah, the sort of platform you must traverse is just like screaming souls and it's just like that fucking cool.

It's fucking cool.

Just from like a very heavy metal point of view.

I enjoy that aesthetic news flash.

On a T shirt like all around.

Yeah, like get like let me you know, let me emote.

You know.

I'll tell you who's not enjoying that pattern and it's goods in the Band of the Hawk at the start of episode twenty.

Four, certainly they are freaked out.

I'm not enjoying that.

No, as God says, I'm not sure about this now.

I'm not looking good.

Lads, you got.

A bad feeling about this.

And this is where Slan appears, and I also like Slan.

I think Slan's cool.

I always find it kind of weird that she shows up and she's like totally naked and then she has a little like kerchief, and of course it.

Yeah, I mean, when you're that tall, you don't care.

I guess close work differently.

I guess so I didn't catch her name.

Where did you catch her name?

I just know her name because that's her name, and they don't mention it in the show.

Okay, the manga.

In the manga, there's a panel and it has all of them and has their names.

You know.

Her height sort of varies during the rest of this couple episodes.

Sometimes she looks a little smaller, sometimes she looks a little bigger.

I think that's just the whole thing with all of them.

It's like they can do that at will.

They can mess with the scale of.

What's what's brain Man's name?

Brain Man's name, Larry, It's actually it's been the brain Man.

Yeah, Larry, the Brainman, Larry, Larry Brainman.

No, I.

Wid that's a disappointment.

Conrad.

Conrad is the other one.

Conrad and Ubik.

I have a problem with Conrad and Ubik they look to the same.

They look they look to the same.

Yeah, you're right.

One is like a bigger version of the other.

And they both they both hold their hands like this.

Well you don't do that, you don't couple your.

Well I do constantly, which is why I never want to appear in a scene with these two, because people would confuse us.

Three of you.

Then, yeah, I'm right in saying this.

But I don't know if you picked up on it, Jeff, But the void is the the voice over you hear at the start of each episode.

Oh god, damn it.

I'm usually so good at that.

What do you mean you didn't catch that?

So so good at recognizing voices.

I only realized that good enough this this watch through and I have watched this is like my third time watching Berserk, and I was like, wait a minute.

You know, just wait a minute.

I think it's also because like you see it, it's I've gone numb to it is what it is.

You know.

I'm also fast forwarding that part.

But like I feel like, you know, like it's just like this thing, like I just I don't hear it anymore, you know what I mean, just held up a little bit.

This is my is the bell of bailot my bail.

It is a little baseball, squishy baseball, I would believe.

Yeah, it's a little stressing your life.

And somehow that that little squeeze bawl keeps making its way back into your life.

It's crazy out the windows.

Suddenly it's in your hand.

Yeah, I don't know how it returns to me.

Yeah, that's dead.

The egg of the cul de sac.

I think it's yep.

I think it's like, yeah, I just have this skill where I can, like I'm very good at like calling out like voice actors like, oh that's Jake's Oh like oh I can do that really well.

So you think that would apply to this.

I missed this Simmons.

Yeah, like for some reason that came up because that was the guy was watching Gravity Falls the other day.

I'm like, oh my god, that's Jake Simmons.

Anyway, I'm disappointed in myself.

The voice actor is well known.

Look I mean the Japanese ones.

Yeah, yeah, the Japanese ones.

I would imagine.

Sure see if the English English ones, Oh interesting, IMDb is down.

Oh yeah, a WS is all screwed up today.

You know, Oh this is that why I got an email about Slack being down fantastic.

You Uh yeah, I like I want to know more about each one of these little freak stories though, like why is like exposed brain skeleton man?

Like what's his deal?

Like where?

Well, how do you get like that?

You will never know.

There's no way for you to know what's the Void origin?

No, so the Void Origin is actually pretty disappointed.

And he was allowed who worked in Tesco that's like a kind of British chain supermarket and the under like here do you wanna do you want to be one hundred feet tall and have a weird brain?

And he was like, yeah, I do, And that was it.

Yeah, he's got al.

It came from a loving family.

Uh no, Rial, he was doing engineering in college.

He didn't know his brain was going to be exposed on the outside.

That's kind of trapped him with that one.

Yeah yeah, and he he the first time he takes on the void for him, he does go, oh you got me there?

You remember that bed time?

Yeah?

Yeah, who's immediately get it from Tesco?

Which is crazy.

I hate to see it.

What's the big girl's name again?

The Big Girl?

Slangan slam m hm s l A N yep, you're just saving this later or no, no, come on, We've I've got other things that have more priorities.

Let's just say also.

Well, I fool, I don't I am curious, but also don't want to know those priorities.

Thank you for not inquiring on the shirt, Tam.

I thought that was going to be Caska.

I thought, like, how Slam is depicted in that T shirt?

Is?

I thought like Caska is, like she's going to evolve into this, Like I mean, you know, I don't know.

Maybe in retrospect, should have held off and giving him the shirt until.

Yeah, I want everyone to know, Tam, you ruined it.

No, I feel like it's good because now he's lived through like the the tension and the forebodings.

He's killed me.

Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted out of this, Like I wanted him to look at that and be like, what is why is this happening?

And as you get closer and closer to the end, because it really compounds the last three episodes is where everything just goes mental.

So as we get closer and closer, Jeff was probably like, when is this gonna happen?

We've got like two episodes left, you know, and you guys were in the room there too when he gave it to me, weren't you.

Yeah, my I did tighten up when that happened.

I was like, mm, you're like, oh, what a meaningless irrelevant shirt?

Yeah, just metal and that's all anyway.

Anyway, So we spend a couple of minutes with the God Hand basically saying in several different very cool ways to the Hawks, you guys are fucking dead.

You guys are so done you screw before?

Does you wait?

Yep?

Yeah, things are right to get real bad here for you guys.

And they summon a magical pillar that boosts Guts and Griffith up into the sky, which becomes a giant's hand.

It looks like the chair hand from Arrested Development the buss Yeah.

Nice nice.

Uh.

Meanwhile, basically all these strange like monstrous figures surrounding Griffith, they all become even more monstrous, and you discover that every single one of them is a disciple, just like Zod the Immortal.

Yeah, and White Wild what's his name?

Willed Wild Wild?

Or so?

But why is Zod like up?

But Zod interferes and Zod's also like allowed out.

I don't get it, Like what.

So they're all allowed out?

These are people who exist in the real world.

And Zod was just like, I'm also gonna kind of help people.

Well, what what does Zod do?

He cuts that horse guy?

Oh no, he doesn't do that.

He gives guts that cool sword that he cuts the the that scary general with who's on horseback.

There's a couple of different reasons he might do it.

He might be doing that to help Griffith.

He might be doing it to be like, okay, goods, you you gave me a decent fight.

I'll get you out of this one.

Like on his own adventure.

Yeah, he's the star of his own show.

But he also like reference, like he references the bailot and he you know.

He stops attacking Griffith when he sees the bailot.

Yeah, he's like, I don't want to fuck with Destiny.

I don't fuck with someone's going to be like my god.

Yeah, he's like, oh you're the one.

Okay.

Yeah.

But I think that some of the designs for the monsters here are absolutely some of the scariest ship I've ever seen.

Yeah, they're they're just sort of all sloppy boys all over the place.

Huh.

You know some of them some of them look weird.

Yeah, some of them look like, you know, weird animals.

Some of them were just look like like a line, you know, like just just a line with eyes.

And it's still terrifying.

A lot of very abstract stuff, which is weird and cool.

Well, yeah, a lot of worm looking dudes.

Yeah, just faces, multiple faces, why not.

Yeah, we didn't get this little kind of dreamish sequence.

And I love these episodes.

I feel like this sequence goes on a little long, and I guess my only problem with it is I feel like it's covering shit that we've already so like masterfully established just of who Griffith is and why he is the way he is, And it's kind of just putting like a quite a blunt point on all that.

And like I get it, Like I get that, you know, you want people to really understand who Griffith is and where he's coming from.

But I guess this is a scene that goes on for like two or three minutes and we don't really learn anything new about how Griffith thinks, you.

Know, right, But I do think it's effective I agree it should probably be maybe two minutes shorter or three minutes shorter than it was, But I do think it was kind of powerful of like to position him as a child, right, and kind of like for you know, you're probably right.

I think I've probably just been through this story X many times in X many different ways that I'm like, yeah, I know who griffed, but yeah, yeah, I know he's shit.

Yeah yeah.

And so basically I do think there's one kind of interesting shot here where it's Guts being like talking like illusion Goots talking to Griffith, and he's in his like fancy boy clothes, And I thought that was an interesting decision because it's kind of like like Griffith's seeing the most successful possible version of Gouts, maybe after he's kind of succeeded in life, whereas Griffiths and that Griffith never will.

Oh yeah, I didn't.

I didn't even clock that he was wearing his fancy boy clothes.

M hmm.

But then again I did have just you know, isn't it is that.

I think I might be wrong here, But isn't that the last time they saw each No, I guess they on the way out.

He was wearing his normal clothes.

I figured like it might be because he saw him in that scenario.

Lost could be it could be that as well.

Yeah, but also like they have in the snow afterwards, and Guts is wearing his I'm gonna I'm gonna.

Cut some falls outfit, and we see the little boy who died in Goods in Griffith's service, get some really fucking cool shots of like the castle off in the sky, and Griffith is standing on a pile of dead bodies, and it's all very good.

And then afterwards the god hand are basically like, hey, we didn't do anything, buddy, that's you just saw who you are where.

We are not taking any credit for that.

Yep, we are just holding the mirror up.

This one was all you.

Yeah, and we didn't get this.

There's this.

It's whenever Void puts out his arm and you see how fucking weirdly long his arms.

I love that.

That's so creepy, amazing.

It goes on for just miles.

His arm is longer than his body.

It's the best.

I love him.

Like twenty four Oh, I think it's like, oh, I think you're talking.

Like twenty meters.

Oh no, I want it to be way more than that is there is as Yeah, it's a joke.

It's a joke.

When he has that wingspan.

It's such a joke.

It's insane.

And it's also his hands bigger than his head.

He's not even playing any sports with it.

Useless.

What it's like.

We got at the house.

We got a one of those extendable forks recently.

Okay, you got extendo fork.

Holy, pretty great rule.

He's the best.

I want him to like be the lead singer of a band.

Wearing a T shirt the other day and I thought it was a Void shirt, but it was like some misfit shirt and they had done a collab with someone else, and it looks exactly like Void, and I was like.

Damn, oh, that's cool.

Lead singer of a brand, which is what happens everyone in the band of Hawk here.

Oh joy, that was cinema.

I don't think a better one.

Now, it's it's not my first time.

That was podcast.

Okay, clearly we're going to go back to the old podcast he's done to find that he's used this.

Exact thing before.

Void basically brands everyone in the band of Hawk, and this is basically the.

Kick me.

It's a bloodborne logo.

Yeah, question, I have a question.

Ye uh, you know they show this like symbol and I'm like, oh, there it is.

There's that bersark thing.

Where's it been?

Where's it the hold agu of the end time?

And what's the significance of the shape?

Why?

Like, where does it come from?

You are literally experiencing the answer to all your own questions.

Jeff, Yeah, yeah, but like.

But once again in the Manger, it's that from the beginning.

Well, I feel underserved in love in the in the way that I've been exposed to that symbol.

This is the first time it appears in the story.

Maybe you should learn.

I'm like, I feel like, Jeff, I'm having like I'm trying to explain it to you in like a non patronizing way, but my mind keeps going back to explaining what chronological narrative is.

I know, I know, I look and you know, I don't know.

They don't tell you that at the beginning of.

This, Jeff, what do you like at the movies?

Do you sit and go, Hey, what's his deal?

Hey, what's going on with him?

And You're like, I don't know, I'm watching the same thing.

To answer your question a little bit.

Oh god, I would think I would never.

No, I don't talk out loud during in movies.

You know the worst people.

I encountered one of these a couple of weeks back.

It's the person who talks in the movie but they're alone and they're just talking to themselves.

Oh that's fucking I shucked up.

Man.

There was some.

I was watching, was the one battle after another, and at one point, dude like just a few seas down and was like, I know what's going to happen here.

I think he's gonnam.

I just like I was like, oh, yeah, I don't say that.

Yeah, I mean no, it's but like, look, I'm I ask a lot of my media because I need I feel like I'm too demanding of explanation, Right, I'm okay with whatever you're presenting, no matter how unrealistic or inconceivable or improbable.

But I just want you to like earn that, right.

And that's the thing I have with like a lot of I went through that with like the comic book that I was doing, like there were two there were a point where I reached it was like, we need to earn all these things that we are declaring this far in and that's what and that's you know, I guess it's more of like a compulsion I have, right, rather than like of coause anyone could write a story anywhere they want.

There's no fucking rules, right, So that's all.

And when I'm first exposed to this like very iconic symbol, I'm like, man, I've been waiting twenty four episodes.

Okay, I get you.

I get you, Jeff.

I think I think what it is though, is like you are experiencing the impact of.

It before I see it exactly.

So yeah, you you don't know what it is or why it's important, but like the whole, the whole thing of it is that this is the brand mark.

When someone is sacrificed in an eclipse, they get this mark.

So this mark is basically a hey, this isn't all you can eat buffet to the demons and so you know you no, not to get too heavy into spoilers here, but Guts makes it out of the eclipse, but he still has the brand mark, right.

Yeah, Basically it's he's a moving target forever now.

Yeah, so when the brand, when the brand starts to hurt, and like sometimes it bleeds.

It's not very much in the city.

It's very much sting from again, Lord of the Rings.

It's funny that people use to get this tattooed on themselves.

Found that I have a tattooed?

Do you do?

On the neck?

Is the one that always gets me because I'm just like.

I like where Corcus gets it right forehead forehead.

It's just like, okay, so I feeling it, but I got I got the panels, and I under like like because people have definitely said this to me.

It's like, why would you want to get that tattooed?

And like, you know, a certain portion of the Internet will always be like, you don't.

Know what it means.

If you wanted to get that tattooed, man means a struggle.

But to me, like this is it.

What it means is bad things will happen and you will move on and be okay.

That's what like a brand Mark says in like the narrative terms of Brazerk, Like you can go for the literal interpretation of hello, I am food for a demon, please eat me, or you can look at the actual story and be like, bad things will happen and I'll keep going.

That's what to me, it means that you won't get very good sleep forever.

It's just funny that you got it tattooed on your butt.

Why is the funny, Jeff, It's just very very place fling a beautiful ass and I wanted to adorn it with decoration.

But the symmetric bad things happen to do well, it would look weird if it was just like one side, Jeff.

I guess all right, nay, you're bad.

I like, I like to think that John is doing like ace Ventura butt thing with his friends, showing.

It off to people.

Uh, but yeah, things things go from from bad to worse as soon as this brand appears.

This entire episode ends on a really stunning painting of the monsters.

Like the monsters basically look like a giant waterfall about to collapse on the band of Hawk.

It's such a harrowing and stunning image.

And the like, I guess you know, there's been so many points during this podcast where I've kind of been like, oh, you got to check out the actual panel.

The panel just for the eclipse are some of the most nightmarish things I have ever seen.

Read them on a play which is what I did.

You got to send them to me.

I want to see some of this stuff after we record here, you know.

Let me pick some choice selections out here.

But yeah, what do you guys think of this episode?

Again, it's the slow moving car crash into hell.

It's so effective.

I think, Yeah, I agree with you that the Griffith like, hey, you're a bad guy, goes on a little too long, but at the same because I think at the same time, it's like it's pulling you away from you want to desperately know what is about to happen, and so kind of pulling you out of that just to have like a little bit of expository stuff.

It's like, nah, I don't really need it.

But overall, I think it's very impactful.

And yeah, I just.

Yeah, nothing bad's gonna happen, don't worry.

Yeah, everything's gonna be fine.

Totally fine.

And then we reach our final episode of Berserk.

Yeah, so for reference, John just dropped one of the panels in the discord.

Jeff is, now that's a tattoo.

Yeah, tattoo.

Put that on your butt cheek.

Yeah, I mean it would kind of.

That's the thing.

It's like, you it's so detailed.

I can't even notice, Like when you first glance at it, you don't even see Casco.

Mm hmm sick.

Yeah, it's a There are so many images like that in in the Mica.

But yeah, so we open up here and immediately it is fucking chaos.

There is just men being picked up and shoved into the mouths of monsters like like potato chips, like me.

Delicious.

Everyone seems delicious, is what I'm taking away from this part.

Humans whoa long pork definitely harm?

Oh my lord, yeah, saying we do it?

I was like, who'd you hear that from?

There was that Vice interview with that cannibal from a field.

Okay, there's a great shot right at the start here, and it's so horrifying, and it's just Casca and she's just staring right into the camera and blood is just like just like pissing down in front of her, and she's you are just watching her lose her mind.

She cannot fathom what the fuck is happening.

Yeah, it's not great.

How can you This is something so outside of like even even now us, you know, we have been exposed to the internet, all the art you could Imagine the hundreds of years of history, all of these stories, all of these pieces of artwork, all of these concepts and theories.

Imagine.

You know, this is set roughly in like a Middle Ages.

Your world is so so small.

How on earth could you comprehend something like this?

You just can't.

You would just go insane.

Yeah, they all think they're dreaming, right, like, you know.

Yeah, And like there's just there's a lot of still shots in this episode, but in no way that I think really works.

Yeah, and this one, and it's just Kaska like looking across at like her field of view, and it is just men being devoured by giant insect monsters.

Not just men though, it's like she knows them, all of them her friends.

They are people that she's led, people that she's been traveling with for years and like grown up with.

Then they're just gone, a fucking just weird looking horned.

I don't even know how to describe it.

It kind of looks like it's wearing a hood, but it has like bullhorns and goes for her and Pippen dives out and saves her in one of like the first active things Pippin's done in a while.

And oh man, you want to see Pippen win here.

You want to see him be okay, And then Judo grabs her in the boat right away, and in the distance you just see Pippen like engulfed by these monsters.

Jeff, I guess this is the point where shit's like, oh, this isn't going to be okay, right, Like, how are you feeling in this moment?

Yeah, you're get in the sense that like, okay, everyone's just kind of getting picked off now and you're not.

You just kind of have to as an audience, as a viewer, you have to just survive this, you know, you just sort of have to say, all right, I'm gonna hold on here and just let this happen.

It's rough, it's very rough.

Yeah, Judo kind of rides off.

Oh man, we just yeah, we So Judo rides off with Caska, and we get another scene of just this like upside down face egg Demon chasing down Corcus and three other men, and at one point he just he like he lashes out, grabs the three men and again just like popcorn, stuffs them all into his mouth.

How did you feel about that, well, watching everyone just get like munched up, like and Jeopardy.

It was a good run.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we had a good run with Carcus.

And I didn't know he see, I didn't always understand each other, but well, we knew this day was gonna come at practically the same person in a lot of ways.

Definitely.

I don't know if that's the takeaway.

I don't know, the same kind of like soul.

Yeah, yeah, same outlook.

I feel like if Corcus.

I feel like, if Corcus were real and I was having a conversation with him, I'd be like, oh, you'd get on all my buddy, Jeff.

Yeah, And that's why I was drawn to him.

That's why I felt this sort of cosmic connection with Carcus, you know, and his soul consumed mine for the entirety of this viewing, and exactly and as the bailet was drawn to Griffith, right, And it was in this moment where I could see the riding on the wall that I knew it wasn't our destiny to be together forever.

In times coming to an end.

And it was at that moment I had to, uh, well, guys, I had to let go.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, Jeff, It's easier, but thanks guys.

Now that means a lot.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Now you're the only loser in our lives.

Thanks Tam.

I'm going to put a bow on that button, all right.

So, yeah, Corcus sees a few more we'll call him spooky monsters, and yeah, he basically completely disconnects from reality and he's like, oh, this is a dream, but also everything was a dream and I never met the band of the Hawk, that none of that ever happened.

I'm And then we get like a really beautiful one of those kind of like watercolor illustrations of Corcus just like riding on his horse, and he's like, I think this is after one of the big battles that he comes back from, and it's it's such a lovely picture and he's just like, no, no, it was all too good to be true, and now nothing is real.

Yeah.

In that one, he's very much in it, coming back.

He's heroic.

I mean, this is after the taking the castle, right, or at least like this is interpretation of it where he's like, yeah, that was the high point in my life.

Yeah.

It is funny how he goes though he sees a naked lady off in the distance and she's a cutie.

I get it, I understand what kind of Yeah, totally, and he immediately dives into her bosom.

I mean at this point, at this point, you know, you've seen the horror the world's the horrors that will you know, just drive you in.

What else is I feel like he got off lightly there, like he his experience was something like kind of pleasurable for himself, even if it might not be happening.

He died of a boner.

That I don't know about because we kind of see then that it cuts, and he is not in the arms of a beautiful naked lady, but of like I would say, maybe the ugliest xenomorph you ever did see.

But he doesn't see this animal.

He sees the beautiful lady.

But we also you also don't see what happens Corcus after this moment.

And I'm willing to say, I'm gonna say the suggestion is not that he gets gently fooked to death.

No, but yeah, and we do see like his head in someone's mouth later, but he's got a smile on his face though.

Yeah, I think dam's right.

I think he died with the big old bone and and then left the more shuffled off.

That's it.

What else could you ask for?

It?

Right?

They didn't.

They could have given Corcus Way more of a disservice, and they chose to give him honest, he deserved the way worse.

Yeah, they let him like motor boat his way into hell.

And well, I mean, oh that did they not?

You know, you're not wrong.

Taking in the phrase motor boat his way into.

Every straight further than God's light.

You know, my years of watching and reading about Berzerka's cultural impact and having every frame of it torn apart piece by piece, I've never heard someone say Caucus mot about his way into hell.

Yes, well this is why we are going out.

Better go out on top?

Am I right?

I got no segue for this one, guys.

Sorry, that's okay, speaking of mobile speaking of motor boating, Kaska and Judo sure are going fast on that horse?

Yeah?

I lost I think I know, guys, come on, I lost it and they and they, I mean come on, I was like, there's where are they running?

Where are they going?

Are running?

Don't have that conversation as well.

They're just like fuck, I don't know.

Their horse gets devoured by a giant like I hate it.

I hate this bit.

I feel so like it bothers me on such a level.

The poor horse.

It's really gruesome and horrifying.

It's amazing that the horse never bolted before that.

You know the fact that.

They all the horses, all the horses were remarkably chilled during the entire thing.

They're like, this is normal they get spooked by.

I think they're just kind of like, well, when you when you gotta go, you gotta go.

You know.

My sister's horse gets scared by puddles.

Uh.

Casca and Judo come crashing to the ground and we meet the monster in hell.

That freaks me out the most.

I don't know what the fuck.

This thing is.

It looks it looks like a toilet sign, like like you know, the like stick Man toilet sign, with antenna coming out of its head and red glowing eyes like in different parts of its body.

And I hate it.

I hate this thing.

There's some real nasty monster design in this there is you know where that comes from?

Wow, And it's uh, it's it starts whipping Judo, who is lying on top of Casca, and he's like trying to protect her, and fuck, this looks so painful, like you're seeing the dense in Judo's armor and it's oh, it's bad.

It's awful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But Caska manages to take it out with Judo's assistant because she's a badass.

And then we get this this scene of Casca and Judo walking together and Judo has this line to the effect of like he's dying and he's about to die, and he's like, well, I never got to say it to her, and it's like it kind of makes me feel like in a way that like Judo definitely like believed in Griffith, but it's nearly like Casco is the one that he wanted to be beside, right, Yeah.

Yeah, they do backload a lot of his a lot of the compassion that you were meant to have for Judo.

They do backload that a little bit.

I feel it all the way through.

But like I think when you when you reread it as well, it is like, oh, fuck, he was in love with Kaska the whole time and he was still like God to.

Think you guys be happy.

Yeah, And there is some other allusion to his feelings towards Casca.

Some I think it's like in the Bonfire.

Of Dreams section but I can't remember specifically, but yeah, and then basically is left by herself against all the monsters of Hell.

She tries to swing at them, her sword breaks and then they take her and it is very unpleasant.

Jeez geez okay, yeah, not bad for business, no good.

Meanwhile, Griffith is in his egg cocoon and we can kind of see in there and see that he is becoming less and less human by the looks of it, looks like he's sprouting some wings, his legs are getting longer.

It's all fucked up.

We see a bunch of shitty baileets.

I kind of thought that was fun, little teeth.

Yeah, I bet you don't get great wishes out of them.

Yeah, Like what what what would you think you would get out of like the ship bailet?

You know, like if you know, if you know that Crimson one gets you to become a member of the God Hand, what do you think, like little get you.

Gets you like like a castle or like like really yeah, I think I think like with it, because it has to be enough that people would be willing to give up their humanity.

I think Zod became immortal, so he can't die and so he can just fight forever.

I don't think you're like taking over the world with one of these bailets.

What so, how did they distribute these?

Like what's this?

It like a blind box situation, Like how did this work?

I think according to their conversation with Griffith, it's like, if you are predisposed to go for something like this, it will kind of come to you.

Yeah, you're just pre judged.

It's like applying.

How did they It's like checking credit history.

Yeah, the checking credit history and you get a certain amount based on your viability.

Yeah, but how do they like decide that, God, we're going to make another egg, it's one, it's the big one.

We're letting another person they make them.

I can't remember if that's I don't think so.

I think somebody has to come from something, you know.

I'm just glad the nose in the mouth and the eyes are fixed.

That really upset me.

For the entirety of the show.

I all slotted back into place.

Yeah, I was like, oh, a face, Okay.

I I am kind of like you, Jeff Roy.

I like knowing the reason behind a lot of things.

But I think when it comes to b Zurik.

I just don't want to know.

I get it.

There's enough there, there's a I think maybe because there is enough, and it's perfectly fine to have some things be open to no explanation, right, or they're just there because you have to suspend your disbelief a little bit, of course.

But yeah, I think like I, yeah, they they they're very preachy about like, oh, we're letting a member, we're letting a new godhead, like we're letting a new We don't know how this gets voted on though.

Neither do they, And I think, yeah, as I read.

Well, they said every two hundred and sixteen years or something like that, but.

It's like a new one.

It's like again, I think, I guess I only really made this connection just today.

But you know, I think the not knowing is what makes it impactful horror for me, because you know, if you look at something like true crime or whatever, like you can go back and you can look at that person and you know what kind of childhood they had, what kind of you know, situations they found themselves in their lives when something and like that's the case with most horror movies too.

They are so determined to tell a backstory that justifies why that creature or person is the way they are.

Where is it this Because you.

Don't know, it's more powerful, and it's.

Like it's the Jaws thing, right.

It's yeah, I say it's Jaws approach.

Yeah, it's the scary The things that you don't see, the things that you don't understand, are the scariest.

And so because your mind just fills in the blanks exactly.

Yep.

Yeah.

I would also say like a part of it as well as like and Jeff, I'm sure you get this from like working on your comic.

At some point you have to.

Stop explaining things and at some point like which is better an explanation of where the bail it comes from, or like a piece of ch scene of character work, or like plot development, or like backstory.

It's like you're always kind of like having to make those calls about like, well, which thing is more important to show in this chapter because you're working with limited resources.

Sure, yeah, yeah.

So Guts makes it back from his hand pillar his unsuccessful hand pillar expedition, and is met with a literal pool of blood.

He is knee deep in the blood of the band of the Hall and it is fucking gnarly.

It is really bad.

Oh yeah, just sort of waiting around there.

Yeah, not great.

He meets everyone's favorite band of the Hawk member Gaston a right mm hm, who's totally fine except for when his brain explodes into a horrible monster.

It is because someone was like in there, right yep?

Is that the idea?

Okay?

Cool?

And we then see Pippin, who is also totally fine, only he's not.

He's been got by the same monster that tried to get Ricker in the in the bonfire scene.

Yeah get it.

No, Rickort is not here.

No, he gets it off screen.

Oh good, he gets he gets it off screen.

I imagine it doesn't he get got.

Rickert does not get got is still alive?

Who do you think tells the story?

True?

Yeah?

Things get worse and worse, and it's eventually it's just Guts alone fighting what feels like a thousand monsters who are all just holding casca.

And there's some very uncomfortable shots where it looks like these monsters are about to do some real bad ship to a naked Casca, and that's when the egg of the King cracks and femtoe emerges.

Like a little baby bird emerging from his egg.

I thought he'd be bigger, isn't it?

Isn't it scarier when they're not.

Huge fast thing?

Jeff.

It's like it's first a big monster and then it becomes your size and that's worse.

He's just he's just super shredder.

That's kind of good and why why is that a bad thing?

Jeff?

Kevin Nash did not give the performance of a lifetime for you to dismiss him like that.

Very good pull there, thank you, John.

I I do like that his prisoner helmet is part of his new get up.

I think that's pretty sick.

I also love that he's got like bitchy purple lipsick.

It's so good.

Yeah, okay, look we can all agree fourteen seconds.

Yeah yeah, it's a great design and amazing first impression and things go dramatically downhill from there.

Yeah yeah, ok sounds like the name of an orange drink.

Yep.

So you know, there's only so much of this scene I want to describe, but he basically takes casket and kisses her, and it's so horrible because it's like the kiss kind of like it pans upward and when when Femto's eye comes into frame.

It's the Griffith eye, like the intense I am about to do something fucking insane.

I and then you know, the thing in Berserk happens.

The Yeah, but we we didn't talk about what Guts had to do.

So Guts is watching this and then once the thing starts to happen, he takes the sword and begins stabbing at the monster who's biting into his arm, before realizing he can't hurt this monster, and then just gouging at his own arm, and he's what all this.

Is like forever the most this show has ever and this show has stayed on shots for a while.

Okay, this show makes a meal out of a lot.

They stay on this act for what feels like an eternity.

The first time I actually did just have to like look away because this show's not as gory, right, Like a lot of it is just like oh, spray blabs, you know, like it's just a lot of that, but they leave nothing to the imagination here.

No, and then it's horrible, like it's just Taska is being assaulted.

Guts eventually like cuts off his own arm to try and save her.

He is then immediately brought down by a bunch of demons, and it's he just has to watch like the person he loves go through this, and you feel terrible for Caska, you feel terrible for Guts.

It's an awful scene.

One of the monster's claws slides into Guts's eye and destroys it.

Gouts, screams his head and forcing him to watch.

Yep, and then it's just like the end.

We flash to white cut to credits, so yeah.

The end, so yeah, watch it.

It's all a dream.

God, I'm happy with this happening.

Yeah, Goots waking up being like oh, and Cask being like, come on, knock ahead, we got a battle to get to.

No, No, they're actually in they're in nineteen seventy six and they're married with seven kids, and Guts just like accidentally hit himself in the head with a hammer and is just like, you've been out for like four hours, did you have any weird dreams?

Yep?

And Gus is like Caska, you wouldn't believe it.

And then that's Griffith and Pippin and.

Yep, the end Caucus, the end part two.

Yeah, what is the after credit scene?

For real?

The after credit scene is with Godeau the Blacksmith, and it's him and Guts, and Guts has a new big sword and it's GOODO saying don't get yourself killed, and Uh one eyed Guts, one eyed, one armed Guts walks out into UH into the world.

He read that he survives him and both survive.

Excuse me, what.

So, Jeff, we can do whatever you want here, buddy.

We can tell you as much about Brazik as little we can leave it.

I want to know everything.

I want to know everything because I'm just like, I'm just I've had my feel like, I feel good.

I ate well, you know, like.

You have no intention to carry on here?

I'm not is there any It's only manga.

It's not like video, Like I can't watch it, okay, So to lay it on me, and maybe we should like give our listeners a bit of.

Spoilers in the description when we'll stop talking about this.

Yeah, like we discussed the events that go beyond the anime here.

Yeah, so okay, I guess just to give you some scope here, Jeff.

The Eclipse ends around chapter eighty eight, and there are three hundred and sixty four chapters of the Oh Yeah, what what you are in like the first quarter of the story.

You're in the setup for the series.

Yes, the baby you have just beaten the tutorial of Berserk.

Yes, well I assume that like oh guts and like Femto are gonna fight more like I assume that was going to happen, well in the future.

Want to hear the real.

Tragedy That fight never happened and Miura died.

Oh but not because it wasn't going to happen, just because the author died.

Yes, that's sad.

It doesn't even else to the point where it's like looking like it could happen soon.

No.

No, but he's around in the way that like Dio is around right, like I'm assuming.

See much of him.

No, no, no, he does does do stuff like there is good, yeah for sure.

But like so in the so you know, in the twenty years, Berserk would go on these massive hiatuses and like years could go by and there would be no new Berserk and people would think it was over, and then a new chapter would drop and this went on years and like every.

Time chapter it would be like ten pages.

And it's literally like I remember one time a chapter dropped and people were so desperate for the story to keep going, and the chapter was basically just Goods kicking the shit out of a bunch of ghost pirates.

That's funny.

I'm imagining.

I'm just guessing here.

I'm imagining like Kaska has like a demon baby.

She does she does.

Yeah, that's I mean, I think that's like I would have done it.

After the eclipse is basically catatonic, and because they're both branded, like I said earlier, demons will kind of descend upon them, and so for Guts, it's like finding a place to keep her safe.

But she's also terrified of anyone, everyone, everything.

Yeah, sure, Like she can't speak anymore.

She becomes like just a different character.

She's mentally broken, like she's a different like she's everything you know about Costco is gone, and seventy chapters of that, Like what.

Misty Valley.

The thing is is that a lot of people actually say the Misty Valley stuff that happens like not long after the eclipse, I guess is like some of the best stuff in Berserk, which is really fucking cool.

Yeah.

So it's so basically like Jeff, what happens here as well, is that the entire state of the world changes.

Now demons exist in the real world, Okay.

The fabric between them is it's just like this the event this eclipses.

What kind of ripped it away?

Does that?

Okay?

Yeah?

And then much later on the state of the world changes as well, and it becomes like fantasy, as in, like there are dragons and unicorns and all this weird and it's it's it's so good.

But sorry, Lucy, I interrupted you there, what were you saying?

I was gonna say the Misty Valley stuff is so of my favorite because it's it's a little monster of the weakish.

But it is kind of to what John was saying about the state of the world changing, where it's like these events just happen, so guts stumble any Oh and Puck is also there.

You miss all the shit with Puck.

Who's the little fairy?

And how long does it?

I mean?

And obviously you know he passed away, right, so it's over.

It is being written by his best friend.

Who he he told me he told the ending to and work with them for years, right, they worked together.

They were they were buddies.

So his best friends is the person he based Griffith off.

Whoa, my god, and then what now?

I don't like talking about this because like I don't like to be a downer about this stuff.

I have read a decent amount of like post Mirror Berserk.

And.

It's it's just I didn't even get not what Berserk is to me, Like it's just it's not very good.

And well it's not that it's very good, it's just not for me, Like it's just the ship that I love about Berserk feels like it's kind of gotcha gone.

But yeah, so so okay, So if I did want to start reading the rest of it, what am I looking at here?

Honestly, Jeff, I would just start from chapter one.

I would start.

Again.

No, I mean this thing was like you'll get some stuff about seeing Guts with his cool ass arm gun cannon thing.

Oh right, because he definitely has to have like a like a like an ash thing.

Okay, So by starting from the beginning, remember it's not chronologically told, so you won't be seeing everything in the exact same order.

Is like, got it?

You you start off much further than you've seen most things.

Just for the artwork, because.

It is also remember like everything you've seen is a handful of chapters, but you I don't care everything that you've experienced in like a couple of days.

Yeah, and you and you guys have also filled in some of the cracks you know offline too.

I do think it's maybe a thing I'll do.

I want to get a sense of like what exactly how long a chapter is reading time wise, but it's like minutes.

Yeah, so it's like a comic book.

The comic book, this short comics.

Okay, cool, so it's manageable and yeah, yeah, I don't think you've told me so much that it's like I can't read this, Like I'm perfectly cool with how this is gone.

So maybe it's the thing I do.

But wow, holy shit.

You know what you can get, Jeff.

You can get the deluxe prints, which are these huge, leather bound, super high quality, incredible versions of I'll put a Lincoln.

They also on the internet, j Yeah, if.

You want to read them back, yeah, but if you want an actual thing thing these are.

I've got all of them and they are phenomenal.

God damn, that's sick.

I was just that I was that I saw this.

I was at Keno Kunia, that place you and I went to John.

Oh, yeah, I was there a couple of weeks ago and I saw these the luxe ones.

Yeah, these are good, that's cool.

But yeah, they are just on the internet.

We're very easy to find.

Are there are any other questions you'd like to know about Berserk?

Jeff, Oh, gosh, I don't think so.

You know, again, my position still stands like the you know, the fact that where this anime leaves us and the celebration of this thing, I am still left a bit off by it.

All.

That doesn't mean I did not thoroughly enjoy it.

I absolutely did.

I think there is just some like even where Cowboy Bebop ended, and not that we should be comparing these two things because they're just you know, they're their own things, you know.

I think there's something that broke my kind of like connection of like, wow, this is so terrible and so beloved and that is just strange on his face to me.

So here's here's what I'd say with that, Jeff.

To me, like, there are people who love Berserk upen until this point and see everything after this as like not as good, And to me, that is fucking insane, because what I think Berserk is is about like finding your place in the world and then realizing that, like you can be happy in a way that you never thought you could be.

Losing that losing all hope, the worst thing imaginable happening you, and then slowly you come back from that, and then slowly you meet people who mean as much to you as the old people did, and kind of finding your peace within that as opposed to like leaning into the pain or the anger of it all, or like the loss.

It's like moving on and finding your new kind of family, because that's kind of that's a big part of the journey that Guts goes on from here, and it's slow, but like my favorite page in Berserk is this moment where it's like Gut's kind of walking along the beach with like these new people and he kind of just looks around and he's like, oh, fuck, like I really care about these guys, and it is like one of the most powerful moments of storytelling I think you can have, like after everything he's been through and after everything he's lost.

And that is why like I'm okay with the eclipse in retrospect, because ultimately I think it is justified when you see where the story goes, especially when you see like the effect it has on Caska and what she has to go through to kind of come back from that.

Like, it's right, it makes good in the long term, but I can absolutely understand it being off putting in the here and now.

Yeah, I mean just hearing that it is essentially not a setup, but it is it does in some way serve as that as a mechanism for that, right, Yeah, I mean you even said it yourself to him, right, Like it's kind of just a setup for what else happens.

That's just it's like astonishing.

But yeah, I I I'm so glad to have been exposed to this and experience it.

And it's just it does also feel like I'm now in a club that I was not in before, and for that, I think that fucking rules.

So yeah, well it's it's a club where we're happy to have you in.

Jeff.

Yeah, it seems like everyone's trying to offload the truck.

What it feels like, Yeah, totally, I will.

I will give her this curse for sure.

Indeed.

Yeah, yep, So where does that leave us?

Okay, So it's the thing you never want to hear from a podcast that you enjoy.

But truth listener is that we've kind of been talking the last couple of weeks and we feel maybe that Jeff Jeff's Bizarre Adventure has reached the end of its journey.

Like I'll be honest, there's a there's a lot of different, like smaller factors that kind of contributed to this.

Like I think all our lives are in like a very different place now than when we started this podcast.

And like, you know, I'll be honest, like the the split, the thing that happened with Giant Bomb complicated things and made things difficult in a way that's like, you know, difficult to get into.

And you know, I'm sure that if you've been following along, you've noticed how infrequent the uploads have gotten and how difficult that has been.

And you know, a large part of that is just four very busy people across three different timeframes.

And to me, I guess I feel like I would like to end this show on a high where like everything was good and we have so many good memories of it, rather than I guess, trying to drag it out and applying pressure to it, which can you know, cause all kinds of problems as well and the yeah, it's it fucking sucks.

But I guess, like my prevailing feeling is I'm just really glad that we got to do it for as long as we did.

Absolutely, there's there's so much to be able to look back at and be happy about and proud of.

I could not agree more for sure, the.

Goofs, the gaffs, the gufts, introducing Jeff to anime, and I think I think, like perfect picks, by the way, you got to do something very different with each.

One, kind of undefeated with those selections.

I gotta say, Yeah, I still think of the moment Jeff use the term turn based cartoons and thinking, oh, this is gonna be, this is gonna work.

We're going to get some stuff here.

And yeah, you know, like I just I really hope people enjoyed the podcast, and you know, it was like, yeah, it's there's a lot of want to say, and maybe I will save that till next time, because this is not the last episode.

This is the second last episode, and we thought it only appropriate two ends Jeff Jeff's Bizarre Adventure on Is it our first ever film?

Yeah, yeah, film.

We we flirted with the idea before, but this is the first time we'll actually go through with it.

We are going to watch the Cowboy Bebop movie Stairway to Heaven and send off.

I've never seen.

Oh, it's just like a great episode to Cowboy Bebup like that.

That's just what it is.

That's what I want.

Yeah, and when was this made?

Oh?

I can't remember specifically when it was made, but it takes place before the final episode of Cowboy Bebup and before that final two parter.

I believe.

Cool.

Okay, that's all I need going in.

I can't wait.

Not quite sure when that will be out.

I am pretty busy over the next little while, but it will Look we're going to tie this off by the end of the year for sure.

Yeah, that is a commitment we can make.

Yeah.

But yeah, guys, I hope this isn't too much of a bomber for people.

Again, just want to thank everyone for listening.

This was like, honestly like dream come true podcast for me, and I've really bummed its ending, but also just so thankful that I got to become close with the people I did over the course of this.

So yeah, well said, absolutely couldn't agree more.

Really an amazing experience also with you know, like, how many years was it?

Three?

Right?

Three years?

You think about all that time spent together, How great that is that we have that, and just being able to grow as friends and as co hosts and and create a thing that is so much fun and such a thing.

I would look forward to doing all good things.

And I think, yeah, going out kind of ridiculous that we announced that we're into the podcast after the eclipse.

We didn't think that one, ebodys, but.

No, to echo what you both said, it's been such a highlight and I'm so glad we got to do it and just hang out.

I'm so glad we got to hang out in person.

Yeah, we did a bunch of live ones as wild yeah, whole thing.

Yeah, No, that was great.

Be guys, We will see you for our final goodbye next time Cowboy beab ups Stairway to Heaven.

Hell yeah bye