Berserk Manga Review: Enoch Village

Now that we’ve got the full party together, it’s time for the true RPG experience: side questing!

Last time on Berserk: Guts and the gang met Morgan, an old man in search of a witch to help drive off the trolls attacking his village. They quickly find her: the witch Flora, and her apprentice Schierke. Being too old to help, Flora asks Guts to accompany Schierke in destroying the trolls in exchange for magical protection against his Brand.

Today, we’re covering the following chapters:

• Elementals
• Enoch Village
• Ambition and Reflection

We rejoin our party as they gather their equipment for the upcoming troll hunt. After Schierke places a ward on Guts and Casca to dampen the Brand’s effects, she distributes magical items to all the rest. Think Galadriel giving gifts to the Fellowship and you’ll get the gist.

Serpico gets a cool cloak and blade that harness the power of the wind. Specifically wind elementals and spirits. Of which Puck is one; not that the elf had any idea. With these, the already agile and precise Serpico gains the power of the sky.

For Isidro, the witch has prepared a flaming dagger and a bag of troll-repelling berries. Naturally, the boy immediately uses his new weapon to light stuff on fire. Annoying for Schierke, and mildly arousing for Farnese; I guess multiple consecutive existential crises aren’t enough to banish a nasty kink.

Farnese and Casca get silver chain shirts, and Farnese gets a silver knife. Helpful? Sure. Exciting? Not especially. But hey; the two look good. Shame they immediately cover them up with their normal outfits.

Finally, Schierke offers Guts an axe, but Guts refuses the weapon. He prefers to use the weapon he knows best. Besides, the Dragon Slayer is way fucking cooler than some random axe. Not only that, but Schierke notices something strange about the sword, though what, we don’t yet know.

Geared up and rested, the party make to depart. But Schierke isn’t exactly eager. She only sees her new companions as an unnecessary nuisance, especially Isidro. She also tries to convince them to leave Casca behind, but Guts shoots the idea down immediately, entrusting her to the unconfident Farnese’s care.

As they depart, Guts catches sight of a silhouetted figure watching the party from within the mansion. Once they’re gone, Flora returns inside, wherein we meet her mysterious correspondent that pointed Guts and Casca her way. Surprising literally no one: it’s Skull Knight. Turns out, he and Flora have some extensive history with one another, giving us some tantalizing hints into our favorite skeleton’s backstory and motivations.

Which we will not fully understand until Fantasia. Like, one hundred chapters from now. So keep this little seed in your brain.

‘Enoch Village’ opens up by showing us exactly how fucked said village is. A troll devours a man alive in a barn, having already chewed through the livestock. When his wife tries to save him, the troll leaps on top of her, tears her clothes off, and starts doing… you know. Her brother rushes in to save her, stabbing the troll, but this only enrages the rest of the pact hiding in the darkness of the barn. It’s a chilling scene that perfectly establishes the horrifying threat these trolls pose.

Even if it’s just more of what the Apostles already did. Eating people, raping women, etc. Why bother introducing other fantasy elements if they’re just gonna behave exactly like the already established demons?

Miura totally made up for it later, though.

Guts and the party arrive during the funeral for the victims of the aforementioned scene. Naturally, the desperate villagers are more than a little disappointed and skeptical to find their supposed witch to be a prepubescent child. Especially when the village priest shows up spouting the Holy See’s rhetoric. Despite offering their services, our heroes are anything but welcome.

Farnese, having worked for the Holy See, suggests that she try talking to the priest. An idea that Serpico quickly shoots down. After how the two of them left, they may very well be wanted criminals in the eyes of the church. Their roles as former Holy Iron Chain Knights will do the party no good here.

Tensions only increase when Casca trips into one of the caskets. Guts, being completely used to her shenanigans, hefts her out with one hand. This sends the terrified Casca into a frenzy, and she clings to Farnese like a shield. Guts uses her condition as an excuse to get lodgings for the night, manipulating the priest’s customs to lay the debacle to rest.

He also takes an opportunity to show off the Dragon Slayer, because why wouldn’t he?

Once situated in their rooms, Schierke passes locks of her hair around. With her magic, these will let her telepathically communicate with everyone during the battle. She also asks that they put her in charge, a request that infuriates Isidro, who has been butting heads with the little witch in every single scene they share. When everyone else in the party agrees without complaint, the boy storms off.

Puck also makes more unfunny fourth-wall breaking jokes because he’s not allowed to be an actual character anymore.

Heading to the village’s river, Isidro tries to vent his frustration with some training. An effort that ends with him falling into said river. Old man Morgan finds him here, and the two get to talking. Curious, Morgan asks the boy why he’s traveling with Guts and the others. In a rare moment of insight, we see why Isidro admires Guts like he does; how he sees the Black Swordsman as a monster that eats monsters, and how that both awes and terrifies him.

We also get some valuable insight into Morgan. Once, he had ambitions just as grand as Isidro’s. Then his mother fell ill. In a desperate effort to save her, the young Morgan went in search for the witch, just as he had been doing when he met the party. Miraculously, he had found her, and the medicine Flora provided helped him nurse her back to health. But by then, his mother was old, so he had to put his dreams aside to stay. Though he had to give up his dreams of adventure, he always cherished the memory of that one adventure.

Isidro, however, isn’t interested in the old man’s story. He basically tells the old man to fuck off, that he’s never going to end up like him and give up on his dreams. Then off he goes, failing to notice Guts watching him from the bridge above.

Meanwhile, outside the church, Schierke is harassed by a pair of village boys while she plans for the battle. Before things can escalate, Guts arrives and scares the brats off. While Schierke is grateful, she takes the opportunity to scold him for lying to the villagers. Hilariously, Guts isn’t even bothered; he only silently acknowledges that Flora raised the kid right.

Out of curiosity, Guts asks what Schierke had wanted to tell the priest back at the funeral. Only it’s not the priest the little witch wanted to scold. It’s all of humanity.

What does she mean by that? We’ll get into it next time. The battle is fast approaching; once we get in there, we’ll be in for the long hall.

This section sets the stage for this chunk of the arc perfectly. We’ve got our conflict with the trolls, the villagers, and the priest. Isidro has already had a moment of introspection and growth, and the rest of the cast will have their turns pretty soon as well. Miura was really starting to cook here, and the heat in the kitchen is turning up.

And he didn’t turn it back down for a long while. If anything, he cranked it even higher!