Bleac said:First of all, it would be good if they didn't cut out too many parts. I can understand that the first couple panels of the story are not exactly enchanting, but it's integral to keep everything if the purpose is to recreate an authentic experience, even the sensitive parts, especially the sensitive parts.
Archer1215 said:That scene wasn't cut because of it containing sensitive material. It was cut because it was deemed to be out of character for Guts and to not add much to the story anyway.
Bleac said:Who deemed it out of character for Guts? The members involved in the production of this project or the community as a whole?
Bleac said:I'm asking because it's the first time I've heard of it. I personally feel it's just as important a bit of Berserk as any other, and it plays its part in representing Guts' condition at the time. Even if you don't agree with that, it also serves the role of a shocking (for lack of a better word) introduction from a storytelling perspective, so it's not completely purposeless. I see no good reason why it should be left out.
Archer1215 said:I think that whatever part it may or may not play in examining Guts' mental state at the time comes at the expense of flying in the face of his characterization that is expounded upon later in the story. At the time, Miura didn't have Casca in mind so their relationship was a non-factor, and he may not have had Guts' rape by Donovan in mind or the impact that would have on Guts, namely his aversion to intimacy and of physical or sexual contact (even in the same episode he reacts angrily when Puck makes to touch him in the prison cell, although this could just as easily be attributed to his distrust of others after being betrayed by Griffith and losing his friends).
Archer1215 said:For that reason alone I think it is a fine decision for it to be cut from the adaptation. As it stands, its only purpose in the story to begin with is to shock the reader right off the bat and hook them into the story. It doesn't bother me too much in the manga since it's only a few pages in the beginning, but I don't think it is anything necessary to the story that would make an adaptation worse for excluding it.
Bleac said:I see your points about Miura not having every aspect of Guts' life planned out, but I still don't think that should be enough to invalidate the scene. After all, it's still part of the story, and it represents a different time of Berserk and Guts as a character; even if the contrast with his current self is not perfect on the details, I think saying that it flies in the face of his later characterization is a bit far-stretched.
Bleac said:As a sidenote, it sounds kind of odd to me in the first place, the more I think about it, for fans to deem a certain part of the story unfitting and exclude it, without the author himself specifically saying that he doesn't consider it to be representative anymore, or that he himself would exclude it.
Archer1215 said:That scene wasn't cut because of it containing sensitive material. It was cut because it was deemed to be out of character for Guts and to not add much to the story anyway. They don't intend to censor any and all sensitive material in the story.
Bleac said:First of all, it would be good if they didn't cut out too many parts. I can understand that the first couple panels of the story are not exactly enchanting, but it's integral to keep everything if the purpose is to recreate an authentic experience,
volatilecurry said:There's more to it than that. It's not like they were just trying to make a statement about the scene being out of character. The painted artwork on those pages are harder to cut apart, redraw, and animate than other pages normally are. There was doubt that they could do the scene without it looking/sounding silly, and it was going to be the scene that leaves the first impression for the entire motion comic so they couldn't really half ass it. It was ultimately going to take a lot of work in a project that was already taking some two years to come together, so skipping it made sense. The fact that some of the people working on it didn't like the scene anyway or thought it wasn't very important just made it that much easier to skip over.
volatilecurry said:For what it's worth, I like how they handled it. This scene gets argued about on /r/berserk and Discord all the time. I can't even begin to tell you how often I see people complaining about it giving a bad first impression or asking why Guts would do ever have sex with an apostle after what they've done to him, and blahh blahh blahh. The scene is divisive enough on its own without having some kids voice act over it while Guts is wiggling. The compromise they made was to allude to its existence without showing it in full. That would be acceptable to me in a full fledged anime with a studio and a budget, so I definitely don't mind that this unpaid fan adaptation did it.
That wasn't the intention. The intention was originally just to do voice acting over the manga pages. As they worked on it, they realized it would be boring unless they did more to it, and so they decided to start making it into a motion comic and the project grew. From there they had to make a lot of decisions about how they would proceed. None of the people who worked on episode 1 are professionals at all -- some aren't even in college yet. They were doing their best to figure out how to even make this thing happen at all, so being 100% authentic to the manga wasn't their biggest concern.
That scene aside, I like how this thing turned out. I was really impressed with how much work they did, especially considering the background of the project. A lot of love and care went into this and it was fun to watch. Future episodes are going to be increasing in production quality too, so I'm excited to see where this goes.
Archer1215 said:it baffles me that the omission of a single scene is getting so much attention rather than the amount of care and hard work that have gone into the finished product.
Archer1215 said:It was cut because it was deemed to be out of character for Guts and to not add much to the story anyway.