Oddly, in their Hellsing ones, they moved all of the end-of-volume extras (gag strips with the Valentine brothers, some of his old on-shot manga that featured characters that would go on to appear in Hellsing proper) to the back of the final Omnibus, rather than including them where they would've been in the single volumes.
Dark Horse Releases "Deluxe" Berserk Edition
- Thread starter Sareth
- Start date
Goat
Foolish king
This is probably a noob question, anyway: I can't properly understand how much volumes of the Dark Horse edition will come out. I see there are 12 out there, which should cover the story until volume 36. Will the Dark Horse edition cover all of the volumes and will it also cover studio Gaga's continuation?
They have been releasing them at a regular pace, and a quick check online shows that volume 13 is planned for March 7, 2023. I don't believe they have communicated yet on whether they would keep going with the continuation, but I think it can be assumed. However I also think it would be contentious for them to make a volume 14 that would include two volumes drawn by Miura and one made without him. Doesn't mean they won't do it, though.
Their options to avoid this would be to include the guidebook or even the Grunbeld novel (which would be worse imo) in either 13 or 14 instead of a volume, so 14 would end on 41, or perhaps include four volumes worth of content in 12 and 13 so 12 would have volumes 34 to 37 and 13 would have 38 to 41. I'm pretty sure they will just have 14 be 40, 41, and Studio Gaga's 42 though.
Dark Horse is very slow in bringing Berserk to the west though, volume 41 has still not released in English yet, so given that 42 is not even out in Japan for several months yet, it'll probably be a long time before we see what they do for the Deluxe version.
Dark Horse is very slow in bringing Berserk to the west though, volume 41 has still not released in English yet, so given that 42 is not even out in Japan for several months yet, it'll probably be a long time before we see what they do for the Deluxe version.
Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Deluxe Editions 12 and 13 already say which volumes they're collecting, the usual three, so unless they make a monumental change of course, nothing different is happening before 14, when something different definitely will one way or another.
As we've discussed, concerning the editorial sense, or lack thereof, of these of these collections I would be pleasantly surprised if they did anything other than publish the next three sequential volumes, let alone something clever like doing 40, 41, and the guidebook to add a natural, yet unobtrusive, partition before the continuation. Maybe shocked would be the more apt phrase though, because that would suddenly make them more thoughtful than their Japanese counterparts, AND go against the publishing purpose of NOT renaming or separating it; if you want all of Miura's Berserk in this format, you're also going to buy in to NOT Miura's Berserk, might as well keep going then...
I also suspect this doesn't require a brand new contract negotiation, like with a new or separate property, with Dark Horse or their other publishers around the world; they're simply continuing to publish "Berserk" as is, it's just no longer by the same author. I think the only consideration that would gum up the works is if the new Berserk proves to be far less popular and/or lucrative, and therefore less valuable, than when terms were agreed to.
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Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
That would make a lot of sense and there's precedent within those collections and already a lot of material on the subject they could publish. You know what would be awesome? If they filled the pages after volume 41 with all the published letters and tributes to Miura, basically a whole section devoted to his life after his final volume of Berserk. Great, now I'm going to be disappointed!
Who knows though, maybe some within Dark Horse will take issue with the placement or direction of the continuation themselves, or simply be susceptible to pressure on the matter. It doesn't take much these days, and if it's sort of a universal concensus among fans that it's a lesser product they may well listen before it affects their brand or bottom line, but I wouldn't bet on it over 42 appearing after 40 and 41.
Yeah that's a very ambitious idea you have there lol. Frankly, outside of this forum I haven't seen much negativity about the continuation, so I doubt the court of public opinion would be a deciding factor, let alone an internal thing at Dark Horse. Some kind of tribute would be nice though.
It's too bad the official guidebook has many inaccuracies and tasteless stuff in it, though. Almost feels disrespectful to append Miura's final chapter with a quickly put together "guidebook" with tactless stuff like this in it
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If they include all the color pages + Miura's interview + Miura's character designs; correct or exclude erroneous stats; and remove the silly character profile parameter graphs, cutie collection (still can't believe they had the gall to include that), and silly romance puzzles, then that would be so much better.On another note - NPD Bookscan released 2022 USA sales figures of graphic novels the other day.
According to this article, Berserk sold about 799k copies in USA last year (Deluxe & softcover combined)!
Notably, the Volume 1 Deluxe edition sold 146k copies in 2022 vs. 57k in 2021. That's over 2.5 times more than in 2021!
Wish they could've included a breakdown of top manga titles sold to see where Berserk falls. But in any case, really happy more people have been getting into Berserk
Aside from the interview there is nothing of value in the guidebook. I'm really not a fan of this as an include. It definitely feels tacked on with minimal to no thought put behind it. Definitely not an attempt to pay respect and honour his passing.
However it could be worse. Ideally they could have thrown in some art, sketches, or other bonus material that celebrates Miura sensei's work.
I'll still buy it, but I'm overall disappointed.
However it could be worse. Ideally they could have thrown in some art, sketches, or other bonus material that celebrates Miura sensei's work.
I'll still buy it, but I'm overall disappointed.
It's true that the guidebook has no value outside of the interview, but realistically, given Dark Horse's history, this is pretty much the least bad scenario we could have hoped for. These deluxe edition volumes are repackaged stuff, they weren't going to create a special thing for it. With all of that in mind, I personally see it as great news.
You'd need a Japanese Deluxe Edition to get anything really special.
To Dark Horse's credit, they did fix one of their biggest editing mistakes for this. In the singles print of volume 38, the pages where Daiba saves Erica from Rakshas has the dialogue in the text bubbles messed up and out of order, but it's correct here.
To Dark Horse's credit, they did fix one of their biggest editing mistakes for this. In the singles print of volume 38, the pages where Daiba saves Erica from Rakshas has the dialogue in the text bubbles messed up and out of order, but it's correct here.
For example the illustrations file, I do wonder tho, why is that so expensive? I wanted to order one but damn
I think Dark Horse messed up the mapping in general at the end. Miura (RIP) passed away in May of 2021, vol. 41 (Japanese) came out in December of 2021. DH should have made Deluxe vol. 12 and 13 as 4-in-1s (34-37, and 38-41). They did have over a year to work on this, and honestly, they it would have been a much better result that immortalising the horrendous cashgrab in deluxe format. But well, it's already too late.
I'm just glad that us people who don't know Japanese can read the manga in the original format as it was intended and released in Japan, that is, the 7x10 format
Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
You're goddamn right! When I saw on Amazon, "Collects Berserk Volumes 40, 41, and Berserk Official Guidebook" I was surprised and thrilled. I don't care how crappy the guidebook is, it's ancillary and Miura-era crappy, damn it. If anyone wants to be truly PUER, get the Japanese tankōbons and have the Dark Horse version on Kindle or something. Super stoked I won't have to chop the volume into two pieces or bleach the last third something, "Unclean! Unclean!!"
Hmm, guess I'm not the only crazy person who was planning on doing this
I always liked the choice for the visual of these deluxes, I think its best displayed like this because with artwork u want a sense of mystery, u dont want to be bombarded with the characters and shit constantly, this way ur like "what could this one contain?" lets say someone is completely unaware of what berserk is, they'd look inside and feel so much more intense emotions than if they have some sort of expectation from the cover image...at least thats how I see it and thats why I really like the visual choice for em, what I dont like is that its cheaply made and they have a ton of issues, its inexcusable
TheItCrow
Knight without Title
They look great in my bookshelf. I also really like the DINA4 pages, you can enjoy Miura's art in larger images.
They are harder to handle than the smaller versions for obvious reasons. And they are heavy! I took one of them with me on my vacation and you can really feel the weight in the bag.
Overall though I'm a fan. I don't really like the traditional Manga book format anyway... it just doesn't look nice in a "traditional" bookshelf. But thats just me.
They are harder to handle than the smaller versions for obvious reasons. And they are heavy! I took one of them with me on my vacation and you can really feel the weight in the bag.
Overall though I'm a fan. I don't really like the traditional Manga book format anyway... it just doesn't look nice in a "traditional" bookshelf. But thats just me.
Goat
Foolish king
I have all the volumes up to 13. As far as I know, it has some problems with the english localization (but I'll leave this argument to someone who is more informed than me).
I really like it a lot from the aesthetic / materials point of view, but I think it's purely personal.
I really like it a lot from the aesthetic / materials point of view, but I think it's purely personal.
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