Book Reviews

Review of Berserk

By: Noah Burns

Berserk is a dark, gritty comic series created by Kentaro Miura that has made an impact on how people tell stories and view them, as well. The first volume of Berserk came out in 1990, but the series actually first premiered in 1988 with a short prototype. Kentaro Miura isn’t new to making manga with him writing his first at the young age of ten. Miura was inspired by a number of things ranging from Star Wars to another popular manga Fist Of The North Star.

Berserk is centered around Guts, a strong willed mercenary with daddy issues. On one of his jobs, he kills a knight, Bazuso, from a well-known army and gets some extra money. This puts him on the map, and other mercenaries are hired to ambush Guts. An army is hired to attack Guts. Guts just mops the floor with them and in retaliation they bring out Griffith, their leader, who finishes Guts with one stroke of the sword. Guts is alive because Griffith let him live. Griffith is very experienced with a sword and killing so Guts wasn’t left alive by accident.

Guts wakes up to find that the group of people who attacked him are from the Band of the Hawk. The Band Of The Hawk is a band of mercenaries that are rising in popularity. Guts finds out that the name of the guy who took him down is Griffith. Griffith. Guts and Griffith talk and Guts finds out that Griffith wants him to join the Band of the Hawk. They decide that they have to have a duel to decide if Guts will join or not. Guts loses and is forced to join the Band of the Hawk.

That's the set up for the beginning of Berserk, although I purposely left some stuff out as to not ruin the story. I highly recommend reading Berserk because it's a story that can only be experienced by reading it. There's no other way to truly experience Berserk. You could watch the movies or the anime, but that would be taking away from your overall experience. Berserk also has valuable lessons. It teaches that people will have to struggle to get what they want and they shouldn’t let others get in the way of their dreams.

Review of The Good Luck Girls

By: Makeda Asnake

So far, I’m on page 100 and the book has so many twists. It’s about a group of girls who try to escape to freedom because one of the girls, the protagonist of the book, named Clementine (real name: Grace) had accidentally murdered her brag in a camp she was sent to by her parents when she was young. The brag was a tough, tall, male that was assigned to be with her at all times in her bedroom. The brag had physically abused and sexually assaulted her. While she was gasping for air and being nearly choked to death, she grabbed a lamp and hit his head. His last words were, “Damn you! …I’ll kill you for that ---” Her roommates noticed, carried his body with her in full shock. One of the girls, Aster, made a plan to escape from the camp with the girls so they would fight for their lives. Right now, they have settled in a city outside of Green Creek, where the camp (or house) was located. It’s some place called Arketta. There were reward signs posted everywhere for the suspects that were involved in the murder of the brag.