Berserk Volume 1 is adapted from the Manga by Kenta Miura and boasts a mature approach to the world of anime. Rather than simply indulge in wish fulfilment and male ego, the series is an elliptical story about Guts, a medieval warrior, and Griffith, his mentor. Guts is the berserker of the series' title with an almost unstoppable rage and a brutal sword. Volume 1 carries the first five episodes of the 25 part series.

Episode 1 introduces us to the medieval Black Swordsman, the mature world weary Guts. We join him as he battles a dictator's stooges and pledges to bring the patriarch down. In Episode 2, we then flashback to his adolescence where a teenage Guts takes on and defeats a marauding grey Knight as a mercenary. This brings him into conflict with the Hawks gang of mercenaries and he challenges their best Knight, Kosker, and defeats her. He then faces off with the group leader Griffith only to taste defeat and be forced into joining the charismatic leader's gang. In the remaining episodes, we see that due to a maturing Guts and Griffith's guile, the gang become successful and powerful, and are eventually accepted into the King's army.

Berserk is an anime with a degree of style and intelligence that you wouldn't always expect from this genre. Each episode keeps to a formula of 25 minutes of blood and thunder with the regulation cliff-hanger to keep the audience on tenterhooks for next week, but the slow burn story with layers of extra detail are unexpected and pleasing to the intellect. The story of the development of a warriors unwanted child into a mythic mercenary has a fine fabular quality which intrigues and my one gripe about this disc is that it left me wanting to know more about the future episodes. The violence is carried out with sufficient bloodiness but the boundaries of good taste are kept to and the characters are drawn with subtlety and respect. It is always a cartoon but the central roles are portrayed with recognisable humanity and patience. There is even a romantic sub plot which takes its time to mature and isn't a question of instant rumpey pumpey to please the adolescent in all of us. In fact, the main love story here is really between Guts and his beloved leader, Griffith, they even have the kind of water fight that you expect in soft-core porn before the main event. Still a bit of homoeroticism never did anyone any harm.

The development of plot is filled with surprises and it is reassuring that the story keeps redefining itself through extra flashbacks which change the nature of our perception of Guts and those around him. Rather than surrender itself to the formula of battles and manipulated climaxes, the tale holds the attention through dramatic twist and insight. The animation is not high tech by modern standards and some of the voicing of the English track is inappropriate, one character sounds like Leslie Phillips, but the overall package is very good. Exciting in the plentiful fights with much in the way of arterial spray and believable in the dialogue, Berserk is a cut above your average Manga.