Plagiarism or Inspiration: How much Dark Souls DNA is from Berserk? 

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RIP Kentaro Miura. You'll be missed.

I'm disappointed that while comparing Guts and Artorias you didn't point out that they both sacrificed their left arm for somebody important to then, Artorias saved Sif from the Abyss resulting in his arm getting severely broken, and Guts chopped part of his arm off to save Casca

Heck the Dark Souls creators on a interview stated they had a lot of inspiration from Berserk, Also whoever sympathizes with Griffith has more then 1 screw loose.

Goddamnet Miyazaki, just make a Berserk game already, Jesus Christ! EDIT: Holy Shit, Five years later and I'm still getting replies.

Actually the creators of the Dark Souls series asked the creators of Berserk to draw some armor designs for the game. In fact Onion Bro's (Siegward of Catarina) armor was inspired by Bazuso's armor from Berserk

Succumbing to dark within, at the cost of all others... Vendrick, he said something similar... "Seeker of fire, you know not the depths of Dark within you. It grows deeper still, the more flame you covet. Flame, oh, flame…" AND "Shadow is not cast, but born of fire. And, the brighter the flame, the deeper the shadow."

5 dislike? the god hand? Edit 2021 : godamn im still getting likes? 😆

Guts and Artorias fighting style in the his berserk armor is like 100% the same. No wonder Artorias is so bad ass, just got into berserk and i always been into Dark Souls. After watching the movies i see the game differently. The broken world incased in war, demonic gods, Tragic characters drove to madness from the influences of evil.

In the 3rd manga, i nearly shit golden bricks of joy when griffith used the term "dark souls"

Demon's Souls has a massive resemblance as well, like King Allant, his Knights and Maiden Astraea becoming demons for more power like some become apostles in Berserk for more power, and you as the player can wield ridiculously big and powerful swords as you hunt down the demons one by one, just like Guts does the apostles. Miyazaki just loves Berserk, he takes so much inspiration for in everything he does.

Both Gwendolyn and the mysterious child who most believe to be Guts and Caska's baby are children of the moon (Gwendolyn being the deity of the moon I believe and the moonlight boy only ever appearing at the full moon) Food for thought

the heavy greatsword +10

RIP Miura you not only created one of the greatest stories ever told and designed but also inspired one of the greatest game franchises ever made

I've always compared Griffith to the Anti-Christ. Many in the Berserk world believe he's a savior, he can do no wrong, and is perfect in everyway. There are several verses that parallel Griffiths arc. Such as Revelations 13:3 which is about the Anti-Christ being killed or incapacitated and being revived. This happens several times to Griffith but more prominently when everyone receives the dream about the Hawk being reborn.There is another verse about subduing Three Kings, King of Midland, King of Kushan, I don't know about the third King of Chuder perhaps? Now of course Berserk has themes from other religions and not solely Christianity, but regardless of my faith and it's critical parallels of the actions organized Religion it manages to be a fantastic read that I truly love. Sadly I think the author is on hiatus(AGAIN).

For returning subs who are interested we have just edited the timeline video to have the missing text of the timeline at the end.

i miss reading berserker for the first time..

God damn it. The editing. It's fucking phenomenal. And the way you cite sources. And include more context to the quotation. And the incredible analysis and understanding of both works. And (!) the pedagogical, comfortable tone and pace of narration. A-fucking-plus. This is a masterpiece of RU-vid videos. Be very proud of yourselves.

I started dark souls remastered at the same time I started reading Berserk and couldn't help but feel the similarities between them. Also how amazing and tragic both these are is what really hit me

"...in the womb was a place when a change could be effected" Blood borne with the blood making the body malleable and the emphasis on wombs, children, birth, and even a demon baby akin to berserk, plus knowing that despite existing in separate universes, from's games are heavily connected. --- I think that you really struck gold with the specific wording you used in regards to seath.

Susumu Hirasawa is a badass compositor, every music that came's from him, makes all turns into an epic. Kentaro Miura and Susumu Hirasawa makes berserk an epic, like Hidetaka Miyazaki and Motoi Sakuraba did to dark souls.

Rip miura

Years later and the imagery of the eclipse continues to TERRIFY me.

Berserk's OST is so good!

hey - been counting the days til i got more more Hawkshaw. It's good you're back

I know this is old, and no one will probably see this, but the reason the nameless king rebelled against gwyn is because he locked away gwynevere with the egg containing the abyss. Which pissed off the nameless king and caused him to go to the dragons in an attempt to destroy his father and free his sister who he loved.

always thought about guts being more the chosen undead. But yeah... atorias is the better choice. great Video!

Nice video. The strangest part about watching Berserk is the music. It's the closest link to the Mushrooms in Dark Souls.

Berserk is awesome.

Glad you're back!

SoulsBorne is the wonderful child of Lovecrafts Absurd Cosmicism and Beserks aesthetics

Pretty sure Seath is Griffith. He's an outsider whose contributions won Gwyn the war, was made a duke, and while he wasn't manually disfigured he was however a mutation and seen as disfigured by his dragon brethren. He also achieved immortality, has blinding white color scheme, and if you're looking for a tampered hybrid child, look no further than Priscilla in the Painted World.

To me Gwyn and Skull Knight/Gaiseric are very similar too. Both are previously great rulers who single handedly changed the world only for everything they worked for to fall ruin in some way and they both are now husks of their previous selves fighting for a single simple reason and nothing else.

Guts = strength build Griffith = dex build

A simple yet seemingly overlooked resemblance, Artorias' and Guts' arm.

Rip Kentaro Miura

R.I.P Kentaro miura

I thought it was established that gwindolin IS a god, hence why he was fed to Aldrich *_the devourer of gods_*

RIP Kentaro Miura :(

Watching hawkshaw is like being part of the cool exclusive club that only the coolest kids are a part of >:)

I was a berserk fan far before I was a dark souls fan, I knew the similarities/references but this took it too a whole new level. I've been waiting since the last video for this! And you did not disappoint! Still baffling to see few subscribers, but with quality content such as yours I'm sure it'll soon rise! (I've also been spreading your channel name at every dam DK video so I hope that helps a little too lol) thank you, and praise the lore!

Awesome! I've been looking for videos like this. There's only one guy on youtube who pointed out the visual similarities and a few little theme similarities, but you went much deeper. I haven't read Berserk, but this is very interesting. If you can - make more, please. This is great stuff.

This is a great video, many things that aren't that obvious you point out, which is definitely better than many of the other videos out there which only cover superficial level similarities. The best manga inspired a lot of the best game, I'm privileged to have experienced both these magnificent works and to enjoy them as much as I do.

i used to get frustrated when people would make offhand comparisons between dark souls and berserk. this video made me want to read berserk. thank you!

Also, about Caduceus- the Brand of Sacrifce also looks quite similar to a Caduceus. And well, beinh branded heralds arrival of spectral beings

GUYS your entire channel is absolutely amazing!! Are you guys going to go over Dark Souls 2 and/or 3?? I would love love love to find out your guys' take on the lore there. Keep up the good work guys seriously, nice work!

A vast number of these similarities are just common medieval tropes. Since both Berserk and Dark Souls are both games that appear to be set in a medieval environment, there's bound to be similarities.

I wonder what's going on in the minds of the people who disliked this? Did they find the video and click it to say "fuck this weeb shit" or something? Just want to go against the flow? Who knows?

Such ideas in this video where more and intriguing sensations that I was not expecting to imagine nor thing about. Especially the description for the idea of Ciaran as that is an interesting backstory and structure

Wow, I knew Dark Souls was inspired by Berserk, but this goes beyond my expectations!

Furthermore, in Dark Souls 3, you must place the five Cinders of the Lords on their thrones to get to the Soul of Cinder. I honestly believe this is reflective of the God Hand, and it could probably be looked at further.

A masterpiece... Its haunting how much this video stuck with me

I use a berserk manga as my fleshlite. I love berserk.

I know this is maybe a bit out of place but "Gwyndolin" has eyes in DS3 if you do look closely.

I think we can all agree that's it's inspiration done right, there's clear nods to berserk but with Miyazaki's own spin on it

This video pushed me over the edge to play Dark Souls. I had about 100 hours in Bloodborne and I had just finished collecting all 38 published volumes of the manga masterpiece, Berserk. I had bought Dark Souls for around $6.99 on an Xbox Live sale and with my background in playing Bloodborne I had an easier time adapting to the gameplay and systems than somebody who was starting fresh with no From Software game. Also since I love and adore Berserk I am really into the lore, mythology, and art design of Dark Souls that it has me totally enraptured with it.

the video was amazing, but a thing a saw in dark souls is that the darkmoon Knightess has a strong similarity: she was saved by Gwyndolin (in this case it would be like griffith) and she spent her whole life on being the darkmoon blade

Great thorough work as usual

thanks Hawkshaw, I am thrilled every time you upload a video. By the way, I think that Skull knight is like Guts was meant to be a sacrifice in an eclipse and I think that Void was the one who sacrificed them.

This is such a great channel. You just got a sub, keep up the good work.

I've waited like a year to actually read berserk to watch this video, was worth the wait

I thought that you were going to talk something about how Guts lost one of his arms,and Artorias did as well. (even though he just broke the arm,didn't actually lose it)

Every time I watch one of these videos, it makes me realize how much I missed in my first playthrough.

Griffith had the brightest fire of his dreams at the falcons camp and there were also hundreds of other smaller bonfires surroundind it, the owners of which devoted their lives and this fire to Griffith. We are lighting the First Flame for the Gwin as well, following his dream. But is there an ending where we follow our own dreams?

Great video with a lot of in-depth information. I just wanted to point out that the in the japanese version of the game, the sentence "an unmasking of these deities would be tantamount to blasphemy" from the description of the Darkmoon Blade Covenant Ring doesn't contain a pluralizing suffix. The sentence in Japanese is 「その偽りを破るものは、神の大敵に他ならない」, which can be translated "Those who detroy/defeat the lie/fabrication (refering to the illusion of Gwynevere) are nothing but the archenemy of God/the deity". The word 破る(destroy, defeat) can also be interpreted as "shattering a dream". In Japanese, most nouns have no plural form, so the differentiation is often a matter of context. However, the word "god" is an exception (神=god, 神々 = gods). I think that if the developers really wanted to refer to multiple gods, they would have used the plural form 神々(gods) or 諸神 (a multitude of gods). However, they maybe intentionally wrote it like that so we, the players, are left to guess.

Isn't bozuso onion bro?

Man I love dark souls so much I didn't even think this went hand and hand each other. Wow

I'm rewatching these in remembrance of Mr. Miura.

"Only Oolacile is an exception..or used to be." That got me thinking, Oolacile might have been like Falconia, the only safe place in the Dark Souls universe, however the way things went, it fell as well. It would be interesting to see Griffith's dream crumble down and disappear.

Thank you for showing the similarities. This video was worth the wait.

This really goes off the rails. Similarities get so tenuous.

once again great work!

Coming back to this video after playing Elden ring and seeing the various Greatsword tributes littered across the map. RIP Kentaro

Lol I understand the point being made that our actions in dark souls are morally questionable, but in my opinion there is just no way to justify the demons in berserk as interpretable. it's pretty clear that their actions are totally evil and you just can't redeem them

You forgot, Guts loses his left arm at the moment of the eclipse. Artorias has his left arm shattered at the moment of his corruption.

Berserk is love, Berserk is life.

Man no one ever mentions how artorias is a fusion of Guts and Griffith. He's Guts with Femto armor, fusing both roles

Mmmm hearing dat music from the old anime feels good man

Oh my fucking god I never noticed sif and artorias fighting similarly. Thats beautiful. Shit, this game is good.

i just finished the first berserk manga volume and i'm now a fan and i see the similarities

Fantastic work! You're quickly becoming one of my favourite Souls content creators. There are indeed a lot of thematic and design similarities between Berserk and Dark Souls, but they tend to be blown way out of proportion by fans (I'm guilty of doing this myself); you did well to avoid doing that for the majority of this video, but I honestly found your attempt at drawing similarities between Xanthous King Jeremiah and Emperor Ganishka particularly far-fetched. As an aside, one of the discoveries of the famed Illusorywall is that Ornstein is nicknamed "Griffith" in the data files. I'm not exactly sure what this could mean with regard to your theory, but it's worth noting, I suppose.

So... Dark Souls is basically Berserk but without the Party Members and a Respawning-Hero?

While I like a good easter-egg, I truly feel FromSoft has basically gotten away with murder on this one. It's not just Dark Souls. It's demon souls, bloodborne etc. It's to the point where I feel that each game should have an opening credit where Fromsoft is thanking their clear as day inspirations. It's beyond a bunch of "cute nods". The comparisons are too numerous to count. It's not just character design either. The entire story is based on Japanese mythology and old anime films. The biggest issue is people having absolutely no clue about any of this but feel the need to hail Miyazaki's designs and storytelling as "original" and "unique". Put simply, when something couldn't exist without the other, said something owes a bit of thanks. And more than a mention in an interview. Nothing Souls related would exist without Berserk. End of story. Miyzaki got lucky by combining old-school difficulty with Berserks design philosophy. That's it. Sekiro is probably the farthest From has leaned away from the Berserk designs while maintaining the same style gameplay/difficulty and is regarded as their worst recent title out of the souls/borne games. Go figure. To clear up any confusion, I absolutely love the souls/borne/iro/ring games. I just like to give credit where credit is due. He owes so much of his success to other artists.

6-7 years after a d the community is still finding lore in a game that was "rushed". how deep does the rabbit hole go?

Artorias and Guts have left hand disadvantage.

What is the name of the first background track?

Falls out of favour with the king xD That's one way to put it

BAZUSO!

7:38 To me that looks way more like Old King Doran's armor...

Artorias and Guts are not that similar, they have SOME similarities but saying they have big swords and were put into the same poses is utterly ridiculous to use as comparisons. Their personalities and missions are totally different, you literally have to stretch out their characteristics to find similarities.

Add in the fact that Gwyndolin doesn't have a power of Sunlight- he has a power of Moon, the reflected Sunlight. This adds in even more to the fact that Gwyndolin might bea bastard child.

18:48 when the dancers theme kicked in... spine tingling fear and chills despite my nth time watching this video

the demons never chose anything in dark souls, they were born from the bed of chaos

Sees picture at 6:22 Screenshots Saves to "I swear its not my porn folder" folder

Will you be doing Dark Souls 3 and its DLC's? The lore is fascinating as well.

In day, when Berserk will end and Miyazaki will announce a game about full journey of Guts, humanity will achieve Heaven.

That soundtrack tho. Never gets old.

tbh, i could fall asleep to these vids, all of the Berserk analysis vids are like the best calming videos ever

One thing I hate about fandoms is how fast they are to accuse others of plagiarism and theft of style but don't realize every series and stories authors create are inspired from other mediums usually combined to create something new and when they get "inspiration" and "plagiarism" mixed up then by definition their calling there favorite series just a rip off

Any news about what the next lore video is going to be?