Skullknight.NET
patreon
A look at some of the Big Berserk Exhibition goods
🕑 Added 2021-11-04 16:05:39 +0000 UTCI (Aazealh) was lucky to have an acquaintance in Tokyo who attended the Berserk Exhibition and was willing and able to purchase some goods on my behalf. Those items should eventually be purchasable online, meaning fans outside of Japan should be able to get their hands on them without having to pay triple price to a scalper.
But in the meantime, I figure I'd take some photos and answer some questions if y'all have any.
The Artwork of Berserk
The top picture shows the catalog of the exhibition (which collects each piece of Miura's artwork that was displayed there) and ends with a long interview. Many pictures and videos have already been posted online about this, so I just wanted to show the scale compared to a tankoubon.
As for my opinion of it: it is definitely a premium offering, and you can tell they didn't cut corners. The cover is soft and very velvety to the touch, with the writing debossed. It's a very nice effect. The paper and printing are high quality as well, although the art is maybe not as big and "front and center" as in the Illustrations File.
It very much does feel like the catalog of a museum or art gallery collection, for those who've bought one before. If anyone has more specific questions, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them.
The two-page spread reproductions
Seventeen of these were available at the exhibition. I couldn't get my grubby paws on all of them because some were very quickly sold out (and stayed sold out for a good while). They're great reproductions and very cheap for what they are: under $15 basically.
They show the pages before the final "smoothing out" of the editing process. You have all of Miura's little pen strokes in the margins, often page numbers (both for the episode, then added later on for the volume). For some, like the scene where apostles descend on the Band of the Falcon during the Eclipse, Miura has written the text to add in pencil at the bottom. It was added afterwards by the editing staff.
For speech bubbles, he usually penciled in the text and they glued printed bits of paper on top. One of the most interesting thing that is visible in some of them (for example the one where Zodd flies Charlotte's bed in the night sky) is how blackness was handled (big marker strokes) as well as the fact that several pieces of paper where sometimes used to compose a scene. For example in that one, the moon clearly looks like it's been cut out.
On the one of Zodd kneeling in front of Griffith, we can also see how screentones are added and what affect they produce.
One thing to mention is that these are really quite shrunk down compared to their original size. They're much bigger than a standard volume, closer but not exactly similar to a YA page. But that's still essentially twice smaller than the real pages Miura worked on. This means that normally, a single page is the size of those two pages. I may post comparisons using previously released reproductions if someone is interested.
Well, that's all that comes to mind, but don't hesitate to ask questions!
Comments
Skullknight.NET
Yeah that's really the main feature of these reproductions, the fact you can see the process before they work their magic. It's really quite charming too, and not something possible with digital art anymore.
Walter
Wow yeah, there's some extra post-production step that we didn't know much about before seeing unfinished pages like this. Very interesting!
Rhombaad
Sweet! Thanks, Aaz!
Skullknight.NET
Yeah, they've said "some of the items" would be sold online in the future and I do expect them to mean those types of reproductions. The reason is that Hakusensha is selling these itself, as opposed to some of the goods that are being offered by independent shops under the umbrella of the exhibition. As for the Puck necklace, AOW has some of these on its website if you want!
Rhombaad
Thanks for sharing, Aaz! Do you really think other merchandise from the Exhibition will be sold in the future, in addition to the artbook? I'd love to get my hands on some of these reproductions. That, and a Puck necklace for my wife. :-)
