The official Berserk Twitter account released a statement today announcing that creator Kentaro Miura passed away on May 6 due to an acute aortic dissection at age 54.
The manga creator was born in 1966 in Chiba City by two designers. From a young age, Miura was always inspired to write manga, creating his first series at the age of 10 and being published in his school’s newsletter. The series ended up spanning 40 volumes whilst Miura was still underage. Miura stated that his love of shojo manga as a child was a direct inspiration for his later works.
Miura made his debut as a professional manga artist at the age of 18, working as an assistant to George Morikawa, best known for his series Hajime no Ippo. Morikawa quickly saw the talent that Miura possessed and said that there was nothing more than Morikawa could teach him, dismissing him as his assistant.
Whilst attending Nihon University in 1988, Miura created his first draft of Berserk, submitting it to ComiComi's Manga-School prize, eventually coming second overall. The first chapter of the revised version of Berserk was eventually published in October 1989 in Monthly Animal House and moved to Young Animal in 1992. Since then, the series has gained worldwide fame, topping Best Manga lists around the world. Berserk led Miura to the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize of Excellence in 2002.
The original anime adaptation of Berserk from OLM aired between 1997 and 1998 on Nippon TV. The follow up anime film series, Berserk: The Golden Age Arc, premiered between 2012 and 2013, with the sequel anime series from Millepensee and GEMBA airing between 2016 and 2017. The 40th volume of Berserk was released in 2018 in Japan, with the latest release of chapter 363 included in the January 2021 issue of Young Animal.
In his later years, Miura enjoyed video games and internet culture, including watching videos on NicoNico and playing the [email protected] video games.
Thank you Miura-san for bringing joy to people around the world, may you rest in peace.
Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.
RedGreenAndPleasant on May 20th, 2021 at 06:05 UTC »
I saw Berserk trending and got super excited because I thought it was a new episode.
In my excitement, I forgot the number one rule Berserk taught me. Never hope for a nice ending.
shogi_x on May 20th, 2021 at 04:51 UTC »
Holy shit. I kept up with Berserk for a long, long, time but fell off a few years ago. Even after I stopped following the new chapters, I'd occasionally think "Man, I gotta catch up soon," because I was so excited for where it would go next. Miura's amazing style made damn near every page unforgettable.
Absolutely tragic. I have no idea what happens to Berserk now.
ILuvMoistTowelettes on May 20th, 2021 at 04:13 UTC »
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST NOOOOOOO