Berserk: Shinen no Kami

Alt title: Berserk: God of the Abyss

One Shot
1996
4.186 out of 5 from 407 votes
Rank #995
Berserk: Shinen no Kami

God of the Abyss is the 83rd chapter of the Berserk manga series containing a one-on-one conversation between Griffith and God. It was not published in either the Japanese or translated tankōbon at Kentaro Miura's request, his reason being that he felt that the chapter gave away too much information too early in the story.

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nathandouglasdavis
4

This chapter has essentially been removed from the main series because it apparently gave away too much of the grand scheme of things too early. So of course, I've decided to read it even earlier in the timeline than it originally came out--when I've only read two chapters of the main series and haven't even been introduced to Griffith as a character yet. I'm getting mega premie'd, boss, and I'm loving every slightly confusing second of it. I don't care for the way the god-heart is portrayed as being both a cause and an effect of collective consciousness. It seems to suggest that it can manipulate the consciousnesses of humans and thus manipulate history, but aren't consciousnesses what spawned it? How can you manipulate the source of your own existence (wouldn't that be manipulating yourself)? And also, why is it talked about as though it's an unintentional byproduct (with people perhaps not even being aware of its existence), but also talked about as though it was an intentional creation because people desired "reasons." This just feels like some of the philosophical ideas the author clearly wants to riff on and the cosmology fe's creating don't blend together all that neatly. It also feels kinda dumb how this singular person (Griffith) is so all-important...though maybe that aspect is cooler within the context of the series itself. The art is pretty neat. We see a Griffith, hollowed out and with tears within feir skin-shell that show feir hollowness and how feir current body is unstable and not intended to be in this plane of existence. And then there's a giant black heart floating in the void, with gusts of air violently circulating through its ventricles. These "air" currents don't actually look all that good though, in my opinion. The artist kinda fell flat in feir attempt to create a psychedelic atmosphere.

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