Berserk: Season II

ベルセルク (Berserk 2nd Season)

6.6(112,596)

MAL Score

Ranked #7402

Popularity #1343

Action
Adventure
Drama
Fantasy
Horror
Gore
Military
Psychological

Episodes: 12
Duration: 24 min per ep
Aired: Apr 7, 2017 to Jun 23, 2017
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

Midland has descended into turmoil, and demonic creatures now stalk the land as a grim fact of life. Branded and unable to linger anywhere for long, the swordsman Guts is pushed into constant flight and combat. Surviving alone was one thing; traveling with Casca—once a commander, now broken, without her memories and unable to trust him—turns every night into a desperate struggle to endure.

With danger closing in at every turn, Guts searches for somewhere Casca can be protected until a way to restore her is found. Guided by their elf companion Puck and rumors of the hidden realm of Elfhelm, they press onward with little more than a fragile hope, even as the need to confront those behind their suffering remains ever-present.

Otaku Consensus

Berserk: Season II survives chiefly on the force of Kentarou Miura’s source material: its Miura-supervised adaptation, lean 12-episode pacing, and Elfhelm-bound dark-fantasy material give manga readers enough story momentum to stay invested. The editorial verdict is blunt: Shin Itagaki’s continuation works better as a delivery system for Berserk’s seinen horror, swordplay, revenge, and psychological damage than as animation, with GEMBA and Millepensee’s heavy CGI remaining the criticism that dominates nearly every discussion.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Berserk: Season II if you want uncompromising seinen fantasy that treats gore, trauma, demons, magic, military collapse, and revenge as the texture of the world rather than as shock decoration. It scratches the same bleak itch as Claymore’s monster-haunted medieval fatalism and Attack on Titan’s sense of civilization under siege, but with a harsher psychological focus and a more mythic obsession with gods, ghosts, witches, and cursed survival. This is not the version to choose if polished 2D combat animation is your priority; the full-CGI presentation is the barrier. But if you can tolerate rough visuals for a faithful continuation of one of manga’s most influential dark-fantasy stories, the season offers dense lore, ugly moral pressure, and a protagonist defined by endurance rather than victory.

Key Characters

G
Guts
Guts remains compelling because the action-hero surface is constantly undercut by psychological exhaustion, bodily punishment, and a revenge drive that never plays as clean wish fulfillment.
C
Casca
Casca is central to the season’s emotional discomfort because her condition turns every act of protection into something morally and psychologically complicated.
P
Puck
Puck gives the series a rare pressure valve, bringing elf lore and small bursts of levity into a setting otherwise dominated by gore, demons, and fatalism.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
The season is one of the most visibly CGI-defined entries in mainstream dark fantasy anime, with AniList tagging it as CGI at 98% and Full CGI at 85%. That production choice is not a footnote; it is the central reason the show remains divisive.
2
Kentarou Miura is credited not only as original creator but also as supervisor, which helps explain why many viewers who dislike the visuals still describe the adaptation as faithful to the manga’s story material.
3
The sound team gives the series more prestige than its visual reputation suggests: Shirou Sagisu handles the music, 9mm Parabellum Bullet performs the opening theme, and Yoshino Nanjou performs the ending theme.
4
Its 12-episode run aired from April 7 to June 23, 2017, making it a compact continuation rather than a long-form rebuild of the franchise. That structure favors forward momentum over recap-heavy onboarding.
5
The reception numbers capture the split unusually well: a MAL score of 6.58 from 112,596 votes and an AniList score of 60/100 show broad interest but persistent dissatisfaction, while MAL popularity rank #1343 indicates the brand still drew a large audience.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Berserk: Season II was co-produced by GEMBA and Millepensee, the same studio pairing associated with the controversial CG look that dominates fan conversation around the 2016–2017 adaptation.
Fun fact 2: Shin Itagaki directed the season, with Makoto Fukami credited for series composition and Hisashi Abe for character design, placing the adaptation’s structure and redesign choices in identifiable hands rather than treating the production as anonymous franchise content.
Fun fact 3: The staff list includes Hiroshi Itou as art director and Hiroki Satou as setup lead, production roles that matter on a series where the clash between medieval-horror atmosphere and CG staging became a major point of criticism.
Fun fact 4: AniList lists only 500 favourites for the season despite the Berserk name, a sharp sign that recognition of the source material did not translate into affection for this specific anime version.
Fun fact 5: Online reception often separates the material from the medium: fan comments commonly praise the story as strong enough to keep watching while describing the animation as cringe-inducing, dull, or simply the adaptation’s defining flaw.