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Berserk fans are used to long delays, with long breaks between chapters being the norm even before Kentaro Miura’s tragic death in 2021. However, the reason for the delays was never Miura getting distracted by other projects or struggling to come up with stories to tell. Instead, it was all because he simply didn’t believe anyone else could do as good a job as he could.

“I draw almost all of the characters and backgrounds for Berserk myself,” Kentaro Miura explained in a 2019 interview. “I have assistants do things like apply screen tones, buildings, backgrounds, soldiers, etc. Lately I’ve started having them do the ground as well.”

Around this time, Miura began serializing another manga called Duranki. Fans rightly worried if this new title would cause even more delays for Berserk. Miura, however, knew that the problems with Berserk’s release schedule almost always boiled down to him needing to be involved in everything. “I’m pretty quick at storyboarding, so the delays with Berserk boil down to problems with the artwork. My staff are all very talented, but, because I’m still drawing most of it myself, it’s causing more and more delays.”

The hope was that if Miura’s assistants got more experience and confidence drawing at the level Miura expected of himself, they could work on more of the comic and speed up the process. Unfortunately, Miura’s untimely death at the age of 54 meant that he never got to see this plan bear fruit, though Berserk continues to be serialized by a group of his trusted assistants from that time. 

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

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