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Romantasy fans know the importance of a slow burn, where the writer leaves the reader hanging for as long as possible before the final payoff. However, few can claim to have kept their fans waiting as long as Kentaro Miura, who, nearly 30 years into the Berserk manga, still felt he was just getting to the romance between Guts and Casca.

While discussing his decision to include romance in his 2019 manga, Duranki, Kentaro Miura admitted that he still didn’t feel that he had started exploring the romance between Guts and Casca. This is despite the pair very much seeming like a romantic pairing for more than two decades at that point.

“The moment I chose this androgynous character as the protagonist [of Duranki], I knew I had to properly depict romance,” Kentaro Miura explained. “I haven’t been able to properly depict it in Berserk yet, so I’m a little insecure and nervous about it.”

At this point, the interviewer pointed out that Guts and Casca had seemingly been in a relationship for years, but Miura had a different interpretation of their relationship. “Those two may look like that, but it’s like they’re stuck in an endless stage before they actually start dating.”

It is fair to say that Miura threw some roadblocks in the way of Guts and Casca’s relationship, but the fact that, even in 2019, he didn’t feel that they were an actual couple feels a little harsh. Who knows – in another 40 years, maybe we’ll see what Kentaro Miura had in mind for the end of Berserk and find out if this pair officially starts dating.

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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