Guts

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## Magnificent Baddie

### Alias

*The One-Hundred Manslayer*
*Black Swordsman*
Boy
Boss Guts
Captain
Hawks' Raiders Captain
Kshatriya of Durga
The Branded Swordsman
Protector of Casca
The Struggler
Krishna Sena
Mister Swordsman (by Jill)
Viravadana Kshatriya

### Allies

Casca (lover)
Puck (best friend)
Isidro (protégé/sidekick)
Farnese
Serpico
Schierke
Ivalera
Skull Knight
Rickert
Erica
Godot (deceased)
Judeau (deceased)
Pippin (deceased)
Corkus (deceased)
Gaston (deceased)
Griffith (formerly)

### Powers/Skills

**Normal**:
Peak Human Strength
Peak Human Durability
Swordsmanship expertise and mastery
Combat specialist
Absolute violence
Extreme pain tolerance
Weapon proficiency
Superb tactical senses
Tenacity
Anger empowerment
Death defiance
Causality immunity
Adaptability
Fighting experience
Indomitable will
**Berserk Armor**:
Superhuman Strength
Superhuman Durability
Superhuman Reflexes
Limited Regeneration
Rage Empowerment
Augmented progress with the Berserker Armor

### Goals

Earn money and survive.
Hunted down and slaughter the Apostles.
Find the whereabouts of the God Hand (all formerly).
Restore Casca's Sanity (suceeded).
Survive against evil spirits.
Kill Griffith and the God Hand.
(both ongoing, latter on backburner).

### Crimes

Parricide
Deicide (both justified)
Mass murder (including child murder)
Manslaughter
Assassination
Collaboration in conspiracy
Theft
Attempted filicide
Pedicide
Attempted strangulation (both are the result of possession by Beast of Darkness)

### Type of MB

Tragic One-Man Army

**Guts** is the main protagonist of the manga and anime series, *Berserk*. He is a mercenary who eventually joins a group called the Band of the Hawk led by Griffith. While a member of this mercenary group, he grows to care for them and finds a purpose after being inspired by Griffith. However, after being betrayed by his best friend, Griffith who became Femto, and watching the Band of the Hawk be devoured by monsters, he begins hunting Apostles and attempts to get revenge on him.

In Japanese, he has been voiced by Nobutoshi Canna and Hiroaki Iwanaga, the latter of which voices him currently. In English, he has been voiced by Marc Diraison in the 1997 anime and the animated movies, Michael Bell in *Sword of Berserk*, and Kaiji Tang in the 2017 anime.

## What Makes Him Magnificent?

* Generally, he has survived by his own wits and intellect alone in an inhumanly harsh and cruel environment, even having been hunted by horrific demons for the better part of half a decade and surviving regardless.
* Marc Diraison's charismatic and emotive performance in the 1997 anime and "Golden Age Arc" film series, which can expertly switch between calm and philosophical and berserker rage at a moment's notice.
* His iconic design, with spiked hair, large, muscular build and flowing cape, as well as the angular and jet-black Berserker armour.
* The previously-mentioned musculature, chiseled jawline, badass baritone and angst make him a prime example of Mr. Fanservice.
* His fighting style alone conveys the magnitude of his badassery, with his famously unwieldy and massive sword that he wield as a downright mobility tool with inhuman speed, using the sheer weight and force of the thing as more or less a pogo stick.
* Despite his inhuman rage and character design, he is far from a brainless 90's action hero, demonstrating numerous moments of philosophical contemplation and kindness, as well as being a ruthless and intelligent schemer on and off the battlefield.
* Having been bred for combat from an early age, he has been an efficient and powerful fighter from age 9.
* After being sold out by his adopted father to a pedophile and molested, he lead the man into an isolated area before killing him and rejoining the battle, knowing that the man's death would be written off as caused by an enemy.
* After being forced to kill his father in self-defense, he survived from ages 12 to 15 wandering between mercenary groups.
* Kills the undefeated Bazuso with relative ease in combat at 15, which attracts the attention of Griffith and leads him to induct Guts into The Band Of The Hawk.
* Almost defeats Griffith when he makes Guts fight to either join the group or be left to go free.
* With his intelligence and combat ability, he quickly ascends to be tied with Casca as second-in command of the Band Of The Hawk, and manages to attract the sincere emotional attachment of Griffith, a man who was bred from before birth by The Godhand to be near-sociopathic.
* Grows to care increasingly deeply for his compatriots, overcoming his emotional damage and trauma from his childhood.
* Holds his own during combat with the ultra-powerful apostle Nosferatu Zodd, escaping despite death being a near-certainty.
* After being ambushed, he cuts down a hundred men with the assistance of Casca.
* Directs the Siege of Doldrey alongside Casca and Griffith and proves pivotal to taking the castle with his raiding party, succeeding with few casualties despite the Band of the Hawk being outnumbered 6 to 1.
* Taking the words of Griffith into account, he decides to leave the Band Of The Hawk, defeating Griffith in combat.
* Directs a rescue mission towards Griffith upon hearing of his capture, raiding the castle containing him and killing the torturer that had raped him.
* Bests the monstrous and ultra-powerful apostle Wyald, and saves Casca from being raped and murdered by him.
* Expertly and lovingly pleasures Casca despite never previously having engaged in sexual intercourse willingly.
* Cares for the ailing Griffith despite the latter having emotionally abused him and later sacrificing him to regain physical power.
* Manages to fend off the onslaught of demons during the Eclipse. While he was unable to save his compatriots during the slaughter, he tried as hard as he possibly could despite being a human individual against thousands of inhumanly powerful demons.
* Cuts off his own arm and lets his eye be torn out in an attempt to save Casca from Femto. Despite failing, this goes to demonstrate the lengths he is willing to go to protect people.
* After the massacre of the eclipse, he spends two years hunting down and slaughtering as many apostles as he possibly can, using a combination of traps, combat prowess and determination to kill dozens if not hundreds.
* Pretends to advance sexually on the Unnamed Female Apostle to lure her into a position where he can kill her with ease in vengeance for her killing Corkus.
* Manages to fight off the Apostle Rosine, using a child to lure and find her location, and deliberately setting himself on fire before dousing himself with the fake elf children's blood and then killing her after a protracted battle that nearly kills him.
* After being kidnapped by Farnese following his wounding during the battle, he refuses to confess and instead mocks her for her religious convictions.
* Upon learning of Casca being endangered in the Tower of Conviction, he rushes to rescue her, survive the death and chaos in the midst of the pseudo-eclipse.
* When presented, with an opportunity to kill Griffith, he relents, instead realizing that the protection of Casca is more important.
* Resists the intent of the manifested Slan to use the Behelit while in Qliphoth, and destroys the form with the Dragon Slayer.

## What Makes Him a Baddie?

* He demonstrates an extremely sadistic, vengeful and bloodthirsty streak when facing and fighting his enemies that being humans or apostles. While the majority of the people he’s killed are indeed awful people and the apostles he’s slain are horrific monsters, Gut's level of sadism towards them goes to an excessive point. Furthermore being a former mercenary, few of the thousands of men within combat that he has ruthlessly murdered, were presumably innocent people forced into a bad situation for survival who wanted to return to their families. Nevertheless he does continue killing people like the Kushans by splitting them in half with his blade. In regards to the apostles, not all of them are pure evil, however that doesn’t stop Guts from mercilessly slaughtering them especially Rosine who despite her horrific actions was ultimately a severely traumatised young girl who desired an escape from her abusive surroundings.
* Demonstrates a cruel and dismissive attitude to the majority of people throughout the series. While this is a result of his severe emotional trauma, it still reflects poorly upon him. This has been reduced with time, but he is still generally aloof at best towards those he doesn't know well. When he retrieved Farnese at her family's elegant party, he was even prepared to abandon the guests at the party despite knowing that dangerous tiger monsters were attacking.
* He did an assassination mission to kill Julius, though in this case Julius had attempted to kill Griffith so it's somewhat justified, then kills Julius' son, Adonis. Though the death of Adonis was done by impulse, he was ready to kill the witness entering the door without even checking who it was.
* Guts had no problems killing the thieves hired by Griffith and the royal conspirators as part of Griffith's dirty work, nor did he have any problem with Griffith having a child kidnapped and used as blackmail. When Griffith wondered if what he was doing was immoral and if he was cruel for having Guts do this dangerous work, Guts insisted that all of these crimes were simply part of the path of Griffith's dream and it was pointless to question it. This answer would have major negative consequences, since it was basically implying to Griffith that he could do whatever he want to achieve his dream. The God Hand would use this memory to help manipulate Griffith and convince him it was okay to sacrifice the Band of the Hawk.
* After the Eclipse, Guts chooses to leave Casca and go on a quest to hunt down the Apostles and kill Femto despite knowing Casca had gone insane and would need protection from the evil spirits that haunted her.
* He is extremely rude towards Puck, referring to him as a bug and constantly deriding him as a weakling and showing no gratitude for healing him.
* He allows an entire village to be attacked and slaughtered by the Snake Baron and his forces, showing no concern over endangering their lives.
* He endangers a priest and his daughter by going on a ride with them despite knowing the consequences of being near him, even internally saying it didn't matter what happened to them.
* When Vargas saves Guts from a group of soldiers and gives him a guide to the castle to kill The Count, Guts shows no gratitude, mocking him for his appearance despite Guts having gone through the same pain and mutilation and physically confronting him when he learns he had a Behelit. He later demands the Behelit, and tells Puck that he would've taken it by force had Vargas not complied.
* He uses Theresia, the young daughter of The Count, as a human shield and to deliver the final blow to The Count. He then takes The Count's head to show Theresia and torture the Count, threatening to kill Puck if he interfered.
* He offers Theresia a knife to kill herself if the pain was too much for her, and encourages her to take revenge against him, though this was done as his way of giving Theresia a purpose to live the only way he knew how.
* When he arrives at a village attacked by ravenous elves, Guts uses a young child as bait to lure the elves into a location where he could eliminate all of them.
* He uses Jill as a hostage to get himself out of the village. Then, when Jill is captured by Rosine, he uses her as a hostage again during the fight to gain an advantage over Rosine to kill her. This demonstrates that he is a ruthless pragmatist.
* Nearly succumbs to strangling and killing Casca again under the influence of his "dark side" personality, The Beast of Darkness, though he snaps out of it and is utterly horrified afterwards.

## Trivia

* Guts is the only Magnificent Baddie in *Berserk* so far, though other characters are likely to qualify.

## External Links

* Guts at the Heroes wiki
* Guts at the *Berserk* wiki
* Guts at the Inconsistently Admirable wiki
* Guts at the Seinen Heroes wiki