If I'm being totally honest, I think the first three volumes (minus the first episode of the Golden Age) are … okay. After watching the original anime and needing to know the rest of the story, I bought volume one and then promptly neglected to even finish it. Even so, the anime remained one of my favorite works of all time.

Many years later, after the movies, I tried again to read Berserk from the beginning, and only after slogging through the first three volumes did I get to my first real taste of what potential remained yet lurking in the depths of Miura's mind: the very first flashback to Guts and Griffith on that hill, before cutting back to the encounter at hand.

From that moment forward, it became clear that Miura finally had an idea of what his world was really about underneath all the grim violence. Something very noticeable changed in the writing, and everything published after that point has been amazing — easily among the greatest works of fiction and definitely one of my very favorite things.

The Golden Age is essentially the greatest ret-con in the history of fiction. This is probably a no-no to say around here, but I feel like if Miura had it to do over again, he'd start there and rewrite a lot of what was published before that first flashback.