Berserk is Selling Out Following Kentaro Miura's Death
Berserk's manga has been selling out following the death of its creator, Kentaro Miura. Publisher [...]
Berserk's manga has been selling out following the death of its creator, Kentaro Miura. Publisher Hakusensha, who oversees the Young Animal magazine that Berserk's chapters had been published in, confirmed reports earlier this week that series creator Kentaro Miura had unfortunately passed away at the age of 54 due to acute aortic dissection. It is a massive loss for the manga medium as a whole, and both manga industry professionals and fans have been celebrating Miura's life and work ever since. This celebration has resulted in a huge boon to sales of the manga as well.
Dark Horse Comics have been releasing a set of Collector's Edition hardcover volumes for the series' English language license release, and all eight of the hardcover volumes are now sold out at the time of this writing. They even managed to break the top ten best selling on Amazon for a brief time following Miura's death, and are still ranking highly in the Top 100 list as of this time.
Hakusensha's original announcement of Miura's passing reads as such "[Report of the death of Professor Kentaro Miura] Dr. Kentaro Miura, the author of Berserk, passed away on May 6, 2021 due to acute aortic dissection. We would like to express our utmost respect and gratitude to Dr. Miura's painting work and pray for his soul. May 20, 2021 Hakusensha Co., Ltd. Young Animal Editorial Department."
In the following days since the announcement of his passing, Berserk has seen a number of emotional tributes through fan art, cataloging Miura's monster designs, and more. These tributes also came from other prominent manga creators in the industry as well as it's quite clear that this is a massive loss to the medium as a whole. While it's great to see Berserk finally getting love on such a massive scale, it's under tragic circumstances.
Dark Horse Comics began releasing these hardcover Collector's Editions for Berserk back in 2019 (with each release containing three volumes), and there are currently eight available with the ninth volume currently scheduled for a release later this November. It might be tough to get these now (as well as the standard volume releases of the series), but it will be worth the struggle.
Have you been honoring Berserk following Miura's passing? What are some of your favorite moments from the series overall? Have you decided to jump into the series after seeing so many kind words for it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!