Kentaro Miura was recorded in December 2020 speaking about Berserk for what would become the exhibition's centerpiece video. He discussed the story's arc, its reception abroad, and his awareness that the manga was sixty to eighty percent complete. Five months later, on May 6, 2021, he died of acute aortic dissection at age 54. The Great Berserk Exhibition opened in September 2021 — the celebration it was designed to be had become something else entirely.
Chronicles 1 Through 12
The exhibition organizes Miura's 32-year serialization across twelve chronological sections — Chronicles 1 through 12 — tracing the manga from its 1989 debut through the Black Swordsman, Golden Age, Conviction, Millennium Falcon, and Fantasia arcs. 300+ original manuscripts are displayed in publication order, each page revealing what printed volumes compress: the obsessive hatching that builds Miura's darkness line by line, the architectural precision of his castle interiors, and the anatomical weight he gives to figures that occupy physical space rather than floating through it. At exhibition scale, Berserk's density becomes legible as labor — the hours embedded in each page visible in a way the tankoubon format cannot reproduce.
Original manuscripts in ornate gold frames — six of 300+ pages displayed at exhibition scale, Miura's obsessive hatching visible as physical labor rendered in ink
Nosferatu Zodd in human form and Guts — Prime 1 Studio statues on the Brand of Sacrifice base, visitors dwarfed by the scale
The Golden Age receives the most sustained attention — the arc where Miura's draftsmanship fully cohered around the Band of the Hawk's rise and annihilation. Displayed at original page size, the battle compositions reveal spatial choreography that functions panel-to-panel like storyboards for a film that could never be adequately animated. Guts's sword has mass. Armor has weight. Horses occupy ground. Miura draws violence the way an engineer draws stress tests — every impact has consequences that propagate through the following panels.
Griffith and Guts — paired Prime 1 Studio statues, the Hawk of Light in luminous blue alongside the Berserker in black, with Miura's framed color artwork behind
The God Hand — Void, Femto, Slan, Ubik, and Conrad in their transcendental forms, displayed on stepped platforms in a darkened room
“From the start, I had no way of knowing how foreign readers would react to a fantasy work by a Japanese author.”
— Kentaro Miura, December 2020 (final interview)
The interview was recorded for the exhibition five months before Miura's death. It is one of his last public statements — an artist who rarely spoke about his work choosing to do so for an exhibition he would not live to see. The video was later included in the Berserk: The Golden Age Arc Blu-ray release, but its original context was this room, these manuscripts, these walls.
The Dragon Slayer and Behelit — Guts' oversized sword mounted on the wall beside the crimson egg, with the manga's most quoted description: ‘It was too big to be called a sword’
The Eclipse installation is the exhibition's inflection point. A large-scale diorama recreates the moment where Berserk pivots from medieval war drama to cosmological horror — the Band of the Hawk sacrificed, Griffith reborn as Femto, Guts marked. The room uses unsettling audio and controlled lighting to compress the emotional register of a sequence that occupies several volumes into a single physical space. It is not interactive. It does not invite participation. It presents the event as fait accompli and lets visitors stand in the aftermath.
Guts, the Black Swordsman — life-sized Prime 1 Studio statue, Dragon Slayer planted amid fallen apostles and skulls
Nosferatu Zodd in apostle form — the colossal furred beast erupting from clouds, one of the exhibition's most imposing installations
The Artwork of Berserk — 217-page official catalog reproducing color art from all 40 volumes alongside the final interview
The Artwork of Berserk (Hakusensha, 217 pages) serves as both exhibition catalog and career compendium — reproducing cover art from all 40 published volumes, color illustrations, and documentation from the twelve Chronicles sections. The final interview is included in full. A separate release — Volume 43 Special Edition with Nosferatu Zodd bust figure (August 2025) — marks the most recent physical continuation, supervised by Studio Gaga with the painted, 360°-viewable figure standing 145mm on its dedicated pedestal.
Seoul edition at AK PLAZA Hongdae (October 2024 – January 2025) — Prime 1 Studio's Eclipse sculpture with Guts and Casca, alongside framed original artwork
The exhibition opened four months after the artist died. The manuscripts — 300 pages of hatching so dense it reads as darkness made physical — were hung on walls their creator would never walk past. The final interview plays in a room surrounded by drawings whose story he could not finish. Kouji Mori, the childhood friend who inherited the serialization, put it plainly: "From here on, it will be Berserk without Miura. Naturally, it's going to be imperfect." The exhibition doesn't resolve that imperfection. It presents 32 years of evidence and leaves the question of continuation to the people still reading.
Hill of Swords acrylic diorama — Griffith among the memorial blades, exhibition-exclusive merchandise by Art of War
Nosferatu Zodd in apostle form — life-sized installation of the colossal furred beast emerging from clouds, one of the exhibition's most imposing pieces
Cover Art Collection — framed color illustrations from 40 tankoubon volumes displayed in ornate gold frames
Original manuscripts gallery — six framed pages in gold frames on blue wall, showing Miura's obsessive hatching at exhibition scale
Ikebukuro Sunshine City (September 2021) — the original exhibition poster for the first venue, four months after Miura's death
Matsuya Ginza edition (September–October 2022) — the exhibition banner in situ at the department store
Volume 43 Special Edition (August 2025) — Nosferatu Zodd bust figure, 145mm, with smoke effect, supervised by Studio Gaga
- Great Berserk Exhibition Official T1
- Berserk Wiki — Great Berserk Exhibition T2
- CDJapan — Exhibition Collectibles T2
- JumpIchiban — Artwork of Berserk Catalog T2
- SoraNews24 — Exhibition Review T2
- Prime 1 Studio — Berserk Exhibition Korea T2
- Bounding Into Comics — Posthumous Interview T3
- Respawn — Berserk 2026 Return T3
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