According to the folks in mainstream entertainment here in America, everything must be made for a “modern audience” to “reflect the times we live in. It’s absolute proof that they have lost touch with the rest of the public because everything they create for modern audiences ends up dying at the box office or failing to attract viewers on streaming services.
One of the biggest issues is that everything has been feminized to the point of being nonsensical. Entertainment companies took the idea that one of society’s biggest problems was the societal domination by men, known better as the mustache-twirling villain “The Patriarchy.” In their misguided and ideological quest to level the playing field, they began neutering male characters in order to make their perfect female characters seem better and more powerful by comparison.
What resulted is some of the worst movies and television shows the world has seen in such a short time. While American media occasionally gets it right and releases a show or movie that people actually consider decent, many have given up on American art.
For many, they went east to find their entertainment. Many discovered Japanese entertainment, especially in the form of manga and anime. These forms of Japanese entertainment had a strong focus on character and story and made politics and messaging a non-factor, resulting in very real entertainment.
According to Bounding Into Comics, Dark Horse Comics revealed some of its data, noting that while manga was only one percent of its output, it made up 66 percent of its sales. Moreover, as to what the most popular stories were, the top seller was a manga called “Berserk”:
During an appearance at San Diego Comic-Con as part of the “Found in Translation,” journalist Deb Aoki reported that Gombos relayed during the panel, “It’s important to remember that manga was made for Japanese readers. At Dark Horse Comics, manga is 1% of our output, but represents 66% of our sales.”
Gombos’ revelation comes after Embracer Group revealed that Kentaro Miura’s Berserk manga was the highest selling print property in 2019, 2020, and 2021 at Dark Horse Comics.
It was also the third most sold property in 2017 behind Zelda and Overwatch in 2017 and the fourth most sold property in 2018 behind Zelda, Super Mario, and World of Warcraft.
Not only did they reveal that Berserk was their highest selling print property, but that it’s rise to the top of the charts also followed a trend where the company’s backlist sales began making up a plurality of its total sales.
Why is this interesting? What’s the significance of “Berserk?”
“Berserk” is a tale about a man named “Guts,” a savage warrior who had an extraordinarily abusive childhood brought on by growing up within a band of mercenaries. This horrific upbringing turned him into one of the most fearsome warriors in all of literature, and one of the most interesting characters to boot. The trials in tribulations Guts goes through throughout the course of his still-unfinished story are some of the most gripping and tragic.
“Berserk” is not a story for everyone. It’s not clean or happy-go-lucky. It’s bloody, sad, and disturbing at many points. The world Guts inhabits is one of evil gods, monsters, villains, and loss. The good guys don’t always win, in fact, they rarely do. But it’s Guts’s strength, determination, iron will, and often his unleashed rage that carries him and everyone else through some of the most heinous situations.
In other words, Guts embodies what American corporate media would refer to as “toxic masculinity.” In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that the left discovered the story of “Berserk” and the existence of Guts, and they immediately began attempting to cancel it.
This was covered well by YouTuber “ItsaGundam.” I suggest you watch his coverage of then-Twitter’s visceral reaction to the story of Berzerk, as I won’t go into too much detail myself.
Suffice to say, they hated the idea of Guts and the unforgiving world he inhabited. They hated that the world didn’t respect women for being women and that they suffered egregiously at the hands of the strong. They called it “misogynistic porn” and called for Berserk to be made illegal in the States.
Yet, despite the cancelation attempt, Berserk remains undefeated as one of the greatest mangas, if not one of the greatest stories of all time. It is truly a dark masterpiece with it central character being one of the most manly men in the history of literature.
It’s one more piece of proof that the Western left, the corporate media and all the celebrities and mainstream influencers are wrong. People don’t want this modern claptrap. They want real stories with compelling characters who, despite their fantastical nature, can be understood and even sometimes related to.
Moreover, they want to see masculinity, and they want to see masculinity dealing with extraordinary dangers.
