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** When the Eclipse goes down in the series proper, it marks a crucial turning point, where things turn from grim and gritty medieval fantasy into straight up horror as {{spoiler|Griffith}} does a [[Moral Event Horizon|truly malignant]] [[Face Heel Turn]], accepts the offer to become a Godhand, and marks everyone he's led, including Guts and Casca, with the infamous Brand of Sacrifice. Things go from bad to worse for them and the rest of the Hawks ''very, very quickly''. {{spoiler|Many people we had come to like get killed very horrifically, many of them being eaten alive until only Guts and Casca are left. When Casca's sword breaks at the very worst possible time, she learns that the demons have even ''worse'' in mind for her than being eaten. Guts in the meantime has made a very badass showing against a whole mess of demons, but when he sees Casca naked and in the hands of the demons, Guts tries to save her, only for a demon by the name of Borkoff to clamp his massive jaws around Guts's left arm before he can reach her. And then Griffith, reborn as the fifth member of the Godhand, Femto, flies down right in front of him, brings Casca down to him, and then [[I Have You Now, My Pretty|starts having his way with her]] -- which is made ''even worse'' due to the fact that, because the Brand causes serious pain when its bearer is in the presence of a demon, and she's as close as anyone can possibly get to a ''member of the Godhand'', she is ''[[Cold-Blooded Torture|in complete and utter agony all the while that Femto is doing this to her]]''. Guts tries to kill Borkoff with his shortsword but breaks it on his impenetrable hide and is forced to ''chisel off the arm with what's left of the sword'' in order to get free. But when he finally gets free and goes after Femto? He is dogpiled by a whole mess of demons that claw out his right eye and is [[Forced to Watch]] as Griffith, who used to be his best friend, brutally rapes the woman he loves to insanity, right in front of him and purely out of spite, and ''staring straight into Guts's eyes the entire time he's doing this to her'', without Guts being able to do a ''fucking thing'' about it}}.
** {{spoiler|Casca's}} ordeal alone crosses [[Moral Event Horizon|SO]] [[Complete Monster|MANY]] [[Tear Jerker|LINES.]] {{spoiler|As if being raped and being in excruciating pain because of her brand is bad enough, but it's the ''way'' that Femto is raping her that deems the act as so heinously vile. Femto does some truly horrific things to Casca that can only be described as pure ''sexual sadism''... things that [[You Do NOT Want to Know|you don't even want to describe]] just out of respect for this woman. Casca is being violated sexually, physically, mentally, and emotionally.}} Not to mention that that [[Hope Spot]] stunt that {{spoiler|Femto}} pulled was really nasty {{spoiler|as he allowed Guts to get ''just close enough'' to he and Casca after he chiseled off his arm only to get him dog-piled mere feet away. It's as if Femto did it just so Guts could get front row seats to see exactly what vulgar things he did to Casca.}}
** This is the point where the anime ends, and in the manga, that's only the ''beginning''. Because it turns out later that {{spoiler|Casca was pregnant with Guts's child when she got raped by Femto, and as a result of this, the child was horribly tainted by Femto's evil, and is born premature and deformed. Despite being tainted by evil, the child still cared for its mother a great deal, to the point of summoning ghosts to protect her from Bishop Mozgus's [[Cold-Blooded Torture]]. It's then used as the vessel for the rebirth of Griffith back into the mortal world when it's devoured by the Behelit-Apostle, basically a giant Behelit with tentacles, dying along with him}}.
** For lack of a better word, volume 13 is powerful: it makes you want to [[Nausea Fuel|throw up,]] [[Tear Jerker|cry,]] throw up again, guzzle down five gallons of [[Brain Bleach]], and eat [[Ridiculously Cute Critter|an adorable puppy]] for good measure just to get over it because you '''will''' feel as if {{spoiler|[[Adult Fear|you're getting raped yourself]].}} It is truly a nightmare in itself to have to read volume 13. We understand if you don't want to - and we aren't forcing ya.
* For a good deal of the series early on, before Guts found his new [[True Companions]], became [[The Big Guy]] for the [[Five-Man Band]] and was simply a ferocious warrior with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance, one of the more unnerving aspects of the series was how easily Guts could be seen as an even ''more'' horrifying creature than the Apostles he killed. Some of the Apostles are shown to be veritable [[Alas, Poor Villain|Macbeths]] as far as their motivations and origins go. Examples follow below.
** The Count returned from a mini-crusade to find his wife in the midst of a pagan-orgy, was driven mad with the pain of the betrayal, and used the Behelit to take away the emotions that hurt him so much. Even then, he still showed sorrow (as an Apostle, mind you) over the way that his daughter treated him differently, even though he had gone to great lengths to keep the cause of her mother's death a secret. In the end, he allows himself to be sucked into ''hell'' by many of the people he'd killed rather than sacrifice his daughter. Guts, inversely, not only killed an elderly priest to use as a decoy against the Count, but even used the Count's innocent daughter Theresia as a human shield to halt his attack...before proceeding to blast him with his [[Arm Cannon]], brutally decapitate him, and then ''torture him further'' because the Count is ''[[The Juggernaut|still alive after all of this]]''...all right in front of Theresia. He actually dragged the Count over to her so she'd have a front row seat.
** Rosine was in an abusive household, and discovered to her despair that the stories of fairies in the distant forest were nothing but myth. Then, as her father is ''beating her mother on the very ground that her dreams and innocence were shattered,'' the Behelit takes away them both and turns ''her'' into a "fairy," and grants her the ability to turn other children into "fairies." When Guts finds her, not only does he leave a trail of mutilated and burnt child-corpses in his wake (the converted children turn back into humans when killed), he gleefully burns the fairies-in-progress, and outright ''terrifies Rosine.''
** When fighting Mozgus, while Mozgus is established as a monster, after becoming infected and becoming a ''real'' monster, he has the appearance of an angel, as do his interrogators. While he ''does'' intend to sacrifice Casca to placate the demon tides, he's also the only one protecting the refugees from said demonic flood. Guts, of course, [[Always Save the Girl|tells the refugees to shove it and die like men]], and then kills their angelic guardians, cementing his status as the demonic black swordsman. Even in death, fire consumes Mozgus' body, which actually holds back the flood as a handful of remaining refugees kneel around him in prayer.
{{quote|''"Mommy, the angel fell!"''}}
** What happens next? [http://www.mrsmanga.com/Berserk/166.176/92 Bam.] That.
* How Captain Zondark received his powers from the Count.
* The Egg of the Perfect World collecting human bodies as part of his garden.
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* Trolls from the Qlippoth, whose primary method of reproduction involves forcibly impregnating captured women from villages, with the births of new trolls being every bit as horrific and lethal to the poor women involved as that of Ganishka's demon soldiers.
** Just to add that with the troll example {{spoiler|A couple chapters before hand, we see a woman who's husband and brother were killed by those creatures while she was raped and captured. Later we see that very same woman pleading, desperately pleading for help before those critters rip their way out of here.}}
*** Actually caused a bit of Real Life nightmare fuel for this troper - a few weeks after reading those chapters, she came home to find a little statue that looked EXACTLY like the trolls.
* The Apostles are some pieces of work themselves. {{spoiler|Most Apostles shown in the Eclipse look like deformed genitals with gaping maws, [[Vagina Dentata]] and unbelievably hideous faces.}} As for the Godhand themelves, Void has his lips peeled back to show off his teeth and gums and his eyelids are sewn shut. Let's not forget his exposed brain...
** [[Fetish Fuel Station Attendant]] Slan pulled a textbook example of [[Fan Disservice]] when {{spoiler|she manifested herself in a mound of entrails from the trolls that Guts has just slaughtered in the Qlippoth to confront Guts and injure him. The most - physically - attractive of the Godhands turns into pure [[Squick]]}}.
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** First, we have Princess Charlotte and her old father, the King of Midland. She looks identical to her mother, the Queen, which... caused some problems. Canonically, he ends up trying to rape her, after his rage that Griffith slept with her. The idea of this is ''very'' disturbing, and definitely requires a ton of [[Brain Bleach]]. This alienates her from her father to the point of disowning him and refusing to see him when he's on his deathbed, his health having seriously deteriorated because of the guilt of what he had done.
** Then there's Guts and his adoptive father Gambino. Guts was adopted by Sys, Gambino's lover, after she miscarried, despite superstition that states that you shouldn't pick up a child from a dead body. Several years after Guts was taken in, Sys died of a plague, which was tragic enough because it left Guts without a significant mother figure in the years to come, but it also hardened the heart of Gambino against Guts, [[You Should Have Died Instead|whom he felt should have died instead]]. Despite Guts looking up to him and doing everything in his power to make the mercenary leader proud, including bringing him his part of the pay for every battle, Gambino hated Guts so much that at one point, he sold the poor kid to one of his men, a creepy pederast by the name of Donovan, for three silver coins, which leads to Guts being raped despite his best efforts to fight the big man off. Things between Guts and Gambino come to a head when Gambino, after losing his leg to a cannonball, gets drunk one night, comes into Guts's tent, and tries to murder him, forcing Guts to kill him in self defense.
** And then there's the relationships between the three central characters themselves. After meeting and being defeated by Griffith, Guts moves up in the ranks of Griffith's mercenary band, eventually becoming a commander of raiders, and the two of them form a bond that is very much like brotherhood (or if you're [[Shipping Goggles|that way inclined]], [[Ho Yay|more than that]]). Meanwhile, Casca has been Griffith's trusted [[Number Two]] ever since Griffith saved her from being raped as a little girl. Griffith gradually becomes obsessed with Guts, such that when Guts decides to leave the Hawks after deciding that he's not going to be a part of Griffith's dream, Griffith's thoughts during the resultant duel, about how he would not let him go, are very [[Yandere (disambiguation)]]-ish. And after being defeated, he goes to see Princess Charlotte and proceeds to bang her, which he mainly did as a rebound, which gets him thrown into the Tower of Rebirth to be put to the torture. By the time Guts and Casca have rescued Griffith (and fallen in love), Griffith has come to ''hate'' him, and the focus of his obsession gradually moves to Casca. But when he finds out that Guts and Casca are in a relationship and are thinking about leaving him behind...oh ''boy'', does he [[Despair Event Horizon|lose it]]. And to make things ''even worse'', this is the point where Griffith finds his [[Artifact of Doom|Behelit]] again, triggering the events of the Eclipse, which are better covered elsewhere on this page. ''No one'', especially not [[Star-Crossed Lovers|Guts and Casca]], walks out of the horror that follows unscathed.
* Rosine's little [[Crap Saccharine World]] is fairly disturbing, specially due to the fact that her "elves," who rape and kill each other, are basically [[Kids Are Cruel|still children]] ''[[Kids Are Cruel|playing]]''. When we see the cocoons in which they are transformed, things reach a ''really disturbing" angle when we learn she plans to turn her childhood friend into one of the little bastards; [[Sarcasm Mode|thankfully]] we later see (courtesy of Guts destroying the cocoons) [[Nausea Fuel|the deformed children inside then]].
** The absolute worst part of Rosine's "elven kingdom" is the "Adult attack", where they pin each other to the ground and rape each other with their stingers. Depressing, horrifying, and slightly narmful in a way that produces an entirely new feeling of awkwardness mixed with terror.
*** [[It Got Worse|Even worse than that]], this happens in front of Jill, who has had to fight off [[Attempted Rape]] from one of her father's friends at least once. She throws up in horror when she sees it. [[Fridge Horror|This also really makes you wonder where Rosine got the idea that this is what adults do...]]
** All those transformations - from little fairies into hornets and back, in all possible phases.
* The Vrittanian dinner party, when the first tiger shows up. It's really quite disturbing to see Miura toy with classic horror tropes (not showing us the tiger initially, the lights going out, [[Gory Discretion Shot|blood splattering on bewildered onlookers...]]) when most of the other monsters have been so in-your-face. It's almost less frightening when the rest of the pack burst in, just because they're immediately spotted.
* All the [[Eye Scream]] that happens with disturbing regularity.
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** And getting stabbed or shot in the eye with an arrow takes the eyeball with it.
** Also, in the very beginning when Guts is fighting the Baron of Koka Castle. First, the Baron loses his left eye when Guts blows his head in half, then he loses his right eye when Guts shoots it with his crossbow during wholly unnecessary but well-deserved torture.
** Serpico stabs a kelpie through the head, and then next page we see its left eyeball dangling from the socket. ''Lovely.''
* {{spoiler|[[God Is Evil|The]] [[Bigger Bad|Idea]] [[The Man Behind the Man|Of]] [[As Long as There Is Evil|Evil.]]}} That is all.
* Following Griffith's {{spoiler|year long torture}} there's also the utterly emotionless look in his eyes/face.
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*** And to add more [[Fridge Horror]] to the mix, just the sheer thought that {{spoiler|Casca was raped by ''[[Satan|the]]'' [[Satan|epitome of evil]]}} is enough [[Go Mad From the Revelation|to cause the viewer to go insane.]]
* When Schierke taps into the powers of darkness and reminescents that when you look into darkness, the darkness looks back at you. And does so in form of [[H.P. Lovecraft|Cthulhu-esque nightmare]]. Okay, it was later revealed to be just an Earth spirit, but his first apperance and build up to it was damn creepy.
** So Miura is a [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]] fan too, eh? I was beginning to think that this series wasn't [[Nietzsche Wannabe|philosophically cynical enough.]]
* I always find it particularly terrifying that after being reborn into the mortal world, {{spoiler|Griffith}} doesn't actually seem to have changed that much. If anything, his cunning, military prowess and inhuman charisma have increased, making him even more successful than he was before.
** Agreed, in particular the bit where he {{spoiler|meets Guts again}}, calmly declares that he feels no remorse for anything he did, and says it all so damn ''reasonably'' that it's almost as if he thinks Guts is the one being irrational, is truly horrifying. Even if you didn't know what he was capable of with his demonic powers, the sociopathic lack of remorse would be frightening enough on its own. This aspect of him rattles even Guts, and considering how much he's been through without batting an eye, that says a lot.
*** What I always found scary about that bit was how Casca actually seemed ''affectionate'' towards him. She collapsed before long due to [[Allergic to Evil|the pain his presence caused her Brand of Sacrifice,]] but apart from that she didn't seem bothered by him. Presumably it was the remains of her child (whose corpse Femto had used to exist in the mortal world) she was reacting to, but that doesn't stop it being horrifying that she seemed willing to embrace Femto when Guts struggled day and night to keep her safe and she still wouldn't trust him.
**** This creeps me out as well, especially since Casca can subconsciously remember her ordeal during the Eclipse when other characters are trying to force themselves on her, but she didn't seem to do that when she was near Griffith... One could argue that she didn't see a reason to fear Griffith at the time because it was {{spoiler|Griffith ''as Femto'' who raped her}} but remember that {{spoiler|Casca INDEED recognized the demonic entity as Griffith before he violated her.}} This just brings on an onslaught of [[Victim Falls For Rapist|bad thoughts and assumptions.]]
** What about the way Femto builds up the new Band of the Hawk? The readers know that he's a monster, but not many of the characters do, and seeing a new bunch of people looking for a purpose in life flock to his banner just as they did before sets off no end of alarm bells for what might happen to them.
*** I always found it particularly disturbing that he actually went so far as to ''[[Suspiciously Similar Substitute|replace]]'' the original leaders of the Band of the Hawk, even after claiming that he felt no remorse for selling out the first batch. It was no wonder that Guts [[Berserk Button|was so pissed]] when Grunbeld mentioned that he was part of the new Band of the Hawk.
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* The Count playing with Pippin's hollowed out corpse just to torment Guts.
* Yeah, the anime might have [[Lighter and Softer|dumbed down on the violence,]] but still: some scenes are still mega horrifying when you attach sound effects, voice acting, and full motion depictions to the mix.
** From re-re-rewatching the series, I found it ''extremely'' unsettling hearing Guts actually scream in pain as Nosferatu Zodd prepare to tear him limb from limb.
** Guts hacking off his arm with his broken sword while Badass was also incredibly disturbing. And in the anime [[Hell Is That Noise|the sound of him hacking at his arm]]. This troper clenched her arm and grimaced during that scene and is sure she's not the only one to do so.
** And to end, {{spoiler|Casca's rape itself.}} Yes, the anime was more lenient on us to ''at least'' put up a {{spoiler|[[Rape Discretion Shot]]}}, but it's still sickening having to watch her writhe in agony as this is being done to her.
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** Slan being female amplifies this by a few orders of magnitude. A woman gleefully approving of {{spoiler|another woman's rape}} is just the bitchiest thing imaginable.
* While an awesome moment for Casca it was also quite creepy how post-Eclipse when {{spoiler|she ran away from Guts out of fear and ran into some bandits, who then tried to gang rape her... but by the time Guts found her, Casca was naked and covered in her would-be rapists' blood after she slashed all of their throats.}}
* Overlapping with [[Fridge Horror]], it disturbs me to realize that Guts, a guy who is really one of the only non-sexually predacious men in ''Berserk'', nearly came close to raping Casca on ''three'' different occasions. Alright, we'll throw the hero a bone by mentioning that the first instance was only an ''insinuation'' and that the third time he was being manipulated by the Beast when he was emotionally vulnerable. However, the second time, which happened a few weeks after the Eclipse when Guts accidentally ripped open Casca's gown and he leaned in to presumably kiss and have sex with her, was really all on him. Had Casca not pushed him off and run off screaming and crying, he might not have stopped himself... And he does this despite the fact that {{spoiler|she had just been brutally raped in front of him with the image of the act being seared into his mind.}}... And if Guts was really [[All Men Are Rapists|that type of man,]] he can easily have his way with any person that he wants, [[Near-Rape Experience|as demonstrated in volume 23.]] Shame on you, Guts.
* Notice how during the Eclipse the demon apostles stripped Casca naked, one of them raised its spikes close to her vagina in between her legs and looked like it was going to rape her had it not stopped to watch Femto being born with the others.
* The song Behelit in the anime. [[Hell Is That Noise]] indeed. It's especially nightmarish when it plays while {{spoiler|Femto is raping Casca.}}
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