The whimsical worlds of Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away and the brutal reality of Kentaro Miura’s Berserk collide in an epic work of fan art.
Created by Reddit user BadFengShui, the illustration shows Chihiro confronting an even more monstrous version of No-Face, with the bathhouse looming menacingly in the background. The artist explained that they found the inspiration to create the piece after watching the live-action stage play Spirited Away while rereading Berserk. “Spirited Away doesn’t really go too deep into the horror angle, but boy can it be,” they wrote in the post’s comments section.
Written and directed by legendary and beloved filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away premiered in 2001. The film has grossed over $395 million at the global box office, becoming one of the highest-grossing animated films of all time, alongside other Studio Ghibli classics such as Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo, Princess Mononoke, and The Wind Rises. Furthermore, Spirited Away is currently the only anime film to ever win Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards, after beating DreamWorks’ Spirited: Stallion of the Cimarron and Disney’s Treasure Planet and Lilo & Stitch.
About Hayao Miyazaki’s Soul Land
The film is the story of a 10-year-old girl named Chihiro Ogino who is very sad because she has to move to another place. When her father takes a wrong turn while driving to their new home, the young girl and her parents find themselves transported to a fantasy but dangerous world where Chihiro must discover her courage and save her life. Her parents were saved from being eaten after being turned into a pig. .
The ongoing Berserk manga that debuted in the now-defunct Animal House monthly magazine before transitioning to Hakusensha’s Young Anime in 1992, where it continued to be serialized. After Miura’s sudden death in 2021, mangaka Kouji Mori resumed work on the series, with Studio Gaga taking over the artwork. The story follows a wandering swordsman named Guts, who travels the world slaying monstrous creatures and seeking revenge against his old friend and comrade, Griffith.
How Berserk served as inspiration for major franchises
Berserk has inspired many other popular manga series, including Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan, YĆ«ki Tabata’s Black Clover, and Makoto Yukimura’s Vinland Saga. The story has also inspired many Western media entertainment; Netflix’s Castlevania, for example, was heavily influenced by Miura’s masterpiece, according to host Adi Shankar and assistant director Adam Deats.
Dark Horse Comics distributes the Berserk comics in North America, and Spirited Away is available to stream on HBO Max.
Source: Reddit