Character · Berserk
Guts
A man with a sword the size of a door, one arm made of iron, and a list he has not finished.
In Otakana the clue reads: Black swordsman carrying a blade too big to be called a sword
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Berserk
- Letters
- 4 · Easy
Guts was born under a hanged corpse and raised by the mercenary who bought his mother. He was swinging a blade taller than he was before he turned ten. By the time Berserk opens he travels alone with the Dragon Slayer on his back, a slab of steel Kentaro Miura described as too big, too thick and too rough to be called a sword, and a repeating crossbow bolted to a false arm.
The story flashes back to explain the armour and the missing eye. He met Griffith, joined the Band of the Hawk, and had, briefly, people to sit next to. Berserk is largely about how much of that a person can lose and still keep walking, and about the fact that walking on is not the same thing as being fine.
Miura serialised Berserk from 1989 until his death in 2021, and its fingerprints are everywhere: the Souls games, the enormous swords that filled video games afterwards, and most of the dark fantasy manga that followed. The 1997 anime covers the Golden Age arc and stops at the worst possible moment, which is either a betrayal or a very effective advertisement for the books.
Spelling GUTS
GUTS is four letters and one of the shortest answers Otakana asks for. The Japanese is ガッツ, gattsu, with a doubled consonant that English drops, and it is also the ordinary English word for nerve, which is presumably the entire idea. No silent letters, no trap. The only risk is guessing something exotic because a four-letter answer feels too easy.