Berserk Eclipse: Why First-Time Readers Are Never the Same After This Scene
The Berserk eclipse doesn't just shock — it permanently changes you. Here's why first-time readers fall apart, and what one dad's blind reaction reveals about Miura's masterpiece.
⚠️ Full spoilers for Berserk follow — specifically the Eclipse arc. If you have not read it, close this tab, go read it, come back devastated.
[IMAGE — A dramatic, atmospheric still or fan art evoking Berserk's dark tone — eclipse imagery, crimson sky, silhouette of Guts. No direct manga panel reproduction. Mood: foreboding, epic, grief.]
There is a moment in Berserk when you realise the story was never going to let you be comfortable. Not because something shocking happens — shocking things happen in fiction all the time. But because Kentaro Miura had spent dozens of chapters making you love specific people, and then he fed them to demons in front of you.
That moment is the Eclipse. And it does not let go.
A TikTok and YouTube account called Weeb MD recently documented something many manga readers have quietly experienced alone: a first-time blind reading of Berserk, conducted by a father whose daughter Crystal got him into anime. This man had spent months working through classics — Attack on Titan, Death Note, Code Geass — becoming, by any measure, a genuinely thoughtful and emotional reader of the medium. He analyses characters, draws historical and biblical parallels, makes careful predictions, and gets deeply attached in a way that makes him a joy to watch.
Then he agreed to read Berserk.
In this post, you'll learn exactly why the Eclipse hits first-time readers as hard as it does, what made Weeb MD's dad the worst possible person to walk into it unprepared, and what his reaction reveals about why Berserk remains one of the most important emotional and narrative experiences in manga and anime.
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What Is the Berserk Eclipse — And Why Does It Devastate Everyone?
The Eclipse is the single most infamous scene in Berserk and one of the most disturbing sequences in manga history. It is not simply dark. It is the culmination of everything Miura had been carefully constructing from the beginning — and its impact depends entirely on how deeply a reader has invested emotionally in the characters who are destroyed within it.
During the Eclipse, Griffith — the charismatic, seemingly heroic leader of the Band of the Hawk — activates the Beherit and is granted his dream of becoming a God Hand member. The price is the sacrifice of everyone he has ever called a friend. The Band of the Hawk, the characters readers have spent the entire Golden Age arc growing to love, are consumed by demons while Griffith watches. Guts fights impossibly against overwhelming odds, loses his arm in the attempt to reach Casca, and is forced to witness the assault of the person he loves most — at the hands of the man he once considered his closest companion.
What separates the Eclipse from ordinary fictional tragedy is the precision of Miura's setup. He did not simply kill beloved characters. He built genuine attachment — chapter by chapter, arc by arc — and then destroyed it in a way that implicates the reader's own emotional investment as part of the horror. The more you cared, the worse it is.
Q: What happens during the Eclipse in Berserk? A: During the Eclipse, Griffith sacrifices the entire Band of the Hawk to demonic entities in exchange for ascending to the God Hand as the demon king Femto. Every member of the Band — characters the reader has followed and grown attached to across the Golden Age arc — is killed in graphic, nightmarish circumstances. Guts severs his own arm to reach Casca, and Griffith assaults her before his transformation is complete. It is widely considered the most disturbing scene in manga, not solely for its violence but for the depth of the betrayal it represents.
Who Is Weeb MD — And Why Was This Dad the Perfect Victim?
Weeb MD is a TikTok and YouTube account run by Crystal and her father, built around a simple premise: Crystal introduced her dad to anime, and now he watches the greatest series one at a time and shares his thoughtful analysis and emotional reactions on camera.
What makes the account exceptional is not the format. It is the dad himself.
This is not a casual viewer reacting for entertainment value. This is a man who approaches manga and anime with the genuine intellectual and emotional engagement of someone who loves literature. He draws historical parallels. He makes biblical connections. He issues careful predictions, sits with individual pages, and puts the book down for the night so he can fully exist inside whatever moment the story is at. He had already demonstrated this depth across series like Attack on Titan and Death Note before he ever opened Berserk.
He is also, critically, someone who cannot help but care profoundly about the characters he reads. Casca became his favourite. He gave nicknames to Band of the Hawk members — Pippen was "Odd Job," Corcus was "Put a Cork in It," Judeau was "Sweet Judy Blue Eyes." He stressed out when Casca was in danger. He rooted for Guts once he understood his backstory. He believed, as the story approached the Eclipse, that things might turn toward something hopeful — that Guts and Casca might be safe together, that the Beherit might simply heal Griffith.
He had no spoilers. Crystal screened the comments. He did not look anything up. He walked in completely clean.
There is no worse person to hand Berserk to. That is exactly what made this essential viewing.
How the Eclipse Unfolds for a Blind Reader: The Stages
Understanding the Weeb MD dad's reaction requires understanding what a blind reader experiences as Berserk builds toward the Eclipse. It does not arrive without warning — Miura plants foreshadowing throughout — but the foreshadowing is designed to mislead as much as it signals.
Stage 1 — Genuine Investment in the Band of the Hawk
Before the Eclipse can destroy anything, Miura spends the entire Golden Age arc making the Band of the Hawk feel real. The relationships between Guts, Griffith, and Casca are rendered with a complexity rarely seen in any genre. Griffith in particular is constructed to be compelling — charismatic, visionary, morally ambiguous in ways that feel sophisticated rather than villainous.
Weeb MD's dad read Griffith clearly. He noticed the lack of passion in Griffith's kiss with Charlotte. He understood that Griffith was not an ordinary leader. And yet he could not predict the monster Griffith would become — because Miura had not yet revealed it.
Stage 2 — Building Dread Without Understanding It
As the Beherit arc unfolds and events accelerate toward the Eclipse, the comment sections of Weeb MD fill with dread from viewers who know what is coming. Comments warn, wince, and apologise in advance. The dad notices none of it.
His predictions in this phase tilt cautiously optimistic. He speculates that Guts and Casca will find safety together. He wonders if the Beherit will simply restore Griffith. He is, in the account's own framing, exactly as unprepared as Miura intended a first-time reader to be.
Stage 3 — The Text That Said Everything
When Crystal asked her dad to text her after he finished reading the Eclipse, he sent back: "finished — or rather I think I'm finished now."
That text is the entire experience of the Eclipse in nine words.
The Reaction — Contempt, Resilience, and Pure Disdain for Griffith
What Weeb MD's dad delivered was not the breakdown many viewers feared and some secretly anticipated. It was something more interesting: the measured, furious response of a man who has seen real-world darkness and processed it with full emotional honesty.
He was not rattled into silence. He was incandescent.
Every time he said Griffith's name, the contempt was physical. "May his name be forgotten forever." He honoured every Band of the Hawk member individually — mourning Pippen who never gave up, Corcus who proved his valor to the end, Judeau who died next to the woman he secretly loved, Gaston who only ever wanted to bake bread. He noted the precise heroism of Guts severing his own arm to reach Casca, framing it not as shock but as testament to character.
His verdict on Griffith — "the worst human being, now demon of hell, that I have ever encountered in a book" — is perhaps the most precise literary review the Eclipse has ever received from a first-time reader.
Q: How did the Weeb MD dad react to the Berserk eclipse? A: Rather than breaking down, Crystal's dad responded with composed, burning contempt for Griffith and deep sorrow for the Band of the Hawk. He honoured each fallen member by name, acknowledged Guts's sacrifice with genuine respect, and declared Griffith the worst character he had ever encountered in fiction. He described the Eclipse as "the hardest thing I've ever read" but confirmed immediately afterward that he has no intention of stopping — he needs to know what happens next.
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Why the Berserk Eclipse Hits Harder Than Any Other Fictional Tragedy
Most fictional tragedy works by killing characters you like. The Eclipse works differently. It works by making the reader an accomplice to their own devastation.
Miura's genius is structural. He does not simply create lovable characters and then harm them. He builds a reader's trust in a specific narrative direction — the heroic brotherhood of the Band of the Hawk, the complicated but seemingly redeemable arc of Griffith, the earned relationship between Guts and Casca — and then reveals that the entire architecture was load-bearing. Remove Griffith's humanity and everything collapses at once.
This is why Berserk is described not as "sad" but as genuinely traumatic by readers who were unprepared. The Eclipse does not feel like fiction doing something to characters. It feels like something being done to you.
Q: Why is the Berserk eclipse considered the darkest scene in manga? A: The Eclipse is considered the darkest scene in manga not solely because of its graphic content but because of the depth of emotional investment Miura builds before it occurs. Readers spend the entire Golden Age arc forming genuine attachment to the Band of the Hawk, and the Eclipse destroys every member while forcing Guts — and the reader — to witness it helplessly. The betrayal by Griffith, a character built to be complex and compelling, compounds the horror. The violence is extreme; the psychological impact of the betrayal is worse.
Should You Read Berserk? What Weeb MD's Dad's Reaction Actually Teaches Us
The Weeb MD Eclipse reaction is not just entertaining content. It is genuinely instructive about how to approach Berserk as a new reader looking for emotional and narrative impact.
What it confirms:
- The less you know going in, the harder the Eclipse hits — and also the more completely Miura's craft lands as intended. Weeb MD's dad experienced Berserk exactly as it was designed to be experienced.
- Emotional investment is not a liability when reading Berserk. It is the price of admission. The readers who get the most from this story are the ones who let themselves care deeply about the characters.
- Berserk is survivable. The dad himself confirmed he is continuing. Despite being described by viewers as potential "elder abuse," he came out of the Eclipse not broken but galvanised — furious at Griffith and invested in what comes next.
What it warns:
Do not read the Eclipse on a deadline. Do not read it in a depleted state. If you are someone who gets deeply attached to characters — and if you are not, Berserk may not hit you the same way — pace yourself through the Golden Age arc rather than bingeing it. The grief compounds with speed.
A note on post-Eclipse reading: Berserk does not soften after the Eclipse. The darkness deepens in different ways. The Weeb MD content creator's recommendation to follow a heavy Berserk session with something from Hunter x Hunter or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is genuinely sound advice — not because Berserk cannot be continued, but because the emotional weight needs somewhere to go.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Berserk Eclipse
Is the Berserk eclipse as bad as people say?
Yes — and then some. The Eclipse is not exaggerated by the fandom for effect. It is a genuinely disturbing sequence that combines graphic violence, cosmic horror, and profound psychological betrayal in a way that most readers describe as unlike anything else they have encountered in fiction. The cumulative impact depends on how invested a reader became in the Band of the Hawk during the Golden Age arc. The more attached, the worse it lands.
How many chapters is the Berserk eclipse?
The Eclipse itself spans several chapters within the Golden Age arc, but its full impact is inseparable from the entire arc that precedes it. Readers who jump directly to the Eclipse without the preceding buildup will find it disturbing but will miss the structural genius of Miura's setup. The Eclipse is the payoff on dozens of chapters of emotional investment — it cannot be understood in isolation.
Can you read Berserk if you are emotionally sensitive?
Yes, but with preparation. Berserk is one of the greatest works of dark fiction ever produced, and its emotional depth is a feature rather than a flaw. Emotionally sensitive readers often find it the most rewarding precisely because they invest fully in the characters. The key is pacing — reading slowly, taking breaks after heavy chapters, and not mainlining the Golden Age arc in a single sitting before the Eclipse.
Who dies in the Berserk eclipse?
Almost the entire Band of the Hawk is killed during the Eclipse. This includes Pippen, Corcus, Judeau, and Gaston, among many others — every person Griffith had ever called a friend or comrade. Casca survives physically but is permanently traumatised. Guts loses his left forearm and right eye. Griffith himself does not die — he is transformed into Femto, a member of the God Hand, which is in many ways a fate worse than death for those who loved him.
Is Berserk worth reading knowing how dark it gets?
Unequivocally yes. Berserk is not dark for the sake of darkness — it is dark in service of one of the most profound explorations of trauma, survival, ambition, and the cost of dreams in the history of the medium. Kentaro Miura's artwork alone is worth the admission. The story he built around Guts is unlike anything in manga or any other fiction. The Eclipse is devastating precisely because everything surrounding it is so extraordinary. You read Berserk knowing it will hurt because the alternative is not reading it, and that is worse.
What should I read or watch after the Berserk eclipse?
Give yourself something lighter before continuing. Hunter x Hunter is widely recommended — it has genuine depth and occasional darkness, but its tone provides necessary breathing room. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure works for the same reason. Avoid immediately continuing into the post-Eclipse Berserk chapters if you are emotionally depleted. The story continues and it is worth continuing — but the Eclipse deserves to sit for a day or two before you move forward.
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The Eclipse Ends. Guts Does Not Stop. Neither Should You.
The reason Weeb MD's dad's reaction resonated with so many people is not because it was dramatic. It is because it was honest. He said out loud what most first-time readers process silently — the specific grief of losing Judeau, the fury at Griffith, the awe at Guts cutting off his own arm to reach Casca. He named each person, honoured each loss, and then said he was not stopping.
That is exactly what Berserk asks of its readers. Not to be unaffected — that is impossible if you are paying attention — but to keep going. Guts keeps going. That is the whole story.
Kentaro Miura spent decades building a world of extraordinary darkness and extraordinary beauty, and the Eclipse is the moment where both qualities exist simultaneously at their most extreme. It is not the end of Berserk. It is the beginning of understanding what Berserk is actually about.
If you have not read it, start from the beginning. If you have just finished the Eclipse, put it down for a night. If you are somewhere in the middle of the Golden Age arc reading this against your better judgement — close this tab. Go back. Experience it the way it was meant to be experienced: completely blindsided, fully invested, and utterly unprepared.
Just like Crystal's dad.
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Follow Weeb MD on YouTube and TikTok to watch Crystal's dad continue his Berserk journey — and prepare yourself for whatever comes next.