The first marked improvement in each aspect of the craft. But I especially was impressed with the scene where Griffith is overheard at the fountain by Guts and Casca. Previously, Griffith has been intentionally opaque, but with this scene we get a dip into some mature character development for all three characters.

Annoyingly, it is somewhat trampled on later, when the 80s and 90s manga tradition of just really bad writing for women comes into play. But even this became slightly more nuanced and less, basically every guy calling Casca a bitch so we know she’s Not Like Other Girls, but yet still very much sexualized like one. I did like where it ended though; Casca finally clawing a minuscule amount of agency with her backstory. Though, her sucking in battle because it’s that time of the month is so eye roll 80s.

I debated on whether, even with the much better dialogue and Griffith scene this merited a 4 star, and I think so. Mostly because the Casca chapter slighted her, but tried to be more nuanced in the end, and I honestly don’t think that’s typical of manga written when this was. I still read some that are worse, and just plain fan service.