• The owner of the Berserk manga and anime IP says that the production of the upcoming Studi Eclypse fan film is not authorised.
• The fan film is a project involving multiple people from all over the globe and seeks to adapt the Berserk manga into a free anime.
• As of yet, the Berserk owner hasn’t threatened any legal trouble.

Hakusensha Inc. the company that owns the IP for Berserk, the manga and anime and all related works has said that an upcoming and highly anticipated fan project adapting the manga is being made without permission.

The company, via the official Berserk X account, shared a post on Wednesday detailing that the fan-made animation has not been authorised by the copyright owner, namely Studio Gaga, the company of late creator Miura Kentarou.

“In addition,” it says, “The videos accompanying the announcements are being displayed without permission.”

The first episode for Berserk: The Black Swordsman, the fan animation, was announced on 1st July 2024 by the team that is producing the adaptation, Studio Eclypse. The first episode is scheduled to be released “Summer 2025” and will likely be available for free on YouTube.

Studio Eclypse has always called itself an “online fan animation group”, it is currently producing two fan animations, the Berserk one and one based on Attack on Titan, called Attack on Titan Requiem.

The studio calls The Black Swordsman “a passion project, created with the utmost respect to the original author by fans all over the world.”

“All the characters and canon materials used in this fan animation are property of Kentaro Miura, Studio Gaga and Hakusensha. Please support the official release.”

The project is apparently only focused on the Black Swordsman arc of the series, and the studio says it won’t adapt the Golden Age arc. They are also looking for support on Patreon where they are offering concept art to subscribers, but the episode itself will be available without charge.

Hakusensha has not indicated that it will seek legal action against Studio Eclypse, so as it stands it looks like the Berserk fan film will continue to be produced, at least the first episode.

While fan-made work, especially that seeks to respect the source material, is often respected in the West, in Japan these projects go down poorly. Famously TeamFourStar, who produced a popular abridged version of Dragon Ball Z on YouTube, weathered years of copyright issues.

Eventually leading to the decline of the channel and finally the ending of the abridged series despite connections to dubbing house Funimation.

Berserk fans have received the comments from Hakusensha negatively, especially seeing the quality that Eclypse is putting into the project, and noting how poorly received the 2016 version of the Berserk anime was.