Berserk

Guts is a swordsman raised by violence, branded for sacrifice, and hunted by demons every night. Kentaro Miura started Berserk in 1989 and drew it for over thirty years until his death in 2021, leaving it unfinished. The early arcs are a grim medieval war story; the famous Golden Age arc turns into a tragedy about friendship and ambition that ends in betrayal. What sets it apart is the drawing. Miura packed each page with armor, ruin, and grotesque anatomy in a level of detail almost nobody attempts at that length. It is brutal and often hard to read, and the loss of its author hangs over the whole thing.