Guts

Guts is the protagonist of Kentaro Miura's manga Berserk. Nicknamed the "Black Swordsman", Guts is a wandering mercenary and demon hunter who has known nothing but struggle his whole life. He wields a big-ass sword, a mounted cannon on his left arm, and an armor that induces berserker madness in exchange for combat survivability. Guts is branded with a mark that causes extreme pain whenever demons are nearby. And not only that, he has to constantly fight his own inner demons too. Guts' leitmotif in the 1997 anime is a solemn piano piece meant to represent his thoughts, providing a contrast to his "angry warrior" impression.

Berserk gained recognition for its grim content, mature themes, and the mangaka's macabre yet detailed art style. The manga has since exerted influence on modern popular culture, inspiring franchises such as the Souls video game series. Likewise, Guts has also been lauded as an influential character by fans and critics alike, and is considered one of the greatest protagonists in manga history. The Black Swordsman's traits of being a fearsome but troubled warrior who continually struggles against all odds has made him an exemplary of the "GAR" ideal that was popularized by 4chan's /a/ board. This notion eventually proved itself true when he won the board's SaiGAR tournament in 2007. He is also a fairly successful contestant in Reddit's Best Guy Contest because the manga is rated #1 in MyAnimeList (which is commonly used by r/anime users), and has reached the quarter-finals three times (2016, 2019, 2022).

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The manga devotes its first part into the "Golden Age" flashback Arc, which chronicles Guts' early life and the events leading up to his current predicament. Born from a hanged corpse, Guts was raised by mercenaries to kill in order to survive. His closest thing to a family was the uncaring mercenary Gambino, who sold him for sex with Donovan for some coins. As a teenager, he joins the "Band of the Falcon" after he loses a bet with its charismatic leader Griffith, and quickly becomes the group's best soldier because of his immense strength. Guts' role in the mercenary band, his dynamic relationship with Griffith, and later romance with Casca, the only female in the group, are the primary focuses of the manga's story arc.

Golden Age Spoilers When Guts overhears Griffith's speech on what he considers as equal to him, Guts challenges Griffith to a duel, which ends in the former's victory. Guts decides to leave the Band of the Falcon to pursue his own path which sends Griffith to despair, resulting in a series of mistakes that led the latter to be tortured in an underground dungeon. When Guts later returns to rescue Griffith from captors, the mangled leader finds his "Crimson Behelit" artifact and activates it, initiating a demonic ritual called the "Eclipse". Guts witnesses his fellow soldiers get sacrificed into the ravenous demons, and see Griffith become reincarnated into a powerful demon named "Femto". He is then forced to experience the worst of Griffith's betrayal when he rapes his love Casca while he is restrained by demons; in the process he cuts off his left arm trying to break free, and loses his right eye after a demon pierces it.

Berserk was adapted into a 1997 TV anime, covering the "Golden Age" arc. A trilogy of movies released in 2012 also adapts the same story. In 2016, a sequel TV anime season was broadcasted, which gained notoriety for being one of the worst anime adaptations due to its bad quality CGI effects. Because of this, most fans agree that the 1997 anime is the only adaptation worth watching.

History
Although Berserk is widely regarded by most users in r/anime as one of the greatest manga of all time, its extreme subject matter combined with the poor reception of the recent anime adaptations makes it very unappealing to many people. As a result, Guts occupies a unique position in the subreddit's character tournaments as a perennial underdog: poorly-seeded, but can make deep tournament runs because of his reputation alone.

After an early exit in Best Guy 1, Guts reached the quarter-finals in Best Guy 2 after the 2016 anime aired, avenging his loss against Gurren Lagann's Simon in the process. The swordsman then secured his highest-ever seed in Best Guy 3 (2017) when he got #18th seed, but lost to Kiritsugu Emiya in round 5.

Guts re-emerged in Best Guy 5 as one of the surprises of the tournament, pulling off a spectacular upset-filled run in his return to the elite eight stage, highlighted by a 5-vote victory against Fate's Gilgamesh in round 3, and a one-vote triumph over Deishuu Kaiki in round 5. His run was eventually stopped in the quarter-finals by top seed Kazuma Satou. Following that, the swordsman struggled to replicate his form in the next two contests as he lost to Kaiki in round 3 of Best Guy 6, and to a resurgent first seed Eren Yeager in Best Guy 7's fourth round.

In May 2021, Kentaro Miura suddenly passed away, bringing the long-standing fears of the mangaka's death to an unfortunate reality, and with it, the future of the series. As such, some users believed that Guts should win Best Guy 8 in 2022 as a token gesture of appreciation for the author. Despite another mediocre seed, the Struggler took advantage of pity votes to reach the elite eight for the third time. At that point, fans are starting to see his championship run become a real possibility, since his next opponent is Rimuru Tempest from the more recent Slime Isekai series. Unfortunately, Guts was handily eliminated, causing major backlash in the following thread which provided the biggest highlight of the tournament. The top comments ranged from disappointment, accusations of brigades, to anger at what they felt was an affront to what r/anime stands for, since Guts lost to a character deemed "basic", "uninteresting", "overpowered", "flawless", and a "self-insert". On the other hand, comments supporting in favor of Rimuru were downvoted so they don't appear by default (not that it affects what many of the voters choose anyway). The anti-Rimuru sentiments continued until the end of the tournament, which contributed to the slime's eventual blowout loss in the final against 8man.

Matches
Best Guy 

Best Character

ISML
ISML 2011 - Male Exhibitions
 * (3-way): Oz Vessalius >  Shouta Kazehaya >  (You) (1892 - 1891 - 594)

SaiGAR 2007

 * TBD

Honours
Contest Wins (2)
 * SaiGAR 2007
 * Worstgen Best MC Tournament 2021 (Worstgen Forums)