Learning Japanese with Berserk: Dwarf
Added 2022-12-27 17:51:17 +0000 UTCWe get a hint of dwarves or similar spirits in Berserk as early as volume 14, when the Skull Knight explains to Guts that elves (妖精) once dwelled in Godot's cave. But it's only at the end of volume 26, in episode 226, that Schierke drops the name when she explains how the Berserk's armor was created.
She uses the word 鉱精, which Miura created, along with ドワーフ as furigana, giving us the pronunciation DOWA–FU (dwarf). That first kanji means "ore", while the second is "spirit", like in 妖精, the generic term for elves in the series. Thus it revealed to us readers at the same what we already suspected when the word Piskie was introduced: there are different types of elves.
The word "dwarf" doesn't appear again until volume 41, episode 361, when Guts actually goes down to meet the armor's creator, Hanarr. The word is used twice in that episode, once by Gedflynn, then by Molda. In both cases, it uses a different set of kanji than in volume 26: 鍛冶精. Its meaning is "smithing spirit", with the first two kanji meaning "smithing" or "blacksmith", and the last one being the same as before. The katakana ドワーフ is used as furigana in both cases.
