So I just watched the first episode and here are my thoughts.
This is clearly a spiritual sequel to the movie trilogy, if not an actual sequel. It's a different anime studio handling the visuals, whereas Studio 4C did the movie trilogy. But the reason I feel it's being treated as a sequel and not merely as an adaptation of post-golden age stuff has more to do with the music than anything else. Firstly, it's the same composer (Shiro Sagisu) and a lot of the music is either the same as from the movie trilogy OST or is an amped up remix of many of those tracks. This tells me that, at the very least, they want the people that saw the movie trilogy to make some kind of connection, even if it's a subtle one. Using the same composer and the same music are not accidents. Since the voice actors are all the same as from the movie trilogy as well, the thought of being a sequel are more strongly reinforced in this way.
As for the narrative, I will admit to a bit of disappointment that they are not adapting The Black Swordsman arc but, unlike many purists, I am not one of those people that gets upset that it's not 100% faithful in this respect. If you want an opinion filled with those kinds of unreasonable demands from entitled fanboy whiners, you can find those views somewhere on the internet I'm sure.
Skipping over The Black Swordsman means they'll have to explain via flashback how Guts obtained a Behelit (which is shown among his possessions when Farneze is interrogating him in the preview for the second episode). I just hope they don't go back and do a series of episodes on The Black Swordsman while he's in captivity. The anime adaptations have long suffered too much from 'going backwards' to tell their story. It's time to just progress with events, since they're going beyond the Golden Age at long last.
I am a little unsure of them introducing Isidro so soon. At the end of the day, I am cautiously optimistic that it will be fine and they'll find a way to make it all feel natural within the context of this particular adaptation. It's always 'the blueprint' problem, and Game of Thrones, by way of example, has suffered more than a few times because of it. Isidro didn't exist in Miura's mind when he started the series, so they have to be very careful as they study the narrative to make sure that his inclusion, this early in things, doesn't feel out of place or incongruous. The tone of the character doesn't exactly fit very well with the creator Miura was before he formally introduced the aggressive young urchin, and if they aren't careful with these things his place in things may end up causing a bit of a tonal identity crisis when he eventually takes part. Then again, Miura is an executive producer on the series and took six months off from the manga to work on this so perhaps it will all work out in the end. Who's to say Miura wouldn't go back and change a bunch of shit if he could? He removed the entire 'Idea' chapter from the storyline when they printed the tankoban where it was supposed to occur so...you know, there's a precedent.
I think the episode got a lot right, tonally. Guts is exactly who I expected him to be and they brought across the essence of the character very well. Yeah, he kills a lot of monsters and beats up a bunch of thugs and even has a boss battle near the very end, but these things are simply functions of who he is and do not define the character. It's more about the cynical view on humanity, his obstinate nature and his unwillingness to succumb to a fate everyone tells him is unavoidable. The angry perseverance of the character, the seething rage that refuses to let him give in, is what makes him a survivor. Not just the anger, but the unwillingness to succumb, are huge aspects of his character and they absolutely nail it here. he has a sensitive and begrudgingly compassionate side as well, but he's quick to bury that around strangers and is something that will eventually be a part of his development later on (as with the manga).
I also thought Puck was amazingly well adapted, and added a lot of much needed levity to what might be otherwise an oppressively grim storyline. Puck isn't a subtle personality on the printed page and it's nice to see that they intend to keep his lovably oafish charm in the anime.
i thought that the world was very well represented. It's a grim and inhospitable place filled with arrogance, violence and disregard for the plight of others. It's a cruel society in the manga and we see that it's the same in the anime, given Isidro gets stomped on by a local tough very early in the episode. It wouldn't be Berserk if it was a friendly world, and it's not. I appreciate that about the first episode.
Now, let's talk about the elephant in the room. The animation style. Purists and anime 'classicists' are going to say it's too heavily computer generated, but quite honestly these people are living in the past. The industry is not what it once was and for a show like Berserk, lacking a moe harem, high school setting or light novel source to adapt from, is a miracle in this day and age when sailor fuku and slice of life rule the medium (mostly because they're cheap to produce and sell like gangbusters to the lowest common denominator-the anime otaku). But what Berserk does here is establish the visuals of the series as a sort of 'pencil art cel shading' that looks a lot like a manga fully animated. I think that if the show is going to be as heavy on CGI as this one is, it's good that they try to find a unique visual identity for it and I think they've succeeded. It is most reminiscent of the cutscenes from Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions for PSP and mobile devices in terms of its textures, while deriving its linework pretty much from the manga directly (a good thing, to be sure). I personally don't mind the more fluid, CGI style animation and think that it lends itself very well to dynamic action scenes. If there is one thing I am tired of in anime action scenes, it's shitty fight scenes where frames of animation are missing and the character dimensions are inconsistent, and this has happened not for stylistic reasons but because anime has become such a budget industry of late that its production staffs have forgotten, or never learned, the virtues of a well storyboarded and animated action sequence. But in Berserk, the violence is visceral and resounds with a gritty fury, and I feel that more fluid animation is required to effectively bring the manga to anime and, not being able to have our druthers and enjoy classic hand drawn combat given the state of the industry, is vastly preferable to some awful light novel stylistic visual direction for the exciting bits. Also, the action on the page is sometimes difficult to interpret due to the swirling typhoon of destruction that is Guts, so a smoothly rendered sequence where the animators have complete control of the camera is great. Especially because they don[t need to do the anime equivalent of jump cuts-they can follow through on the scene that is playing out and we get to witness it all clear as day despite all the flowing blood and tumbling body parts all over the place.
So yeah, I liked the episode. CGI and all. They're trying to do something different with this style and I think that they've captured the tone and essence of Berserk very well so far. It's not perfect, but we aren't going to get perfect so, judging this for what it is, it's done well enough. I am excited to see how far this season goes.