So I've seen how a lot of people criticize him for being an edgelord and while that does worry me (Berserk is, after all, an extremely dark story, and in less capable hands it wouldn't take much to tip it into an edgy emo-fest of grimdark nonsense) the thing that worries me the most is his tweet saying "#NotAnotherGoldenAge" or whatever it was.
I get it. The Golden Age has been done to death. But it's a CRITICAL part of the story, and I think omitting it is a huge mistake. It establishes Guts' character and motivations, showing how much he grew as a person before Griffith took everything from him, which in turn adds another (extremely important imo) layer of tragedy to his portrayal in the Black Swordsman and Lost Children arcs that helps contextualize their brutal nature. Without said context Guts just comes off as a heartless, unsympathetic monster, which couldn't be further from the truth.
Just as importantly as this though, is the fact that The Golden Age establishes Griffith's character and motivations as well. Without The Golden Age all we get is Femto until Fantasia, and even then it's really just Femto wearing a Griffith-suit. Without understanding his ambition and the sacrifices he made for it (both literally and figuratively) he'll just come off as a cookie-cutter bigbad, which is a disservice to such a layered character.
And lastly, the Eclipse. This whole post was inspired by a conversation I had with a couple of my friends a few nights ago, they haven't read or watched the series, but they know the cribnotes version of the plot (admittedly because I never shut up about it lol) and they know enough to realize that you can't really have a Berserk adaptation without the Eclipse. One of them said to me "well maybe they could just start the series with the Eclipse and move on from there" which after reflecting on it for a minute I said I think that would be worse than not including it at all. Without knowing how the characters got to that point, or why Griffith is betraying them, it would just come off as senseless gore, which is the fastest way to pitch your story into grimdark nonsense possible.
TL;DR- I don't like that Shankar wants to skip The Golden Age, it provides necessary context to the rest of the story, and without it the story could plunge headfirst into an edgelord cringefest.
What's everyone else's opinion on this?
And just to clarify, I've loved Castlevania so far, and I expect good things from Devil May Cry. I'm just nervous about him handling one of my favorite manga of all time.