In “Army of Darkness,” Ash is sent back to the Middle Ages; instead of a cabin in the woods, he fights demons in castles and black forests, echoing Guts. Ash also ditches his chainsaw for a full-on bionic hand that’s fastened to his arm stump with a belt harness, just like Guts. Give Ash in “Army of Darkness” a slab of iron shaped like a sword to carry around and he’d be Guts’ spitting image.
Now, it’s unlikely Ash directly influenced Guts’ character, at least conceptually. Most of the similarities between the two originate in “Evil Dead II” — in the original film, Ash keeps both his hands attached to his body. If anything, I’d say Gut’s mechanical arm is probably inspired by Luke Skywalker (in the aforementioned interview, Miura declared, “‘Star Wars’ is my all-time favorite movie”).
That said, one can spot some small nods to “Evil Dead” if they look closely at “Berserk.” In one chapter, Guts is captured and held in a pillory; only his intact arm is bound while his prosthetic is removed and the stump lies free. This looks remarkably like Ash’s predicament in the opening of “Army of Darkness.” In the “Berserk” chapter “He Who Hunts Dragons,” we learn how Guts got his artificial arm. In Dark Horse’s English translation of this moment, he gives the device a familiar compliment: “Groovy.”
Given how similar their sensibilities were, it’s not surprising that Miura counted Sam Raimi among his favorite directors.
