Ground Zero Covered the Run in Stages
Ground Zero, a real VHS-era fansub group, covered Berserk episodes 1-4, 9-10, and 13-16, confirmed via a physical fansub VHS collector/trader documentation source. Real, contemporaneous coverage sitting alongside the already-documented Hawks/SkullKnight.net manga side of this page.
Darbura's Fansubs, Already Credited on Dragon Ball, Also Covered Berserk in Full
Confirmed via an Archived dbcollection.com Page, Late 2000-Mid 2001
Darbura's Fansubs, already documented on this site for its Dragon Ball Z and GT mail-order VHS catalog, also carried the complete 25-episode Berserk series start to finish, confirmed via an archived page from the same dbcollection.com site, dated between September 2000 and August 2001. A distinct, more complete alternative to Ground Zero's partial coverage of episodes 1-4, 9-10, and 13-16, already documented elsewhere on this page.
Before Hawks, There Was SkullKnight.net
Founded Circa 2000-2001
Before Hawks existed, SkullKnight.net was already one of the only ways English-speaking fans could read Berserk at all. It wasn't a dedicated scanlation outfit, more a fan community that happened to be the earliest real resource going, and it's still running as a Berserk fan hub today, confirmed enough in its own right that Kentaro Miura personally gave the site an interview.
Band of the Hawks Was Already Distributing Berserk Before the License
thehawks.org · July 7, 2002 · #hawks on Wondernet
The Hawks story can now be split cleanly into what the group's own site proves and what later historical reconstruction adds. A July 7, 2002 capture of thehawks.org is titled "Band of the Hawks: Downloads" and directly distributes Berserk scanlation material by volume and chapter. Visible material spans numerous volumes, and the page tells readers that newer releases have moved to IRC with the instructions /server us.wondernet.nu and /join #hawks.
That matters because this page predates Dark Horse's 2003 Berserk license. The group was not created as a reaction to the license; it was already translating and distributing Berserk beforehand.
Later historical evidence documents Berserk as an exception to the group's normal no-licensed-titles policy after the Dark Horse license. Keep those two claims separate: the 2002 page is direct P1 proof of pre-license activity, while the post-license policy exception comes from later historical reconstruction.
Dark Horse Finally Licenses It, October 2003
First English Volume, Co-Published With Digital Manga Publishing
Dark Horse Comics published the first official English Berserk volume on October 22, 2003, initially co-published with Digital Manga Publishing. It became one of Dark Horse's longest-running manga licenses, continuing across Kentaro Miura's entire run and beyond his 2021 death.
