髑髏の騎士

The Skull Knight (髑髏の騎士, Dokuro no Kishi) is one of the most mysterious and prolific characters introduced in Berserk.

髑髏の騎士

The Skull Knight
Voiced by: Tsutomu Isobe (Japanese, video game), Akio Ohtsuka (Japanese, movies & 2016 anime), Jamieson Price (English, movies & 2016 anime)

The Skull Knight (髑髏の騎士, Dokuro no Kishi) is one of the most mysterious and prolific characters introduced in Berserk. He is a towering warrior dressed in full armor who rides a massive, ghostly black horse, and whose ornaments, especially his helmet (or actual head), are shaped as parts of a human skeleton. A noble figure in spite of his ominous appearance, he serves as a strong adversary to the God Hand and its acolytes. He can kill Apostles with ease, and often consumes their Behelits afterwards. He is also capable of besting Zodd the Immortal in combat, though with great difficulty, and the latter sees him as a long-time rival. He wields a powerful sword that, when stuck down his throat, becomes coated with Behelits and capable of slashing rifts through reality itself, thus allowing the Skull Knight to move freely around the world or even between different dimensions. This enigmatic knight saved Guts in more than one occasion such as the Eclipse or from Slan, never explaining his reasons but simply declaring that the Struggler (the way he calls Guts) has to keep following his fate. The Skull Knight is also the previous wearer of the Berserker Armor, and knew the witch Flora. During Griffith's final battle with Ganishka's forces, the Skull Knight's attempt on Griffith's life with his sword was diverted to the writhing body of the Kushan Emperor. It is heavily speculated that, during his life as a mortal, the Skull Knight was in fact Supreme King Gaiseric, a warlord notorious for his skull-shaped helmet. According to the legends, Gaiseric unified the continent and ruled an empire from what would become Midland before his ambitions prompted a holy man into invoking God's wrath by sending his angels (implied to be God Hand) to punish him.