How strong is Guts from Berserk?

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An analysis of bite strength and its relation to other physical areas.

A problem that has vexed scholars and losers alike since the 1980s is the relative strength of Berserk series protagonist Guts, especially in relation to the average person. He can, after all, heft the Dragonslayer, a 6-foot long "hunk of iron" as easily as another man may swing a zweihander or claymore.

According to our calculations, the Dragonslayer weighs roughly 300lbs, a weight in excess of 50 times that of an average two-handed sword. So is Guts 50 times stronger than the average person? Initial speculation says yes, but we can be more specific in our analysis. Riley, resident mathematician, scholar, and loser, has done some calculations in conjunction with a friend familiar with physical and exercise science to provide a more accurate assessment of Guts' strength as it relates to the average person.

First, let us lay out our assumptions.

1. Griffith's sword in the initial duel between himself and Guts is made of steel. Considering the fantasy-historical period Berserk takes place in, as well as dialog from the smith Godo, this assumption seems fair.
2. Griffith, pre-eclipse, is roughly as strong/athletic as an olympic athelete. This is supported by his notable martial prowess, where he is never shown losing a fight except once against Guts, and the other members of the Band of the Hawk are aware that he is more skilled and strong than them.
3. Griffith is not disproportionally strong at performing a supinated pull with his hand. While Griffith is certainly outstandingly athletic, it isn't sensible to assume he trains this particular muscle group to the point that it would be atypical for someone of his level of fitness and strength.
4. Guts' teeth are, roughly, normal and average by modern standards (this is important, trust me). This is supported throughout the manga, though implicitly, as we often see Guts' teeth and they are never noted to be abnormal or in poor health.

These assumptions set us up for the problem ahead.

In the first duel with Griffith, Guts is shown to be able to bite down on his saber, presumably with enough force to immobilize it (though it may be that Griffith wasn't willing to move the sword and kill Guts in that moment), which gives us a baseline for pre-eclipse Guts. This scenario sets up our first force diagram:

Very artistic, I know, but it gets the point across. This shows us that, in order for Griffith to withdraw his blade from Guts' mouth, he would have to exert force equal to the force exerted by Guts' bite, and we will use the following equation to determine this force:

FG = Bite Force (Pressure * Area) * Friction Coefficient Where FG is the force exerted by Griffith.

Assuming Griffith's sword is made of steel, we find that the Friction Coefficeint between bone and steel is 0.37. Additionally, with our previous assumption about Griffith's physicality, we can place him 1.28 Standard Deviations above the mean for men between 18-24. This is useful thanks to This Paper Applied Ergonomics by Jia-Hua Lin, Raymond W. McGorry, and Wayne Maynard in the Elsevier journal. Using the findings in this study with our assumption about Griffith, we can determine that, from the position shown in the manga and anime, Griffith can exert roughly 503.196N, pulling backwards from Guts' mouth.

Great! Now we can use this information and plug it into our equation, resulting in the equation \(503.196N = \text{(Pressure * Area)} * 0.37\). All that's left is to calculate the area Guts is biting on, and we can figure out how much force Guts is exerting via this bite!

This is where our assumption about Guts' teeth comes into play, as if his teeth were notably wide, deep, narrow, or shallow, the surface area would be greatly impacted. Looking at the panel, Guts is biting with his right top lateral incisor, upper central incisors, lower central incisors, and right bottom lateral incisor. The combined surface area of the top of these teeth (the incisal area) is, roughly, 2mm*13mm + 2mm*13mm + 3mm*5mm + 5mm*2mm + 5mm*2mm + 5mm*2mm = 45mm^2+52mm^2 = 97mm^2, or 0.97cm^2, or 0.000097m^2(Area of 7, 8, 9, 26, 25, 24). These measurements are courtesy of a cast of my teeth given to me by my dentist. Now all we need to do is plug these values in to our equation and solve for Force. Note that the average person has a bite force of roughly 162 psi, per the Cleveland Clinic.

\(503.196N = \text{Pressure * 0.97 cm}^2 * 0.37 \\ \) \(\Longleftrightarrow \\ \) \(\text{Pressure} = \dfrac{503.196N}{\text{0.97} \text{cm}^2 * 0.37 } \\ \) \( \Rightarrow \\ \) \( \text{Pressure}= 1402.0507105\text{N/cm}^2\\ \)

Converted to PSI, this gives us a bite force of 2033.50263238918PSI, or roughly 12.5 times the average human bite force. Also twice as strong as a grizzly bear, or a little stronger than a female hippo.

That's impressive! But does it square with the rest of Guts' feats of strength? Further on in the manga, we learn that Guts' sword is roughly 3x as thick as the average sword, putting its weight at around 18lbs. Assuming that bite strength scales directly proportionally with other aspects of strength (e.g. if your bite force is 150PSI and you can bench 135lbs, a bite force of 300PSI would mean you can bench 270, and vice versa), then this should be nothing to Guts. But it's still too low to account for the dragonslayer, by a factor of 4.

But, if you'll recall, our example is from The Golden Age arc, a time before Guts bore the mantle of the Black Swordsman. This monstrous strength was before Guts even rode alongside The Band of the Hawk.