Berserk of Gluttony (Bōshoku no Berserk: Ore Dake Level to Iu Gainen wo Toppa Suru) takes the usual fantasy idea of special abilities and gives it a pretty grim twist. In this world, the skill you’re born with can basically decide your entire future. Get a powerful combat ability and you’re on your way toward becoming a respected Holy Knight; get something considered useless and, well, good luck. People with weaker skills are pushed toward poverty, manual work and a social hierarchy that makes it very clear where they stand. The series started out as a web novel on Shōsetsuka ni Narō before Micro Magazine picked it up for its GC Novels imprint, with Ichika Isshiki writing the story and fame handling the original character illustrations.
Fate Graphite, voiced by Ryota Osaka in the Japanese anime, is stuck right at the bottom of that system. He works as a gatekeeper in Seifort and spends a lot of his time being bullied by aristocratic Holy Knights because of his supposed trash skill, Gluttony. The name sounds impressive, but Fate initially thinks the ability is just a curse that leaves him starving all the time, no matter how much food he puts away. Which is bad enough, except he eventually finds out that Gluttony is hiding something much more dangerous.
What Is Gluttony Really Capable Of?
Fate’s life changes during a castle breach when he kills a fleeing bandit. He’s expecting something like normal experience from the fight, but Gluttony does something completely different—it consumes the man’s soul. Fate discovers that when he kills someone, he can absorb their soul and take their stats, abilities and even some of their combat skills for himself.
That is obviously a fairly ridiculous advantage. Unlike most people in this world, Fate doesn’t seem to have a normal limit on how far he can grow. The stronger the people he defeats, the stronger he becomes, and there is no obvious ceiling waiting for him at the top. It basically turns every dangerous enemy into a possible upgrade, which is great news for Fate and terrible news for anyone standing in front of him.
There is, naturally, a catch. Gluttony isn’t a friendly little superpower that does exactly what Fate wants and then goes away. It constantly hungers for more souls, and if Fate goes too long without feeding it, the hunger becomes harder to control. Eventually, it threatens his sanity, raising the pretty unpleasant possibility that Fate could lose himself and become nothing more than a walking killing machine.
He gets some help from an equally strange source when he buys an old black sword called Greed from a junk shop. It turns out the sword is sentient and connected to the ancient Sin of Greed, so Fate suddenly has a weapon that can talk back to him. Greed isn’t exactly the warm, supportive type either; he’s more like the sarcastic adviser who happens to live inside a deadly sword. He can also transform into different weapons, including a bow and a massive scythe, by using the stat points Fate gives him. It’s a strange arrangement, but somehow it works.
Fate and Roxy Are at the Heart of the Story
For all the battles and supernatural nonsense, Fate’s relationship with Roxy Hart gives the series much of its emotional weight. Roxy, voiced by Hisako Tojo, is a noble Holy Knight, but unlike many of the people who outrank Fate, she actually treats him with kindness and respect. She eventually hires him as a servant in the Hart household, and Fate starts developing very real feelings for her.
The trouble is that Fate knows what could happen if Roxy finds out about his Gluttony. The ability is feared, and if she is publicly associated with someone carrying a dangerous Mortal Sin skill, it could hurt her reputation and attract the kind of political attention nobody wants. So Fate decides that keeping her safe means keeping her in the dark.
He starts operating as a masked warrior, wearing a skull mask while hunting dangerous enemies without letting Roxy know who he really is. It’s a fairly familiar secret-identity idea, but Fate’s version is complicated by the fact that he isn’t hiding because he dislikes or distrusts her. He’s hiding because he thinks knowing the truth could put her in danger, which is noble in theory and probably going to become a massive headache later.
And, as usual in stories like this, keeping two lives separate gets harder the longer you try.
The Other Mortal Sin Users
Fate eventually discovers that Gluttony is far from the only strange power in the world. Other characters possess what are known as the Mortal Sin skills, abilities tied to ancient forces that seem to have a much deeper history than Fate first realizes.
One of them is Myne, voiced by Misato Matsuoka, who carries the Sin of Wrath. She is quiet, intimidating and very good at making it clear that she doesn’t need to raise her voice to scare somebody. Her enormous black axe can cause an absurd amount of destruction, and Myne herself is not exactly the sort of person you would want waiting outside your front door.
Then there’s Eris, the bearer of Lust, voiced by Hitomi Sekine. She is dangerous in a completely different way. Instead of smashing things with an enormous weapon, Eris works through strategy and manipulation, influencing political events from behind the scenes. She is the sort of character who can make a room full of powerful people believe they’ve made their own decisions when, really, she nudged them there.
Meeting these characters gives Fate a much bigger picture of what is happening around him. The Mortal Sin skills aren’t just random superpowers scattered around the world for dramatic convenience. They appear to be remnants of an older system, and the more Fate learns, the clearer it becomes that his own Gluttony ability is tied to something much larger.
Where Season 1 Leaves Fate
The first season of the anime was produced by ACGT and directed by Tetsuya Yanagisawa, running for 12 episodes from October through December 2023. It introduced Fate, Greed, Roxy and the other Mortal Sin users while covering the early part of the light novel story.
Much of that first season is basically Fate figuring out what his ability actually means. He has to learn how to use Gluttony without letting it consume him, while also dealing with the people who spent years treating him like he was worthless. His relationship with Roxy becomes increasingly important too, and the appearance of the other Sin users hints that the skill system is hiding a much older and uglier history.
The 12-episode first season adapted Volumes 1 through 4 of the light novel series, concluding with Fate leaving Seifort and heading toward Gallia, which is not exactly the sort of place you visit for a relaxing change of scenery.
What Can We Expect From Season 2?
Season 2 is scheduled for 2027, and the story is moving the action into Gallia. It’s an abandoned wasteland crawling with powerful, highly evolved monsters, so Fate should have no shortage of things to fight or, more importantly, things for Gluttony to eat. The problem is that having more enemies around also means having more opportunities for that hunger to become difficult to manage.
The next season should also start opening up some of the bigger mysteries that Season 1 only hinted at. The origins of the divine skill system are expected to become more important, along with the history of the Mortal Sin abilities and the strange weapons connected to them. So the story is moving beyond the simple “Fate gets stronger every time he wins” setup and into the much bigger question of why these powers exist at all.
Then there’s Roxy, who may be heading toward one particularly awkward discovery. Her investigation is gradually bringing her closer to the truth about the mysterious masked warrior, while Fate continues trying to keep that identity hidden from her. The longer he keeps up the act, the harder it’s going to be when those two versions of his life eventually crash into each other.
So yes, Season 2 should have bigger monsters, stronger enemies and plenty of the usual fantasy violence, but there’s more going on than just power-ups. Fate is moving deeper into a world he barely understands, the Mortal Sin users seem to be connected to something ancient, and Roxy is getting dangerously close to figuring out who the man behind the mask really is.
Season 1 was mostly about Fate discovering that the skill everyone mocked him for having could actually make him one of the strongest people alive. Season 2 has the chance to make that discovery considerably more complicated. Because the scary question now isn’t really how powerful Fate can become. It’s what Gluttony actually is, why he has it, and what happens if the thing inside him eventually wants more than he can give it.