A Guide to Guts's Armors, Part 1

Guts's Armors in sequence: 1. Gambino Armor; 2. Bazuso Armor; 3. Raid Captain Armor; 4. Silat Armor; 5. Snake Baron Armor; 6. Lost Children Armor; 7. St. Albion Armor; 8. Berserker Armor

A Guide to Guts's Armors, Part 1:

The Mercenary Armors

"Gotta wear armor on the field of battle, or you're good as dead." 

—Guts, Volume 11, episode 67, "Armor to the Heart"

Welcome, everybody. This is Azurepark, one of your mods on r/berserk, and I'm using this blog to host a bunch of content that I'll be sharing with you from now on. Most of the stuff I'm writing will involve analyzing the costumes, props, buildings, etc. in Berserk, often by comparing them to various historical and fictional sources of potential inspiration. To kick things off, I present the first half of a helpful field guide about the various armors that Guts has worn in Berserk.

I thought that making a guide to Guts's armors could help the fandom in several ways. First of all, noticing which armor Guts is wearing can help you quickly figure out which part of the story you're looking at if you're browsing the web and see an image of Guts without any context. Second, I think that taking a closer look will show how Guts's armors are a reflection of his personality at different stages of life, and also how much attention Miura puts into constructing his world from the big picture down to the last detail. Third, there are many fan artists and cosplayers out there who want to do Guts as a project, but might not know how to accurately copy all the details of each armor's design, or what Guts's costume is supposed to look like in each part of the story. If this isn't going to be the last word, I'd like to at least get people off to a good start.

Because I'll be tracing the growth and development of Guts through his armors, I've decided to follow the story's internal timeline rather than the order in which the manga episodes were published. I'll be describing each armor's construction using two sets of terminology: the traditional English language terms for parts of armor, and the Japanese names for traditional components of samurai-era armor. Many of Guts's armors are a hybrid of European- and eastern-style parts, so I think that using both systems may help identify possible sources of inspiration for Miura. I'll be comparing the armors depicted in Berserk to various things that exist in real life. This doesn't always mean that Miura knew about or meant to copy those specific things, but I think in some cases it seems pretty likely, and in every case there's something we can learn from the comparison. Also, I will tend to state facts or definitions early on which will become more important as you read along.

Part 1 is about what I call the Mercenary Armors, which Guts wore from childhood up to the Eclipse. Part 2 will cover what I call the Black Swordsman armors, which includes everything he's worn since getting the brand. I usually name each armor after either a memorable antagonist he fought when he wore it, or the chapter/arc in which it appeared.

All pictures credited to Kentaro Miura unless stated otherwise.

Gambino Armor, introduced in volume 3, "The Golden Age (1)"; last used in volume 4, "The Golden Age (2)"; briefly reappears in volume 37, episode 329, "Spring Flowers of Distant Days, Part 1," 

As far as we know, Guts's first armor was the one that Gambino gave him to wear in his first battle at the age of nine. Guts had already followed Gambino into battle before as his page boy wearing only a tunic, but this was the first battle in which he would participate as an armed combatant and take the life of an enemy.

Personally, I find it interesting that Guts even had armor at this young age. Off-the-shelf armor in more-or-less standard sizes did exist in pre-modern Europe and Japan as the common man's alternative to the bespoke armors of the warrior class, but armor for a prepubescent child was something that always had to be custom-made. Miniature swords and armor were toys for the sons of nobility that helped them get used to wearing armor early on, and were sometimes used in ceremonies. 

Armor for a boy of about seven, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1977-167-29a–j

Guts' first armor is not of such a luxurious type, but his possession of it implies that Gambino went to an armorer and asked him to cobble something together specifically to fit the boy.

I am really fond of the way that this armor looks like sports gear as if Guts were a school-age athlete, eager to impress his dad by performing in his first big game or sparring match rather than his first battle. The helmet resembles practice headgear for boxing, with an open top that his hair sticks out of and a leather band across the middle to hold it up. A pair of movable cheek pieces and a chin protector are all riveted to the chinstrap, which buckles together between the right cheek piece and the chin strap.

Protection for the back of the head is slightly extended by one rectangular lame. Part of the cloth lining of the helmet sticks out the back as a sort of neck flap.

The reason for the open top in boxing is pretty straightforward: punches don't come from above, but only straight, from below, and from the sides. Meanwhile, the large opening keeps the head cool by allowing heat to escape. 

Keith Berry Practicing with Anthony Dey, USMC, Wikimedia Commons

Usually this is not such a great idea for a battle helmet, since weapon blows often do hit the top of the head. I wonder if maybe Miura was inspired by certain Japanese forms of light head protection that guard only very specific parts of the head, such as the hachi gane which covers the front of the skull, and the happuri which covers the cheeks and forehead.

Hachi Gane, Samuraiantiqueworld, Wikimedia Commons

Happuri, Samuraiantiqueworld, Wikimedia Commons

Guts's helmet is also comparable to Classical period helmets such as the Roman galea, which like his included hinged cheek pieces and ear cutouts to improve hearing.

Late Weisenau type Roman Helmet, Jeh Bruce, Pinterest

The protection for Guts's chest and shoulders resembles padding for hockey or American football. He has simple one-piece shoulder guards (pauldrons), and an unusual upper torso defense. 

Before I explain what Guts is wearing on his chest, I need to tell you about the classic European form of torso protection for comparison, as well as some basics of armor construction. Many men in armor would protect their upper body with a "cuirass", which at minimum consists of a matching breastplate and backplate. The more complete version of the knightly cuirass included an armored skirt (fauld) made from overlapping horizontal bands (lames) which were articulated, meaning that a combination of lame-to-lame rivet joints at the edges and flexible leather strips on the inside allowed different parts of the skirt to expand and contract in response to the wearer's movement. 

Inside of a cuirass by Jeff Wasson of Wasson Artistry, showing articulation of the fauld

There could also be two shovel-shaped plates for the upper thighs called tassets, which would usually hang from the fauld suspended by hooks, pins, or straps. The fauld could either connect directly to the breastplate, or attach to a kind of lower breastplate called a "plackart", which in turn would overlap the upper breastplate. 

Photo collage by Knyght Errant, showing how a correct breastplate or cuirass sits at the natural waist

On a regular cuirass the back and breastplates go as far down as the "natural waist", which is an imaginary line that wraps around the gap between the ribcage and pelvis at about navel height, where the human torso naturally bends. This is not the same as what Knyght Errant calls your "jeans waist", which is where your belt goes in modern civilian clothes. Making the breastplate extend down past the natural waist would be problematic, first because it would put more weight on the shoulders due to lack of hip support, and secondly because bending forward would cause the pelvis to push the breastplate upward, painfully pressing the upper edge of the breastplate into the wearer's throat. Because the fauld and tassets can move independently of the breastplate, they are a better solution than lengthening the breastplate.

Sketch by Knyght Errant, showing how an excessively long breastplate will get pushed into the throat

What Guts is wearing is quite different from a full breastplate because it only covers his pectoral area and upper back, leaving his stomach and lower back exposed. There actually is a form of Japanese armor for the upper body, back of the neck, shoulders, and armpits called manju no wa that is very much like this, and that is what I will call it for lack of a better term. 

Manju no Wa, Samuraiantiqueworld, Wikimedia Commons

Guts's manju no wa is made of four separate plates to cover the pecs and shoulder blades on the right and left, which are held together by laces in the middle and buckles on the sides. The shoulder straps that hold it up are also covered by protective plates. I can see that construction method as being functional, since he's a growing boy and might be able to get some extra life out of it by loosening the fit as he gets bigger. I'd be worried about that vulnerable gap he's got between the plates, though.

Guts has a metal gauntlet on his left hand that ends below the elbow. There's a knuckle plate, a back-of-the-hand plate, and a cuff plate that covers the outside of the forearm almost down to the elbow. The fingers are just bare skin.

If we look on the underside, there are several leather sections enclosing the hand and forearm. On the hand, there's a large palm area and an adjacent strap which the fingers slip through. The forearm is enclosed by two leather panels which meet in the middle and lace together. 

On his right hand is a leather or cloth wrapping tied with cords. Guts's right hand is his dominant one for using a sword, and all of his armors which incorporate gaunlets have reduced protection on the right, presumably for the sake of dexterity.

The last of the protective pieces are a broad leather belt with a leather "codpiece," or crotch defense. The belt is plain and has a square buckle in the middle, containing decoration of a circle flanked by two wings. The codpiece is a simple flap of leather, and it seems to be laced to the hem of his shirt to hold it up, rather than to the belt. Normally we would expect one or more straps to pass between the legs from the bottom of the codpiece to the the back of the belt, which would secure the flap in place. However, none can be seen. Either the bottom is supposed to be stitched to the trousers, or Miura simply neglected this problem.

The scabbard for his sword is a solid wooden core covered by stitched leather and some cloth wraps around the attachment points. The carry strap is connected to the scabbard by metal swivel fittings, and has a buckle for adjustibility. Guts wears the strap over his right shoulder. I think that in real life the blade would be too long for him to draw over his shoulder while wearing it, such that he'd have to take the scabbard off before drawing the sword.

This scrappy little armor serves its protective function. Young Guts's helmet saves him from a sword blow to the head during his first battle, despite the helmet being struck off by the force. Guts lands on his back and holds out his sword as the enemy is carried forward by his own momentum, and the man skewers himself on Guts's point.

Just as Guts is rising to his feet, another foe comes from behind and strikes him in the back with a two-headed flail. Gambino dispatches this enemy before he can finish off Guts, and Guts is not seriously wounded thanks to his armor.

Guts last used this armor in a battle at age 11 where he killed an enemy commander. Notice the belt buckle has changed, to a square with a "tooth" pointing in at each of the four corners.

That same night he killed Gambino in self-defense and had to flee the wrath of the other mercenaries, taking only his sword and leaving his first armor behind. The armor makes a return in the flashback episodes, "Spring Flowers of Distant Days", when Guts thinks back on his time with Gambino. Looking at how Miura draws the same armor so many years later is a reminder of his artistic progress.

Bazuso Armor, introduced in volume 3, "The Guardians of Desire (6)"; last used in volume 5, "The Golden Age Arc (8)"; briefly reappears in volume 37, episode 331, "Spring Flowers of Distant Days, Part 3,"

Fast forward four years from when Guts killed Gambino: Guts is 15 years old, and catches the eye of Griffith when he defeats Bazuso while wearing a new armor with most of the same kind of pieces as his first one. However, he has taken to wearing a long cape underneath his manju no wa, gotten a larger set of pauldrons, and equipped himself with new helmet, left gauntlet, sword, and sheath. It's worth noting that we actually get to see this armor before the Gambino Armor, thanks to a flashback about Griffith that Guts experiences in volume 3 after being crippled by Femto.

The helmet is interesting; it resembles the "lobster-tail" pot helmets worn by 17th century harquebusiers in Europe, so called because of the hemispherical skull and a long neck guard made of articulated lames. The European lobster tail pot was itself based on the Turkish chichak helmet. 

Lobster-Tail Burgonet, German, 17th Century
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 14.25.497

Unlike the longer neck guard of the example above, Guts's neck guard consists of only two large rectangular lames. Here we can see the strip of leather to which the two lames are riveted on the inside. I think what it's missing is a third strip of leather down the center to prevent the middle of each lame from drooping too low.

Another difference from the historical lobster-tail is that the skull of Guts's helmet is made of overlapping segments riveted to each other, and to two reinforcing bands that run from front to back. By the gunpowder age, European helmets were made of a single piece, or sometimes two halves joined down the middle In contrast, Japanese helmets continued to be made from multiple segments throughout history, as seen in the previous picture of a happuri. Guts has a visor unlike anything I've seen historically, consisting of two curved horizontal plates connected by a vertical nasal plate. A narrower horizontal bar projects from either side of the nasal plate, goes parallel with and beyond the edge of the lower visor plate, and finally slips into two brackets at the back of the skull when the visor is shut.

As in the previous helmet, there are cutouts for his ears in the sides of the skull in order to improve hearing. This one has no metal cheek pieces, presumably because the visor already covers the whole face. 

There is a thick rope-like chin strap with a chin protector built in, and a Y-shaped connection to the skull on either side which leaves his ears open. The buckle for it is on the right side of the chin protector.

The codpiece is unchanged from the Gambino Armor's, but the design of the belt reproduces this one that he wore at age six. 

Below, we can see that the new one is just like it. In the middle is a metal ornament shaped like a geometric figure of eight on its side, and round rivets adorn the upper and lower edges of the belt. It opens and closes with two buckles on the right side.

The gauntlet is also more elaborate and European-style, with a cuff made from two plates riveted together to form a tube, and the back of the hand consisting of multiple articulated lames and embossed knuckles on the knuckle joint.

Guts's pauldrons are asymmetrical. The left one has a top plate including a small "haute piece" or "stop rib", the purpose of which is to catch weapon points that glance off the surface of the armor before they can slide up into the neck or head. It continues down with three lames to protect the upper arm.

Pauldron with haute piece, detail of an image from Pinterest

European pauldrons tended to be closely fitted to the shoulder, and securely strapped around the upper arm so it would move together with the arm. Early in the manga, however, Miura tends to draw his pauldrons more loose-fitting and free-hanging like the shoulder panels on Japanese armors called sode. In this photograph of a samurai, note how his sode continue to hang straight down even as he moves his arms in front of him, much like Guts's pauldron lames on the cover page of "The Golden Age (7)."

Samurai with sword, circa 1860, Wikimedia Commons

Guts's right pauldron is cruder and consists of three gutter-shaped plates riveted together. Oddly, instead of overlapping in just one direction, the middle lame overlaps both the upper and lower lames.

The sword sheath for this set is what he will use in his subsequent armors until he acquires the Dragon Slayer. It consists of a flexible leather sheath that exposes most of the blade while it's inside, as the leather only fully wraps around and holds the blade at the tip, middle, and base. I will refer to this as the "Devil's tail" scabbard, because when Guts removes the sword the whole scabbard is able to flap freely, and the tip section resembles the point on a devil's tail as it trails behind him. 

As a practical note for Guts cosplaying, there's a good reason that back scabbards were not as common in history as they are in comic books. The cosplayer would find that the leather band which acts as the throat of the scabbard is up near the back of the right shoulder joint, which restricts how long a blade they can draw compared to a scabbard at the waist. Because the blade is so much longer than the arm, they wouldn't be able to pull the whole blade free before they reached the limit of how far their arm can extend. The Golden Age movies improve the design a lot by using a locket (throat fitting) for the scabbard which is really just a clip that's open on the left side, so Guts can quickly slide the blade out sideways. Then, he only needs to pull the tip out past the middle loop of the scabbard and the sword is free. 

SCcabbard Clip, Studio 4°C, Berserk: The Golden Age Arc I - The Egg of the King

Even with the movie modification I would advise a cosplayer against making the scabbard bands fit the prop sword too snugly, or using flexible material for the long belt that connects the three holding parts of the scabbard. In that case, pulling the hilt to draw the sword might cause the tip-holder and middle band to remain stuck to the blade and travel upward with it instead of sliding off. The belt section connecting the middle band with the throat band would pick up the slack by flexing instead of remaining stiff, and the only way to counter this would be to reach your left hand behind you and hold the scabbard taught while you draw. That said, the simplest thing to do would be unstrapping the scabbard from your back before drawing the sword. Needless to say, animated Guts doesn't need to deal with these physical problems.

This armor also gives Guts his money's worth. In the fight for which I named this armor, Bazuso's structurally compromised battleaxe breaks against Guts's helmet instead of cleaving his head in two. Again, the helmet is knocked off his head in the process; that chin strap never seems to work as it should.

Later, when Guts goes on his first raid with the Band of the Hawk, his armor blocks a blow to the back of the head, and a cut on his left shoulder.

The last time we see Guts wear this armor chronologically is a scene of Guts charging into battle on horseback after his first raid and acceptance into the Band of the Hawk; since the armor matches, we might speculate that this is the same battle whose aftermath was depicted in Guts's flashback during "The Guardians of Desire (6)", in which Griffith finds Guts alive among a mound of corpses and remarks that he has the luck of the devil. The next episode after this takes place after a three year timeskip, where we'll see Guts wearing a new armor. 

He seems to have retired his Bazuso armor in favor of a new one at some unknown point during those three years. However, it is featured in a flashback to Guts' past in episode 329, "Spring Flowers of Distant Days, Part 1."

Raid Captain Armor, introduced volume 5, episode 1, "Sword Wind"; last seen volume 9, episode 38, "Start of the Everlasting Night"

Three years on, when Guts is 18 years old and the captain of the Hawk's Raiders, he is wearing a new armor that has some big differences. It has a robust metal cuirass consisting of a back and breast plate that ends at his natural waist, with an anatomical shape that emphasizes his chest muscles; stylish, yet practical. The straps have decorative metal ends, and use a hook-and-peg system of fastening instead of normal buckles. Four cylindrical metal pegs stick out from the breastplate, and each has a horizontal hole drilled through it. Next to each peg is a hook that can pivot to pass through the hole in its corresponding peg. Each strap end has a round hole in it which fits over one of the pegs. To fasten a strap, Guts can slide a strap end over a peg and then insert the hook into the peg, preventing the strap end from coming off.

Guts's Cuirass, with hooks, pegs, and strap ends highlighted red

Detail of Pikeman's armor, photo by author
Metropolitan Museum of Art 19.129a–f

Guts's breastplate also features armpit gussets on the edges of the arm holes, which are separate pieces on sliding rivets that made it easier for the arm to cross the chest without having to sacrifice protection by enlarging the cutouts for the arms. In the picture below, the brighter gold on the gusset plate makes it easy to distinguish from the rest of the breastplate.

Detail of Elements of a Light Cavalry Armor
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 14.25.716b–f 

Guts's leather belt has a metal medallion in the middle of the belt, and diamond-shaped rivets along the upper and lower edges. It opens and closes with two small buckles on Guts's right side. The codpiece is a little fancier, with criss-crossing laces on the front. Two straps originate from the bottom of the codpiece, go between the legs, and attach to the back of the belt. Suspended from his belt by buckles on either side are two tassets covering his hips, each consisting of five lames. On a European armor, the tassets would be on the front of the armor hanging over the upper thighs, presumably because thrusts and arrows to the front were considered more of a threat than cuts targeting the side. 

Detail of Armor from a Small Garniture for Field and Tournament

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 29.151.2a–s

However, Japanese armors have a skirt consisting of suspended panels called kusazuri (literally "grass-scrapers"). On the O-yoroi or "great armor" of the High Middle Ages, there was a box-like skirt formed by four panels covering the front, back, left side, and right side.

Yoroi of Ashikaga Takauji (1305-1358)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 14.100.121b–e

Perhaps you could say that kusazuri are like multiple tassets that serve as a substitute for a fauld. My speculation is that maybe Miura just mentally treated Guts's tassets as kusazuri for the sides, and treated the codpiece as a substitute for the kusazuri panel in front. The problem here is that his codpiece only protects the "family jewels", and not the front of the thighs. Straps at the bottom of the tassets wrap around the inside of Guts's legs, so that they don't flap around when he moves.

The articulated pauldrons are fairly large and have three raised ridges along their length for decoration. There is also a large flanged edge at the bottom. Each of Guts's pauldrons are fastened to the shoulders of the cuirass by two small buckles at the top, which are usuallly difficult to see. I don't think that buckling pauldrons directly to the cuirass was historically common. In the 14th and 15th centuries it was usual to lace the pauldrons to the shoulders of the arming jacket, and in the 16th and 17th centuries they'd be buckled or pinned to a gorget (neck defense) that was worn under the cuirass. 

Only rarely do we see the pauldrons separated from the cuirass. 

It's worth noting that these pauldrons of Guts do not so much rest on the deltoids as they overhang them, standing up with their own stiffness. You can see how much "clearance" there is between the lower edge and Guts's arm.

The helmet is shaped like his previous one, but the skull is made of only two riveted pieces--one for the front and top of the skull, another for the back and sides. The neck guard is lengthened to four lames compared to the previous two, and is rounded at the bottom. The visor also has third horizontal bar added between the top and bottom ones. We also see the cheek pieces return, so only a short leather chin strap is needed.

The long gauntlet that Guts wears on his left hand covers all the way up to his elbow. This resembles the long elbow gauntlets worn by harquebusiers during the English Civil Wars, which were designed to protect the vulnerable forearm holding the horse's reins against sword cuts since they did not use shields. His right arm is unprotected below the pauldron, with only a cloth hand wrap to help him grip his sword.

An English (Greenwich) Bridle Gauntlet for the Left Arm, circa 1630–40,
Garth Vincent Antique Arms & Armour, ID:1356

This is probably my favorite of Guts' armors before the Eclipse, and sees him through many highlights of the Golden Age such as the Hundred Man Fight and the Battle of Doldrey. During the Battle of Doldrey, General Boscogn strikes off his helmet, chops off one of his pauldrons, and snaps the blade of his sword. 

The pauldron stays unrepaired during the victory parade afterwards, and Guts procures a new sword with a different form of crossguard by the time of the victory ball. When Guts tries to slip out of Windham without saying goodbye, he leaves his cuirass together with his broken sword behind in the church where the Hawks were being quartered. 

In the second Golden Age movie, the animators provide him with an armor never seen in the manga, which only gets used for Guts and Griffith's duel in the snow.

Silat Armor, introduced in volume 9, episode 41, "Arms Tournament"; last seen in volume 11, episode 66, "Mortal Combat (2)"

After a one year timeskip, we find Guts entering a tournament in a foreign land. When it seems like the Bakiraka prince Silat will take with prize without any real opposition, Guts steps forward to try his luck. He's gotten yet another new sword, and this armor is by far the most bizarre and elaborate that we'll see on him until the Berserker Armor. It contains some obvious Japanese construction techniques, but remains a hybrid of different things and Miura's wild imagination. 

Regarding the helmet, there is none. This is the chronological beginning of a long stretch where Guts has no helmet at all, which continues through three more armors and stops only when he gets the Berserker Armor. The cuirass is highly fantastical, consisting of four sections that wrap around his torso. There is one solid plate over the rectus abdominis or "six pack" muscles, which has some faint muscular embossing; there are large left and right sections that buckle together in front and back; and there's a rear section that covers the center of his back going down his spine. 

The right, left, and rear parts consist of horizontal lames that overlap downward. The uppermost lames of the left and right sections are lower in the middle to give freedom of movement at the armpit, but on either end are circular lobes that rise up to partially cover the pectorals and the area near the shoulder blades, roughly corresponding with the teres and infraspinatus muscles.

The left and right sections are each held up by a leather strap that goes over the respective shoulder; these shoulder straps are normally hidden by the pauldrons. A large horizontal strap connects the upper parts of the left and right sections in back, and buckles closed in the front across Guts's chest. The spine and ab sections are each connected to the left and right side by small buckled straps at their upper left and upper right corners. The wing plates of the pauldrons and the upper lobes of the left and right torso sections are decorated with what could either be small embossed domes or large rivets, which match the decorative rivets on Guts's waist belt and the guard of his new sword. There is also a large reinforcing piece attached to the chest buckle, which partly overlaps the upper lame of the left torso section and slightly extends the protection over Guts's sternum.

Despite the amount of eastern and Japanese influence, the cuirass in particular reminds me of the Roman lorica segmentata. Like Guts' cuirass, it consisted of horizontal lames that were riveted to flexible internal leather strips and overlapped downward, so that the torso could bend in any direction. The fact that the largest pieces of Guts' cuirass are the left and right sections also reminds me of how the lorica segmentata consists of left and right sections, instead of the more familiar back- and breastplate. The lorica segmentata cuirass also consists of four sections, but that's because the plates that cover the pectorals and upper back are integrated with the shoulder defenses instead of being part of the lower torso pieces. If you included Guts's shoulder guards as part of the cuirass, then it would actually consist of six sections.

Lorica Segmentata from Inside, Matthias Kabel, Wikimedia Commons

The way that Guts's cuirass only comes up to his mid-chest, and would require the addition of a separate top section to fully enclose the torso, reminds me not only of lorica segmentata, but also of an ancient form of Japanese armor called tanko. Like the lorica segmentata, tanko is made up of multiple plates and closes in the front by an overlapping joint down the middle.

Tanko, Tokyo National Museum, Daderot, Wikimedia Commons

To be brutally honest, if I analyze the Silat Armor from a realistic and practical perspective, I think the cuirass is impractically constructed. It's superfluous and over-complicated to have a separate ab section in front and spinal section behind, when it would be simpler if the right and left sections just wrapped all the way around to meet each other in front and behind. The ab section is actually worse than the spine section because it's one solid plate, and can not flex as much as the sections on the sides and rear. The cuirass is short enough that Guts probably wouldn't have too much trouble bending forward, but what's the point of segmenting the lower part of the torso if you aren't going to take full advantage of it? Admittedly the cuirass does have an impressive ability to twist when Guts's chest is pointed off-line from his hips, something it may have in common with segmentata.

More importantly, the Silat Armor cuirass has gaps in protection that would be unacceptable in real life. It exposes too much of Guts's upper chest and upper back, while having huge and unnecessary gaps between the four sections. The worst aspect is the gap between the pectoral lobes of the left and right sections, which leaves Guts's heart unprotected except for a strip of belt leather. The danger of such gaps is actually demonstrated in the volume 9, episode 45, "Confession," where in a brief swordfight between Guts and Casca she manages to stab him between his ab plate and the left section of the cuirass. 

Thankfully the wound isn't serious, but Guts is lucky to not have this happen to him more often. The segmentata cuirass does not have this gap problem because the four sections are all designed to overlap each other.

A member of Legio XV from Pram, Austria, photographed by Medium69
on December 1st, 2014. Wikimedia Commons.

I just gave a lot of practical criticism there, but when I set that all aside I still find this cuirass and the whole armor to be a great costume from an artistic perspective. I certainly can't say I've seen anything like it in fiction before.

Guts's pauldrons include solid cap plates, which have small "wings" behind that cover the back of the shoulder joint, and suspended from these and covering most of the upper arms are hanging panels that could be called sode. Similar large shoulder guards were also used in other eastern cultures such as the Chinese, the Tibetans, and the Mongols. Guts's sode seem to be made of rectangular metal splints which are stitched to a cloth or leather backing. This construction method wasn't commonly used for Japanese sode, which tended to be true lamellar armor, but was common in other parts such as greaves, thigh guards, and sleeves. Some pieces of Tibetan armor I've seen are good examples of this plates-stitched-to-backing technique.

Shoulder or Knee Defense, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001.559

Detail of Crinet and Shoulder Defense for a Horse, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007.183

Guts's left arm is covered by a kote, the Japanese style of armored sleeve which is made of fabric, and onto which are sown plates, splints, and/or mail links for protection. 

Kusari Kote, Samuraiantiqueworld, Wikimedia Commons

The dome-shaped plate to protect the elbow is a detail Guts' kote has in common with historical ones. However, the gauntlet for his left hand resembles the European style more than the Japanese tekko, mainly because the back of the hand is articulated using rivets. That said, the finger plates seem to be articulated to the back of the hand using laces. The right arm has no kote to match, only a hand wrap.

Guts wears a variation on his usual broad belt and codpiece, decorated with large round rivets. His dagger sheath is not mounted to the broad belt, but instead hangs from a separate harness; a shoulder strap goes over his right shoulder, and a waist strap overlaps the big belt.

Hanging from staps on his broad belt, Guts wears what I'm going to describe as leather chaps, which in real life are used by horse riders such as cowboys to protect their legs while riding. They are often just two individual leggings held together by a waist belt, but Guts's leggings meet in the back over the cutout for the saddle. 

Chaps, Colour Isolated; Emilio Labrador, Wikimedia Commons

In any case, the chaps provide a foundation for the rest of Guts's leg armor, which includes small tasset plates at his hips, some eastern-style splints on the sides of the legs, and poleyns to protect his kneecaps.

Guts's armor takes an extreme beating during the fight with Wyald. The plates become dented and deformed, while splints start to be stripped off from the cloth foundation of his pauldrons and chaps. His sword also becomes cracked, and he knows it's about to break.

In a desperate move to turn the tables, Guts wraps the whole above-the-waist portion of his armor around a thick tree limb and throws it at Wyald. Wyald punches the decoy so that the armor goes flying everywhere in pieces.

Meanwhile, Guts (only wearing the chaps portion) leaps down from the treetops to deal decisive damage against Wyald before he can recover from his wasted swing. 

This trick sacrifices most of the armor, and while the chaps remain intact they are removed during the treatment of Guts's wounds. It's pretty much beyond salvaging, and we never see this armor again.

End of Part 1. Continued in Part 2.1