Puck is heavy handed and ever present comedy relief, yeah. Miura adds even more such characters later on. I stopped reading their dialogue a long time ago.
There's a very long backflash that starts at volume 4 and lasts until volume 13, where all hell breaks loose. Most of that period is relatively grounded as far as the violence goes. The first TV series adapts this stretch of the manga and is subsequently not as gory either.
The CG series adapts later volumes and is gorier by virtue of that, but it's also bad, so...