Vinland Saga

Young Thorfinn grew up listening to the stories of old sailors that had traveled the ocean and reached the place of legend, Vinland. It's said to be warm and fertile, a place where there would be no need for fighting—not at all like the frozen village in Iceland where he was born, and certainly not like his current life as a mercenary. War is his home now. Though his father once told him, "You have no enemies, nobody does. There is nobody who it's okay to hurt," as he grew, Thorfinn knew that nothing was further from the truth.

The war between England and the Danes grows worse with each passing year. Death has become commonplace, and the viking mercenaries are loving every moment of it. Allying with either side will cause a massive swing in the balance of power, and the vikings are happy to make names for themselves and take any spoils they earn along the way. Among the chaos, Thorfinn must take his revenge and kill Askeladd, the man who murdered his father. The only paradise for the vikings, it seems, is the era of war and death that rages on.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Thorfinn Main

Uemura, Yuuto Japanese

Askeladd Main

Uchida, Naoya Japanese

Canute Main

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Thorkell Supporting

Ootsuka, Akio Japanese

Thors Supporting

Matsuda, Kenichirou Japanese

Björn Supporting

Yasumoto, Hiroki Japanese

Ylva Supporting

Nabatame, Hitomi Japanese

Willibald Supporting

Hino, Satoshi Japanese

Erikson, Leif Supporting

Ueda, Youji Japanese

Ear Supporting

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

Fujiyama, Naokado Producer

Ueda, Youko Producer

Hasegawa, Hiroya Producer, Production Assistant

Yabuta, Shuuhei Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Dec 29, 2019

Stark700

Recommended

If Don LaFonaine narrated Vinland Saga from the start, he’d begin the show with “In a world….” In Vinland Saga, we are introduced to a Viking world, a world of historical fiction rich with culture and testing the limits of survival. Based on the manga of the same name, it’s a show that teaches more than about survival. If you’re ready to embark on this epic adventure, then be ready for a 24-episode saga like you’ve never experienced before.

Thorfinn Thorsson is the Icelandic protagonist, a character with complex personality driven with an ambition. After the death of his father, he becomes a warrior, someone who ... will do whatever it takes to get his revenge. In this 11th century, the audience must understand how barbaric life is. Every day is an adventure where possibilities are almost limitless. Vinland Saga is very engrossing with a rich culture and preaches to the elements of historical fiction. This anime adaptation adapts a story to get us familiar with its Viking world, the harsh life of Thorfinn Throsson, and what it means to survive.

Besides Planetes, Vinland Saga is mangaka Makoto Yukimura’s most prominent work. The anime adaptation remains faithful throughout the series but the director does mention that “there will be some adjustments to the manga”. With that in mind, the audience shouldn’t need to worry too much because Vinland Saga is fundamentally an adaptation for fans of the original series. The first few episodes takes off to showcase the violence and barbaric nature of the 11th century. From the harsh weather to immense amount of bloodshed, it is obvious the producers wanted to make the anime feels as real as possible. Wit Studio managed to carry a caliber of high production quality throughout a great deal of this series. The landscapes and Baltic Sea are illustrated with gorgeous visual quality enhanced by its realism. The scenes in some episodes contains elements of photorealism, characteristics that makes this show’s visual quality nothing less than a near masterpiece. There’s a Viking culture that we must quickly adapt to such as the rough clothing, crude ships, and historical weapons. Vehicles are replaced by horses and technology is crafted by the hands of humankind. In essence, this anime retains a beautiful setting but with dark elements of complex storytelling.

With the characters in mind, Thorfinn is the central protagonist as we focus on his rebellious life. During his childhood, he was happier like an ordinary kid before his life changed forever. Now, he carries a vengeful attitude with a rebellious nature while trusting almost no one but himself. He is what I describe as a survivalist, someone who is opportunistic, wild, and unpredictable. He is fundamentally a decent person although some of his actions are questionable throughout the series. It’s hard to judge his character altogether in this adaptation but based on his actions, you could say he is far from a heroic protagonist. What is important is the relationship he develops with others in particular, Askeladd, the man who manipulated Thorfinn into his service. This becomes a complex relationship because Askeladd was contracted to kill Thors, Thorfinn’s father. As leader of his own Viking band, he is an important figure because of his influence on Thorfinn. And the more you watch Vinland Saga, the more you’ll realize how much certain characters have influence over others.

Taking some steps back, the audience should also be familiar with Thors, the father of Thorfinn. As one of the most powerful character in the franchise, Thors is a testament and symbol of warrior. And despite not being around as much as the other characters, Thors teaches us what it means to be a true warrior. This is somewhat in contrast to Thorkell, a barbaric man with inhuman strength and widely considered to be one of the most brutal warriors in the series. He loves the thrill of fighting, to always find powerful opponents, and tests his strength. After encountering Thorfinn, he comes to respect the boy for his inner strength and determination. He is even somewhat honorable in that when facing against worth opponents, he prefers to settle it in a fair fight, without interference or bias. In my eyes, he is a breakout character to always keep an eye on.

But Vinland Saga isn’t just about barbarism and violence. It has a society ruled by order with laws and dictatorship. From within the story, we meet Canute, a prince with a cowardly personality and bishonen-like appearance. Created as a foil as some of the main characters, he starts off as a meek man but transforms into a strong headed prince after losing someone close in his life. And that’s what makes Vinland Saga so meaningful. Character deaths are impactful and causes people to change as in the way it’s meant to. I can honestly say from heart that character evolution in Vinland Saga is one of the core fundamentals of the series. It’s not just about evolving characters either but showing the reality of death. It’s a clever way to avoid character assassination by changing their personalities through events. As I watched more of the show, it becomes more and more intriguing to understand each one. Unfortunately, a 2-cour adaptation does limit the potential of full character development. There’s much more to be found in the manga but that’s for another story.

If I said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times. Vinland Saga contains a cruel world and filled with moments of despair, emotions, and conviction driven by action. If you’re here to see fan service, it’s served with bloodshed and body horror, not half naked women. It has little time to humor as its time period isn’t an era to enjoy life. It’s to survive in it. What will seduce the audience to this series’ theme ultimately come down its hallmark of creative realism. It manages to be exactly what it advertised from the start and in Thors’ words, make a “true warrior with no sword”.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Dec 29, 2019

Krankastel

Mixed Feelings

Greetings ladies and gentlemen, I will cut straight to the point.

Have you ever experienced a work with an intriguing premise capable of appealing to you… being undermined by a plethora of flaws and handled half-heartedly?

Vinland Saga is such a case. I do not consider this to be a great anime, let alone the AoTY; for all (or actually, because of) my love of medieval history, I couldn’t resist reviewing this too ambitious-for-its-own-good work.

Note: this work may contain spoilers, at the final section for the plot.

[1. Starting with the visuals]

... (-) The animation is simply put, lackluster. Audaciously lackluster.

And it shows early: at the first episode we are shown a flashback to a naval battle where Thors (the protagonist’s father) participates, based on the Battle of Hjörungavágr. Immediately, we are greeted with ugly CGI. For example, water does not feel natural at all, but rather as some industrial sludge.

This gets worse during later parts, for CGI utterly fails to not stand out like a sore thumb at animated sequences. The blending of hand-drawn animation with CGI is poor, with certain sequences having a rather unnatural feel. One of my biggest complaints though has to do with abusing stills and limited animation.

Before presenting examples, I want to say this loud and clear: I do NOT look down on any animation techniques, but here the execution is full of eyesores and inexcusable. When decent CGI is featured on Land of the Lustrous or when Kill la Kill uses limited animation to save budget while oozing originality, I find it odd that WIT failed to achieve harmony. The production often screamed sloppiness and cutting down costs rather than presenting something worth its hype.

Anyway, at the aforementioned battle we are treated to an aerial view shot of miniature toy soldiers “fighting” on longboats… resembling sequences in some B-grade browser strategy game. With these longboats floating on the aforementioned CGI sludge.

Concerning limited animation and stills, they are abused for crowds, the result being jarring and ill-fitting. Mostly in duels, but is rather commonplace for enemies to be frozen in place before getting slaughtered by characters forcibly being established as master fighters.

(+) The art is not perfect, and in fact, can feel bland and drained of detail.

Examples include longboats, distant crowds, fortifications, armor, etc. They often lack eye candy and polish and the palette feels too “worn out”, despite the fact plain colors can draw the best qualities out of the historical genre.

Nonetheless, I include art in the positive aspect for two reasons. First of all, each person depicted has a different build, clothing and facial features, including freckles and scars. The second is the backgrounds. Whether an Icelandic settlement wracked by the elements, the town of York or a mountainous passage in Wales, there is a plethora of gorgeous landscapes that caught my eye.

[2.About the audio sector]

I won’t say much, despite valuing sound direction, voice acting and music a lot. I’m mostly content, though I would prefer a more medieval-sounding OST rather than one fitting for a stock shonen.

Characters from different peoples were supposed to be unable to communicate, but all lines are in Japanese. I recall the first chapter featuring Franks speaking in (nonetheless modern) French when in the presence of Norsemen, to portray this. An understandable break from reality, given how difficult it would be to include lines in Welsh, Old Norse, etc. But it still seemed odd.

[3. On to the non-production factors, starting with characters]

(-) I’m either neutral or dislike most of them.

Thorfinn is a flat revenge story protagonist: being obsessed, brooding and resentful are his sole traits. He is static, never takes notice of the surrounding environment to contemplate and thus is easily manipulated. Thorkell is mighty and larger than life. Given the setting and his culture, his character somewhat fits but to an extend also ruins the tone; multiple sequences and lines are straight from B-grade action films, one of the worst offenders being his debut at the first episode. Still, the ones that left me with the sourest of impressions are Thors and Canute, enough to include separate explanations at the plot section.

(+) Despite my distaste for multiple characters, one fascinated me deeply: Askeladd, the deuteragonist.

He is a ruthless and callous commander but also compelling, being calculated and abusing obfuscating blitheness to take advantage of his enemies’ carelessness. But this is only the peak of the iceberg, as we are gradually shown more fascinating facets (e.g. being a “stealth mentor” and a person forged by tragedy). He is also morally myopic and commits multiple atrocities, but this makes him more than a mere villain or anti-hero, he is over half of the show’s magic.

Askeladd aside, I believe some side characters served their selected roles well. One of them is King Sweyn, whom I deem fit as an aged and jaded ruler.

[4.And, let’s conclude with the plot]


(a.) “A true warrior does not need a sword.” – Thors.

First arc: as you may understand, I am not fond of its start. However, the production is not the sole issue: it’s the presence of Thors.

After the naval battle, we are treated to Thors living with his family in Iceland as settlers. Because of a conflict of interest, a landowner and his retainers arrive and we are treated to interesting historical elements: slavery and the workings of a commodity economy. Thors established himself as unlike his peers; he shuns violence and favors negotiations, even for no practical gain and much for the village to lose. The problem is, it makes zero sense to display such morality more in line with modern pacifism. It is simply not convincing in such a warlike honor-based society, and during these turbulent ages.

My bewilderment is summed up by the aforementioned phrase. What on earth is its meaning? If you are not willing to take up arms and be cautious, you may end up enslaved, raped, tortured and/or killed. And this is a fact, no presence or enforcement of any form of international law back then.

What really ticked me off however was the event that kick started the revenge arc: rather than brush aside his morals to defend nail and tooth his own son and kinsmen, Thors resorts to punching and preaching to a bunch of pirates, whose leader is willing to exploit anything and anyone for the sake of his goals.

Everyone could end up dead or worse, if it wasn’t for the leader’s personal morality. The outcome to this clash ends as a disgrace entirely because of the context. It is an insult to my intelligence, and too convenient.

The rest of the arc is about the relationship of Thorfinn and Askeladd, as well the Danish invasion on England, following St. Brice's Day massacre, concluding with a battle for London.

The point of view is focused on the Norsemen, the Anglo-Saxons being treated as either naïve civilians or soldiers ready to die en masse. One positive aspect is presenting samples of Norse culture, such as whaling and the Laugardagr. I also liked how a siege at France was included in an episode.
A negative aspect was the presence of pop and Japanese culture references; a moving Star Wars reference, the protagonist Naruto-running and others, this trend continuing to the second arc, without contributing to anything. Another example is right below.

(b.) “Battle isn’t the same as Shogi.” – Askeladd.

Second arc: I prefer this arc by far, yet also has issues of its own. I was mostly content with the plot; a conflict of faiths, legitimate elements of values dissonance, plus insight on the history of the British Isles. There were even clever tactical elements.

This arc introduces Canute, based on Cnut the Great, for whom I will not pretend that I know everything. Whatever I judge is according to the anime. After a certain event and a trial of related hardships, Canute needs development, being established as a fragile young man who loathed violence. Disappointingly, this turned into a total disaster: rather than make the process gradual and natural, the creator decides to exploit an outrageous plot device.

He dreams, apparently receives enlightenment, is given a Christian lecture on the true meaning of love (i.e. on agape) and makes a 180 degree turn. Why is this outrageous? Because it is a blatantly supernatural asspull, not convincing or realistic and on top of that, preachy. Canute’s transition towards a charismatic and gallant leader is too sudden, and infuriatingly poorly written. Even worse, the same preaching is used to excuse Thors’ morality; on top of him being constantly praised as the best warrior, this bothered me to no end.

Negativity aside, the last episodes are amazing. From skullduggery and political intrigue, to one blast of a conclusion, they actually brought a smile to my face. If anything, these episodes are a reason for which I haven’t rated Vinland Saga lower.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 29, 2019

HellLyter

Not Recommended

Tales of Vikings pillaging and plundering have always been exciting in my eyes, so the setting of Vinland Saga really grasped my attention. An anime produced by Wit Studio featuring a more historical take on the adventures of Vikings? What could possibly go wrong? A lot apparently. While it started off really promising, Vinland Saga got increasingly worse as it went along. And just like the serene land of England that the Vikings damaged and maimed, the Vikings did the same to the quality of this anime. Though it was primarily one Viking in particular.

Frickin Thorfinn

This dude is apparently the protagonist of the story, ... but he does absolutely nothing to deserve this title. No wait, he runs like Naruto and is OP for some inexplicable reason after receiving absolutely no adequate training throughout his young life, so I guess he does check off most of the boxes for "generic anime protagonist." Unfortunately, he has zero semblance of development until the very end of the anime. And his personality throughout the entire show is as stale as expired bread. Now I don't care if he evolves much more as a person in the much longer source material. I'm basing everything off of what I see in the anime, and what I see is a poorly written character whose total stagnancy is astounding. Also, Vinland Saga is considered to be a historical anime and boasts a more realistic take on Vikings. Now no one, least of all me, expected this anime to be entirely realistic. I mean come on, it's an anime after all. But when Thorfinn can accomplish feats like casually charging through hundreds of arrows shot at his head, leaping 12 feet in the air over a moat, sprinting up the side of a vertical castle wall, and running through dozens of trained soldiers in armor while making abrupt slashing motions with his knives that decapitate all of them with one slice, then I start to have a problem with the "realism" factor. Moments like these had deleterious effects on the quality of the anime in my eyes, and Thorfinn's inexplicable demigod-like feats of strength and skill when compared to the generally normal capabilities of the majority of the rest of the cast caused a disconnect with the historical direction that the anime seemed to be aiming for.

Of course that loud, mountain of a man Thorkell is somehow worse when it comes to absolutely shattering any sense of realism that Vinland Saga was aiming for, but I don't even want to attempt to talk about that horrendously written character.

Yes, I believe Thorfinn failed spectacularly as a protagonist. But thankfully, there's Askeladd. He's honestly much more of a main character than Thorfinn, and is actually quite compelling and given a believable reason for his actions. He's clearly the deepest character and most entertaining part of the show, and despite my issues with many aspects of the anime *cough* Thorfinn *cough* he kept things interesting. He's the type of character that you initially want to hate but then grow to appreciate as time goes on, and I have to commend Vinland Saga for writing him in such a compelling way. But even Askeladd couldn't save Vinland Saga from falling into mediocrity. And that's thanks to the inclusion of another certain character.

Frickin Canute

Canute is a Norse princess waifu...but he's a dude. The entire arc surrounding Canute can be summarized as Askeladd's vikings with Canute in tow march through all of England in fear of Thorkell's vikings who are in pursuit. It's terribly boring and is worsened by Canute constantly whining to his cone-headed adviser until even Askeladd gets annoyed by his character and tries to make a man out of him. Canute remains stagnant for many episodes until he has this incredibly pathetic and laughable epiphany about love that doesn't really make any sense and his character suddenly does a complete 180. His voice proceeds to drop an octave and his eyes get smaller and sharper to visually imply that yes, Canute's balls have finally dropped. His character transformation is so abrupt and nonsensical that I can only describe it as a monumental failure when it comes to development. This is especially sad because I know that the author of Vinland Saga has the ability to write quality characters. He did it with Askeladd after all. It just feels like he sort of gave up on trying to realistically develop Canute over a proper period of time and was just like "Screw it, he's a badass now!" Which is honestly quite unfortunate.

I also find the narrative to be quite weak and lazily written. Sure, it shows on multiple occasions how harsh and cruel Vikings can be, but in reality it just depicts a bunch of dudes traveling around accomplishing not much of anything for like 20 episodes with a few "dark" moments sprinkled in to remind viewers that they're watching a medieval fantasy. I honestly couldn't find much depth or intrigue in this anime at all. It's just not interesting to me whatsoever and feels like a ginormous waste of time. And the whole revenge plot surrounding Thorfinn and Askeladd had about as much substance as the awful revenge plot featured in Masamune-Kun's Revenge. Which is to say that there's practically zero substance, as it never feels like Thofinn makes any progress whatsoever at getting back at Askeladd. Now this would be fine if the anime took the route of trying to develop their bond and bring them closer over the years, but it doesn't feel like that either. That is of course until the anime force feeds us that angle at the end in a last ditch attempt to derive some emotional impact...sorry, it didn't work. The whole show is just Thorfinn being perpetually angry at Askeladd and Askeladd being sort of indifferent to Thorfinn, which was quite disappointing for me. It made the whole anime feel sort of pointless. And when I can draw parallels to frickin Masamune-Kun's Revenge, which is in my opinion one of the poorest produced anime of the 2010s, you just know that Vinland Saga done goofed up somewhere along the line.

Despite my harsh criticism of Vinland Saga, I don't actually hate the show or anything. It does have some solid visual and sound work (bar the jarring CGI), courtesy of Wit Studio. And there are some fun fight sequences included. I'm just disappointed that the anime squandered so much potential. While it admittedly starts strong with Thors and finishes strong with Askeladd, the rest...unfortunately isn't the best.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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