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TLDR - Thorfinn and company are slaves but aren't treated as such. And the fact that they were promised their freedom in exchange for working is called indentured labour not slavery. These so called slaves could've also escaped at any time because they are given weapons aka gardening tools, aren't supervised or restrained.

Pros - Good art, animation, OSTs, opening/ending sounds.

Cons - NOTHING HAPPENS IN THE FIRST 10 EPISODES, bad pacing/directing, terrible characters, everyone is "funny" all of a sudden, everything is a "joke" all of a sudden, and this is still a seinen story with shounen characters.
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Here is my quick rundown ... of season 2 without writing too much, this was intended to be much longer but I got bored having to write an actual review for such a terrible series.

Vinland Saga season 2 adapted the highly praised Farmland arc. It is the foundation that led to the development of Thorfinn's character and on paper this sounds really good and was supposed to be a well written arc, but there are a lot of issues that are clearly present throughout this anime. I will simply list some of the issues in point form.

1. We aren't actually shown how Thorfinn ends up on the farm but the timeskip solves this right?

2. The Danes raided a village in Northern England and captured a man by the name of Einar. They killed his mother and sister in front of him and intended to sell him as a slave. Einar was angry that his family members were killed right before his eyes, but he was only angry for about 15 seconds.

3. Einar and a small group of villagers/slaves were being transported to England via a small boat. He was no longer pissed that his family had been killed or the fact that he was no longer a free man. Keep in mind that there were only about three Danes and about ten slaves on that boat and not a single one of those slaves were restrained, but NONE of them attempted to resist or even hijack that boat.

4. It was finally time for Einar to be sold as a slave but he attempted to escape. If you ask me, this was the PERFECT opportunity to escape since there were a lot more than three Danes present this time. Why would you choose a time to escape when there were more Danes around you than before? Einar was soon recaptured and was sold to Ketil, his new owner.

5. Ketil (who is very kind hearted man and is compassionate towards everyone including his slaves) then took him to the farm where Thorfinn works. Thorfinn and Einar then met with each other and they were soon told about their new arrangement and to their delight it was such GREAT news. The master told them that he is going to lend them HIS LAND so that they can plant and then he is going to buy HIS OWN CROPS from them so that after three years they would be released and considered their debts paid back in full (the debt was basically the initial cost he paid for them). Unless I'm mistaken, this arrangement doesn't sound like slavery to me, instead what it sounds like is indentured labour. Also, these "slaves" are given gardening tools aka weapons to work with, they are not supervised and they aren't restrained, so what exactly was stopping them from escaping? Like I understand that Thorfinn was strong enough to escape at any point but what about everyone else?

But wait it gets much worse, these guys are slaves but they aren't treated as such. Instead they are operating as if they are free men. These guys eat daily (they even eat proper meals with the slave master's father sometimes), bathe daily, sleep daily (SEPERATELY FROM THE OTHER SLAVES btw) and even get fresh clothes daily. Also, sometimes the master's retainers would bully these two but even that wasn't a problem for long, because if our slaves ever had issues with anyone or anything they would simply run back to the master or his main retainer and complain and everything would be okay next episode.

These few points were basically some of the issues in the first couple of episodes without spoiling too much.
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Here I will talk about some of the characters that the viewers actually care about. Unfortunately there are no good characters like Askeladd in this season, instead we are given a circus of clowns that make silly faces and joke about everything. Occasionally, there are a few serious moments but nothing major. I will only touch on a few things because you will have to watch the series to understand what I mean.

1. Thorfinn - In this season he now has depression, PTSD and a unwillingness to live, which is funny but also bad writing for a couple of reasons. Firstly, why is he still unwilling to live if he still has a family to go back too after all this? Secondly, Thorfinn literally saw his father die right in front of him and didn't experience any trauma or nightmares until years later after Askeladd died in front of him. Keep in mind, Thorfinn was also killing hundreds if not thousands of people on the battlefield on a daily basis as a KID and we were never shown anything wrong with him mentally. I understand that he committed his entire life for revenge and was shocked or disappointed then attacked Canute out of rage when he himself didn't get to kill Askleadd. Now he has nightmares every night about his "past life" and he is literally and figuratively fighting his demons every night in his sleep before Einar wakes him up.

In addition, Thorfinn is now a full-blown pacifist in this season, or is he? This is very confusing to me because he would refuse to fight but when one of the master's retainers insults his crops/plants he punched them in their face, but when he sees an entire village of people being killed he does nothing about it. Make it make sense please.


2. Einar - I'm not sure how best to describe this character, he is supposed to be Thorfinn's "friend" that helps him develop but he himself isn't even a developed character. This guy acts like if he is bipolar or something, one minute he is angry with Thorfinn, next minute he wants to be free, next minute he is in love with the slave girl and next minute he makes these silly jokes/faces. I could go on and about this character but his character doesn't make any sense.

Let me give you an example, in an episode Thorfinn admitted that he was a child that just happened to be there when Einar's village was attacked. Einar was pissed at Thorfinn for a couple of episodes which doesn't make any sense because Thorfinn did nothing wrong and at the time he was a kid that was simply present when it happened. Then in this season Einar would mention frequently that he wants to be a free man but even if he was free there is nothing to go back to because all his relatives/villagers were killed, so the best thing to do would be to simply remain as a slave if he was guaranteed clothes, food, shelter and protection. Or he could've also got his freedom and continued working for the master. Then he was actually promised the freedom that he wanted, initially he was ecstatic but then he remembered the slave girl that he kept feeling sorry for. He didn't want to leave without her which is absolutely insane because she was the master's concubine aka his favorite and would've practically been treated better than him if the slavery in this instance actually meant something.


3. Canute - Well well, if it isn't Sweyn version 2.0. In season 1, I predicted that he would turn out exactly like his father and so said so done. This isn't exactly a bad thing but guess what? The Canute we once knew and the Canute we now know are two different people. For example the Canute we once knew was shy and naïve but now he is strong, abrasive and much more cunning than ever. He uses all of these traits in order to rule as king.

Yet there are some things which don't make sense for a character like Canute to do. For example, poisoning his brother to become the new King of England does make sense because there is only enough room for one king and eventually having more than one king will cause an issue, but starting a war with Ketil's farm made absolutely no sense. First of all if you just became the King of England then where is England's resources or money? And assuming you were low on funds why didn't you demand more taxes like your advisor suggested instead of killing some of your own innocent people?

Another difference between the Canute back then and now is that now he isn't afraid of fighting or picking up a sword anymore, there isn't anything particularly wrong to this but the problem here is that he is already stronger than some of the foot soldiers that he himself is in charge of. Such example, is when he fought against Thorgill.

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