Vinland Saga Anime : An Introverts Review

“Far west, across the sea, there is a land called Vinland. It’s warm, and fertile. A faraway land, where neither slave traders nor the flames of war reach.”

The story of “Vinland Saga” takes us to the 10th Century, when the people were hungry for more lands & resources and hence more power. This particular story will tell you about the Vikings and how one of the Vikings choose a different path along the story to find his heaven on earth, the Vinland.
We will be reviewing season 1 & 2 of the anime series with little to no spoilers.

“Vinland Saga” is inspired by original historical events and great Viking explorers of that time.

The Plot premise of “Vinland Saga”

Vinland Saga is a manga and anime series written by Makoto Yukimura, that follows a young Viking warrior, Thorfinn, on a journey of revenge against Askeladd, the murderer of his father. The anime adaptation is initially set mostly in 1013 AD England, which has been mostly conquered by the Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard. As King Sweyn nears death, he is worried about the division between his aristocrat’s over his successor between his 2 sons, which results in forming 2 separate factions within the kingdom. The king is looking for ways to resolve this issue as he is been trying to conquest complete England.
The story is revolves around Thorfinn’s journey of revenge and his discovery of the new world, he is been listening since childhood(The Vinland).

Characters of Vinland Saga Anime

“Vinland Saga” is famous for its fantastic & breathtaking characters. Many of the characterization of these characters are from real history and we will be touching those later in this article. Let’s talk some of the major characters which influence the Vinland Saga season 1 & 2 story arcs.

• Thorfinn : Thorfinn is the main character (protagonist) of the show. The character is the most simplistic to understand unlike some other characters in the story. His story starts at the age of 5, where he is shown very curious and ambitious child at first but due to certain events in his life in around the same age, his character become more serious and full of hatred. Season 1 handsomely portrait the life of a young kid which is fueled with hatred and have no other emotions. While as the season 2 kicks off, we can see remarkable changes in the character’s behavior. The author has done more than a brilliant job with the character development of the protagonist. Thorfinn is a real character in the history and author has portrait some of his life’s event in this inspired fictional story.

• Thors : Thors is the greatest viking warrior of one time but he decided to flee with his wife(Helga), abandoning his troops and his then village. Thors flee to an island far from the chaos of wars known as Iceland and started to live a life of normal shepherd and low life but happy. Thors is also the father of our protagonist Thorfinn and Ylva (Thorfinn’s elder sister). Thor was a true warrior with high morals and kind to everyone.

• Askeladd : Askeladd is the viking pirate and led a small troop of men from his village. He and his troop used to do ransom jobs along with military support to whoever need them. His character is the most complex character in the whole Vinland Saga story. The character posses the sharpest mind and top 3 in the physical strong Viking’s chart. He is someone who takes every step calculatedly in order to achieve his objectives. With such a complex thinking and most of the time deceiving his own peers for his benefit makes him the most immoral and un-sympathic character of the story. Plus due to his categorizing relationship with Thorfinn makes his character way more complex. There is some major plot reveals associated with the character which is why he was made in such a way from very starting.

• Leif Erikson : Leif is a trader and an explorer from Iceland. Leif is the one who actually found the place which he named Vinland, but never reached there. Later he and Thorfinn set on a journey to this beautiful land of their dreams. Leif was also derived from actual history texts.

• Thorkell : Thorkell is the ruthless viking which is giant in size and no one could defeat him in the battle ground or in one-to-one combat. He just loves to fight and feel bored when there is no fight is going on. Thorkell was uncle of Helga(Thorfinn’s mother) and a warrior alongside with Thors before his flee. Thorkell never stopped fighting in wars but was always curious why did Thors left his duty and the village. It’s said in history that there was a man who was similar to Thorkell’s ability in the Vikings army.

• Canute : Prince Canute who was the 2nd child of the then Danish ruler Sweyn Forkbeard. He is another main character of story which goes through a lot of character development as the story progresses. He is shown very religious and an introverted type of character at first but slowly his character grows and learned different aspects of life and power. He takes oath to make his own Utopia some day.

• Einar : Einar is the character that comes in season 2 and is one the main character if we have to see the development of Thorfinn in the story. Einar’s character was shown as an all day positive thinking character with slight temper issue if someone disregard him or his work in general. Einar and Thorfinn became a good friend and eventually a mouth spoken brother to one another. Einar also joined Thorfinn and Leif on their journey to the Vinland.

Some other worth mentioning characters from the story is Bjorn, Floki, Ragnar, Harald, Arnheid, Snake and there are many other characters in this story who played their important parts in our protagonists journey to Vinland.

Anime’s Connection with the Real History

Vinland Saga is one of the best rated manga/anime series of all time. Specially after its release of second season this winter season everyone is highly praising this awesome story. But what is more interesting is that the series is actually inspired by some of the historical events and characters.

The Vinland which actually refers to the land of wild grapes. Grapes are the raw material for making wines which was considered to be the most Royal drink of that time.

Vinland is an actual place, located on the northern side of North America.

Thorfinn who is the main character of the series is the name of a real person, who was an explorer from Iceland. His complete name was Thorfinn Karlesefni and he actually persuaded to Vinland in the year 1004 along with his wife Gudrid.
According to Britanica website He was the fist European to set foot on the northern American land.

Though, Thorfinn of Vinland Saga series experienced a much different childhood and adult life in compare to real life Thorfinn, who was a trader by profession and belonged to a rich family in Iceland. Well that’s where the story started becoming fictional.

According to some sources Makoto Yukimura took a complete Europe tour in order to do proper research for this series.

Where to Watch Vinland Saga ?

Vinland is 18+ rated series due to its blood thirst action sequences and also complex characters.
Genre : Action, Adventure, Drama
Audience Demographic: Seinen

You can find this remarkable series on Netflix, Crunchyroll and Amazon Prime like streaming platforms. Season 1 completed airing from 8th July 2019 to 30th December 2019 and season 2 is also completed its streaming from 10th January 2023 to 20th June 2023 and up on the platform. So, if you are someone with high binge cravings you can do that. If you are someone who is struggling to buy the subscriptions then you can turn to the third party community streaming sites like aniwatch and 9anime.

Where to buy and read the Vinland Saga Manga

Vinland Saga is comprised of 27 Volumes. The very first chapter was licensed and released by Kodansha publication back in 2005. The English versions were distributed by Kodansha US branch. The manga is still in circulation and according to recent interview of the author Makoto Yukimura with the famous youtuber Gigguk, he said he is writing the final arc of the series and according to me this will finish by this year’s end or starting of next year.
The story is divided into 4 arcs namely War Arc – Slave Arc – Eastern Expedition Arc – Vinland Arc.
Season 1 of the anime covers the War Arc with total of 54 chapters of the manga (1-8 Volumes)
Season 2 of the anime covers the Slave Arc and starting 2 chapters of the Eastern Expedition Arc with total of 55-101 Chapters of the manga (8-14 Volumes)
If you are going to read the manga after finishing the 2nd season of the anime then start from chapter 102.

You can buy the Vinland Saga Manga from Amazon like ecommerce services : https://amzn.to/43kV9Nx

Final Thoughts

The association of the series with the actual historical events makes it awesome for sure but how the author has used the history in order to deliver a strong message with his own fictional part of the story for those legendary characters is what makes this manga/anime series a masterpiece of all time.
How and to what extend the humanity changes and takes different shapes and rise above all the hinderance since there existence is really remarkable and noteworthy.
At the end I would like finish off the article with the series best dialogue:
” I have no enemies, you have no enemies. No one have any enemies”

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