VINLAND SAGA – REVIEW
Viking stories always come with a ton of blood, war, and pillaging. These have remained consistent themes throughout these narratives, yet their focus remains on characters and their stories. Freya, Odin, Thor; each has separate stories of their own, yet their stories are also intertwined. This mindset drives Vinland Saga, an anime produced by Wit Studio, which features a fictionalized yet somewhat historical depiction of the Viking Era. What could go wrong? Nothing. The series introduces us to a Viking world, full of rich historical fiction packed with culture, tradition, and war-mongering. The manga has many themes that the anime conveys beautifully, and most common are the themes of survival, loss, grief, and maturity. If you’re ready for an adventure with both emotional depth and incredible action, then this 24 episode Saga is unlike anything else that you will find.
STORY AND CHARACTERS
Pride, grief, betrayal, pain, loss, and the hunt for a big bounty; this is what it means to be a Viking, and Vinland Saga showcases this incredibly well. However, it showcases the development of its main character even better than that! At the start of the series, the protagonist Thorfinn is just a child. His immaturity is visible. With slow development and progression, he turns into a man. His father raises him to be kind and compassionate. Steer clear of the Viking life, remain kind, be with your loved ones; these were Thors’ values. But once Thors is murdered brutally in front of Thorfinn, everything changes inside of him. Thorfinn’s growth was a slow process in Vinland Saga, and finally, after years of passing, Thorfinn became a vengeance-driven killing machine.
Askeladd, the man who murders Thorfinn’s father, is the one to take him in. Witnessing the complicated chemistry between these two main characters is what makes this series so enjoyable. The focus on these two allowed their interactions to be stretched, which slowed down Thorfinn’s growth. Askeladd serves more as an anti-hero than an antagonist here. He’s one of the best characters in the series, being my personal favorite. On the surface, he’s a ruthless killer, but there’s more to him than meets the eye; he is the wild card. He has an incredibly deep back-story, which makes his motivations profoundly nuanced the more you get to learn about him.
The thing that most surprised me about Vinland Saga was the attention to detail in writing. The slow pacing for the series was made for dialogue and conversations that usually would never occur in anime. Men are shown bantering, screaming about money, booze, and women being the reason for their lives. At the same time, drunk priests confirm that “Ale” is their only God. These interactions fit the show so well, depicting a Viking’s life in the most evident sense. They had no meaning in their lives other than dying a warrior's death, and Askeladd would promise them that glory.
Vinland Saga maintains its very own grounded-in reality approach throughout the first season’s 24 episodes. Everything is authentic, accurate, based on real things, and surrounded by reality. It’s not a world where there are crazy power-ups, superpowers, spiritual energies or energy blasts, or even inhuman intelligence. It is simply about a young, grief-trodden boy on a rollercoaster ride of a journey to self-discovery. He learns a ton of lessons along the way, lessons that we can all relate to even in the 21st century. The character interactions, dialogue, world-building, and writing are some of the highest quality in the industry. While I will say that the fights are incredibly well animated and choreographed, it’s the story here that truly invests a viewer and compels you to keep watching way more than just the fighting.
ANIMATION ART AND SOUNDTRACK
Wit Studios INCREDIBLE job with Attack on Titan made them the perfect choice to go with Vinland Saga. This is a series known as part of a “Big Three,” containing Vinland Saga, Vagabond, and Berserk, all three of which are considered unadaptable. When looking at the animation, it is GOOD, solid animation that perfectly showcases everything that it wants to and more without ever going overboard. The background art is some of the best we’ve ever seen, and WIT Studios are known for this ever since Attack on Titan. Sure, there is CGI here, but seeing how complicated hand-drawing everything is is very excusable because it is often hidden in the shadows and never takes up the screen too much.
The art at times downright seems manga level of perfection. Some close-ups are drawn with such incredible detail that they emphasize the passion put into the series. Wit’s classic deep shadowing shows the weathered and grief-filled eyes of these characters. These faces will remain memorable, each one having its own distinct design. The story-boards here led to tremendous visual story-telling, characters having their boundaries separated by the objects and atmosphere. Separated by boundaries, fences, and people within shots, trees divide these characters to express their unspoken hatred for one another.
As for the music, it is pretty good but not the best I’ve ever heard. It fits the show perfectly well, but it isn’t the kind of music that I would listen to on my own. Both opening songs are metalcore, and they are pretty good metalcore. Unique anime openings, especially in the metal genre, can be great hype-boosters for anime, and these serve their purpose well here. For Wit’s standards, though, the anime isn’t entirely on Attack on Titan or Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress level of quality. But somehow, it has a stronger narrative than the latter.
VERDICT
Vinland Saga is a deep dissection of how grief, regrets, and ambition challenge people and turns you into a different version of yourself if it ever overpowers you. Studio Wit’s incredibly detailed and movement-heavy animation, along with some exceptionally well-drawn designs and art, makes Vinland Saga a pleasure for the eyes. The narrative coherency is perfectly there, while the depth just keeps on getting deeper. Thorfinn’s adventure has just begun, and I cannot wait to see more of it in the future.
