Anime: Vinland Saga Season 2

The second season adapts the divisive Farmland arc, which mutates the plot from a manly war drama to mostly an introspective slice of life drama in a farm. The change is huge and it’s understandable why many don’t like it, myself included, I found it to be a very dull season for the most part, at most I liked 2 out of 24 episodes, and I don’t really intend to watch anymore from this franchise, since the next arc is infamous as the worst, even among the fans of the manga.

In fact, this season is the reason why I dropped the manga in the first place, first by holding it for three years, and a second and last time as soon as Olmar appeared, screw him, such a disgrace of a character to the franchise.

Despite that, since I already watched other shows about former assassins or soldiers wishing to redo their lives last year such as Jigokuraku, Rurouni Kenshin, and in a sense even Pluto, I thought why not watch this one as well? And so I did.

Aesthetically, the second season is simultaneously better and worse than the first season, which I guess is not much of a surprise with the studio changing. To star with the positives, the character designs and models are as great as they always were, some characteristics of some characters even reflect their names well, Snake fights with a curved blade and the way he moves around did remind me of one, Fox is not only cunning, but also the way his eyes, usually closed, look most of the time made him look like an actual fox. Also, the animation during fights, although not as interestingly directed as the highlights of the previous season, was overall better. Perhaps it’s due to this sequel having less action, but the few fights in it had far better motions, and some even used rotoscoping. But despite that, the artwork was actually worse, even affecting the character models at times, and there was more and more prominent CGI which was even worse that the one used four years earlier, affecting the quality of both the backgrounds and special effects. Oh and there was also more censorship, so I guess this is one title which you expect the Blu-ray releases of. The directing did have some cool moments when the mentality of the characters was the focus but other than that it didn’t impress me nearly as much as during the first arc.

The atmosphere remains unchanged, voice acting and special effects are as great as ever, but the music is still forgettable, although a bit better used and more fitting, since this is overall a far calmer season, and that goes specially for the songs, which I skipped most of the times, since they were just some pop songs I didn’t care about.

Now for the plot. Besides of Thorfinn farming there is also Canute doing his things to become and establish himself as the one and only king of both Denmark and England, and that ended up being the only part of this season which I enjoyed somewhat, seeing him doing horrible things for his goal in the patch he chose, and I still enjoyed like two episodes out of 24. The pacing is considerably slower, since most of the series is watching Thorfinn farming and meeting people, so it takes a while to establish character dynamics and mentalities before you feel that the story is moving forward.

The tone is a lot calmer and there is a lot of one of the worst aspects of the first season, that damn comedy, which is now thrown in even during supposed serious moments, fuck that shit, I was already disliking the series when it was Stardew Valley, and with this I came to dislike it even more. And then there is Olmar, a comic relief type of character at best, since he exists only to be a failure, be mocked, and making you want to drop the franchise, eventually the author does something good with him, but he still remains the worst character in the series so far.

Themes and characterization are otherwise as strong as before if not even better handled. The presentation is not as subtle, since several characters are willing to easily forgive or do favors to the same people that made their lives miserable, and Thorfinn can come off as a bit preachy at times, especially with that super idealistic finale that even made Canute laugh out loud for the ridiculousness of the whole thing, but the exploration of said themes and messages are still good. Unlike the romanticized versions you can find on North American tv and cinema, Vinland Saga isn’t afraid to show war as a horrible thing, innocent lives are lost or ruined because of it, an example of that is the very same Olmar whom I dislike so much. He is essentially what Thorfinn would be like if he had an easier life than Canute, he wanted to become a warrior and show off, but as soon as he was made to kill someone, saw many people died, his family was affected by all the fighting, and was horrified of his own brother, he realized what a fool he was all along, and chose the same lifestyle which Thorfinn came to have during the season.

Look at Thorfinn himself, at the end of the season he was an empty husk of a person, he didn’t even care for his own life, he suffers from PTSD for all the killings he did, and even sees the once so aspired Valhalla of his as a nightmare fuel hell akin to the Sañjiva Naraka in Buddhism. Thus he became a reformed man and a pacifist looking for peace and compassion for both him and everyone around, making that his ultimate goal at the end of the arc, despite learning and accepting that sometimes you don’t have any other option than using violence to defend yourself or someone else.

Look at Canute, when he is not pillaging a village for funding, he is threatening people, killing his own family for political reasons, or becoming crazy for being haunted by his own dead father.

This also goes for the other theme, slavery, treated with a lighthearted tone within other anime such as Shield Hero or Ancient Magus’ Bride, where the slavers are presented as kind and the slaves fall in love with them because of that, so it’s magically fine. Well not in Vinland, slavery is a horrible thing, it destroyed the lives of several characters, it caused the dead of Einar’s family, it ruined Arnheid and Gardar’s lives, it’s a system abused by many of the free workers higher in hierarchy than the slaves, and even a seemingly kind slaver like Ketil, who doesn’t want to resort to violence, can become a beast and take it on others below him when things go sour.

Despite that, Farmland doesn’t have any very simple character, each one has a backdrop, circumstances they go through, and all the important ones have strong developments and/or catharsis, you are not watching Texhnloyze right now, there is hope for some of these characters after all the misery they suffer.

The finale is otherwise not very strong, not only because the story ain’t over, but also because it felt simplistic, easygoing and idealistic considering the events and the connection between the two different plots that led to that. And don’t get me started on all the comedy that was present on the last episode.

The minor issues from the previous season are still present, minus the rule of cool, since this one doesn’t have nearly as much action and as such it lacks all the exaggerated moments the previous one had.

This is a point which truly defines who really cares about the themes and characterization of Vinland Saga, even at the expense of the plot and excitement, since they otherwise remain as good as before, if not even better. Well sorry, I care about the themes and messages but I also care about not wanting to drop something every few episodes, so you can count me out of this franchise forever. Even with my dislike of the season and arc because of its plot, pacing, comedy and presentation, theme exploration and characterization are as strong as ever if not better, thus it’s still a good season for me, even if I don’t think it is as good as the previous one or as it is made out to be by some people. There is one already teased arc left to be adapted, considered the worst by even the biggest fans of the manga, and another one left to be written, by I give up on this franchise, I wish everyone who reads this a good time with the rest of it and a bit late Happy New Year.

Kinda similar stuff

Rurouni Kenshin (similar protagonist, worse in everything else).

Jigokuraku (similar but inferior protagonist, and only in the manga or later anime seasons to come, worse in everything else).

Pluto (Most major characters are like Thorfinn, better in most aspects).

Gin no Saji and Hyakusho Kizoku (Farming slice of life and coming of age comedies written by Hiromu Arakawa, the woman who made Fullmetal Alchemist, they are not as good but there aren’t many farming anime out there).

Farming games like Stardew Valley

This season is very underwhelming. I understand they are trying to character build but having been in the military myself, you do not see violent people with PTSD go to non-violence as a way to deal with it. They actually get more violent. I question the research the team did to draw out this story because it is very far-fetched. They should look to Kojima and MGS for inspiration. Never built any attachments to any of the characters and the most interesting ones were from the prior season and/or get little to no screen time this season. Character decisions are poorly made, illogical, and don't make any sense. Production value is very high but other than that, I cannot recommend it.

Artwork: 7
Sound: 7
Story: 2
Character: 1
Value: 4
Enjoyment: 2