Welcome all, to another great episode of Vinland Saga! It’s another emotional one, so strap in because there is a lot of tragedy to talk about. Let’s dive into it!
Overall the best way to describe this episode is… Tragic. Incredibly tragic, in just every way. Vinland Saga hits you, every week, with the horrors of war the effects it has on people, especially the innocents. Over and over and over again it hammers away at its primary theme of how war is terrible and the glorification of it only perpetuates it. It’s honestly incredible to me that people still seem to miss the point and think Vinland Saga is some kind of… battle hungry Shounen or something. I know plenty of people who have dropped the season because it was “boring” and they wanted the battles of Season 1, or because they just didn’t get what was going on. Which is ridiculous to me, because I think Vinland Saga is so clear with its messaging that there’s barely anything to write about each week!
To prove this, lets look at some of the more obvious ways Vinland Saga gets its messaging across. The big one is the battle. Most shows like this, they depict the battle as fun. As something to enjoy, a hype event. Just look at Kimetsu no Yaiba or My Hero Academia. These fights are the highlights of the show! But as Vinland Saga makes very clear, that’s only the case for the winner. It’s fun to win. To be the one doing the killing, to be safe. The loser, the victim? Fox, Badger, the farmers? It’s terrifying. It’s filled with blood, pain and loss. Yeah, a lot of shows say that. But I’ve yet to find another series like Vinland Saga that really sells it. That embodies that condemnation without later walking it back into glorification.
I mean, just look at the brutality of the episode. Arms flying off, blood spurting, eyes gouged out, men screaming and dying in the dirt holding their stomachs in. Farmers running away from Jomsvikings, fearing death more then debt. There’s nothing glorified about this, it’s just terrible. Vinland Saga also makes it clear that there are no “good guys” in this. What Canute is doing to Ketil? Swooping in as the bigger and stronger guy, seizing his land? Well to the farmers, that’s not so different from what Ketil did to them. Buying them out, taking over, holding debt over their heads and sending them to war over it. Making it clear that, for all that we’ve come to spend time with him, Ketil isn’t a particularly good man either.
Beyond the thematic cohesion of the episode, Vinland Saga also absolutely nailed the emotional aspect. Once again, Arnheid’s scene steals the show. To cap off her story of how living in this world as it is, filled with death war and slavery, is worse then simply dying, what does she do? She passes on. She goes to whatever afterlife she believes in with her husband and sons. Hearing the sound of battle in the distance, she decides it’s not worth it. And no one can really fight her on it. Even when Leif suggests she come to Iceland with them, he can’t honestly tell her that it’s free of war or slavery. The really tragic part though? That for all it sucked, for all the bad… Einar and Thorfinn made the days pleasant. If only for a short while, they found peace with each other.
As good as that is though, my favorite bit is the effect this has on Thorfinn. We get to see just how far he’s grown, how much he’s changed, via his reaction. This idea that, as a kid, he laughed at and was disappointed in the story of how his ancestors fled war and violence, only now as an adult to be proud of them. Recounting the tale of Vinland to her as she passes on, of a land far to the west free of all these struggles. How, when Einar see’s Ketil and storms off in a rage, he does everything he can to stop him. And, once Arnheid is buried, marching off to confront Canute and hopefully stop this senseless violence, without using any violence of his own. It’s amazing how far he’s come from that angsty little kid on a boat.
Finally, speaking of Canute, let’s talk about how he managed to not die. I know I just went on a rant about Vinland Saga refusing to glorify violence, and I maintain that. But as a character I came to love in the first season, it’s still kinda cool to watch Canute not get his ass kicked by someone clearly so far above him. Even Thorgil is impressed that Canute held his own, something he clearly wasn’t expecting but was happy to see. It’s like both him and Thorfinn had grown in opposite directions, each one becoming more like how the other was before. One coming to abhor violence while the other perpetuates it, both in search of the same sort of end goal.
So yeah, all in all I quite enjoyed this episode of Vinland Saga. Again. Really it’s my clear Anime of the Season, with nothing else coming close. I’ve enjoyed Gundam Mercury a lot to, that’s a solid second place, with Insomniacs and Yamada both being cute romances. Dr. STONE and Kimetsu no Yaiba are also fun romps. But as far as actually making me feel things, leaving me satisfied? Only Vinland Saga has accomplished that.
Dude there are plenty if shows not just anime that could make you feel things.
I more meant this specific season with that line. Yes, there are a tremendous amount of fantastic shows. Not just in anime, but across all media. There are shows/movies I like more, and that have touched me more deeply, then Vinland Saga. Just not this seaosn. I apologize if I wasn’t clear that I meant this specific season of anime.
Good post and I fully agree. I enjoyed VS’s first arc a lot and it IS what turned me a fan of it in the first place, but Farmland Saga topped that.
The manga arc was already impressive, but I feel like the anime made it even better. Quite a lot of new content to make characters more sympathetic, give us more insight and context and some slightly changed scenes to give them a stronger emotional impact. You can tell that the team really wants to make this, regardless of the budget.
It certainly helps watching this weekly now though, opposed to reading 20 pages a month. It’s the side characters in particular that I enjoy seeing much more now, primarily Snake and Thorgil. Hell I even learned to appreciate Olmar and his very own story of growth.
I am happy that VS went down the anti-war route because I have seen more than enough battle focused series already and I generally prefer fights without any sort super powers. To me at least this series is unique for I cannot think of any other anime similar to this. And yes, I have seen Saikano, Gunslinger Girls and such and I love them deeply. But they aren’t the same as VS.
I can only hope that the mangaka and the anime team weren’t lying to us about the Snake story they intended to make and actually deliver one day because I would eat it up. Be it an OVA or some extra chapters.