Review of Vinland Saga Season 2

While the first season was all about the visceral fights and violent atrocities, the second season of Vinland Saga leans heavily on introspection and personal growth. Unfortunately it's frequently a bore-fest with snail pacing and excessive melodrama. There are many moving and memorable scenes, but the context and build-up can feel draining and saturated with cloying sentimentality and depression. There are very few adult anime that can stick to humorless brutal realism mixed with the everyday mundane without being tempted to spice it up by going completely medieval, which it eventually does, but never forgetting it's original vision. That being said, while the acting itselfis stellar, the dialogue is about as simplistic and as sparse as it gets, almost like there was a word budget of some kind, and they needed to spread it out and milk it for what it's worth, contributing to the very slow pace. I know this is the Viking age, but they might as well be neanderthals chatting about taking a dump. There's some serious questions about the premise of the entire story, of the logic behind the MC's inner drive, and of the McGuffin that is Vinland. It's like listening to five year olds discussing how to achieve world peace. While the moment to moment struggles can be engaging, the overall goals are beyond naive and elicit eyerolls constantly. And it's all the worse when the excellent music tries to accentuate the frivolity of many of the conflicts. Excessively long and repetitive sequences of the MC's inner demons also don't help. This will also irritate many people, but I am firmly in the "this is an ugly anime" camp, seemingly deliberately so, with its thick lines, furrows, wrinkles, scars, and heavyset bodies. It's in the same vein as Attack on Titan's final season, also another MAPPA eyesore, but not as horrible. It's a really mixed bag here, with enough good points and a unique story to make you want to watch, but also forcing you to trudge through lots of mud all the while.