Review of Vinland Saga Season 2

Transcendent. Sublime. Ethereal. I’ve run out of words to describe Vinland Saga season 2. This series has gone far past the normal bounds of anime and has become cinema in the purest sense of the word. When Vinland saga s2 was announced I was initially skeptical about how it’d be received in the west given its slower paced nature as well as how I personally would like it. Keep in mind everything we saw in 24 episodes this season took place over the course of years in the manga. So it was a much slower process and at times I felt it dragged on. My worriescouldn’t have been further misplaced. MAPPA stepped in for WIT and gave an absolute masterclass in direction, tension, adding anime original content which enhanced and perfected many scenes and storylines from the manga, etc. There were several episodes during this season which were literally just characters talking, yet I was so absorbed in them that the 25 minute runtime felt like 5. There may not be as much of the transitional action scenes from season 1, but there’s no shortage of engaging content in this season.

At its core, this season is philosophical struggle. A juxtaposition of two characters. Thorfinn and Canute. While Thorfinn has gone from a violent and angry young man to a peaceful and kind one who wants a world without war, Canute has had the opposite journey. He believes war is the only way to bring peace. As the neutral outside observer, we of course know that neither side is 100 percent correct and that real life is more grey than black and white.

But seeing their character arcs develop independently and then ultimately come to a head in that penultimate episode.. just no words for the job MAPPA did bringing the character drama and emotion to life in this season. The buildup and foundational groundwork that went into everything just to have a perfect sendoff in the final two episodes is something we do not get much in this medium and it needs to be appreciated.

Speaking of the penultimate episode, it’s been years since a TV anime has made me cry. Even longer since a work of fiction has made me cry not out of sadness, but out of appreciation for its sheer beauty. Episode 23 of this season was exactly that and is, as of right now, the best episode of an anime I have ever seen in my 20+ years of watching this medium.

So the story’s great, what about the animation and art? Well, as we’ve come to expect from MAPPA as of late, it’s amazing. So many episodes of this season are full of screenshottable moments and art that makes you want to pause the episode just to appreciate it. During the few key fights we have this season, the animation and choreography are stellar.

I could really go on and on for pages about how great this season is, but I’ll sum it up this way. This is the anime of the year, and I don’t see anything surpassing it. What it lacks in physical action, this season makes up for in character drama and emotional moments. A must watch for any historical drama fan or fan of the medium in general. This is the best this medium has to offer.

Vinland Saga S2 gets the easiest 10 of the year.