Review of Vinland Saga Season 2

The amount of missing content and time skips made this less enjoyable a watch than it would otherwise have been. I'm not sure if the missing content was there in the source material or not, and I don't care, but when you show me Thorfinn as a slave (which from S1 we knew he'd never accept) and give me 0 explanation when we're 20 episodes in, it pisses me off. When in one scene X character says "we can use [Y character]", and then everything that this line refers to is skipped and we just see the result with no explanation of what happened, I'meven more pissed. When you cut *critical* content to give long screen time to dreams and hallucinations that are completely irrelevant to what's actually going on in the real world, well, you get the picture. There is a brief explanation (<30 seconds) a couple episodes before the end, but that's it; it still doesn't sit well with me.

In season 2, the action was toned down, life has slowed down, anti-war sentiment goes as strong as ever, we do see progress, all is good. It's appropriately heavy, and it's still entertaining enough to watch (at least for me), although a bit slower than what I'd have liked. The animation quality is as great as ever, sound is an 8.5/10 (some sound effects are wrong/misplaced, most are great), OP/ED are not my style but the music is good anyway.

It could've been an 8-9 season for me, but the choices of what to show and what to skip is taking this down. Yet somehow, few/none other reviews mention this. Fellas, did you watch a different thing? Are you okay with these skipped scenes in favor of long, slow, pointless dreams? Anyway, it's worth a watch, and I guess since most people didn't even notice or care, you likely won't either.

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The series was filled with so much anti-war sentiment that I feel like I need to rewatch Vikings, Overlord, or Youjo Senki... Viking Gandhi was not on my bingo card.