Review of Vinland Saga Season 2

There are so many people who talk about some drastic changes in the second season; it seems like they watched some sort of Jujutsu Kaisen or Demon slayer instead of Vinland Saga S1. Even so I agree there are significantly less battles or even fights in this season, which the first season used as a catalyst for conflicts. In effect, both seasons are a character drama and not a shonen battle anime. But the biggest issue of this season is that it doesn't use the first season as a stepping stone. If the first season was about groundbreaking events that were shaping history, this season isabout the aftermath of these events and the characters' reflections. The anime also introduces new characters and a setting, which require some time to pick up steam. Given all of these, it makes the first half extremely slow and unengaging. If you didn't watch the first season and just watched like 6 or 7 episodes and wouldn't miss anything, because Thorfinn, the only character of the first season that appears here, is absolutely uninvolved. The pacing changes in the second half, where the new characters are already established and the other characters from the previous season start to kick in, but the first half could still have been executed better.

The new characters are as good the old ones. If you have watched the season 1 you already know how good they are. Conversely, Thorfinn's development is a mystery for me. I would understand his detachment because he lost the ability to revenge, but his pacifist nature is something peculiar. The only man who was a pacifist was his dad he lost long time ago, the others don't find violence a bad thing, he has used an aggressive approach since he was a child and it always was in his favor, so I can't comprehend the reasoning behind this sudden change at all. Canute is the complete opposite of him. The new king decided to follow in his father's steps as well as Thorinn did, and chose to build a paradise sacrificing the people who get in his way. And the anime faces off their approaches. However, Canute has much less screentime compare to Thorfinn's. His whole arc consists of recounting: he did this, then he did that; and everything goes so smoothly so as to spur him to double down. The anime would have been so much better if it elaborated on his story and occupied more screentime in the first half.

The change of the studio and pacing couldn't help but affect the visuals. There are so many cinematographic shots in this season, which the first season definitely lacked. There are also improvements in cg. Sometimes the new studio takes after Wit and puts static pictures in place of action scenes, though. The ost is pretty decent but the best tracks are still the tracks of the previous season. The same goes for the OPs and EDs: they're good, but less memorable.

I didn't cover good things about this season because it's still Vinland Saga and there are still everything that makes it good e.g. characters, dialogs, authenticity, etc. But overall I think this season is slightly weaker, nevertheless it's head and shoulders above the medium.