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ヴィンランド・サガ [Vinland Saga] #1-28
Vinland Saga Complete 28 Books Series
Raised by the Vikings who murdered his family, Thorfinn became a terrifying warrior, forever seeking to kill the band's leader, Askeladd, and avenge his father.
- GenresManga
5850 pages, Paperback
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 28, 2025
A true epic saga
July 15, 2025
5 🌟✌
May 26, 2026
Rating: 8/10
Medium: digital online
ok so i picked up the manga where the anime left off so i will mostly talk about those parts. i decided to log this as the whole series rather than each individual book bc i thought it would look a bit greedy for me to log 9 books lol
--War Arc + Slave Arc (anime)--
but as for the anime, this show is beautiful. a lot of people complain about how season 1 is awesome and full of excitement and season 2 is basically farming simulator. this entirely misses the point. the war arc establishes thorfinn's past and the events that lead to the main story. the war arc is a prologue!!! while i somewhat agree that the slave arc is a bit boring, especially at the start. but it really shows thorfinn's aversion to violence after leading that kind of life for much of his formative years. rather than that violence becoming ingrained in him, his realization of the weight of his father's words have bored a hole in him.
--end of Slave Arc (chs 97-100)--
i picked up the manga when thorfinn was speaking with canute at the end of the slave arc. i had to reread this conversation a couple of times because thorfinn takes a very interesting approach to what he believes is right for himself and the people of the farm. the violent life thorfinn led in his past left a hole in him, but rather than attempting to fill the hole, he decides that the best thing to do is to expand beyond that place of violence-- to go somewhere else (i'm trying to do something with this metaphor but i don't think i succeeded. anyway). i do wish that this manga as a whole gave a little bit more focus to canute. i can understand thorfinn's decision to attempt to flee to a place where he can make a world without violence, but i do not quite understand canute's use of violence (even though thorfinn says numerous times that canute hates violence more than he does). these two characters feel like they foil each other more than they mirror each other, particularly due to the fact that thorfinn's plan is to create a place where the people who are unable to exist in canute's violent world can live, but the reader doesn't learn much about what canute is doing, so it feels a bit like an empty foil.
--Eastern Expedition Arc (chs 100-166)--
thorfinn's return home was very emotional. it was a lot to see these people we haven't heard about since the beginning of the manga. the re-introduction of halfdan as a more prominent character was interesting. it is a long-running ironinc joke how thorfinn is doing everything in his power to avoid conflict, and yet he meets people like sigurd and gudrid who force him into a position where he must deal with conflicts that he really doesn't want to be involved in. i really like gudrid as a character. she is a relatable character in that she was raised in a very specific way, but a conversation with leif as a child has he yearning to do anything but what she was raised to do. at first, i thought that sigurd was a silly antagonist because he is much different than the likes of askeladd or sewyn or ketil. but he ends up being something between an antagonist and a side character. i was never reading and hoping to get back to a chapter that detailed what he was up to, but i also wasn't annoyed when he reappeared. however, i am generally not a fan of the type of conflict that arises from miscommunication, which the conflicts involving him generally were.
thorfinn's group meeting hild demonstrates how thorfinn can wish as much as he'd like to escape the world of violence, but he cannot in fact escape his past. as a reader, i definetly recognize my bias towards the main characters, so i kept wanting for hild to understand that thorfinn has changed, but i can also understand why she could not forgive him. even then, i found her incessant threat of killing thorfinn if he displayed any violent tendancies to be more of a nuisance than a meaningful plot driver.
war in the baltic might be my favorite mini arc in this manga. i love thorkell as a character. yes, he is incredibly flat, but he is always entertaining. anyway, thorfinn learning that floki was the orchestrator of his dad's murder was a great source of tension throuhout these chapters. additionally, i thought that thorfinn and baldr's common belief that the war at jomsburg was a great commentary on how the central figures in a war are often not as enthusiastic about the fighting as the soldiers themselves. in the end, i thought it was a good twist that baldr's true desire was to bring about peace by means of getting rid of everyone as opposed to thorfinn who actually wanted to facilitate a compromise. thorfinn's donning of the chief's cloak, followed by his decress of the end of the war and the disbandment of the jomsvikings was badass.
i was very disappointed in the time skip following this battle. i'd been hyped up and hoping to read about the group's dealings in miklagard and i was sad when the next chapter just said "2 years later" with their activities only appearing as 2-3 panel flashbacks.
also, the mini-chapter focusing on karli and karli's mom was very cute. also also, gudrid and thorfinn are very cute together and i was glad to see them get married.
--Vinland Arc (chs 167-220)--
ok so the vinland arc was everything i expected it to be, but it did sort of fall a bit flat. and i want to explore those feelings because it was always going to be the case that thorfinn reaching his goal was going to be a bit boring. his whole plan was to go somewhere where the people could live a modest life and be boring (ie. live a life away from war). as soon as we were introduced to ivar, i knew this guy would be the downfall of thorfinn's plan. he demonstrated that he was going to be a major pain in the ass, and i think thorfinn should not have allowed him to participate in the expedition. the issue is that one cannot map this world with its time period and dynamics to real life today. in that case, i would be inclined to agree with ivar (to an extent. i will get to my disagreements). he is simply the embodiment of international relations's theory of realism. HOWEVER, realism is only applicable in a world with a pre-established conditions similar to our world today.
as a reader, i want to see thorfinn succeed. i think this arc does a good job of explaining the inherent violence associated with colonization and this is something that thorfinn did not consider. i very much enjoyed the portrayal of the mi'kmaq people (i am not an expert on indigenous canadians, but i do not think they were portrayed negatively). the issue is obvious as we see the progression of arheid village's territorial expansion. i actually think that it would have made sense for plmk and his group to be more outwardly defensive against (as ivar calls the group) the invaders. i was unsure how i feel about miskwekepu'j's belief that the mi'kmaq people needed to drive off the nords because of his visions of the future, but i think it posits an interesting source of conflict that i as a reader didn't quite understand, similar to the nords. also, although i did, on the whole, find hild's everpresent conflict with thorfinn to be annoying, it still made me tear up when she finally decided to forgive him and was helping by acting as teacher in the village.
as realistic as it was, i think that the final conflict boiling down to disease carried over by the nords was a bit unsatisfying. but then again, it was realistic, and i don't know how else a final conflict could have arisen that would have satisfied me. while it was well written and built up, i did find einar's decision to fight back and hold down the village to be very disappointing. i think narratively, it was there to show how thorfinn was alone in his pacifist ideals, but when einar was eventually killed, i didn't feel as upset as i thought i would have. i did think that the ending of thorfinn returning home and the final panel being a message saying that thorfinn's expedition was one of many was really meh.
--Concluding Thoughts and More--
ok so i didn't get a chance to mention it earlier, but i really like cordelia as a character. i think that it's awesome that thorfinn is a trans ally.
anyway concluding thoughts: this manga is really good and i love the message and themes that it tackles. however, i thought that its ending was a bit dull. thorfinn represents a worldview which is unfortunately idealistic and unrealistic, but i think the way the manga explores this is very interesting.
also also, it just really stuck out to me how there were multiple time skips throughout the story which glossed over things that i thought could have been really interesting to see illustrated, namely miklagard.
Medium: digital online
ok so i picked up the manga where the anime left off so i will mostly talk about those parts. i decided to log this as the whole series rather than each individual book bc i thought it would look a bit greedy for me to log 9 books lol
--War Arc + Slave Arc (anime)--
but as for the anime, this show is beautiful. a lot of people complain about how season 1 is awesome and full of excitement and season 2 is basically farming simulator. this entirely misses the point. the war arc establishes thorfinn's past and the events that lead to the main story. the war arc is a prologue!!! while i somewhat agree that the slave arc is a bit boring, especially at the start. but it really shows thorfinn's aversion to violence after leading that kind of life for much of his formative years. rather than that violence becoming ingrained in him, his realization of the weight of his father's words have bored a hole in him.
--end of Slave Arc (chs 97-100)--
i picked up the manga when thorfinn was speaking with canute at the end of the slave arc. i had to reread this conversation a couple of times because thorfinn takes a very interesting approach to what he believes is right for himself and the people of the farm. the violent life thorfinn led in his past left a hole in him, but rather than attempting to fill the hole, he decides that the best thing to do is to expand beyond that place of violence-- to go somewhere else (i'm trying to do something with this metaphor but i don't think i succeeded. anyway). i do wish that this manga as a whole gave a little bit more focus to canute. i can understand thorfinn's decision to attempt to flee to a place where he can make a world without violence, but i do not quite understand canute's use of violence (even though thorfinn says numerous times that canute hates violence more than he does). these two characters feel like they foil each other more than they mirror each other, particularly due to the fact that thorfinn's plan is to create a place where the people who are unable to exist in canute's violent world can live, but the reader doesn't learn much about what canute is doing, so it feels a bit like an empty foil.
--Eastern Expedition Arc (chs 100-166)--
thorfinn's return home was very emotional. it was a lot to see these people we haven't heard about since the beginning of the manga. the re-introduction of halfdan as a more prominent character was interesting. it is a long-running ironinc joke how thorfinn is doing everything in his power to avoid conflict, and yet he meets people like sigurd and gudrid who force him into a position where he must deal with conflicts that he really doesn't want to be involved in. i really like gudrid as a character. she is a relatable character in that she was raised in a very specific way, but a conversation with leif as a child has he yearning to do anything but what she was raised to do. at first, i thought that sigurd was a silly antagonist because he is much different than the likes of askeladd or sewyn or ketil. but he ends up being something between an antagonist and a side character. i was never reading and hoping to get back to a chapter that detailed what he was up to, but i also wasn't annoyed when he reappeared. however, i am generally not a fan of the type of conflict that arises from miscommunication, which the conflicts involving him generally were.
thorfinn's group meeting hild demonstrates how thorfinn can wish as much as he'd like to escape the world of violence, but he cannot in fact escape his past. as a reader, i definetly recognize my bias towards the main characters, so i kept wanting for hild to understand that thorfinn has changed, but i can also understand why she could not forgive him. even then, i found her incessant threat of killing thorfinn if he displayed any violent tendancies to be more of a nuisance than a meaningful plot driver.
war in the baltic might be my favorite mini arc in this manga. i love thorkell as a character. yes, he is incredibly flat, but he is always entertaining. anyway, thorfinn learning that floki was the orchestrator of his dad's murder was a great source of tension throuhout these chapters. additionally, i thought that thorfinn and baldr's common belief that the war at jomsburg was a great commentary on how the central figures in a war are often not as enthusiastic about the fighting as the soldiers themselves. in the end, i thought it was a good twist that baldr's true desire was to bring about peace by means of getting rid of everyone as opposed to thorfinn who actually wanted to facilitate a compromise. thorfinn's donning of the chief's cloak, followed by his decress of the end of the war and the disbandment of the jomsvikings was badass.
i was very disappointed in the time skip following this battle. i'd been hyped up and hoping to read about the group's dealings in miklagard and i was sad when the next chapter just said "2 years later" with their activities only appearing as 2-3 panel flashbacks.
also, the mini-chapter focusing on karli and karli's mom was very cute. also also, gudrid and thorfinn are very cute together and i was glad to see them get married.
--Vinland Arc (chs 167-220)--
ok so the vinland arc was everything i expected it to be, but it did sort of fall a bit flat. and i want to explore those feelings because it was always going to be the case that thorfinn reaching his goal was going to be a bit boring. his whole plan was to go somewhere where the people could live a modest life and be boring (ie. live a life away from war). as soon as we were introduced to ivar, i knew this guy would be the downfall of thorfinn's plan. he demonstrated that he was going to be a major pain in the ass, and i think thorfinn should not have allowed him to participate in the expedition. the issue is that one cannot map this world with its time period and dynamics to real life today. in that case, i would be inclined to agree with ivar (to an extent. i will get to my disagreements). he is simply the embodiment of international relations's theory of realism. HOWEVER, realism is only applicable in a world with a pre-established conditions similar to our world today.
as a reader, i want to see thorfinn succeed. i think this arc does a good job of explaining the inherent violence associated with colonization and this is something that thorfinn did not consider. i very much enjoyed the portrayal of the mi'kmaq people (i am not an expert on indigenous canadians, but i do not think they were portrayed negatively). the issue is obvious as we see the progression of arheid village's territorial expansion. i actually think that it would have made sense for plmk and his group to be more outwardly defensive against (as ivar calls the group) the invaders. i was unsure how i feel about miskwekepu'j's belief that the mi'kmaq people needed to drive off the nords because of his visions of the future, but i think it posits an interesting source of conflict that i as a reader didn't quite understand, similar to the nords. also, although i did, on the whole, find hild's everpresent conflict with thorfinn to be annoying, it still made me tear up when she finally decided to forgive him and was helping by acting as teacher in the village.
as realistic as it was, i think that the final conflict boiling down to disease carried over by the nords was a bit unsatisfying. but then again, it was realistic, and i don't know how else a final conflict could have arisen that would have satisfied me. while it was well written and built up, i did find einar's decision to fight back and hold down the village to be very disappointing. i think narratively, it was there to show how thorfinn was alone in his pacifist ideals, but when einar was eventually killed, i didn't feel as upset as i thought i would have. i did think that the ending of thorfinn returning home and the final panel being a message saying that thorfinn's expedition was one of many was really meh.
--Concluding Thoughts and More--
ok so i didn't get a chance to mention it earlier, but i really like cordelia as a character. i think that it's awesome that thorfinn is a trans ally.
anyway concluding thoughts: this manga is really good and i love the message and themes that it tackles. however, i thought that its ending was a bit dull. thorfinn represents a worldview which is unfortunately idealistic and unrealistic, but i think the way the manga explores this is very interesting.
also also, it just really stuck out to me how there were multiple time skips throughout the story which glossed over things that i thought could have been really interesting to see illustrated, namely miklagard.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 26, 2025
Gran historia, grandes enseñanzas. No tengo enemigos.
December 21, 2025
Quite literally the most influential stratum I’ve read in my life. My life was changed a couple of times while reading this.
January 6, 2026
Absolute masterpiece
May 8, 2026
Dels millors mangas que he llegit.
May 18, 2025
Peak Fiction.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews