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The following will be more of a critique, rather than a review, so expect a lot of spoilers.

As a foreword I'd like to say that, while I do realise that the historical tag doesn't contain within itself a "realistic" tag, the events that play out in Vinland Saga are an absolute farce, given the time period and historical background. Even the suspension of disbelief made out of titanuim would eventually crumble and collapse under the amount of stupidity this show contains.

With that out of the way, let's begin.

-Characters

Thors The Troll (aka Thorfinn's dad) - he is the most ridiculous character in Vinland Saga, as his ... background, decisions and moral stance make him seem simply insane in the world he inhabits. Thors is the former commander of the Jomsvikings, who, after the life full of war and bloodshed, decides to do a complete 180 after holding the hand of his newborn daughter. No meaningful setup, no explanation, no nothing. A man whose entire existance revolved around warfare, turns into a pacifistic buddha in less than a minute
at the snap of the fingers. If you think that's acceptable, there's nothing I can say. Thors also shows his excellent decision making skills as early as the first episode, where he buys a runaway slave at a death's door. The payment? 8 sheep. Yes, a man that lives in Iceland of all places, during the winter, who also has a family, trades 8 sheep for a man that's about to die. If that's not a stunning display of stupidity, I don't know what is. He is also the strong proponent of childish morals on the level of: "If you kill your enemies, you're no better than them". Truly insipiring coming from a man who lives in 11-th century and who also happens to be a former leader of what is essentially a warband. Thors' death is yet again brought about by his inability to make well-thought out and weighted decisions, as he thinks that pirates(!) will honor his request, only to end up being shot down by a squad of archers. He also dies standing tall and proud, because of course he does. I also forgot to mention, that his ridiculous morals are further reinforced with the fact that he always fights unarmed and manages to defeat entire groups of fighters armed with swords, axes, shields and etc., as if he was Kenshiro from Hokuto no Ken.

Thorfinn - a non-character that is defined by a singular trait and nothing else: a vendetta against Askellad, cause in his twisted logic - it's Askellad who is responsible for his father's death, and not his (Thors') stupidity. There's really nothing to say about Thorfinn, even if I wanted to. He's moody and edgy, talks primarily by barking out the same phrase over and over, or using edgy one-liners. Whenever someone mentions his dad he simple flies into a blind rage. As for his abilities as a fighter, he, for whatever reason, has an acrobatic fighting style with dual-wielded daggers (sometimes he weilds even 3 daggers, holding the third one in his mouth, as if he was Roronoa from One Piece), and, like a character that we'll get to soon, seems to be able to use shukuchi, as there's no other explanation for his sudden teleportations during fights.

Askellad - a character that is hailed by fans as someone who is on par (depth and development wise) with such characters as Guts, Spike Spiegel, The Laughing Man, Shinji and etc., you get the idea. That is however, a blatant lie, though I will concur that Askellad is a lot better than the rest. He's a bastard son of Olaf, a local hero and greatest warrior of some city in Denmark, who once upon a time made "love" with a slave girl from Wales, which resulted in Askellad being born. This awful circumstances result in Askellad having one definitive trait and burning passion. The trait - hatred towards danes. The passion - to kill all said danes, or the very least subjugate them. Taking Askellad seriously was not too hard, until the flashback of his childhood occured in episode 22 or 23, where an 11 year old, who did nothing his entire life except clean the stables, clean the snow and taking out ash from the furnaces and fireplaces (that's where his name comes from, by the way), managed to hold his own in a duel against his father and local war hero Olaf. How was he able to go toe to toe with someone like that (eve if it was for no longer than 40 seconds) is never explained and the audience is just expect to accept it. Sorry, but that's not happening.
Another thing he's known for is his "genius" schemes, in which he attempts to play his enemies, but achieves a pyrrhic victory at best, though he did manage to outwit Thors, but that's hardly an accomplishment. As he later states himself, most of his problems stem from the fact that his daddy (Olaf) didn't love him and his mom, and treated them like cattle.

Canute - a young man, whose timid character and androgynous features lead others to mistake him for a woman. Like the rest of the cast, there's not much to say about Canute. Since his introduction and until episode 21, he was a sissy that did nothing except prayed to Jesus with his aide and a priest at his side, and abhorred war and everything that's moderately associated with it, which in turn led everyone else to point and laugh at them. In episode 21, he has a 3 minute discussion with priest about human nature and love, during which he arrives to the conclusion that humanty is flawed by it's nature, and that he'll be the one to right the wrongs and save everyone. This, together with the fact that Ragnar (his aide) was killed a few episodes prior, causes his metamorphosis from who he is into a discount version of Griffith from Berserk.
Also, just like Askellad, the core of his issues comes from the fact that his father (the current king of Denmark) didn't spend a lot of time with him when he was a child and never loved him much nor accepted his unorthodox behaviour (for the times of the setting), which resulted in Canute treating Ragnar (his aide) as his actual father.

Bjorn - another non-character and Askellad's right hand man. He's quite strong, and, in time of need, is known to consume mushrooms that cause him to enter a state of
berserker rage, when he becomes violent to such an extentet that he is unable do distinguish between friend or foe. He's just there, but at one point he finds out that
Askellad is not a pure dane, and that he actually hates them, which leads Bjorn to defect from Askellad. This conflict concludes in a duel which Bjorn loses, his last words being that
he only wanted to be friends with Askellad *yawn*.

Thorkell - an individual of exceptional stature, size and physical build, who is said on many occasions to be one of, if not the strongest warrior. In an interesting contrast to this is his behaviour, which is that of a child, as all he does is expresses glee and joy at the though of a battle, and wants nothing esle except that - more fighting. He is also the leader of an army that consisting of 500 men. How those 500 men can consider him a leader and follow him, when he has 0 leadership skills and also doesn't seem to rule over them with fear, is beyond me. Thorkell is also the character responsible for most damage done to one's suspension of disbelief, as he lifts boulders that weigh a couple tons above his head and hurls them. At one occasion throws a spear over what seems to be a distance of no less than 400+ meters and manages to impale 4 people on the said spear (somehow), and more.
He used to serve under Thors during his time in Jomsvikings and has great admiration for the man, as he is the only one to ever beat him (how could that have happened is never shown, nor is it beliavble, but w/e). Therefore, he also expects Thorfinn (when he's confronted with him) to be up to par with Thors in that regard, something that Throfinn barely manages to deliver in their first bout.

The rest of the cast do not warrant to be looked on individually in my opinion, as they can be summed up in a single sentence.

-Plot
Guess it's there? The titular Vinland is brought up about 4 times during the course of 24 episodes, some characters think it's heaven on earth and want to get there, and that's about it. The plot over the course of 24 episodes encompasses the following: How Thorfinn turned from the cheerful little boy in the first episodes into who he is now. Flashbacks to the past of the main cast, to establish them (which does a very poor job of that). A ring around the rosy between Askellad and Thorkell, which results in their alliance at the end of the day and Canute's transformation from who he is into a discount Griffith, and the following plotting against King of Denmark. I do undesrtand that it's a prologue, but in my opinion it's neither engaging nor interesting.

-Sound
As I always say, OST is mostly subjective. Some people will like a certain OST, others will not. What is not subjective however, are the awful sound effects that plague this show.
This isn't the first intstance of horrendous sound effect, as currently running Fate/Grand Order Babylonia suffers from equally awful sound effects, as did many other anime that aired this year.
As for OST, personally, I cannot remember a single track from it, though I do remember the very weird mix of what seems to be a typical orchestral music and hip-hop, which is a very strange choice, and doesn't work with the atmosphere or the setting. Both OPs and both EDs are pretty bad, especially the second ED, which is simply abhorrent.

-Art
This has been extensively adressed by a lot of people in preliminary reviews, but I will go over it briefly for the sake of it. The CGI is unbelievably bad, so bad in fact it's simply indefensible. Attempting to close the eyes on the quality of the CGI here is a disservice to the community and a blatant acceptance of awful mediocrty. The art and animation themself are nothing spectacular either, characters often have silly expressions, are off model and etc. The animation in fights, especially duels, is severly lacking and pairs
awfully with the horrendous sound design. When you're shown a wideshot of a large scale battle, it's simply full of same looking 3D CG models that are stuck in a single animation loop.

-Summary
It's your average run of the mill shonen devoid of interesting characters and story, very much like Kimetsu no Yaiba that aired earlier this year. But at least Yaiba was done by ufotable and at least it had visuals going for it (2D characters on 3D background still look absolutely vile and awful though). Why is this hailed by majority of people as a better Berserk is something I cannot comprehend whatsoever. What hurts the most, is that it's from Yukimura Makoto, the original creator of Planetes, a manga that was highly
acclaimed and praised for it's realistic depiction of space and things associated with it. Planetes also has a magnificient anime adaptation by Sunrise, and is one of the best anime out there. To say that I'm severely dissapointed by Vinland, is to put it very lightly.

Final Score:
I can't believe this is from the author of Planetes/10. (1/10).

I would also like to thank my friend for proof-readind and helping with the editing.

I'm absolutely perplexed and bewildered by the general consensus on this anime, so I would like to provide my two cents, because there's not a single review I can agree with.


Art/Sound:
Let's get the subjective criteria out of the way first. Art is good, character designs are pleasant to look at, and backgrounds are of high quality aswell. As for the soundtrack, the piano compositions that play at certain scenes are very nice, however I can't say the same about neither OP nor ED, I disliked them both, I'm not going to say that they are bad or anything such, it's just not the kind of ... music I enjoy.



Characters/Plot:
The juicy part. What unfolds in this show is a dysfunctional relationship between a person that's mentally disturbed (Touko) and a person that's flawed on the fundamental level, because she is incapable of feeling love and empathy (Yuu). People claim they see a very mellow and realistic relationship between two girls, but I personally fail to see that.

There's a lot of opinions that Touko has a genuine affection towards Yuu, but I think that people are mistaking an indulgence for affection. How can you feel genuine affection and love for someone, if you are incapable of loving yourself? She even states outright that she doesn't want Yuu to love or hate her back, and only wants to indulge herself in Yuu's kindness, as that puts her distressed self at ease, a dubious concept at best, since how can a person to whom love and empathy are alien, unknown emotions, can be kind, is beyond me.
Touko also quite frequently acts in a mentally disturbed and creepy manner, looking at her family photo and reassuring herself that she'll be exactly as her sister was in her eyes. Because, apparently, if you're a shy and meek child, instead of self-betterment, a much superior choice would be to become a literal copy of your older sister, and then grapple with mental and stress repercussions of your decisions. Not to mention that she low-key contemplates suicide a couple times, once at the crosswalk at the train tracks, and another in the final episode, where she's standing at the train station paltform and takes a step forward, while the train is about to pass the afformentioned station.
As I stated earlier, Yuu is flawed on a fundamental level, since she cannot feel love and empathy, yet somehow renowned for her kindness, sure, whatever. In the relationship with Touko, to me personally, she comes off as a Stockholm Syndrom victim, because I cannot sum up a person that puts up with someone who indulges themselves in her, forces her to kiss them, even though she's clearly not in a mood for it, explicitly tells her to not have an affection of any kind towards them, in any other way. The only solace, is that at the end of final episode she's finally had enough of it, as she says: "It's time for us to change trains, senpai".
The rest of cast is inconsequential, as they usually have about 5 minutes of screen time, over 12 episodes, total, or are there to fulfill a single role. The only one I will mention, is Maki-kun, a creepy self-admitted voyer, who doesn't want to be in any relationship himself, but rather be a spectator to the relationships of others, that he finds interesting/intriguing.

Overall:
Personally, I'm revolted by relationship of this kind, I won't elaborate on it here further, as if you're reading this, it's clear as to why I'm displeased. There's nothing else I can add to this. When autumn chart was just released, I dismissed this anime, as I assumed that it will be like just about anything with similiar tags, only to be asked by my friend to join him, cause he saw potential. Now that it ended, he's dissapointed in it, though not as much as I am.

(There will be spoilers in this review.)



Art and Animation: For me personally, the word mediocre perfectly encapsulates it. I see people heaping a lot of praise on the CG of the Gridman, but being slightly better that your contemporaries, in this department, hardly warrants all the commendation. 2D animation can be summed up by the word decent.



Sound: I think this section is highly subjective. I didn't like nor the OP nor the ED, and can't remember a single piece of background music, but that doesn't mean you won't like any of the music in Gridman aswell, you'll just have to listen to it and find ... out for yourself.



Story: It's sort of there, but at the same time it's not. Essentially, pretty much every episode follows an extremely simplistic formula of "Have 15 minutes of inane chit-chat in a high-school-esque setting, then be alerted to the presence of a new Kaiju and have a 5-minute long one-sided fight", and that's about it. I will elaborate on what final episodes bring us a bit later.



Characters:
Yuuta: He's not a character, he's merely a vessel for Gridman. The fact that he's an amnesiac is also very convenient cause that just takes off some work from the scriptwriter, as the typical amnesic character is defined solely by that trait and, therefore, doesn't require any personality at all.

Utsumi: By his own admission in the last episode, a completely useless character that serve barely any purpose and is defined by a single trait of being a Kaiju fanatic.

Rikka: At first she seems somewhat interesting, as she's protrayed as an apathetic person that sighs every 10 seconds and hardly seems interested in anything, but later evolves (devolves?) into your typical "friendship is paramount and is above all else" character.

Akane: I will cover her more in-depth down the line.

Hyper Agents: They're so cookie-cutter you can guess their personalities from their design. It seems like their reason d'etre is to simply provide upgrades for the primary Gridman unit so he can show a new attack in an episode. They claim they have a purpose and are here to deal with Alexis, but strangely enough spent 85% of their time lounging in Rikka's shop, doing absolutely nothing.

Rikka's mom: She's there. She mostly just cheers the main cast from the sideline, even though she appears to be bewildered by everything that's going on.

Rikka's classmates: They're also there.

Anti: A very moody young man who is defined by a single trait of wanting to destroy Gridman, as that his reason for existance. He later undergoes a character development after standing for 30 seconds in the rain and listening to Akane, after which he decides he's a good guy now.

Alexis: He's an evil man that's evil, he takes pleasure in depraved acts of destruction and suffering of the people. Your typical Trigger antagonist.

Ending analysis: My take on the ending is that Akane is actually a real-life person, that appears to be bullied at school, probably because she's geeky and nerdy, due to her affection for Kaiju and Gundams, so when she comes home she, probably, writes a story (aka the actual Gridman show we see), and that's her method of releasing her frustration and coping with the stress (as she destroys things, then fixes them right back, and also removes umpleasant characters).
What supports this theory is that characters in the show recognize her as a god, just like writer is technically a god to the characters he created. The symbolism in Gridman and Alexis, is that Alexis is the evil within Akane, due to all the bullying, and Gridman is that proverbial remaining light of hope, which fixes everything by the end (he does this quite literally with his Fixer Beam). Rikka is just a perfect friend that Akane wishes she had in a real world. Utsumi low-key looks like a love interest Akane would've liked, as he's a giant Kaiju geek and all. The final frames are also that of real world, shot with an actual camera, and we can see Rikka's gift to Akane on the table, which further confirms my idea.
All said and done, by no means do I think this is correct, or anything plausible to begin with, but who knows. Seems a little too deep for a show that essential a one giant homegae to a lot of different titles.



Overall: A typical Trigger fair, style and action over subtelty and substance. I personally cannot recommend it, even if it had some interesting moments and, perhaps, even some meaningful and intersting concept that ended up being butchered.
I think the original Gridman, with it's abundance of pyrothecnical effects and models of cities being crushed by actors wearing monster suits, is a vastly superior experience. But if that's (understandably) might not be your cup of tea, and you would rather watch some mecha anime, then I would recommend you Shin Getter Robo Armageddon, Gundam franchise (Zeta and 0083, specifically, are quite good) and even TTGL, even though I'm not a fan of it.