Vinland Saga was, undoubtedly, the best anime from 2019. The main topic aborded here is about revenge and how this can affect in a bad way the life of people and, fortunately, this message and the plot had a satisfying execution. Let's analyze the positive and negative aspects than this show had:
POSITIVE ASPECTS
1. The historical plot: The plot is about the constant invasion and attacks of Denmark against England. In addition to this, the king of Denmark (Sweyn), wanted to kill his younger son in order to keep the order in his country and guarantee the next heir to the throne. Thanks to this attacks, one of the main characters (Askeladd), wanted to kill the king in order to bring peace to his country and prevent new tragic stories like his mother had. On the way, Askeladd meets with Thorfinn, the son of a very famous and dangerous viking named Thors. After kill Thors and foiling Thorfinn's first attempt to kill him, he decides to raise him and use him for his main objective in the story. This is not only a very interesting and really accurate story about this period in Europe, also, it show us the dangerous consequences of follow or be part of an endless revenge chain.
2. Askeladd: Definitely the best character of the show. We saw from detail his backstory and the reason of why he wanted to go against the king. His relationship and chemistry with Thorfinn was quite interesting. Despite the second wanted to kill him most of the time, he continued to raise him and act as his mentor to the point to tell him and Canute his main motivation and the darker moments of his life in addition to making use of him in his plans and when strong enemies appeared.
Talking about his backstory, we saw the constant mistreatment of his mother, characteristic of the time in which the anime is set, the initial indifference of his father for being, practically, the son of a one-night stand, how this father-son relationship was built after they finally meet each other, why he decided to kill his father and his motivation behind his mother's dream for their country. Thanks to this backstory, he, with the advance of time, turned into a charismatic, analytic, cool and badass character. Contrasting with the frenzy Thorfinn personality.
His conclusion in the show was brilliant. Following his mother's dream, he decided to sacrifice his own life his own life so that Canute could be the next person on the throne and, in this way, end the attacks against his country. A very noble ending for someone who had been machiavellian, liar and opportunist, especially with the temporary alliances that he made. All of this was constructed in a very organic way and greatly nourished the characterization and personality dimensions of the character.
3. The support characters: Well characterized, each of them with their own motivations and contribution to the main plot. Since Thorkell, a strong viking who not only limited himself to being this, but he also had a strong sense of honor that greatly influenced the decisions he made during the show. After noticed that the conflicts not are solved only with brute force, we saw his evolution turning into a more frustrated person for having to accept this fact. The king Swayn who, like I mentioned before, wanted to kill Canute to maintain the order in his country. Unlike other antagonists who are cruel or want to kill for the sake of it, the king had his point in trying to realize this atrocious act. Thors, who wanted to live a peaceful life after had being a dangerous viking who participated in a lot of wars and killed a lot of people in the process. His death was a representation of his karma even though he felt regret for the actions he did in the past with his new lifestyle and gave way and greater meaning to Thorfinn's revenge arc, or at least this was initially the purpose that wasn't fulfilled for something that I'm gonna mention in the negative aspects. There are more examples, however, they were, in my opinion, the support characters that stood out the most.
4. Main message: The fact that, at the end, it wasn't Thorfinn the person who killed Askeladd, helped a lot with the message's presentation because we saw the little adolescent completely shocked and not knowing, at the time, what his reason for living was since he had invested most of his life in completing his revenge. In adittion, we recieved from this final the message of life doesn't always give us what we want and we have to know when to turn to the next page of our lives.
5. Soundtrack and animation: Decent most of the time. The soundtrack is the appropiate for the historical context of the show and the animation, despite having clear issues with the use of CGI, it doesn't end up being something invasive or that has greatly affected my experience watching anime. The action and the choreography of the fighting movements was great and complementary to the messages proposed and the impact of the cast characterization from the most part.
NEGATIVE ASPECTS
1. The beginning: The show begins to be a kind of Slice of Life, which, in the end, did not have a significant impact on the main plot. Many people might believe that, at least we met Thors, his background and the rationale behind Thorfinn's revenge; nevertheless, this could've been true if Thorfinn had recieved a better characterization, which I will talk about in the next point. After this, the show finally entered to it's main plot.
2. Thorfinn: He started out as a normal child, however, once his father was killed, he transformed into a edgelord whose only goal is to avenge his father. The problem here is not only the fact that he's the main protagonist, but, also, this is the only reason this character is remembered in this season. I know he gets better characterization and development in the upcoming season, however, speaking of this itself, his character development was really limited, adding the screen time that he got, this affected the quality presented of the anime.
3. Canute: He started the anime being quite reserved and secluded under the tutelage of Ragnar as a consecuence of his religious beliefs. Once the previously mentioned died, Canute was rewritten as a determined and more manly one even if this attitude goes against what is dictated by his religion. This changed was clearly forced and it happened because the script demanded him to be more competent for the rest of the show.
4. Ending: A cliffhanger basically. There were loose ends such as Thorfinn's obvious impact and character development after Askeladd's death and the impact of the characterization of the rest of the remaining cast after the king's death.
CONCLUSION
It's a great anime that accomplished most of the things it set out to do, leaving great and important messages, showing an important part of the European story and characters that will hardly be forgotten because of how well characterized they were.
