Season one had a great, dark story accompanied with one of the best antagonists I have ever seen in anime, Askeladd. The setting was great, the battles were beautifully choreographed and animated, the “camera” movement, the direction of each shot, the fluidity, everything was top notch. WIT studio certainly outdid themselves. The character development we got in that season was also phenomenal and everything and everyone felt realistic. There was pretty much no plot armour as far as I’m concerned, no weird “gotcha” plot-twisty moments that make no sense and every character felt human and like a "normal" Viking from the era, with goals, ambitions, opinions and feelings. The only problem I had with season 1 was that Thorfinn felt like an extremely edgy kid, and while I still liked him as a character, I was mostly looking forward to season 2 where his character was truly going to shine. Right...?
Instead, season 2 ended up representing everything I hate about the state of anime in this present day and pretty much realized my greatest fears about a Vinland Saga adaptation by MAPPA. It’s a shameless cash grab, driven by hype for the series, specifically designed to make as much money as possible with as little work and passion going into its production. Vinland Saga Season 2 genuinely feels like a “mass-produced” anime for the masses to consume.
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First let me start by talking about this season’s story and then its characters. Τhe story of Vinland saga season 2 was… okay... I guess? I really liked what they were going for, what the “goal” was, how it differentiates itself from the generic and dark battle seinen by… not being a battle seinen anymore. The problem was that they definitely failed spectacularly at times at establishing exactly that.
The story is about Thorfinn, about his journey and his struggles and that’s a concept I can really get behind and something that, on paper, I should have loved. But I didn’t. First of all there a lot of episodes where Thorfinn isn’t the main focus of the show, a lot of time is spent developing other side characters and building the world around him. That’s not necessarily a problem, in fact some of my favourite shows spend a lot of time establishing the area, lore, characters or whatever before actually delving into the actual protagonists and their struggles. When it comes to anime, I love world building more than anything. The problem usually lies in how this worldbuilding is done, because in Vinland’s case I felt like it was more abandoning the main character to actually invest in those pretty lackluster side characters, rather than using them to actually forward the plot and Thorfinn’s development. From what I know MAPPA added a lot of extra scenes and dragged others to a ridiculous extent just to give us more screentime on characters who were forgettable at best, and annoying at worst. For example, Thorfinn’s reunion with Leif was not only overshadowed, but basically completely cut from the anime adaptation in favour of some characters’ arcs we literally give zero shits about. Plot armour also makes a strong appearance, with that fucking Gardar guy being in the brink of death, unable to stand up or even move a muscle, gets stabbed THROUGH HIS FUCKING HEART and not only has the power to subdue Snake, but can live happily for like hours after that and discuss his life with his wife like nothing happened. As far as I'm concerned that stab in his heart HEALED him instead. Such fucking bullshit. But I digress...
In general though I do not have any strong feelings towards either the story of season 2, or its characters, but judging by the fact that season 1 felt like it was always progressing at just the right pace and most of its characters were immaculate (see Askeladd for example) I was really hoping season 2 would do the same with Thorfinn but I was utterly disappointed. The mediocrity we got in season 2 is a far cry from the perfection we got in season 1 in that aspect.
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What was not mediocre in season 2 though was the animation. MAPPA has done it again, it took a highly regarded and by all means flawless (at least animation wise) adaptation like AoT under its wings and turned it into a literal PowerPoint slideshow at times with constant animation errors that kept me from actually caring about the show.
While the first episode wasn’t bad by any means, it was still a considerable downgrade from season one. That being said though, I liked the creative liberties they took at some points and I thought starting the season with Einar’s backstory was the right move. All in all, while a bit disappointed, I was fairly satisfied and definitely not ready for what was to come in later episodes.
Now let’s move on to some actual screenshots from the anime and then we will talk about them more. Reminder: this season is considered to be just as good, if not better than season 1.
"Welcome ladies and gentlemen! And welcome, to Vinland Saga Season 2! (Made by MAPPA obviously). One of the best anime to come out in the last decade!! (according to blind people). In this absolute masterpiece of an anime (according to fans) we have:"
1) Poor communication during animation process, which leads to questionable cohesion between scenes and some ridiculous mistakes. Take this hilariously abrupt yawning cut-off scene for example:
▶ Video #...or let's play a spot the difference game on what is supposed to be a single scene from the same episode. I'll give you a clue, there are at least FOUR MAJOR DIFFERENCES in that single scene. Like genuinely though, how was their communication that bad, it's baffling to me:
2) Some REALLY ugly and hastily drawn scenes:
3) LITERAL FREEZE-FRAMES that just stayed there for several seconds with no movement at all to the point where I had to check whether or not my video player actually crashed or something:
4) Incredibly bad "sense of speed"? Like look at how wonky and disconnected the movement of that horse is relative to the ground, it's barely moving and at times it looks like it is galloping on spot:
▶ Video5) Kicks that literally defy the laws of physics, judging by how Thorfinn was just shot up in the sky in that scene it really looks like he activated a secret spring hidden in his chest. Just play the "boing" sound effect while watching this shit:
▶ Video6) And last but DEFINITELY not least (and a personal favourite of mine): Michael Jackson fans moonwalking for 5 minutes in front of Canute (he gets progressively angrier because he couldn't possibly walk on spot so seamlessly):
▶ VideoAnd much, MUCH more...
All of this is extremely frustrating to me because (as someone with a background on editing) all of the mistakes in 1), 4), 5) and 6) are easily fixable. I can see exactly where, what, why and how something went wrong, but also exactly how to fix it. Everything there is a simple fix with maybe the slight exception of the horse, although even that would be easy enough. But they just, don't, care... Or at least the working conditions at MAPPA are so fucked that even if they did care they just couldn't communicate well enough to fix such simple, yet awfully striking, issues. THIS, is how (either) lazy (or) bad (or both) this adaptation is.
Do not be mistaken though; these are not the only instances that the animation was straight up lazy, bad or non-existent. the criticisms I have for this season's animation are endless and, despite it being one of my favourite series back when I watched season one, I just cannot avert my eyes from how they treated it here. These are just the ones I remembered and bothered enough to record. And frankly, you have to be blind not to see that this season isn't at the very least a downgrade compared to the first one in terms of its animation, although I'd argue it's wayyy below the average anime anyway. Thankfully though (or sadly, depending on your perspective), I am not a die-hard MAPPA fanboy so I will criticize something that needs to be criticized.
My thoughts...
I will try to keep it brief but this was such a disappointment of a sequel. Like I said in my Attack on Titan review I really hate those low effort "oh let's just copy most of the panels and add as little movement as possible and as little effort as possible in making them fit more nicely into an anime format" anime that we are getting these days. The anime had its good moments, mainly the Askeladd flashback episodes and the last one (Thorfinn's reunion with his family) are what came to mind. Sure, the anime looked gorgeous there, even better than some WIT episodes, I'm not crazy to deny that, but I'm also not blind or biased to ignore the 15+ other episodes where this series looked like hot garbage.
Conclusion.
This reminds me so much of what I said in my Aot Review, so much that I could basically re-post the same conclusion here. And in fact that's basically what I'm going to do here but with a few modifications to it:
I know I will get a lot of hate for this review and I don't really care. I think it's stupid to be like "well, what I believe about this show is vastly different from the general consensus, so I won't talk about it" etc. I genuinely disliked this show, I genuinely believe it is objectively inferior in literally every single way (especially animation-wise) when compared to the first season and I'm tired of pretending it's not just because the community thinks otherwise. I won't ride the hype train and blind myself to the genuine disappointment this season was, and I would even go as far as to say that I genuinely believe it sets an extremely bad precedent for every anime sequel that comes out after this. It proves that hype itself is enough to carry a show to "greatness", not actual talent, work, creativity etc. I feel like the concepts of creativity and passion in the anime industry are dying and the success of anime like Vinland Saga S2 are partially the reason why; if not, then they are definitely the reason this mindset and work ethic is becoming more and more popular each year. It should be common sense that overworked animators, directors (etc...) with extremely tight schedules can't make a solid product. Seems like the same team working on the same anime cannot produce the as good of a product in different, objectively worse working conditions right? Wow, who would have thought...
All in all, this season is about two things. Two quite opposite things to be honest. Thorfinn's redemption arc as a character, but MAPPA's nail in the coffin when it comes to sequel adaptations of popular shows. At least now I know they are gonna be shit before even watching them. A huge thanks to MAPPA for teaching me not to waste my time on future projects like this if they happen to continue another anime from a different again and to only expect the worst when they are adapting some of my favourite stories.
Analyzing my Rating...
Story: 4/10
+ Premise is cool.
+ The way slavery, war, violence, vengence and other themes are explored is nice. Great themes in general.
+/- Themes could have been executed better.
- Story sometimes contradicts its own rules/ stops being "realistic".
- Gardar arc (yes, this deserves its own mention for how bad it was).
- A lot of plot contrivances.
- "Humor" in this season is way more promiment than that in season 1, but exceptionally unfunny.
- WHERE TF DID THORFINN'S AND LEIF'S REUNION GO???
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- Animation errors are through the roof.
- Inconsistent art-style.
- Shading is ass for the most part.
- Genuinely some of the worst and most blatant animation mistakes I have seen in anime ever.
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