Vinland Saga is an anime that follows a similar direction as Berserk and Vagabond. Especially the finale of the first season is popular among fans. However, the entire arc almost didn’t happen.
Which anime is it about? Vinland Saga tells the story of young Thorfinn, who gets caught between the fronts of a war. Both England and Denmark exploit the warrior to achieve their own goals. Thorfinn sacrifices a lot, including his youthful carefreeness. He dreams of reaching Vinland one day, but ends up in slavery.
The manga of Vinland Saga is divided into 4 arcs:
- War Arc
- Slave Arc
- Eastern Expedition Arc
- Vinland Arc
So far, the first two arcs have each been adapted as a complete season with 24 episodes each. However, it almost happened that only 3 out of 4 sections would have been created, as the manga artist Makoto Yukimura recounts in an interview.
You can find the trailer for the anime here:
Vinland Saga almost lost its best episode
Which arc was almost not made? The last episode of the first arc of Vinland Saga is the highest-rated episode on IMDb. It achieves a rating of 9.9 and is notorious for its thrilling twists and brutality.
As Yukimura reveals, he initially proposed the Slave Arc to the publisher as the beginning of the story. However, his editor was not pleased with the idea. According to him, no one would be interested in a Viking story without warrior deeds.
The war at the beginning of the anime was supposed to make the subsequent arcs more comprehensible, as the manga artist reported to Le Figaro:
He convinced me to take the war as the starting point. Basically, my aim with this project was to tell how people put all their energy into crossing the ocean and discovering an unknown land!
Actually, Yukimura wanted to tell the story of the journey of a civilization into new, inhospitable lands. He never had the raw violence of the Vikings in mind.
But thanks to the editor’s idea, Yukimura worked on the arc that many fans of Vinland Saga appreciate and rate highly.
Vinland Saga is an adventure anime that MeinMMO demon Cortyn can recommend without hesitation. However, there are other series that are also suitable for fans of adventures. You can check out which 4 animes Cortyn recommends in the following list: 5 adventure animes if One Piece is just too long for you
