Valhalla, I am coming...
With the instant seinen classic ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ (Planetes), Makoto Yukimura (幸村誠) made me a believer. While crafting a rich and realistically detailed science fiction story in ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ, Yukimura also demonstrated a talent for creating layered characters, human characters with complex motivations and backstories that were easy to fall in love with. And I did.
So, naturally, when it was known that his next project, Vinland Saga, would be a Viking manga, published in Weekly Shônen Magazine no less, I have to say I was more than a little...intrigued. Would his storytelling suffer with the change of audience? And how would Yukimura, known for his sporadic output, cope with a weekly release schedule?
Initially, he was rather prolific, publishing an entire volume's worth of manga in four chapters (the first being a titanic 88 pages), but it seems with the recent edition of Weekly Shônen Magazine, he has announced that Vinland Saga will switchover to the seinen magazine Afternoon, effective 12/24 of this year, citing his inability to keep up with the weekly schedule. What, if any, effect this may have on the story remains to be seen.
With the second tankôbon due out on 11/17, I decided to take a look at volume 1.
ヴィンランド・サガ
Vinland Saga
幸村誠 (Makoto Yukimura)
Kodansha
Volume 1
I'll admit that I may be biased. As I mentioned previously, I'm already fond of Yukimura's work. But it extends further than that. I love Vikings. I love their history. I love their mythology. I love their funerals. I love their (historically inaccurate) horned helmets. Hell, I even love The Immigrant Song. I can't definitively tell you if that has affected my ability to properly give some impartial thoughts about Vinland Saga, but in the interest of fair disclosure, I figured I'd get that out there. The initial story centers around two main characters:
Askeladd
Askeladd is the respected warrior who leads a group of Vikings in sacking a Frankish outpost. Battle-hardened and shrewd, he uses cunning as well as brute force to manipulate situations to his favor.
Thorfinn
Highly skilled and foul-tempered, Thorfinn is an Icelandic boy who has joined Askeladd and his pillagers. His skill in battle is quickly demonstrated by his frightening speed and his skill with his knives. It seems he wishes to challenge Askeladd, the mortal enemy of his father, to a duel.
One of the first things you notice when reading Vinland Saga is that it's violent. Limbs, heads, and the like fly, arrows pierce men through their skulls, eyeballs are skewered like shish kebab, chains rip the hair and flesh from a man's head. The action is plentiful, and its frenetic pace aids the feeling of barbaric combat that makes up much of the first volume. Having nothing like this to previously judge him by, Yukimura has shown that he is adept at scripting and executing action sequences. His drawings are fluid, and the staging and panel work is top-notch. He's even included little touches that add to a sense of atmosphere, such as Frankish women collecting arrows from the dead bodies of the foes during a break in battle.
The Vikings are an interesting choice for a group of people to focus on. The heroes of this story are pillagers. They roam the land, looking for areas to sack and loot for all their worth. They kill without hesitation. While they do have an internal code of honor, they remain barbarians in every sense of the word. And while he does show us this aspect of them, without sugar-coating the details, he also brings us to their home, and shows us their lives inside their village. However, the story is not all deathly serious. The first volume is peppered with moments of humor. In certain ways, it's almost reminiscent of the Golden Age arc of Kentarou Miura's Berserk.
There's a certain beauty to the art, in both its natural setting and in the simplicity of the times. The backgrounds are rich and detailed. I'd say the art is a step up from his work on ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ, although his style is very evident in the facial features of the characters.
Overall, I found the initial volume of Vinland Saga to be intriguing, if not an overly complex story at current. It was a very fun read, and it has a lot of setup for future volumes. There are elements at times that are convenient to the advancement of the story, such as a Frankish soldier in a battle encampment that just so happens to speak Norse, but these elements do not detract in any real manner. While it's not a fair comparison because of the vastly different nature of his manga, Vinland Saga definitely feels less grounded in reality than ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ at times, which may seem odd as the latter is science-fiction while the former is historical fiction. In the end, while it does require moments where historical sticklers may have to suspend their disbelief, it's just a damn entertaining read. I can't help but forgive, and in fact, celebrate the flourishes Yukimura is adding to his manga.
In so far as one tankôbon can show, Yukimura has demonstrated that he is not a one trick pony. He's effectively grabbed my attention with an interesting and fast paced story, as well as what's shaping up to be a very fleshed out group of characters. I'm very eager to get my hands on the second volume. If I had one concern, it would be that the pace of his output may slow to a crawl. He's moving from the weekly release environment of a shônen magazine, to having the next chapter of the manga due out on Christmas Eve, so we may be shaping up for ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ level delays between releases. Yukimura is a gifted writer and artist, and I am not one to begrudge the man the time he feels he needs to convey his story to the best of his ability, but when dealing with a mangaka that creates as gripping stories as he does, I can't help but feel letdown.
So, naturally, when it was known that his next project, Vinland Saga, would be a Viking manga, published in Weekly Shônen Magazine no less, I have to say I was more than a little...intrigued. Would his storytelling suffer with the change of audience? And how would Yukimura, known for his sporadic output, cope with a weekly release schedule?
Initially, he was rather prolific, publishing an entire volume's worth of manga in four chapters (the first being a titanic 88 pages), but it seems with the recent edition of Weekly Shônen Magazine, he has announced that Vinland Saga will switchover to the seinen magazine Afternoon, effective 12/24 of this year, citing his inability to keep up with the weekly schedule. What, if any, effect this may have on the story remains to be seen.
With the second tankôbon due out on 11/17, I decided to take a look at volume 1.
ヴィンランド・サガ
Vinland Saga
幸村誠 (Makoto Yukimura)
Kodansha
Volume 1
I'll admit that I may be biased. As I mentioned previously, I'm already fond of Yukimura's work. But it extends further than that. I love Vikings. I love their history. I love their mythology. I love their funerals. I love their (historically inaccurate) horned helmets. Hell, I even love The Immigrant Song. I can't definitively tell you if that has affected my ability to properly give some impartial thoughts about Vinland Saga, but in the interest of fair disclosure, I figured I'd get that out there. The initial story centers around two main characters:
Askeladd
Askeladd is the respected warrior who leads a group of Vikings in sacking a Frankish outpost. Battle-hardened and shrewd, he uses cunning as well as brute force to manipulate situations to his favor.
Thorfinn
Highly skilled and foul-tempered, Thorfinn is an Icelandic boy who has joined Askeladd and his pillagers. His skill in battle is quickly demonstrated by his frightening speed and his skill with his knives. It seems he wishes to challenge Askeladd, the mortal enemy of his father, to a duel.
One of the first things you notice when reading Vinland Saga is that it's violent. Limbs, heads, and the like fly, arrows pierce men through their skulls, eyeballs are skewered like shish kebab, chains rip the hair and flesh from a man's head. The action is plentiful, and its frenetic pace aids the feeling of barbaric combat that makes up much of the first volume. Having nothing like this to previously judge him by, Yukimura has shown that he is adept at scripting and executing action sequences. His drawings are fluid, and the staging and panel work is top-notch. He's even included little touches that add to a sense of atmosphere, such as Frankish women collecting arrows from the dead bodies of the foes during a break in battle.
The Vikings are an interesting choice for a group of people to focus on. The heroes of this story are pillagers. They roam the land, looking for areas to sack and loot for all their worth. They kill without hesitation. While they do have an internal code of honor, they remain barbarians in every sense of the word. And while he does show us this aspect of them, without sugar-coating the details, he also brings us to their home, and shows us their lives inside their village. However, the story is not all deathly serious. The first volume is peppered with moments of humor. In certain ways, it's almost reminiscent of the Golden Age arc of Kentarou Miura's Berserk.
There's a certain beauty to the art, in both its natural setting and in the simplicity of the times. The backgrounds are rich and detailed. I'd say the art is a step up from his work on ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ, although his style is very evident in the facial features of the characters.
Overall, I found the initial volume of Vinland Saga to be intriguing, if not an overly complex story at current. It was a very fun read, and it has a lot of setup for future volumes. There are elements at times that are convenient to the advancement of the story, such as a Frankish soldier in a battle encampment that just so happens to speak Norse, but these elements do not detract in any real manner. While it's not a fair comparison because of the vastly different nature of his manga, Vinland Saga definitely feels less grounded in reality than ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ at times, which may seem odd as the latter is science-fiction while the former is historical fiction. In the end, while it does require moments where historical sticklers may have to suspend their disbelief, it's just a damn entertaining read. I can't help but forgive, and in fact, celebrate the flourishes Yukimura is adding to his manga.
In so far as one tankôbon can show, Yukimura has demonstrated that he is not a one trick pony. He's effectively grabbed my attention with an interesting and fast paced story, as well as what's shaping up to be a very fleshed out group of characters. I'm very eager to get my hands on the second volume. If I had one concern, it would be that the pace of his output may slow to a crawl. He's moving from the weekly release environment of a shônen magazine, to having the next chapter of the manga due out on Christmas Eve, so we may be shaping up for ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ level delays between releases. Yukimura is a gifted writer and artist, and I am not one to begrudge the man the time he feels he needs to convey his story to the best of his ability, but when dealing with a mangaka that creates as gripping stories as he does, I can't help but feel letdown.