Tag: manga

Anime and, by proxy, manga are typically viewed through a lens where violence begets violence, and the only hero is one with attention-grabbing hairdos, the ability to power up, and the capacity to punch things even more brilliantly. Very rarely is the traditional hero’s journey, whether in shonen or its older brother genre, seinen, predicated on having its hero question the nature of violence as a catch-all solution, rather than a spoke that keeps the cycle spinning. Then again, not every manga series challenges that notion so brilliantly as Vinland Saga.

Vinland Saga, created by Planetes mangaka Makoto Yukimura in 2005, begins as a typical revenge quest that quickly evolves into a more daring and hopeful tale. It follows Thorfinn Karlsefni, son of the pacifist warrior Thors Snorresson.

Thorfinn witnesses his father die at the hands of a Viking mercenary, Askeladd. Years pass, and Thorfinn joins Askeladd’s crew, fighting, pillaging, and surviving; along the way, he turns from babyfaced kid to rage-fueled weapon. His whole reason for being is for the chance to challenge Askeladd—who in turn becomes his twisted surrogate father—to a life-or-death duel to avenge his father.

Along a painful journey, Thorfinn gets a new lease on life and embarks on an odyssey of self-reflection in a world perpetuating the cycle of violence. He adopts pacifism and strives to set sail for a land where might is not right, but kindness and freedom prevail.

After its release, Yukimura’s manga was adapted into an anime by Wit Studio and Mappa, the studios behind Attack on Titan.

To mark the occasion of the manga’s final volume, io9 sat down with Yukimura (through Kodansha USA Publishing translator Misaki Kido) to discuss the many risks, inspirations, and aspirations that put wind in his sails to create a work that ranks high on many anime fans’ lists of the best shows to come out in the past decade.

This interview has been edited for clarity. 

Isaiah Colbert, io9: In the west, there’s a common belief that serialized manga must begin with a detailed roadmap or series bible. Was that true for Vinland Saga? And if so, was the shift from vengeance-driven Viking quests—like those seen in The Northman—to a story rooted in pacifism always part of your vision, or did that goal emerge organically during the creative process?

Makoto Yukimura: When I started this series, I already had this roadmap in my mind that the main character in the story begins [with] violent battle scenes and violence. However, this protagonist continues to grow into someone who seeks peace. This was something that was on my mind since I started the series. As you may see in entertainment formats, there are many stories about a main character who seeks vengeance against a bad figure in the story. However, I was interested in writing a story about what happens [to] people after the bad guy has been defeated. Therefore, my story formed to be what it became.

io9: Were there any story elements or character arcs that weren’t planned from the outset but became especially rewarding to explore? Or any thematic concepts that proved unexpectedly difficult to manifest on the page?

Yukimura: I was really interested in writing a story about a person who goes through the process of growing up. I believe that could be a very good entertainment, and I wanted to hone in on that story. However, I didn’t know at the time, when I started the series—27 years old—how to draw a story about the growth of a person. When I started the series, I had no idea how Thorfinn would become an adult. It took me about 20 years to go through and draw the changes that he has been through. That’s something that I didn’t have planned when I started the series. (Laughs) He turned out to be a very good, kind man.

io9: That’s a bit fortuitous for me. When I first got introduced to the manga, I was turning 27. One thing that got me was the Farming Arc in Vinland Saga. For me, it cemented itself as one of my all-time favorite manga, right alongside Vagabond, which saw Musashi endure a similar arc—only Thorfinn’s occurred earlier over the course of his story.

While some anime fans expected nonstop action, that arc offered much-needed introspection and hard-earned emotional growth. What did that arc mean to you—not just in terms of subverting expectations, but in planting seeds for a story about self-forgiveness and personal transformation?

Yukimura: (Laughs) First, I really want to thank you because when I started to work on that story arc, I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen. Would [fans] continue to read or would they leave the story? I had no idea. That was the feeling when I started to work on the Farming Arc. I knew that it was going to be a big gamble that we were taking when I was discussing with the editor about this idea of the Farming Arc. We had no idea if it was going to be successful or not.

Many manga artists try to keep the attention of the readers by having many battle scenes [and] inflations of powers. That is usually the driving force behind keeping people reading. But is it really right to make Thorfinn stop for a minute, have a moment of pause, and self-reflection? I had no idea. I was willing to take that risk, though. To write that story.

Anime onlys, be warned: We’ll be getting into late manga territory from here on out.

io9: Forgiveness is a throughline for Thorfinn, and one of my favorite scenes—one I’m considering getting a tattoo of—is when Hild finally forgives him. Looking back, are there any moments in Vinland Saga that shook you as a creator to bring to life—scenes that still resonate with you for how emotionally triumphant or personally meaningful they were?

Yukimura: When I was drawing that scene of Hild forgiving Thorfinn, I was also crying, “Oh, that was so good! You guys made up!” That was the feeling I had. For the scene of Hild forgiving Thorfinn to have an emotional impact on the readers, there needs to be a moment from an earlier scene that really shows Thorfinn has undergone self-reflection. I was thinking, “If I could write this scene leading up to it, then I would be able to write that scene with Thorfinn and Hild very emotionally.”

To build the story up to that point, I had to focus my attention on writing the scene where Thorfinn was a slave at the farm, where he passed out and had a nightmare about all the people he killed coming back as zombies to put the blame on him. At that moment, Thorfinn finally understood what other people feel—the pain and suffering. Until then, he was only focusing on his own hatred, anger, and vengeance. I loved working on this scene because I feel like Thorfinn went through a great change. That led up to the scene of Hild forgiving him.

io9: Thorfinn joins a rare lineage of pacifist protagonists in manga, alongside characters like Trigun’s Vash the Stampede. Was it ever challenging to write a story centered on peace and cooperation without feeling preachy or didactic? How did you balance Thorfinn’s ideals with the narrative’s emotional and philosophical weight? 

Yukimura: I think it has to do with the fact that Thorfinn didn’t start as a very peaceful person in the beginning, which made this story more convincing. He started as a pretty violent and angry person. But, throughout his experience, he started to go through many changes. Because he was not really preaching a message to the readers, he was just going through the struggles that he was seeing. And also, the audience that was experiencing watching him go through that experience, therefore it doesn’t feel like a preachy message behind the story because we were just experiencing it at the same time

io9: Vinland Saga has been praised for its moral clarity in a genre often defined by moral ambiguity. Do you see Thorfinn’s pacifism as a radical act of storytelling in today’s media climate?

Yukimura: I actually never thought about it that way. Maybe it’s true that it is more predominant that people make morals more ambiguous in stories nowadays. Maybe that is more mainstream.

io9: In the west, Vinland Saga is often grouped with Berserk and Vagabond as a kind of “seinen big three,” much like Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece were for shonen. What do you make of that comparison—especially in terms of how these stories center men who endure hell and emerge gentler, rather than perpetuating cycles of violence?

Yukimura: (Laughs) Wow, I’m very honored! Since the beginning of working on this story, I had this really strong feeling that I wanted to say something. This is something about morals and the state of the world. How we are submerged in violence and wars. There was something that was triggering me: “There’s something wrong with this picture.” I really wanted to tell this in a way that everyone could understand. That was a strong feeling that I was focused on writing the story. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how people will perceive my work in the rest of society. I have no real good sense of that.

io9: To give more color on that, Thorfinn’s famous declaration that he has “no enemies” has become a meme in the west—used affectionately, especially during the high-profile rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, through J.Cole reaction images in social media posts, and as a shorthand catchphrase in anime circles. How does it feel to see such a pivotal moment in your story take root in popular culture in this way?

Yukimura: (Laughs) First of all, I feel very happy that it has turned into such a phenomenon—my work turning into a meme—because it means that my intention to make what I’m trying to say in the story into a short, compact sentence was successful. People won’t remember if it was a really long sentence or something very complicated.

If “I have no enemies” has become a meme and people remember it, then maybe people will understand what I’m really trying to say through the story, which is that humans are immature, but we can mature. To become mature is to become kind. This is the foundation of what I’m trying to say, but it really has to be much shorter for people to remember. But it does give me hope that people remember these short phrases as memes. Then, one day, it will click in their mind what I was trying to really say in the first place.

io9: In later chapters, Thorfinn reaches Vinland—North America—where his journey from warrior to community leader sees him navigating tensions with Indigenous peoples. Vinland Saga has resonated deeply with Western audiences, especially in the U.S. with ongoing “might is right” social upheaval of today. Do you think the story’s themes of reconciliation and community-building offer a kind of emotional blueprint for societies grappling with division? 

Yukimura: I understand your question, but that’s difficult to answer. I feel like right now it might not be possible immediately to have these types of models in society. I do want all communities to be at peace, and I ask why that is not possible. I think it might be because our society, overall, is still immature. Even if we’re presented with a perfect model of society or a system of communication, I don’t think we are ready to implement it because of our own immaturity. It’s kind of like if we’re shown a very elaborate machine. We may not know how to apply it to our life. Even if we had such a model in front of us, we’re not ready to adapt ourselves into that yet.

io9: As war gives way to plagues in Vinland Saga, the story explores a different kind of violence—one that’s indiscriminate and unrelenting. Writing those chapters during a real-world pandemic, did you find those parallels unsettling? What insights did you gain from watching the world respond to a crisis while crafting your own fictional outbreak? 

Yukimura: I was very surprised when the state of the world [and] the pandemic started to link up with what I was writing in the story. When I was trying to start writing this arc, I was researching what people’s reactions were when there was a pandemic in the past through historical research. However, it was no longer necessary to do such research because every time I turned on the TV, there was a raw reaction to how people were reacting to such a situation.

The scary thing here is not the diseases itself, but the uncertainty of how we live our lives. In our usual common sense, there’s this understanding, this baseline survival of the fittest; therefore, you can do anything to come off on top in society—that was our common sense. But what if we’re in a situation where everybody’s life was in danger? Would people continue to believe this way of survival of the fittest, and you could kick off other people for your survival? Or would people change their ways? This was the most dangerous part about the pandemic that we went through.

I feel like it’s true to all of us that our lives are in hostage. The life of our own—our family, the wellness of the community—is always taken through hostage situations like pandemics and war. When these types of things happen—a kind mom, neighbors, your local baker—could they turn on us because of this pandemic? To be honest with you, I was very scared during the pandemic because I saw many people reaching out to me over social media expressing their feelings in a way that they thought was normal and sane, but they really were not.

I was always thinking about what could I do to calm these people down. Should I say funny things, or should I [post] more videos of puppies and cats to calm everybody down? This was something I was thinking about the whole time during the pandemic.

io9: You’ve said you hope people today are kinder than those 1,000 years ago. Do you believe manga can help shape that evolution—and if so, how?

Yukimura: (Laughs) I honestly feel like if we can’t accomplish this by manga, what else could we do? The bad kids who don’t listen to their teachers or those kids who never leave their house—even those guys, I feel they would read manga. They would pay attention to what’s being said there. I wasn’t really proud of who I was when I was a kid, but I still was reading manga when I was younger.

I honestly feel like what to write in a story or manga has a huge responsibility for what happens in the future. But as long as we are aware of this fact, maybe manga could change the world.

io9: Your portrayal of Indigenous and transgender characters—like the Lnu tribe and Cordelia—stands out in a media landscape where such representation is still rare outside of series like Golden Kamuy, Skip and Loafer, and Paradise Kiss, where they’re often mishandled. What impact do you hope these characters have on expanding the narrative terrain? How do you see your storytelling challenging the ethnocentric lens that dominates much of mainstream media when it comes to that representation?

Yukimura: I did have written characters in [Vinland Saga] from a marginalized ethnic group [and] who are LGBTQ featured here. I actually wanted to portray a character with a disability in the story, too. However, because of the setting, I really couldn’t find the right place to incorporate such a character into the story. One thing I really don’t understand, though, is why do people attack such folks? Is it because they’re different? Why do they just focus on bad things about these groups and generalize them? I truly don’t understand why people do such things. I plainly feel sad when it comes to the way people treat each other.

To me, it’s quite normal for people to have uniqueness. It’s almost needless to say that we all individually have a uniqueness that might be considered different than what is the majority. For example, I grew up in an era where higher education was considered to be the most important thing in society in Japan. You almost had no paths in life outside of that structure. I actually do live outside of that structure, and I’m living perfectly fine. I really want to say that uniqueness is okay. I don’t understand why people are making those judgments to say, “This is okay, but this is not okay.”

I haven’t really thought about what this type of storytelling or character would have an impact on society at all. I’m just writing, drawing, and portraying society as I see it and what I think is normal from my eyes in the manga. If people don’t agree with that version of what I think is a normal society, then oh well. (Laughs) That’s too bad. Those people don’t have to read my manga.

io9: Mangaka, without fail, astound me not just for their artistry and storytelling, but also for their depth of knowledge and worldly perspective, often evolving into researchers—almost sociologists—immersing themselves in niche fields to enrich their stories. What was it like to visit Vinland (Prince Edward Island) after studying it so profoundly, standing in the very place your characters once journeyed across oceans to reach? 

Yukimura: When I went to Prince Edward Island, I felt like this place was very warm and rich in nature, trees, and it had a lot of rain. I felt like it was a very rich land. I feel like I’m not as in depth of a researcher or a scholar in any sort of way. I do imagine, though, what would it have been like to stand on this land if you came from somewhere far away like Iceland or Greenland on a ship and landed. It must be like a dream come true. Or it must’ve felt like a land of promise for those folks who went through that journey. Although I’m not a researcher, maybe this is something they would’ve wanted to imagine when they were doing their research [too].

io9: Aside from Thorfinn, which character was the most delightful for you to write, and why?

Yukimura: (Laughs) There’s like several dozens of those characters. It’s kinda hard to choose from. If I had to name one, I’d like to mention Thorkell. He has no hidden side. He’s a very child-like person. Although the type of person he is might cause other people a lot of trouble, it was a lot of fun for me to draw his character.

Maybe another person that I could mention is Sigurd, son of Halfdan. He’s also a type of character that doesn’t have a hidden agenda. He chased after Thorfinn to the point that there was this great injury, but still, he’s not lying about anything. Everything that he’s thinking about is displayed on his face. Those are the type of characters that I love drawing in my story.

io9: For all its philosophical weight, Vinland Saga also has moments of levity. One of my favorites is Gudrid confronting Thorkell, getting him to back down, and then getting teased for her feelings for Thorfinn. What’s a moment from the series that still makes you laugh when you think back on it?

Yukimura: (Laughs) Thorkell’s such a cute dude. I really like the scene where Sigrud became a slave and then was seen by Gudrid. He’s making these faces so that she won’t recognize him as the person that he is. And he’s very serious about this, too! That’s one thing that really makes me laugh and love drawing. Sigrud is always so serious. People who have this personality to be very serious all the time, I think those guys are very cute and lovable.

io9: As a creator who’s inspired many, are there any series you grew up with that sparked your desire to become a mangaka and write a tale like Vinland Saga?

Yukimura: Every time somebody asks me that question, the one series that really comes to my mind is Fist of the North Star. It’s a little bit different from simple admiration, but I had chapters two and three of Fist of the North Star always hung up in my mind. I analyzed myself, [saying] that was a big contributing factor that led to me writing a story like Vinland Saga. (Laughs) Don’t worry, I will explain this.

In chapters two and three, the main character, Kenshiro, meets this old man who has a handful of rice grains that he wants to bring back to his village. This old man is getting attacked by bad guys, and Kenshiro fights them off. But then, unfortunately, this old man gets beaten and killed by these bad guys, so Kenshiro has to get after them again. Just when he was about to pass away, the old man says to Kenshiro, “Please bring these grains of rice back to the village so people don’t have to fight over food anymore.”

What does Kenshiro do? He did not bring the grains of rice back to the village and start growing them! (Laughs) I could not believe this. When I read these chapters of Fist of the North Star, I was maybe six or seven years old. I was thinking, “Why Kenshiro? Why didn’t you stop by and bring the grains back to the village, make a rice field, and bring water? This could really have changed the outlook of this society! For Kenshiro being such a strong man, why didn’t he do this?” I really didn’t understand why this was the case, and for some 20-some years, I had this question within me, which brought me to writing the story of Vinland Saga. I don’t want any confusion, but I do really like Fist of the North Star, though.

io9: You’ve drawn comparisons between Vinland Saga and Attack on Titan in terms of vision and execution. What do you think distinguishes your approach to long-form storytelling from other epic manga?

Yukimura: If there is something that is unique about my work, I think it has to do with the fact that my characters don’t just scale up. In other manga, there are often times that the main characters start to gain a greater power to win a battle against somebody greater. By the time they complete the battle, it completes the story arc. That’s something that I consciously decide not to do with my story.

io9: You’ve mentioned on social media that endings are hard and that it’s impossible to satisfy everyone. What does a “successful ending” mean to you, and how do you measure that beyond reader reactions?

Yukimura: (Laughs) Honestly, I don’t know. I recently completed the final chapter of my story. I also spent quite a bit of time reading other people’s final chapters. It’s almost hard to say there is no such thing as a perfect ending. And yet, we all try to seek a perfect ending, and that causes a great struggle.

io9: And looking ahead, you’ve hinted at a future sci-fi project. Are there philosophical or emotional themes from Vinland Saga that you’re eager to reframe in a futuristic context, or are you planning to take it easy before charting your next course?

Yukimura: (Laughs) I certainly would like to take a break first. I’m completely exhausted from finishing a long series, so I’d like to take a longer break first. But whether I tell a story about the future or about the past, what I’m trying to say in my stories are always going to be consistent. Which is what I’m thinking about right now. About how should people live their lives. That’s something that’s always on my mind.

io9: Finally, what would you like to say to your fans—whether they’ve followed Thorfinn’s journey since day one or discovered it through the anime—as they prepare to read Vinland Saga‘s journey come to an end? 

Yukimura: First of all, I want to thank all the readers for sticking with such a long epic of a story all the way until the end. I’m very glad if you enjoyed the story. A piece of what I’m trying to say hopefully will stick with you—the messages that I’m trying to convey—one way or another. (Laughs) Whether that’s a meme or a little thing that you have seen somewhere.

One day, those words and those moments will grow within yourself as a seed that will nurture a more peaceful world because this is something that one person cannot accomplish by themselves. If my manga could contribute to carrying this message into the world, I really want to ask all the readers to deny the violence and wars within the world. I’m begging all of you to carry this feeling, even after you complete reading or watching the story.

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The English Editions of Vinland Saga and the Deluxe Editions are available on Kodansha USA. Watch the anime on Crunchyroll, Netflix, Hidive, and Prime Video.

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