Vinland Saga (2006)

[ヴィンランド・サガ]

Volume 3

Author/Artist: Makoto Yukimura
Publisher: Afternoon KC

Synopsis:
During the Danish invasion of England, a wounded Thorfinn is taken in by an English widow.

Story/Characters:
We jump ahead to a few years after Thord's death, where Thorfinn is already well into his work as a scout for Askeladd's band. Wounded while spying out the English position, he gets picked up by a local widow and her daughter. We see how he's descended into the half-feral state we saw at the beginning of the story and we get the contrast of the widow's kindness to him and the sort of brutal reality they live in. Just another step toward extinguishing what good is left in him. We jump ahead again past the point of the series' opening, to 1013 where Askeladd is sent to try to uproot the turncloak Thorkell the Tall. If you read my review of the TV series, you know how much I love Thorkell, this huge ball of murder with his big Totoro grin. We also get to see King Sweyn Forkbeard for the first time. What a piece of work he is. Anyway, with the promise of another duel with Askeladd in exchange for Thorkell's head, Thorfinn throws all caution to the wind and takes on this giant who can casually toss around boulders and trees. It's an impressive fight, with Thorkell demonstrating that he's nearly as nimble as he is powerful while the vastly weaker Thorfinn uses his meager speed advantage to the fullest. Only Thorkell could happily wave a maimed hand at a narrowly escaped foe and thank him for the fun time. Have I told you how great he is?

Meanwhile we find King Sweyn giving orders for his son Prince Canute to lead the siege of London. Said orders are given to Ragnar, the Prince's caretaker, who tries unsuccessfully to discourage the King from his decision. We check back in with Thorfinn, who has a nightmare about his village being attacked like so many of the villages he's seen destroyed thus far (to include the one he's staying in now). He gets annoyed when some of Askeladd's boys invade the barn he was sleeping in to do a little gang rape. (Yes, he's mostly just annoyed over the noise.) As he wanders off to the outskirts of the village, we see some of the other guys talking about the current plans and see a couple get into a mortal duel over a petty insult. (And it shows how common this sort of thing is when Bjorn just shrugs it off and tells them to inform Askeladd about whoever ends up dead.) Outside the village, Thorfinn encounters Askeladd amid some old Roman ruins (they're around Bath at the time) and Askeladd tells him a bit about the Romans who fell to the Saxons just as the Saxons are now falling to the Danes. He then talks about the millennial fervor among the Christians who believe Judgment Day is coming, which the pagan Thorfinn equates to Ragnarok. We'll see this end-of-the-world theme influencing a lot of the characters and the dire situation of the world certainly seems to support it.

Askeladd and Thorfinn encounter a herald from Prince Canute's forces on his way to inform the King of their rout by Thorkell and to request aid to save the Prince. Askeladd opts to kill the herald so that his men can rescue the Prince themselves and claim all the reward. We then check in with Thorkell, who's men are on the march to ransom the captive Prince Canute. They're having fun mocking Christianity until the drunken friar Willibald has a bit of an outburst due to alcohol withdrawal. Once he's liquored up, they get an answer to the question the Prince refused to answer: Who is greater, your Jesus or our gods? Willibald's answer, "Whichever one made alcohol." The Vikings liked that. Their fun gets interrupted when the remnant of the Prince's forces arrive to rescue him. Thorkell, being the fun guy he is, just lets his hostages go, but that's so he can provoke the stupid idiots into a fight and then soundly trounce them. However, while he was able to play the Prince's men like a fiddle, the smell of smoke alerts him to a new challenger.

Art:
We get a lot more blood and violence this time around as we're in a proper warfare scenario and we don't have a pacifistic bruiser limiting the bloodshed. Thorkell is quite striking, both for his devil-may-care attitude and his monstrous feats of strength. His fight with Thorfinn is amazing. Speaking of feats of strength, Ylva is pretty impressive as well in the bonus chapter.

Other:
We get a bonus chapter that takes us back to Iceland shortly after Thord's death, where Leif returns Thord's gear to the family and informs them that Thorfinn is missing. We see Ylva having to act as the man of the house, doing most of the work due to Helga's fragile constitution, even going whaling. Definitely Thord's daughter, that one. She puts up quite the tough front, but it takes a quiet moment for Helga to finally get her daughter to confront her grief. Ylva spinoff when?

We also have the travel map and an introduction by Yukimura's assistants with little commentary from Yukimura himself. I'm afraid I can't comment on his sexual harassment of poor Suzuki-kun.

Conclusion:
We see Thorfinn's descent to the mad dog we were introduced to at the start of the series and set up the next big conflict centered around Prince Canute. For the introduction of Thorkell alone, I'm sore tempted to bump this up a rating, but I'll try to keep my fanboying in check. If you've liked what the series has had to offer so far, you'll definitely want to add this to your collection.

Rating:
Own It