Forum - View topicVinland Saga - the story of Vikings, Vengeance and Zen
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Arkard
 Posts: 677 Location: Poland |
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Curtosy of Makoto Yukimura, the man behind Planetes, comes a tale of 11th century Vikings viking it up through England, pilaging, raping and providing easy yet still surprising comments on Zen, the staple philosophy of acting through nonaction.
Vinland Saga is at first glance a historical piece. It has been wonderfulyl well researched, or at least gives off the appearance that it has been, so all the scenery, the design of the characters, their clothes and the settings feels very real and natural, fitting to the story. Many compare this level of authenticity to Berserk, and the comparison stands. Not only is this a very much fictional tale set in a historical time with actual real life influences coming out of its whazoo, VS is characterized by very graphic scenes of violence, deep character development and the overal theme of revenge. That, and one character, prince Knut, looks very much like Grifiith. But beyond all that, even beyond the aforementioned revenge bit which stretches through the tale and is very well developed, in the shadows you see a continuous theme of Zen. It starts off quite innocently with one character, a fierce Viking, throwing away his sword claiming a real warrior has no need for that. This reminds me greatly of a classic zen tale of an archer who was surprised to hear from a great master that he (the master) is an archer without a bow and arrow. A similar message is found in Vinland Saga. Though not yet fully explored, recent volumes have once again gave the stage to these musings of finding peace by the act of nonaction and what it means to be a true warrior, so needless to say I will be waiting with anticipation for what comes next and how this particular tidbit will evolve. For all of those who have no interest in philosophy as presented by Vikings, Vinland Saga is still a very interesting story, beautifully drawn and I am sure it will capture your attention. |
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Agoston
 Posts: 225 |
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Vinland Saga is a great manga, I've read 20 or so chapters into it and it's very entertaining and the action is well done. However, I felt it takes a while to get started on the backstory and everything, and it develops a little slowly, but perhaps it's better that way.
I see some resemblance of Berserk in it, sometimes the fighting scenes are a little reminiscent of Berserk and the (slight spoiler) spoiler[ revenge driven storyline ] as you said is a big factor. However, I'm not sure if Berserk is quite as "authentic" as you claim. Don't get me wrong, I love the setting, but it's much more fantasy inspired and fictional than Vinland Saga's. Anyway, I definitely recommend Vinland Saga. |
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Arkard
Posts: 677 Location: Poland |
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Well Berserk is undoubtly fictional, but it is styled heavily on medieval Europe, with most of the architecture being very authentic, same with the history of the world which does mimic some European-Eastern conflicts, but same as in Vinland, it's all put through the fiction grinder.
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