Let me tell ya about the odd manga series that is Vinland Saga, with which I’ve had a peculiar relationship. This is mainly the story of one historical dude named Thorfinn Karlsefni, born in Iceland but destined to spend most of his days very much not in Iceland.

For me, since the tale went through its massive inflection point, Vinland Saga became two stories in one. In the first half, we meet Thorfinn as a kid when he was living with his family in their Icelandic village. Thorfinn’s father used to be a badass mass murderer for some famous Nordic group of killers, until he got sick of it and adopted the philosophy that the true warrior doesn’t fight. After Thorfinn witnesses the consequences of such a change in perspective when they meet a group of hardened killers, our protagonist becomes consumed by a thirst for vengeance that put other vengeance addicts to shame; the guy lives to get stronger, killing whoever stands in his way, in order to murder the man responsible for his rage. We follow him, and his group of mercenaries, as they invade, pillage, murder, and murder some more.

This isn’t much of a review, because, to be honest, I’ve forgotten most of what happened in the first part; I must have read it perhaps a couple of years ago. The point is that for me, the notion of Vinland (that, as a historical aside, was what the first Nordic settlers called North America when they reached the place about five hundred years before Columbus) floated as an intangible Shangri-La: a virginal place where Europeans could flee from the horrors of war, slavery, disease and their own general stupidity to build a new nation that would know no war nor slavery. As the main characters traveled further and further east (pretty sure they got to the so-called Byzantine Empire (actually the eastern half of the Roman Empire; RIP, never forget)), I was happy to hold in my heart that mythical Vinland as the childhood dreams of a broken Thorfinn, who had known nothing but war and death for as long as he could remember.

But Thorfinn went through a personal revelation that has become a bit of a meme recently for mysterious reasons.

As a man who had killed hundreds whose spirits kept tormenting him in nightmares, who had lost his freedom and nearly his life, he turned around and dedicated himself to absolute non-violence. He came to believe that there was no such thing as a righteous kill, and would go to any extent to prevent war from breaking out. With that perspective, he returned to Iceland and gathered a crew of settlers to sail westward and found a new nation in which swords wouldn’t be necessary.

I found myself drifting away from the series at this point. For me the story seemed finished. Worse than that, I started considering Thorfinn an idiot. As a leader who had to take care of a few dozen settlers, he prohibited them from having weapons or building defenses, believing that they would be able to coexist with the natives, whom predictably would consider the Nordics as invaders. Most settlers around him saw Thorfinn as a good guy, but a naïve idealist who may get everyone killed. Now that I’m up-to-date with the manga, I suspect that the author is going to pull a brilliant gotcha to show that Thorfinn’s noble idealism could not survive reality. If his story ends up following the conclusion of the historical Thorfinn Karlsefni, I don’t see how it could go any other way. The author has said recently that the story doesn’t have much longer to go, so we’ll see.

Now let me tell you about this crush of mine. Name’s Hild. Even as a teen, living in a small village with her family, she was a Leonardo da Vinci of the Early Middle Ages, destined to die in obscurity if or when some assholes raided the area.

After a personal tragedy, she finds herself scarred and abandoned in the wilds. Turned into a stoic, tenacious loner, she fends for herself hunting with her own custom-made crossbow, until years later she casually comes across the person responsible for the deaths she had vowed to avenge.

Hild should be the protagonist of Vinland Saga, and yet she’s conspicuously underused as a secondary in a large cast. As far as I’m concerned, Hild should be the protagonist of every story.

Anyway, don’t sleep on Vinland Saga, you who have checked out lots of manga recommendations and passed on this one because you don’t care about vikings. I don’t give a shit about vikings, and this story is fantastic. Follow the adventures of Thorfinn and his pals as they travel around in medieval Europe, meet lots of interesting people and kill plenty of them. In the first half, at least.

Two full seasons of the anime adaptation have already been produced. Regrettably I only watched the first four episodes of the first season, but they were very well done. Here’s the trailer of the first season. It seems that they are on Netflix too.