'Vinland Saga' Announces Anime Series

Vinland Saga is a manga series with a huge cult-following, but major support in the West has eluded this historically inspired story of Vikings with a grounded, realistic presentation.

But hopefully the newly announced anime adaptation, handled by one of the biggest studios currently, will get the series the attention it deserves.

Makoto Yukimura's Vinland Saga has recently announced that it will receive an anime adaptation by WIT Studio, the studio behind Attack on Titan, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, and The Ancient Magus' Bride. To celebrate, the series released a short trailer for the series which shows off a bit of the series' character design.

The series will premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in Japan and in other territories as well. Makoto Yukimura first debuted the series in Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine in 2005, and he's so excited about the upcoming anime series that he debuted a cute sketch of his series' characters watching the anime.

Kondansha Comics describes Vinland Saga as such:

"Thorfinn is son to one of the Vikings' greatest warriors, but when his father is killed in battle by the mercenary leader Askeladd, he swears to have his revenge. Thorfinn joins Askeladd's band in order to challenge him to a duel, and ends up caught in the middle of a war for the crown of England. From the creator of the classic Planetes manga, comes this epic, highly-anticipated tale."

The series has been collected into 20 volumes as of November 27, and centers on the dramatization of King Cnut the Great's rise to power in English at the start of the 11th century. Fans are especially anxious to see how the series will play out as some fans wish for more accurate representations of the characters as the Danish and Swedish leads would tend to speak languages other than Japanese.

Since the manga series has drawn comparisons to Kentaro Miura's Berserk manga for its tone and narrative presentation, fans are also anxious to see whether or not Vinland Saga's anime would fare better than the previous Berserk adaptation effort which became one of the most infamous uses of CG in anime to this day.

But given that WIT Studio has experience in crafting stories based in worlds with slight historical bends, yet still cling on to their fantastical nature then perhaps Vinland Saga will be successful as well.