One Of The Best Manga Ever Had A Perfect Ending (And The Anime Adaptation Should Follow Suit)
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
When you follow a serialized story and it finally ends, saying goodbye is difficult, even surreal. The story and its characters have been part of your life for a long time, and you always knew a new adventure with them would arrive soon. Now, that's no longer the case.
I'm currently going through that experience with the manga "Vinland Saga" by Makoto Yukimura. After beginning its run in 2005 and publishing 220 chapters, this saga finally wrapped last July. And what a saga it was! "Vinland Saga" has been highly acclaimed, from its characterization to its detailed artwork, and it earned every ounce of that acclaim. Few stories have amazed me or touched my soul like this one. Yukimura's lead character, Thorfinn, makes me want to be a better man, and this ending was the perfect place to leave him.
Set during the Viking age, the story draws from the historical "Vinland Sagas" that recount Norse sailors' journeys to North America. But despite Yukimura's impressive research shining through in how he renders this era, the narrative definitely takes historical liberties.
"Vinland Saga" undergoes some big shifts in its story as Thorfinn becomes a man. Initially, it's a revenge story. A teenage Thorfinn is part of a Viking band with the goal of dueling its leader Askeladd, the man who murdered his father, Thors. Thorfinn doesn't get his revenge, which was all he lived for during his adolescence, and is left empty inside. But that leaves him room to build himself back up into something better.
In the second arc, Thorfinn is an enslaved worker on a Danish plantation. The experience teaches him to embrace nonviolence; not just because of nightmares about all the people he killed, but because he now lives on the victimized side of Viking raids. He's horrified that his new friend and fellow slave, Einar, is someone his younger self wouldn't have spared two thoughts about killing. Thorfinn and Einar vow to build a land without war or slavery and decide that "Vinland," far west from any Viking raiders, is the place to do it.
That is as far as the "Vinland Saga" anime adaptation has gotten as of its second and latest season. The anime has been a spectacular adaptation so far, but a third season has yet to be confirmed. The "Vinland Saga" has already been completed in one medium, but will we actually get to see this saga reach Vinland in the anime?
Vinland Saga's open ending was inevitable
In "Vinland Saga" Chapter 181, Thorfinn and Einar's expedition reaches Vinland and establishes a village there, named after their dead friend Arnheid. A slave murdered by her captor, Arnheid is the type of person Thorfinn and Einar vowed to build a new nation for. But we know from history that the real Thorfinn Karlsefni's Vinland settlement failed, and that knowledge casts a shadow over the last arc.
The land they call Vinland is of course already home to indigenous tribes. Attempted peaceful trade and cooperation fails when Natives fall sick from the germs the Norsemen brought across the sea.
The last 29 chapters of "Vinland Saga" are collectively called "The Thousand Year Voyage," which follows the breakdown of the Vinland settlement and brief war between the Natives and the settlers. It also drives a wedge between Thorfinn, who accepts the Norsemen need to leave, and Einar, who doesn't. Thorfinn is driven by guilt and a need to make up for the lives he took. If Vinland is going to become another nation guarded by violence, then it has no reason for existing. Einar, though, came to Vinland to make up for not saving Arnheid, and he refuses to so easily let go of the village they've built for her memory. In leading the other settlers in battle, he finally takes a life and understands Thorfinn's burden.
The fighting ends with a truce brokered by Thorfinn, but Einar dies stopping another settler, Styrk, from resuming the war. Thorfinn and Einar made a promise together over Arnheid's grave, and their promise ends with Thorfinn burying Einar in Vinland.
But while Thorfinn's goal failed, the manga is not a tragedy, nor does it suggest his pacifism was foolish. "Vinland Saga" chooses an open ending because the voyage Thorfinn took, even a thousand years later, isn't over.
We didn't just know in advance that the real Thorfinn's Vinland colony would fail, we also knew he wouldn't free the world from war or slavery. We still haven't done that in the 21st century. Throughout the manga, whenever a character is asked where paradise might be, the answer is always "somewhere not here." We've mapped the entire planet many times over, but we still haven't discovered the land Thorfinn was really looking for. Not the physical Vinland, but a land where people choose to coexist in peace. Chapter 220 is even titled "Somewhere Not Here" to show the search for that place continues.
Much earlier in "Vinland Saga," a priest named Willibald suggests that maybe true love only exists in death, when we can't hurt others or "discriminate" in who we choose to love. Remember, what did William Shakespeare call death? The undiscovered country.
Vinland Saga ends with a plea for the future
Rather than echoing this despair, Yukimura ends his story on a note of hope. Before Thorfinn leaves Vinland, he gives Plmk (one of the Natives) a wheat crop. The very last pages of the manga are Plmk planting the wheat, cultivating it, and it beginning to sprout. Since the second arc, "Vinland Saga" has used farming as a metaphor for the deeds you do in life (think of the idiom "reaping what you sow"). Chapter 71, when Thorfinn commits to nonviolence, ends on a page of him plowing a crop field with a hoe.
The ending brings that symbolism full circle; Thorfinn passed seeds for farming onto another person, just as the ending of the story pushes us to carry Thorfinn's dreams into reality. The caption of the final page is a direct plea to the reader: "What sprouted were prayers for the future. We must not let them die out."
In the English edition seventh volume of "Vinland Saga," Yukimura writes a lesson he's tried to pass onto his own sons: "Fighting and then running is the wrong order." His manga was about teaching all of us that lesson too, through the eyes of Thorfinn learning it. When Thorfinn is asked why he doesn't fight, he answers "[Because] I have no enemies." You have no enemies, too, "Vinland Saga" says, so act like it. Not everyone you meet is going to think that way, yes, but seeds take time to grow.
Now, some "Vinland Saga" readers might be disappointed that this wasn't a more conclusive ending. There's no epilogue featuring a last look at some supporting characters, like Thorfinn's friend Viking King Canute, for instance. History says that Thorfinn still had years left of life to live, but we won't see them. I think this point is the only place the story could end both honestly and optimistically. It's more inspiring that we don't see Thorfinn at the end of his life; we can assume he kept trying, again and again, the same way he got back up after each one of a Viking warrior's 100 punches way back in chapter 96 (episode 46 of the anime).
Thorfinn's ending is him reuniting with his family: his wife Gudrid, his son Karli, and his newly born second child. The very last panel we see Thorfinn is a close-up of his battered hands holding up his new baby, the 220 chapters of hardship he's lived through concluding with that moment of happiness.
Vinland Saga season 3 faces an uncertain future
As of this writing, it's been more than two years since "Vinland Saga" season 2 concluded in June 2023. On the day the season finale aired, Takahiko Abiru (the anime's character designer and chief animation director) tweeted a drawing of Thorfinn as he appears in the manga's third arc. In the title "Vinland Saga," some of the letters are highlighted to create a Roman numeral for three. In the text of the tweet, Abiru promised: "Thorfinn's journey will continue."
My gratitude goes to you as all staff members were able to continue making this work without giving up until today.
I'd like to extend my appreciation to the fans all around the world that love VINLAND SAGA. Thank you so much!
...Thorfinn's journey will continue.#VINLAND_SAGA pic.twitter.com/deFllStN9k— 阿比留隆彦 (@mountful) June 19, 2023
Since that promising sign, a "Vinland Saga" season 3 has not been greenlit. In August 2024, while attending Montreal anime convention Otakuthon, Abiru reportedly merely said he hopes a third "Vinland Saga" season will happen.
You'd think having the whole story from the now-completed manga to adapt would make planning future seasons easier, but that may not be the case. One reason that manga series are adapted into anime is as a promotion for the manga. If the manga isn't publishing new chapters, there's less incentive there.
"Vinland Saga" has never been the biggest commercial hit to begin with. As of 2022, it was reported to have seven million manga copies in circulation. That's a modest success, but dwarfed by best-selling manga series that have more than 100 million in circulation. The English publication of "Vinland Saga" was even almost canceled in 2014 due to low sales (it picked up enough to continue). The simple fact that the manga took 14 years to be adapted into an anime is a sign of its limited reach.
As a seinen series aimed at adult men, "Vinland Saga" is going to have a cap on its appeal that bestselling shonen (boys) series don't. The Viking age/Medieval European setting is also unusual and niche for a Japanese series. (Yukimura chose the setting because he wanted to tell a story about violence and the Vikings were a culture that worshipped it.)
Why hasn't Vinland Saga season 3 happened yet
Another seeming hurdle is how the second season of "Vinland Saga" is a slower, less action-filled show than the first season. That sparked some criticism and disinterest from those who didn't like the change. That said, "Vinland Saga" season 2 posted some strong viewership numbers on Netflix during its original simulcast airing.
According to the Netflix engagement report for the first half of 2023, "Vinland Saga" season 2 posted 55 million hours viewed (season 1 followed close behind with 49 million), making it one of the most watched anime on Netflix during this time. This suggests at least some strong global interest, but will that be enough to sway production on a third season?
Sakura Kayama, who works at Twin Engine (the production company behind "Vinland Saga"), posted a YouTube video in May 2025 titled, "Why does it take so long for a new anime season to come out?," explaining how staffing commitments and production timelines must be figured out well in advance before an anime's third season can be greenlit. Many fans interpreted her comments as being, at least in part, about "Vinland Saga."
MAPPA, the studio that oversaw "Vinland Saga" season 2, does currently have a full plate. The studio's movie "Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc" is releasing later in 2025, and it has new seasons of the anime "Jujutsu Kaisen," "Ranma ½," "Dorohedoro," and "Hell's Paradise" in the pipeline. The most optimistic reading at this time is that the "Vinland Saga" anime crew want to make a third season happen (Abiru said at Otakuthon 2024 that the anime is his favorite project he's worked on) but logistics need to be ironed out.
"Vinland Saga" fans are familiar with this wait; there was a three-year gap between "Vinland Saga" seasons 1 and 2. Season 1 premiered in July 2019 and wrapped that December. Season 2 was only confirmed in July 2021, then premiered in January 2023. Hopefully patience will pay off again.
Vinland Saga needs two more seasons to complete its story
"Vinland Saga" is divided into four arcs: The War Arc/the Prologue (Chapters 1-54), the Slave/Farmland Arc (Chapters 55-99), the Eastern Expedition/Baltic Sea War Arc (Chapters 100-166), and the Vinland Arc (Chapters 167-220).
Season 2 of the anime closes on chapter 100, "Homecoming," where Thorfinn returns home to Iceland for the first time in almost two decades and reunites with his mother and sister. A third season would adapt the Eastern Expedition arc, where Thorfinn and Einar sail to Constantinople to sell Narwhal horns and gather funds for their Vinland settlement. This arc introduces Gudrid, who wants to be a sailor against her family's wishes, and Hild, a hunter/inventor who wants revenge on Thorfinn for killing her father during his Viking days.
The season 1 finale of "Vinland Saga" — the superb "End of the Prologue" — featured an ending montage of Einar, Gudrid, and Hild, foreshadowing important faces Thorfinn will meet as his journey continues. The anime promised us we'd get Gudrid and Hild's stories and it needs a third season to deliver that.
Some might say Thorfinn's journey is complete after his transformation in season 2, making it a satisfying ending. But redemption is a process, not an endpoint, which the last two arcs of "Vinland Saga" understand. In later chapters, Thorfinn continues to be tempted by violence, feel the weight of the lives he took, and sometimes doubt his cause. For his arc to be fulfilled, he needs to face those doubts and failures.
In general, the latter two arcs of "Vinland Saga" mirror the first two arcs. The Eastern Expedition parallels the Prologue with greater action, a focus on Viking politics, and Thorfinn trying not to fall back into pursuing vengeance. Then, the Vinland Arc parallels the Farmland Arc, only Thorfinn and Einar become the ones encroaching on another's lands. The second season of "Vinland Saga" included Thorfinn and Einar's promise to build Vinland together, and the culmination deserves to be animated. The manga may be complete, but I don't want to revisit the "Vinland Saga" anime knowing that it only lives up to half of its potential.