And then there’s Einar, who grew up on a farm that was raided multiple times by people like Thorfinn and the mercenaries he rode with. There’s Christianity, which gradually plays into Thorfinn’s route to pacifism, overhearing passages and recognizing his father Thors’ idea of a “true warrior,” someone who fights for peace rather than conquest of person or land. Multiple routes of escape from the ruinousness of Viking culture open up to Thorfinn as Einar draws him out of his shell. Season 2 is compelling for how it rebuilds him anew, and how long it’s willing to take to do so. But a lot of the most compelling moments come from its continuing engagement with the leading tenets of feudalism and Viking culture (“might makes right,” as a participant in a losing battle puts it). There’s fun in seeing the show’s fondness for historical drama, its little background details, and the license it takes with character motivations as it adapts Makoto Yukimura’s manga series. The first season was compelling for how far down it dragged Thorfinn, hollowed by his experiences and commitment to being a mercenary for his father’s killers, tragically destroying himself as he relentlessly pursued revenge on his enemy and paternal figure Askeladd. It emphasizes long passages of time in his clearing of forest land, and the meditative nature of it - growing something instead of pillaging. This arc of Vinland Saga is lovingly referred to with the tongue-in-cheek moniker “Farmland Saga” by some fans, in part because of its narrative decompression, its smaller scope, and its pull away from warfare in favor of seeing Thorfinn gradually change. But his friendship with Einar, another slave working the same bit of land, reminds Thorfinn of what he destroyed as a warrior, prompting him to consider how he might stop it from happening again.

The farm is a space that shelters Thorfinn from his past as a berserker. Since the first season, Thorfinn has been enslaved by a wealthy man who has styled himself as a benevolent slave owner, letting his indentured farmhands work off what he paid for them and earn their freedom back. But Vinland Saga season 2 feels epic in a different sense, as director Shūhei Yabuta and writer Hiroshi Seko deliver some of the series’ most breathtaking drama within the (rather expansive) boundaries of a farm.

After the expansiveness of the first season of Vinland Saga, crossing continents as dramatizations of historic figures cross paths, it’s tempting to say that the anime’s second season is of a much smaller scale.

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