4 out of 5

Hardcover collection of tankobons vol. 19 and 20.

Thorfinn finds himself in the center of a brewing war in Jomsborg, his anti-fighting stance forever encouraging those around him to double-down on trying to incite him to join the fray. Yukimura begins to stretch this a bit in volume 10, extending some scuffles with a new fight-happy foe – Garm, at one point working for Floki, then switching sides to work with Thorkell (himself switching sides…) – such that two such scuffles take up about 2/3rds of the book. From a page-by-page storytelling perspective, this is never unexciting, and Yukimura mixes in plenty of narrative along the way; it’s never just a fight manga. The choreography, the tenseness of the showdowns – it’s all perfect. From a top down view, though, this feels a bit like padding, letting these showdowns run for so long, and pairing two Garm fights so close together makes the second one feel a bit superfluous. This also feels like the first tonal oddity in the book, in terms of juggling humor and violence, as there are some beats during the Jomsborg raid that are played comedically… but at the expense of relative innocents. It’s weird.

If you were reading this in individual installments, I think it all works just fine, and given how much I still feel so invested in Thorfinn’s journey (and the volume’s adventure which seems him separating from, then trying to reunite with Einar and the crew), it’s easy to forgive what are ultimately minor missteps – things that happen when you’re busting out a strip of such high quality on a consistent basis, and that are really only apparent when you take a step back and read the whole thing in one go.