5 out of 5

Yukimura-san has used some tricks to keep his shonen readers engaged in his historical farming manga, including starting us deep in the weeds of blood-soaked action, and building up central character Thorfinn as something of an antihero, then using frequent skirmishes and visualized nightmares as the distractions for when Thorfinn began on his nonviolent redemption arc… leading us to volume 13: our arrival in Vinland.

Trouble still brews internally and externally, of course: some members of Thorfinn’s settlers don’t quite follow his peaceful precepts, and the Indians on whose land Thorfinn is hoping to coexist present some language and cultural barriers, but… Vinland Saga volume 13 has no need to find excuses for fight scenes or bodily harm; the drama is exclusively found through conversation, and character development, and even when the story finds some easy opportunities to swing a sword or fire a crossbow, an impression is made instead by not doing that.

Not that I’m against all that good ol’ violence, but it’s also a rewarding feeling to – as i quipped above – wring so much investment from a reader with Norse and Indian factoids and farming facts, and to again realize how well sketched are our characters. The release felt at Volume 13’s conclusion is palpable (yes, it’s a tearjerker), and a major underlining of Yoshimura’s craft in writing (with kudos to translator Stephen Paul), and the pacing, fantastic acting, and precision of his art.