Vinland Saga Manga Gets TV Anime by Wit Studio

There’s no time for historically inaccurate horned helmets or Monty Python references, because Vinland Saga, a historical fiction seinen manga by Makoto Yukimura about an orphaned boy who becomes a terrifying Viking warrior, is being adapted into a TV anime with animation production by Wit Studio (Attack on Titan, The Ancient Magus’ Bride).

Aside from the key visual and teaser trailer above, few other details have been revealed about the production, although an official website and Twitter feed (@V_SAGA_ANIME) have been published. The original Vinland Saga manga is serialized in Kodansha’s Monthly Afternoon seinen manga magazine, and an English language version is also available from Kodansha Comics, who describe the story as follows:

As a child, Thorfinn sat at the feet of the great Leif Ericson and thrilled to wild tales of a land far to the west. But his youthful fantasies were shattered by a mercenary raid. Raised by the Vikings who murdered his family, Thorfinn became a terrifying warrior, forever seeking to kill the band’s leader, Askeladd, and avenge his father. Sustaining Thorfinn through his ordeal are his pride in his family and his dreams of a fertile westward land, a land without war or slavery … the land Leif called Vinland. 

Yukimura launched the series in Kodansha’s Weekly Shōnen Magazine in 2005, but Kodansha moved the series to Afternoon later that year. Kodansha published the manga’s 20th compiled book volume on November 22. The series has more than 5 million copies in print. The manga received the Best General Manga award in Kodansha’s 36th Annual Manga Awards in 2012. The series won the Grand Prize in the manga division in the Ministry of Cultural Affairs’ 13th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in 2009.

Kodansha Comics began publishing the series in North America in 2013, and the 10th omnibus volume will ship on June 5. Kodansha Comics had reported in 2015 that it could stop its English release of the manga after the seventh omnibus volume. The publisher explained at the time that it hopes that it will “be able to license the next arc, but it’s up in the air at the moment.” The company then told ANN in 2016, “we are not adding any further volumes after Book Eight to our schedule at this time.”