Tag: Shunsuke Takeuchi

Vinland Saga Season Two Review: From Epic Viking Tale to Epic Farming Simulator.

Vinland Saga is an all-time great manga and the first season of its adaptation, made by Wit Studio, was amazing.
After finally watching it, I was too interested to wait for Season Two and read the manga.
I was quite surprised by the direction Makoto Yukimura took the story, with the setting changing from the brutal viking battlefields to a farm.
This was far from a bad thing though as Yukimura crafted a beautiful arc centering around the horrors of slavery and pointlessness of war.
It also serves as the beginning of Thorfinn’s (Yūto Uemura) redemption, and now Studio Mappa has adapted this storyline flawlessly.

Thorfinn’s story of redemption is brilliantly adapted by Mappa.

Season One ended with a tease of various characters important to the future of the story.
One of these characters was Einar (Shunsuke Takeuchi), a man who was enslaved after his family was murdered.
Season Two’s first episode sees Einar being bought to work on a farm by land owner Ketil (Hideaki Tezuka).
It is here that he meets Thorfinn, who was also sold into slavery after Season One and is now aimless in his life and suffering from the guilt of what he did while working for Askeladd.
From there, the season follows the two as they work to gain their freedom and grow closer as brothers, while Thorfinn slowly changes for the better in realizing what he needs to do to become a true warrior. 

Thorfinn’s journey in Season Two puts on the path to becoming a true warrior.

At the farm,Thorfinn, Einar, and the audience are introduced to various interesting new characters like Snake (Fuminori Komatsu), Arnheid (Mayumi Sako), Sverkel (Mugihito), and Olmar (Yū Hayashi), all of whom have their own parts to play in commentating on the themes of the story.
All the while, Canute (Kensho Ono) is slowly consolidating his power, becoming more and more like his cruel father as each year follows, eventually building to a tense confrontation with Thorfinn.

While Thorfinn rises, Canute falls into darkness, until their fateful meeting.

Season Two’s story may be of lesser scope and have lesser stakes than the first season but this does not make it any less impactful, with Thorfinn’s growth being especially moving.
Accompanying the excellent arcs of many of the characters is the animation, which Mappa excels at as expected.
The score is also beautiful, with the piano notes composed by Yutaka Yamade being tear inducing during certain tragic scenes.
Speaking of the music, the openings for Season Two are also fantastic.
The first one is “River” by Anonymouz, which seems to highlight Thorfinn’s growth in the first half of the season, and the second OP is “Paradox” by Survive Said the Prophet, which appears to represent the challenges to Thorfinn’s new mindsets, including the consequences of the escaped slave Gardar, and the now ruthless Canute.  

Both OPs perfectly reflect the tone and events of each half of the season.

By the end of the season, it was clear that Mappa had done a masterful job of adapting the Farm Arc, both in their faithful recreation of scenes from the manga, and in new, interesting anime original moments like Einar’s past in the first episode.
I hope that Vinland Saga continues to get the brilliant adaptation it has been getting so far, with hopefully a Season Three and fingers crossed an eventual Season Four.

Akudama Drive Review: You Done Good Studio Pierrot.

4 and a half stars
If I’m honest, before watching Akudama Drive, I didn’t have the best opinion of Studio Pierrot.
I only knew of them through watching their adaptation of Tokyo Ghoul, which, if you’ve seen my review of each season, you’ll know I thought was atrociously adapted in the last few seasons.
However, now having watched Akudama Drive based off recommendations, I can say that I need to give this studio more credit because, while they have made mistakes in the past, as seen with Tokyo Ghoul, they can make truly fantastic work.
Akudama Drive is one such anime, with its fast-paced, energetic action and great cast of characters. 

All of the main characters in Akudama Drive are memorable and a lot of fun.

Directed by Tomohisa Taguchi, Akudama Drive is set in a Cyberpunk Japan where the Kansai Region has been taken over by the Kantō region, and high ranking criminals, known as Akudamas, are hunted by Executioners.
Our main character is an Ordinary Person (Tomoyo Kurosawa) who, due to a set of extreme situations, has to become the Swindler and join a powerful group of Akudama, who are then hired to rob the deified Shinkansen.
Although, some backstory was sorely needed for many of these Akudama, I came to like, or love to hate in some instances, all of them.
There’s the always business focused Courier (Yūichirō Umehara), the fighting obsessed Brawler (Shunsuke Takeuchi), the big-talk, suck up Hoodlum (Sabaru Kimaru), the power hungry Doctor (Megumi Ogata), the psychopathic Cutthroat (Takahiro Sakurai), and the technologically genius Hacker (Shun Horie).
Out of all of these Akudama, I would say that my favourites of the bunch are Swindler, Courier, and Hoodlum.
Swinder and Hoodlum were both characters with fantastic character development that really made me care for them and their arcs.

Watching Swindler and Hoodlum go from newbie Akudamas to big time criminals was a blast to watch.

Courier was more of an interesting case because I was mainly indifferent to him for most of the anime, until the last three or four episodes really got me on board with his character.
It’s not just the Akudama that are great characters, though, because the Executioners are also a lot of fun, with Master (Akio Ōtsuka) and Pupil (Yumiri Hanamori) being standouts.
However, this is where my one big criticism of the show comes into play.
All of the Akudama are given fantastic endings to their character arcs, however, many of the Executioners get no ending at all.
It honestly feels like they had something big planned for some of their characters but it got cut for time in the final episode.
Now, it was recently revealed that five minutes of cut footage from the final episode would appear in the Blu-ray so hopefully this footage is the missing conclusion to many of the Executioner’s arcs. 

Even if their story isn’t concluded well though, I still found the Executioners’ role in the story fitting.

It would also be nice if a lot of the gore could be uncensored in the Blu-ray because the censorship did get a bit distracting, especially in Episode Nine.
Although, this censorship thankfully didn’t stop the action from being adrenaline pumping with a lot of hype moments, helped by excellent animation, especially in the first few episodes and the last one.
The score also helped these scenes, with it being fun to listen to. 
This also extends to the OP and ED, with the OP, STEAL! by SPARK!!SOUND!!SHOW!!, being an absolute banger that I have listened to for days on end on Spotify.  
Overall, Akudama Drive is a fantastic anime that mixes cyberpunk with anime incredibly well.
Some characters may be missing conclusions to their arcs but, if this is fixed in the Blu-ray, then this could be an all time great anime.