Talk:Vinland Saga (manga)

Untitled

Hey, I`ve added the German Publisher, Carlsen Manga. Here`s the source: http://www.carlsen.de/web/manga/buch?tn=175842 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.134.78.219 (talk) 14:42, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Two notes for the WP:GA reviewer

First, I am nominating this article for WP:GA on the basis of it presently being a "finished" page: aside from occasional maintenance updates as chapters and volumes are released, there is nothing more to say about Vinland Saga than what is currently in the article. The page is necessarily short, as it on a manga series with no official English presence. If/when the series is licensed by an English distributor, it will be meaningfully expandable once more, but for now there's nothing else you could write aside from endless retelling of the manga itself.

Second, you will notice I have not used in-line references for the plot or character sections. This is intentional, not an oversight, and is based on the fact that all featured literature articles avoid using in-line citations for these sections if the information is from the primary source.

Thank you for volunteering your time to review this article, and have a good day. --erachima talk 09:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

While this is not a GA review, I do monitor the WP:ANIME/ASSESS page, and all B-Class upgrades. The article leaves a bit to be desired in terms of the following:

• The lead is too short (The norm for good articles are about 3-4 paragraphs) I recommend the following (See Tokyo Mew Mew for a sample lead):
  • Split "The series is about the Danish invaders" into a second paragraph. Expand a bit, as there is current very little information about the the plot within the lead, also include character information there.
  • Move "Vinland Saga is published by ... six tankōbon." after "author of Planetes." (Same paragraph)
  • Add some "reception" information in the lead.
    • "The presentation and style of the series has been compared by reviewers to that found in the more realistically grounded segments of Kentarō Miura's classic dark fantasy manga Berserk."—good, I like it; but would insert something like "...Berserk and is a commercial success in Japan, with the first five volumes making the x top ten list x times."
• Split column one of the media table into two columns, it is currently difficult to read.
  • The table also needs some information, refer to List of Claymore chapters for an example. The "lead" to the list is also too short.
    • Consider a summary of the plot within the list, although it is a bit of a duplication of Plot, each will be specific to the specific volume. (Refer to the FL) G.A.S 05:12, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
• The "lead" to the character list is too short.
  • Change the list to a definition list, it is more neat.
• All paragraphs with less than 100-150 words should be either combined with other paragraphs, or expanded.

Regards, G.A.S 11:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:LEAD would suggest 1-2 full paragraphs for an article this size. But good suggestions overall, thank you. --erachima talk 11:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

True, but the lead should also cover all important information, though briefly. G.A.S 12:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I considered both your latest points there when I was updating the article earlier today and decided against them.

The two pieces of reception information in the intro are split up because the lead currently divides nicely into a "quantitative" paragraph (series name, author, publisher, sales) and a "qualitative" paragraph (series theme, plot, reviews). If more information comes out that allows the lead to be expanded, then a three paragraph lead of basic facts, basic plot, and basic reception would be more appropriate, but for now I like the current arrangement.

For the media section, I believe we'd start running into article balance issues if we added volume summaries. This article is about the series as a whole, so its plot summary is focused on the series as a whole. When you spin the volume info out into a chapter list, then it makes sense to describe the events of the series by volume, but I don't believe we're at that point where we can justify a separate chapter list yet, either by article length or by series notability.

A comparable case would be the articles on long-running television shows or anime, which feature generalized plot summaries in the main article, arc summaries in the master episode list, and only add individual episode summaries when they begin breaking down the episode list by season.

If you still disagree, I'd be willing to switch stuff around, but my experience suggests the current arrangement. --erachima talk 06:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Disagree, no. Merely suggesting. Good work in fixing the issues! G.A.S 06:35, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Well alright then, and thanks again. Now I just have to wait for the month long backlog on WP:GAN to clear up so this page actually gets reviewed. --erachima talk 06:57, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Askeladd

In the characters section, it says that Askeladd is English, In all the scans I've read it says he is part Welsh, which is he? --Conradical247 (talk) 11:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

You are indeed correct, chapter 26 says that Askeladd is part Welsh. Good catch, thank you. --erachima talk 23:32, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually he is both Welsh and English, look up his name and read the later chapter's you'll see.

He is Welsh and Danish, not welsh and english. Which is ironic because Askeladd hates Danes — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.202.195.69 (talk) 01:34, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Notes need correction

As the webmaster/blogger for a number of the notes referred to in this article, I would like to request that Edward Chavez be changed to Eduardo Chavez. And that the spelling of MangaCast be consistent throughout the piece.

I would like to change those details myself but according to the Wikipedia Guidelines under Content - Autobiography: Avoid writing or editing articles about yourself - I should leave that to someone else. Thanks. 219.105.105.51 (talk) 14:34, 2 September 2008 (UTC)Ed Chavez

Done and done. I don't believe the rules on autobiographical edits would apply to correcting your own name though, since that's not going to be a controversial edit. (Thanks for the review by the way, this article wouldn't be possible without it.) --erachima talk 08:04, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Vinland Saga (manga)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

I'll be reviewing this page. I enjoyed the anime version of Planetes but I had not heard of this series before. The first thing I ask is that as much of the Japanese text be translated as possible since I don't know a stitch of Japanese. Particularly the references to Amazon.com pages, which shouldn't be very difficult. Keep the Japanese text, but append the English translation in parentheses. Thanks. Wronkiew (talk) 17:52, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

i.e. "ヴィンランド・サガ 1 (1) (少年マガジンコミックス): 幸村 誠: 本: (Vinland Saga 1 (1) (Shonen Magajinkomikkusu) (comic))".? --erachima talk 18:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. If you can find a way to do it without multiple layers of parentheses, that would be better. Also, is the correct translation "comic" or "manga"? Wronkiew (talk) 18:05, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately there's no "eng_title" variable for the web cite template, so I think it's going to have to stay with the parentheses in it unless one of us can think of a better format. And yes, in this case the translation is indeed comic, not manga, as the Japanese text literally reads "comic" (コミック, comikku). ("Magajinkomikkusu" appears to be the name of a particular manga label, incidentally.) Anyway, I think I'm going to wait until you finish making your suggestions before I start fixing anything, since I'm working on some stuff besides just Wikipedia at the moment. Thank you for agreeing to review the page though. --erachima talk 18:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

As an update, there is now a trans_title= variable in the citation templates, for just this use. —Quasirandom (talk) 16:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Well written (prose)

• [Done] "At this time King Sweyn was drawing near death and there was a succession dispute between his sons Prince Harald and Prince Canute." Verbose, delete "at this time" and rewrite to eliminate "there was". Maybe "death and his sons...were arguing over succession".
• [Done] "The band chances upon a besieged Frankish fortress and makes a deal with the attacking army to work with them in exchange for half the fort's plunder." Not necessary to use "upon" when "on" will do.
• "Askeladd succeeds in obtaining the prince, but is forced once again to flee from Thorkell's larger army." Verbose, replace with "obtains".

  Okay then, "captures" instead of "succeeds in capturing". Wronkiew (talk) 22:50, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• [Done] "All major characters so far have been of Danish descent, Vikings brought to England to assist King Sweyn's invasion of the country." Avoid statements that will look silly after volume 7 comes out.
• [Done] "Ten years prior to the main Vinland Saga storyline, Askeladd accepted a contract to assassinate Thors, father of Thorfinn." Verbose, replace with "before".
• [Done] "Prior to Thors' defection he works with and highly respects the man, and bears a fondness for his son Thorfinn in the main plot." Replace with "Before".
• [Done] "This switch was caused by author Makoto Yukimura, who found he couldn't keep up a long-term weekly production schedule." Replace contraction.
• [Done] "In volume two, Yukimura's omake is about a research trip he took to Iceland in 2003 prior to beginning the series, and the author's commentary sections in volumes one and three both discuss Yukimura's desire to learn about and portray the daily lives of vikings in addition to their wars and the events of historical chronicles." Replace with before. Also, break up the sentence at "and the author's commentary".
• [Done] "Vinland Saga has been commercially successful in Japan, with combined sales of 1.2 million copies for the first 5 tankōbon and several visits to the top ten manga sales list." Spell out "five".
• [Done] "Two differing editions of volumes 1 and 2 exist, as they were first released under the Weekly Shōnen imprint and then reprinted by Afternoon following the manga's serialization switch." Spell out "one" and "two". Or say "first and second volumes".
• [Done] "As of August 2008, there have been six Vinland Saga tankōbon published in Japan." Avoid saying "there" if it doesn't refer to anything. Maybe "2008, six Vinland Saga tankōbon have been published..."
• [Done] Split long sentences that combine multiple concepts, like this one: "Two primary criticisms were also levied: the reviewer found he had to suspend his disbelief more often than he would have liked to in a historical fiction series and worried that the then-upcoming switch to monthly serialization was a sign that the series production would 'slow to a crawl'."
• [Done] Also this: "In a January 2008 interview, Yukimura revealed that he was inspired to enter the manga industry by reading the manga Fist of the North Star as a boy, and that he had always wanted to produce a series which reflected the same themes of 'strength and justice'."
• [Done] This too: "The manga has not been acquired by any English licensing company and is available in English only via unofficial scanlations, a fact lamented by The Comics Journal in a 2006 article highlighting worthy unlicensed manga and scanlation groups."
• [Done] Capitalization of "Vikings" should be consistent.

Well written (MoS)

• Lead section
  • The first sentence should mention that this is a manga about Vikings. Maybe make the Planetes reference be the second sentence.
  • Remove specialized terminology from the introduction.
    • [Done]mangaka
    • [Done]seinen
    • [Done]tankōbon
  • Some statements need reference citations in the introduction.
    • "a best-seller in Japan"
    • "legendary Jomsviking clan"
    • [Done] "compared by reviewers"
• Layout
  • [Removed-box has been deprecated]Move the Japanese characters box to a section that has Japanese characters.
  • [Done]Eliminate the See also section and move the link to Vinland sagas to the top as a "perhaps you were looking for" link. See Wikipedia:Hatnotes#Two_articles_with_similar_titles.
  • [Done]Move the References section below the Notes section.

*Jargon

• • Provide enough context to understand unfamiliar words on first use.
    • [Done] bishōnen
    • [Done] seinen
    • [Done] tankōbon
    • [Done] omake
    • [Done] scanlations
    • [Done] shōnen
• Words to avoid
  • "It did, however, mention that the "over-the-top" combat scenes detracted from the historical feel." Fails the guideline for use of "however". See Wikipedia:WTA#However.2C_although.2C_whereas.2C_despite. However, you may not need to fix this sentence because it references an unreliable source, see below.

    Now it has "claimed" which is another word to avoid. Wronkiew (talk) 22:50, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Verifiable (references)

• Translate enough of the source citations to allow readers unfamiliar with Japanese to determine what type of source is being referenced. Generally the title and publisher should be enough.

Verifiable (citations)

• "Scanlation Spotlight:Vinland Saga" is not a reliable source, and the content supported by this source is not critical to the article. Remove the source and the content.
• "Vinland Saga is set in England in 1013 AD, the year in which Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard conquered the nation." Needs a reference for the date.
• "The story draws elements from historical accounts of the period such as The Flateyjarbók, The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Eric the Red." Needs a reference for drawing elements from these historical works.
• Add a reference to the end of the Plot section to indicate where the information came from.
• [Done] "He is half-Danish and half-Welsh, being the son of a Welsh princess captured by a Viking raider." Needs a reference for the ancestry.
• "Bjorn dies in Gainsborough from injuries sustained protecting Prince Canute." Needs a reference for the place of death.
• "Thorfinn is a teenage warrior in Askeladd's company, though he hates his commander for slaying his father Thors and has sworn to kill him in a duel." Needs a reference for his feelings.
• "Thorfinn is a Jomsviking noble through his mother Helga and inherited superb physical talents from his father." Needs a reference for the ancestry.
• "Thorfinn has no explicit historical basis." Needs a reference.
• "Thors is the father of Thorfinn, a Jomsviking general whose phenomenal combat prowess earns him the epithet 'The Troll of Jom'." Needs a reference for the epithet.
• "Thors grows weary of battle after the birth of his children, fakes his own death, and retires to become a pacifist farmer." Needs a reference for faking his death.
• "Before he can arrive at the theater of war he is betrayed by a former comrade, Floki, who hires Askeladd to assassinate him." Needs references for the betrayal and hiring an assassin.
• "Like his son, Thors has no explicit historical basis." Needs a reference.
• "Thorkell is another Jomsviking general, a giant man who loves combat so much that he defects from the Danish army to become a mercenary for the English, believing that fighting his fellow Vikings will give him a better challenge." Needs a reference for the defection.
• "Thorkell's character is Thorkell the Tall, a historical Jomsviking lord who is a mentor to Canute in the Flateyjarbók." Needs a reference for the historical similarity.
• "Canute is the 17-year-old prince of the Danes." Needs a reference for the age.
• "After Ragnar's death, however, he has a sharp reversal of personality, becomes strong and kingly, and develops an ambition to create utopia on earth before God's return." Needs a reference for his ambition.
• "Canute is historical king Canute the Great, the most prominent Danish ruler of England." Needs a reference for the historical similarity.

Images (captions)

• [Done]Put a " " in "volume 1" so the second line doesn't begin with "1".
• [Done]Captions that are not sentences should not end with a period.
• [Done]Rewrite the second caption as: "Vinland Saga's chapter cover art improved between its time as a weekly (top) and a monthly (bottom)." You could also start with: "The detail of Vinland..."

If these issues are fixed then I believe this article will meet the criteria. Until then I'm putting it on hold. Wronkiew (talk) 04:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

In the absence of recent edits, I try to fix the issues, as I was not watching this page before. Please extend the deadline for me to do so a bit. G.A.S 15:02, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Question to Wronkiew: given the statement that the series is a best-seller in Japan is referenced in the body, does it need to also be in the lead? My understanding from WP:LEAD is no, as the lead should have no content that's not in the body, with all references in the latter. (Not being argumentative, but there is some confusion over this point.) —Quasirandom (talk) 20:04, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:LEAD says that some statements, need to be referenced in the lead, particularly counterintuitive statements and statistics. Wronkiew (talk) 22:50, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Great job so far, I hope to see some of the final issues addressed so I can promote the article. About the attribution issues, I saw the comments on the discussion page about generic references for plot summaries. I'm uncomfortable with general references for Good and Featured Articles, but I can live with it for minor/in-universe statements. If you feel that an inline citation is unnecessary for any of these, just note that instead of fixing it. Wronkiew (talk) 22:50, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

This article is really close to GA standard but there are a number of unresolved issues. It has been on hold for more than a week and I will have to fail it soon if there is no progress. Wronkiew (talk) 19:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I have to decline to promote the article because there has not been any progress on it for several days. It really is very close to the GA standard, but there are a few things left to fix. I am unable to fix them for the reasons I described above. When these issues are addressed, please re-submit it to GAN. Wronkiew (talk) 03:06, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Adressing GA Review concerns

I've done as much as I can -- most of the rest are referencing concerns, largely to events of the manga, and without having the series myself, I cannot address them. I can pitch in with other editorial things that come up, but my work, alas, appears to be done.

(BTW, to anyone who's just reading this page without looking at subpage, just so you know, transclusions are running way behind on Wikipedia these days -- as in taking over a day sometimes to appear. This has been especially annoying when reading through AfD pages.) —Quasirandom (talk) 19:43, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, thank you very much for what you have been able to do. I'm going to try to finish up the referencing bits this weekend. --erachima talk 19:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Dropping it here until i have time

A bunch of reviews in French: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] --KrebMarkt 15:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Grand Prize Japan Media Art Festival 2009 --KrebMarkt 10:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
• Japan Media Art Festival Critique some judges called it "ultra-orthodox adventure story"
• Japan Media Art Festival Symposium development info --KrebMarkt 18:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Split episode list?

Since the list of episodes is a sizeable chunk of this page and will only get bigger, perhaps it's time to split them off into a List of Vinland Saga episodes page? — Kawnhr (talk) 16:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Vinland Saga´s demographic

The manga ran in a Shounen mag for two volumes and then switched over to a Seinen publication. These volumes were then republished with new covers (the chapter list has the ISBNs). Cross-demographic manga are rare but exist yet Viland Saga isn´t one of them. The change to an older readership was permanent and lead to a slight difference in art and presentation of content. The giveaway that only adult readers are now targeted can be seen here. Pages from the most recent arc: https://aqm.hatenablog.jp/entry/2022/05/25/235900 There is no furigana present in the text boxes to help younger readers. This is a dead giveaway that this is a manga for adults. So it can´t be part of the Shounen (or even Shoujo) demographic anymore. Here are legal RAWs from the first 5 chapters: https://comic-days.com/episode/13932016480029466292 Notice the furigana on basically every page? Kodansha would have kept these reading aids if they wanted to keep teen readers from one of their Shounen mags and the author would have simply switched over to Monthly Shounen Sirius if only a change in the pace of releases was intended and not the demographic. It wouldn´t be wrong to say in the infobox Formerly Shounen or Shounen 2005-2006 but the manga hasn´t been since 2006. That was just one year in the history of the manga. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.64.147.12 (talk) 13:32, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

This is just the standard for any series that was moved from a shōnen manga magazine to a seinen manga magazine (or vice versa) regardless of how long they were published there, like Steel Ball Run, Dorohedoro, Bastard!!, The Kindaichi Case Files, Hayate × Blade, etc. In the magazine parameter is already mentioned the period when it was published there, so it would be redundant to add something like "shonen (former), seinen (current)" or similar. Xexerss (talk) 13:48, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Adaptation

@Xexerss: After expanding some character articles and seeing the new infor above, I kinda wonder if it's okay to split this article into one for the manga. This current Vinland Saga article already has 76 kylobites but I really don't know of a good example to follow for the anime adaptation. Kinda like Attack on Titan (TV series)?Tintor2 (talk) 21:51, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Fine by me. There are various sources covering the anime adaptation alone, including production and reception. Xexerss (talk) 22:49, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

@Xexerss: Split completed. I used the Attack on Titan article as example but I have no idea how we should organize considering there are far more interviews about how the anime of Vinland was created.Tintor2 (talk) 17:28, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Vinland Saga (manga)/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Kung Fu Man (talk · contribs) 06:04, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Well-written

(a) the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct:

(b) it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

Verifiable with no original research

(a) it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

(b) reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

(c) it contains no original research:

(d) it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism:

Broad in its coverage

(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic:

(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

Neutral

• Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

Stable

• Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

Illustrated

(a) media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

(b) media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

Overall

1. Well-written
2. Verifiable with no original research
3. Broad in its coverage
4. Neutral
5. Stable
6. Illustrated

• Production

1. I feel like the lead sentence needs to better explain Makoto Yukimura's role in the production. Was it conceived by him? Also might mention from the getgo he wrote and illustrated the thing too as the lead mentions.

• • Added extra sentence. Yeah. It was all his ideas except more or less the Viking stuff which came from his editor.
• Influences

1. "Yukimura was motivated to make him the protagonist because he would have more freedom." - Freedom in what way? I'm guessing as a writer or with the story overall but I don't want to assume.

• • Since the real Thorfinn wasn't that famous when compared with Leif, he had more creative liberties with Thorfinn rather than a famous one.

1. "They have a seeming father-son relationship as at the beginning of the series; Yukimura was planning Askeladd's death and Thorfinn's reaction to it." This sentence feels worded a bit weirdly?

• • Reworded

• Themes

1. The image of discovering America may be better to remove here as it does feel a bit image heavy at the moment, even if they're free use. Just too much at the reader at once?

• • Removed

1. "Yukimura believed that they also are unable to have their own ideals to live, which he disliked when reading." When reading historical accounts of them?

• • Reworded. Basically, the message of the manga. Always have ideals in your life.

1. "The handling of the Vikings was that they admired the strength from each of their mates, with Askeladd being respected as a result, but nevertheless, there are several betrayals." This sentence also feels a bit weird. Is it referring to their wives and how does that factor into the rest as a result? I'm a bit confused by it.

• • Reworded. The Vikings were seen as heroes back then but Yukimura also wanted to see their horrible area too.

That's all I've really got. Had to do a light copyedit. Manga Sanctuary also gave me a light pause due to the site look/lack of an author name, but saw on the anime project source list they were marked reliable. Overall these are the only issues I have with the article, it's a very good read!--Kung Fu Man (talk) 06:04, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

@Kung Fu Man: Revised everything. Thanks for the review.Tintor2 (talk) 15:00, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Alright, spot check done, issues resolved, everything good. Good job on the article, passing it for GAN!--Kung Fu Man (talk) 16:20, 22 July 2023 (UTC)