Fans of the long-running Attack on Titan who are sad about the anime’s finale season have another perfectly fitting series to check out if they haven’t already. Vinland Saga is loosely based on the historical events of Icelandic explorers who chartered a campaign to settle in North America.
While Vinland Saga focuses more on fantastical realism, Attack on Titan embraces the fantasy element with its giant human-eating monsters. While these franchises have differences in theme, Attack on Titan and Vinland Saga are both brutally violent and action-packed shonen anime. Along with genre likenesses, these two series are revealed to be even more similar when comparing their protagonists.
The Similarities Between Attack on Titan’s Eren and Vinland Saga’s Thorfinn
Thorfinn from Vinland Saga started life as a happy child whose parents were harboring a secret backstory. He became the character he is today from grueling hard work, aiming to become the perfect warrior and get revenge against the person responsible for the death of a loved one. While not unique to Vinland Saga, this motive sounds eerily familiar to another character from a similar franchise.
Attack on Titan’s lead character Eren Yeager also starts off as a pretty happy child while his father harbored a secret backstory. As the story proceeds, Eren goes through grueling training to become a perfect warrior to get revenge against the monsters that killed his mother.
The similarities between Eren and Thorfinn start in their childhoods. While Eren lost his mother as a teenager and Thorfinn lost his father as a young child, both boys also first committed murder at a young age. In self-defense, they began killing around the same time of their lives. It should also be noted that, as children, Eren and Thorfinn both seemed to have trouble fitting in among peers their age, with Thorfinn even breaking the bones of his fellow village children.
Following the deaths of their loved ones, they commit to extensive and exhausting training with the goal of getting revenge against those responsible for the murders. While neither character would be aware of it at first, in both cases those deaths turn out to be politically motivated.
Both Attack on Titan’s Eren and Vinland Saga’s Thorfinn would adapt rather gruff personalities as their respective series progressed, due to their lack of proper coping skills when handling the harsh realities of their worlds. They would continue to be outspoken about their declarations to kill the ones responsible for their lost loved ones, reminding everyone around them of their goals.
Attack on Titan and Vinland Saga’s Similarities in Anime Production
Along with their lead protagonists’ stories and motivations, Vinland Saga and Attack on Titan also share similarities in their production history. Both anime began with production by an animation company called WIT Studio.
WIT has picked up some exciting franchises over the last few years. Previously seeming to specialize in more brutally violent and action-packed animation, WIT has more recently garnered much attention for more mild works like the crime drama The Great Pretender and the popular family comedy Spy x Family.
While WIT Studio did fantastic work on Attack on Titan for its first three seasons and Vinland Saga’s debut season, both shows would later be picked up by Studio MAPPA. Part Three of Attack on Titan’s final season and Vinland Saga Season 2 are both currently scheduled for a 2023 release. When they arrive, perhaps even more similarities between Eren and Thorfinn will begin to emerge.
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