Did Vinland Saga Season 2 Deserve to Win Anime Of The Year Instead of Jujutsu Kaisen? (2024)

For most viewers who followed the summer and fall anime seasons last year, 2023 was the year of Jujutsu Kaisen, as it dominated the airwaves and online forums for reasons both right and wrong. Unsurprisingly, at the recently concluded 2024 Crunchyroll Anime Awards, Jujutsu Kaisen Seaon 2 emerged triumphant in 11 categories, including Anime of the Year.

Such a dominating showing was somewhat expected, although online debates in the days that followed, raised questions about the validity of the series winning the Anime of the Year award, since only a portion of Season 2 was actually being considered. In a year that also featured Vinland Saga Season 2, a work of immense artistic quality, adapting a legendary seinen manga, did Jujutsu Kaisen really deserve to come out on top, when only the first five episodes of Season 2 were actually eligible for contention?

What Defines The Anime Of The Year Category?

Bestowed upon series that holistically represent the pinnacle of anime production from the past year, Crunchyroll's Anime of the Year Award is the highest honor handed out in each edition of the Anime Awards. It is one of the few categories that has endured from the inaugural edition of the awards ceremony. Over eight editions of the Anime Awards, there have been winners from all across the spectrum of what the medium as a whole has to offer.

Previous winners ranged from 2016's breakout hit Yuri on Ice, to popular action and dark fantasy franchises such as Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer , and Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 1. Beyond this, there have also been some winners, such as Devilman Crybaby, Made in Abyss, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, which redefined norms with innovative art styles and gripping storytelling, to surpass their peers and receive this esteemed accolade.

Winners are chosen by fan votes as well as a panel of judges, although the actual weightage given to both systems of voting is not entirely clear. Nevertheless, Crunchyroll's dedication to incorporating the responses of the public is quite commendable, and looking at the list of past winners, the system has generally fared well.

A Clean Sweep For Jujutsu Kaisen In 2024

MAPPA Studio has been a dominant force in the Anime of the Year category, winning four out of eight times since its inception back in 2016. This year saw their domination reach even greater heights, with three out of the six nominees — Jujutsu Kaisen, Vinland Saga, and Chainsaw Man — being MAPPA Studio titles. Here, the studio's only real competitor was itself, and each of their nominated entries broke new ground for the medium.

What makes this interesting, is the fact that despite taking home 11 awards, only the Hidden Inventory/ Premature Death Arc of Jujutsu Kaisen — or the Gojo's Past Arc — which aired in Spring 2023, was eligible for most categories, including Anime of the Year, since entries from the fall anime season are only considered in the following year's awards. This means that the hugely successful Shibuya Incident Arc, which aired in Fall 2023 will allow Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 to be in contention again next year.

The Issues With This Verdict

There is no questioning the fact that Jujutsu Kaisen is one of the hottest anime properties at the moment, and Season 2 was a huge leap forward, as the show continued to break boundaries with its many creatively crafted fight sequences. If the entire season including the Shibuya Incident Arc was being considered, there would be few who would argue that it is more than deserving of the Anime of the Year Award, considering how it outshone all its peers in terms of sheer impact, visual storytelling, and action choreography.

By comparison, a project like Vinland Saga Season 2 — another MAPPA Studio property — would likely not stand a chance if fan fervor and excitement were the only parameters for evaluation. That being said, Vinland Saga's return in 2023 was perhaps one of the most absurd switch ups a series has successfully pulled off in recent memory, changing its tone completely from a brutal war epic fueled by revenge and violent battles, to a more introspective character drama exploring themes such as redemption, feudalism, the fallout of war, and the prospect of moving past revenge to find new purpose.

If one were to compare the two, it might seem as if Season 1 and Season 2 are entirely different shows altogether. However, this is one among many reasons why Vinland Saga Season 2 deserved the honor of being named Anime of the Year, equally, if not more so than Jujutsu Kaisen's Hidden Inventory/ Premature Death Arc. In this season of Vinland Saga, the fights of the Prologue Arc took a back seat in favor of intricate explorations of the human psyche, and how its resilience allows people to navigate loss, trauma, and changing circ*mstances.

Without relying on the tried and tested solution of generating hype with great battle sequences, Season 2 of Vinland Saga aspired to become a substantial work of art with the power to change lives and outlooks. As a series that dared to take an enormous risk in drastically changing its tone, pacing, and narrative style while garnering equal, if not greater acclaim than its initial outing, Vinland Saga Season 2 is a rare gem of unparalleled quality, amid the smorgasbord of action-centric anime airing each season.

In times when the world turns a blind eye to horrific wars raging across the world, Vinland Saga Season 2 delivered poignant reflections on why violence only holds the potential to destroy, not to reconcile. This season's crowning achievement can be encapsulated in how it translated an iconic manga panel into a moment that will undoubtedly come to define contemporary anime. Of course, this pertains to Thorfinn's "I have no enemies" speech, which highlighted just how much a person could change after rising above blind hatred and the primitive urge to wage war.

Should Vinland Saga Have Won?

Naturally, there is nothing wrong with a shonen action series winning Anime of the Year, and it is more than likely that Jujutsu Kaisen will garner more awards in this category if MAPPA Studio continues to raise the stakes every season like they have been doing. What becomes clear in all this, is that there needs to be more stringent disclaimers and restrictions on whether individual arcs of a mutli-season anime should be treated the same way as a short, self-contained miniseries, and how they can be compared to full-length seasons comprising one or two cours.

The achievements of those who worked on Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 are definitely worthy of praise, but the precedent its victory sets is far from ideal, considering that only a fraction of the entire season was actually in contention for Anime of the Year. Hence, is it not reasonable to inquire whether 5 episodes of a great show are really more deserving of the award than an entire two-cour season of 24 episodes, which elevated its already incredible source material into something truly extraordinary?