Vinland Saga Author Shares 2 Currently Serializing Manga He Reads And Recommends To Fans

Makoto Yukimura, the author of the iconic manga series Vinland Saga, is one of those few mangakas who is pretty active on Twitter (X) and he keeps going there (for better or worse) to interact with his fandom to keep getting their feedback.

In a recent Tweet dated May 4, 2024, Yukimura-sensei informed that he is going to be a judge for the Kodansha Manga Award and it’s special role for him cause’ he gets to read a lot of manga in the process.

A fan replied to his Tweet, asking sensei to share all the manga he likes.

And Yukimura-sensei knows the list is quite extensive. So he listed 2 ongoing manga that he likes to currently read!

Heavenly Delusion (Tengoku Daimakyo)

Written by Masakazu Ishiguro, Heavenly Delusion is an underrated Sci-Fi, mystery seinen manga that also had its first anime season air in April 2023. It received a lot of praise in the community for its unique approach to the post-apocalyptic genre by mixing modern sci-fi elements with the typical multidimensional aesthetic. This manga doesn’t waste any time in idle introduction and kick starts the plot right from the beginning with no context given on what kind of world the characters inhabit.

It even got nominated in the Crunchyroll anime Awards 2024 but won Anime Trending’s 10th Anime Awards by being awarded the “Anime of the Year”!

The plot of Heavenly Delusion goes as follows:

Fifteen years ago, disaster struck human civilization, and now dangerous man-eating monsters roam the ravaged lands, posing an existential threat to the remaining survivors. Amid this turmoil, an isolated facility shelters children and nurtures them in peace. However, as a few among them find out about the world beyond the narrow periphery of their nursery’s walls, their curiosity about it slowly grows.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, young survivors Maru and Kiruko band together to search for a special place called Heaven, each for their own reasons. Carrying past burdens and tragic secrets, the two hope to find answers to the cruelty they have experienced in their lives and in the world, which still remains in tatters.

Delicious in Dungeon (Dungeon Meshi)

Delicious in Dungeon is another seinen manga in Yukimura-sensei’s “manga tier-list” but this is more light-hearted than Heavenly Delusion. As the name shows, this is a fantasy-series about cooking. Seems like sensei would get hungry while drawing Vinland Saga…

The plot of Delicious in Dungeon goes as follows:

After the Golden Kingdom is sunk underground by an insane magician, its king emerges, promising all of his treasure to any who defeat the magician, before crumbling to dust. Guilds are spurred on by this promise, traversing the labyrinthine dungeon in search of the magician. Laios, the leader of one such guild, encounters a dragon that wipes out his party and devours his sister Falin. Despite having lost the entirety of their supplies and belongings, Laios along with Marcille, an elven healer, and Chilchuck, a halfling thief, immediately reenter the dungeon, determined to save Falin.

Time being of the essence, Laios suggests the taboo of eating the monsters of the dungeon as a means of gathering supplies. Upon the preparation of their first meal in the dungeon, they are stopped by an onlooking dwarf named Senshi. An enthusiast of monster cooking, he helps them prepare their monster ingredients for safe consumption. After learning of Laios’ circumstances, Senshi expresses his desire to cook a dragon and joins their guild, thus beginning their food-filled foray into the dungeon together.

Makoto Yukimura once recommended Mamoru Aoi’s My Girlfriend’s Child as the author skill and earnest approach to creation touched his heart.

About Vinland Saga:

Vinland Saga is a Japanese historical manga series written and illustrated by Makoto Yukimura. The series is published by Kodansha, and was first serialized in the boys-targeted manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine before moving to the monthly manga magazine Monthly Afternoon, aimed at young adult men. As of June 2023, its chapters have been collected in 27 tankōbon volumes.

Vinland Saga Season 2 premiered on January 9, 2023, in Japan, and is now available for streaming on platforms like Netflix and Crunchyroll outside of Japan.

The second season has 24 episodes, and although the animation studio responsible for its production changed from WIT to MAPPA, the team working on the anime remains the same as in Season 1.

Kodansha describes the overall plot of Vinland Saga 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.

Source: Makoto Yukimura’s Twitter