He also wrote Planetes, which was at least socially progressive – prominent female black character, not caricatured either – though I don’t remember the rest of the politics well (it’s been holy shit more than twenty years since I read it and iirc the anime did its own thing with the terrorist plot). I was a fan long before Vinland Saga took off and he did always give me the impression he was left adjacent but that was also before I became a commie, lol