How Can You Tell a First Printing of Vinland Saga?

For Vinland Saga the first-printing question splits in two. For volumes 1 and 2, the true first editions are not Afternoon KC books at all: they are the 2005 Shōnen Magazine Comics printings (vol. 1 ISBN 978-4-06-363559-1; vol. 2 ISBN 978-4-06-363580-5), identifiable at a glance by the imprint banner and the red, map-backed cover design. The Afternoon KC versions, however early, are reissues.

For any Japanese tankōbon, the decisive evidence is the colophon page at the back of the book, where Japanese publishers print the edition history: the first-printing date is given with the printing line (初版, “first printing,” followed by the impression number for later printings). Match three things and a copy identifies itself: the ISBN against the publisher’s record for that edition, the imprint on spine and colophon, and the printing line on the colophon itself.

Handle obi and inserts as supporting evidence only. The paper band (obi) and any first-release inserts belong to a book’s first release period, and collectors prize them, but bands get swapped between copies; the colophon does not lie and the band can. This page states the method rather than a census: individual print-run sizes for Vinland Saga are not published, and no honest page will invent them.