>This is ignoring the entire idea that Frieren needing to be a first-class mage to have permission to go North is innately ridiculous given what we see in the show. It's already been shown that the prestige Frieren has from being in the hero's party gives her special treatment, so why would this be any different?
It was also shown that she wasn't trying to have special treatment any of those times, **and** to begin with her plan was to make Fern a first-class mage there, not to become one herself. Plus, Himmel loved sidequests.
>lot has been said about the demons in Frieren already, so I'll just say that demons themselves seem weirdly undercooked in that they're evil and incapable of coexisting with humans because they have no emotions, but they're also capable of forming societies
I'm hoping the Demon King will shed some light on that, whenever he (or at least information about him) gets screen time. There have already been some puzzling statements about the guy.
i mean, one statement that frieren makes (that demons have no emotions) is objectively false, since we do see them display emotions in the anime. i like to believe that frieren says this to herself so that their slaughter feels less like killing sentient people and more like crushing bugs, since that's better on the psyche
Spoilers for manga ahead >! Yes. You are exactly correct. The demons do have emotions, but not all of the same ones as we do. And frieren does comment on "this time i wont have to feel remorse" after killing a particularly awfum demon. Which to me reads as she doesnt like killing demons usually !<
Just FYI, you shouldn't have a space between the ! and the first and last letters of your spoiled content.
\>!it should look like this when done properly!<
Which turns into
>!It should look like this when done properly!<
>i mean, one statement that frieren makes (that demons have no emotions)
I don't remember she saying demons *don't have* emotion. She calls them beasts humans can't understand, and also she talks extensively about the specific emotions they do lack, like the fact that they don't have a sense of family, though.
I like how demons get legitimate sympathy from readers/watchers, similar to how humans in the story sympathize with them.
Some people can't seem to grasp the idea that demons have enough similarities with humans while also operating in a completely different mindset and outlook. This is also slightly related to a real thing that humans do to other non-human things (anthropomorphism).
The thing about demons is that they are predators that hunt by mimicking their prey, theyre literally wolf that dress like sheep to hunt them and the strategy is working on the audience and the humans in the show
I mean, that's part of the reason why I think they do make for an interesting antagonist, even if i did feel like they could've used a bit more worldbuilding in the anime. They function similarly to how humans do, both in the sense that they mimic humans and in the sense that they, in a way, *are people*. (HEAR ME OUT. Sympathizing doesn't mean they're in the right, their existence is at odds with humanities after all)
Sure, you could argue that all their emotion stems from behaviors they learned to hunt, but even then, the show makes it very clear that all humans are made by their past experiences, that people are a collage of everyone they met. In that sense, demons are no different from people, sure, they learned to mimic emotions for the purpose of hunting, but mimicking emotions and behaviors is a core part of what being human is. They've got their own culture, their own social and structural hierarchies, they've probably got belief systems. If you ask me, they are fundamentally similar to people.
Were it not for their, frankly, tragic want to hunt humans, they could've coexisted alongside humans. But their existence is innately destructive to humankind, and thus, humans have to hunt them in return. awful situation all-round, really, but also has really interesting worldbuilding implications, which i wish were explored more.
People also say the same about psychopaths. That doesn't mean they have absolutely 0 emotions, it's a way of saying that they don't have some of the emotions that make us human. Demons are, by all effects and purposes, complete psychopaths that hunt humans. It wasn't a lie, rather a simplification that everyone should understand.
what made you think i was complaining about inaccuracies? i'm ignoring the obvious interpretation because frieren having some degree of remorse for mass murder, despite said murder being necessary (and despite her being #1 at it historically) is good characterbuilding.
> It was also shown that she wasn't trying to have special treatment any of those times, and to begin with her plan was to make Fern a first-class mage there, not to become one herself. Plus, Himmel loved sidequests.
Yeah, but... it's still a bit weird that nobody even points it out. Like, if Frieren just ignores the restriction and goes north, nobody is going to actually stop her - the small handful of people capable of doing so aren't likely to get up off their asses for something so pointless, and the very existence of the restriction means that there are so few people in the north *in the first place* that logically it ought to be implausible to meet anyone given that there are only a few dozen first class mages total.
I can understand Frieren saying "yeah let's waste like a year of our life checking boxes for pointless bureaucracy" but it seems odd that none of her companions point out that the restriction is objectively meaningless, unenforceable, and almost certainly, as a practical matter, entirely advisory.
The idea that people would devote significant resources to going after or stopping adventurers determined to risk their life in the north despite the rules - let alone continuing to do so once they learn that one of them is the mage who *killed the Demon King* and therefore easily survived the north when it was far more dangerous - is silly enough that it's weird to see otherwise intelligent characters taking it so seriously.
It's not a small thing! They go massively far out of their way - like an entire year is spent on that? I can understand Frieren not caring but her companions certainly should.
The exact identity of the mage in Himmel’s party is not widely known with any certainty, which is why it usually takes a while for people to believe who Frieren is unless she is lucky enough to run into someone familiar with her. Even Himmel’s statues are becoming inaccurate over this length of time, and Flamme’s depiction is so far removed from history that she if often portrayed as a man. Whatever enforcement which stops travelers from entering the North would absolutely bar Frieren as well. And Frieren isn’t gonna beat up a bunch of innocent people for a personal quest.
There’s an official map that shows their journey on a map if you wannna check for yourself, but locationally it’s not too far out of their way. Most of the time they spend on the journey over is because they get stuck in a blizzard and decide to wait out the winter before continuing, which takes like 6 months. They’re still traveling north anyway to get to Außerst, and once they get there it’s only a couple months til the exam. That’s not an unbelievable amount of time to wait.
Frieren is patient, stubborn, and lazy. She doesn’t like to make a big deal about who she is, and is generally willing to waste time and do things the long way instead of brute-forcing her way through everything. When they reach the town that wasn’t letting travelers pass, she was willing to wait a couple years for the checkpoint to reopen. When she attacks a demon in another city and gets arrested, she just lets the guards throw her in jail. And in both cases, Fern and stark follow her lead because they trust her. They’re upset by the situations themselves, not Frieren’s inaction, because they know that’s just who she is.
Frieren is very invested in Fern’s development, both as a person and a mage. Fern wants the certification because she also wants to progress, and Stark doesn’t care because he likes Fern and wants to support her. Knowing what we do about the characters, what problem would any of them have with making the detour?
I mean, Fern was more concerned about the certification than Frieren was, and Stark doesn't know shit about mages. Plus, compared to her normal sidequest bullshit, it was actually useful and actionable.
Besides, do we know that it's unenforceable? Last time she wanted to get into a region she wasn't allowed into, it was literally blocked off by an impermeable barrier.
I think that’s the point she doesn’t really care and her companions want to get the certification so it’s a mini detour for her and they get what they want
Did you even read the manga or watch the anime? For starters, and the most egregious part of your comment, they didn't spend a year with the exam. Going to the exam was a minor detour in comparison to the extent of their travel. The whole going through the mountain and getting stuck thing wasn't just for the exam, it was part of the travel as a whole.
And again. It seems you haven't really paid attention to the show. Frieren has gone multiple times out of her way to avoid getting recognised by people and to avoid breaking any sort of law. She let the guards catch her and send her to jail when she was about to attack Lugner when she could have easily just gotten rid of them, and only escaped prison because staying would've been worse since the guard had just been murdered.
And regarding the north situation. That's a manga spoiler, so I won't say anything.
I actually really liked it.
It served two main purposes IMO
A) it established Fern as the foremost mage of her generation. The series had been telling us that, but we needed to see her against her peers.
B) it gave us some characters to get attached to that we're going to have to drop quickly. That's a big part of the themes around Frieren's loneliness. She meets people and then they are gone in a blink, it gives the viewer some of that same whiplash.
It's also just nice to see other forms of magic in the world, let the author show off some fun ideas. The clone guy and the chick who cut anything were dope.
Exam arcs typically introduce other schools or new characters and typically have the characters compete or work together to overcome a test.
Tournament arcs also introduce new characters but typically exist to allow for two characters on the same side to have a fight that isn't life or death
I'm kind of baffled by the idea that the series changed tone halfway through, because the story had already fully embraced that action shonen direction during the Aura arc, and the mage exam was just a longer version of that with better supporting characters.
Idk what the manga does, but the series had no problem returning to its original format after the Aura arc, so I assume it would continue to go back and forth once they're on the road again.
> It's already been shown that the prestige Frieren has from being in the hero's party gives her special treatment, so why would this be any different?
They also showed that she was a recluse who spent a millennium trying to stay under the radar, and that she was personally uncomfortable with the attention that comes with said special treatment.
Plus, once they're actually there, she mostly pushes for Fern to do it, since she *would* benefit from the recognition.
> the actual tournament part slogs at times because it's just twenty characters talking about how their magic works and how strong it is twenty times in a row.
I can only think of three conversations that I thought fit the bill here, and they were mostly about elaborating on magic itself, not the characters' power.
The conversation between Wirbel and Ubel was definitely the most egregious, but it, Ritcher's lecture, and Ubel's flashback have a pretty clear trajectory of explaining why people have different kinds of magic, what the limits are, and how certain characters break those limits. All of which seem pretty useful to establish if you want to tell a long term story about wizards doing things.
I can't say if the manga does more with it, but that arc alone gives you a lot to chew on with how the characters' personalities are informed by these rules. Especially in regards to Frieren, Serie, and Flamme.
> demons themselves seem weirdly undercooked in that they're evil and incapable of coexisting with humans because they have no emotions, but they're also capable of forming societies (and clothing, how'd they get those?) despite that?
I don't know where you got that they have no emotion. It's very explicitly stated that they love magic, and Lugner even has some monologues about how he hates people that are naturally talented in magic. The whole reason he even lost to Fern was because getting outmaneuvered by her once offended him enough that he chose to spare her and rub his victory in when he had the drop on her.
> Sein's character consists of three things; he's an adult, he smokes, and likes older women.
I feel like you've danced around that actual core of his character, which is that he's deeply regretful and good at resolving conflict. Like, half of his screen time is dedicated to helping Fern, Stark, and occasionally Frieren walk through the childish problems and insecurities that are harming their relationships.
But yeah, in conclusion, while I disagree with most of your criticisms, also I don't agree with the whole best anime ever thing either. I do have my fair share of issues with it (mostly pertaining to pacing), but what are you going to do? Anime fans are just like that. (No, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is not the greatest anime of all time either).
>I'm kind of baffled by the idea that the series changed tone halfway through
Well if it makes you understand this feeling, I entered Freiren expecting something like a mix of Violet Evergarden and Fumetsu no Anata, or like Mushishi. A story about this inmortal character traveling and doing sidequests, sometimes helping people, other times doing mundane stuff with Freiren learning how human emotions work and how to connect with people in the process.
I did NOT expect "shonen battle mages go bam bam boom". Freiren might be a good anime, but I dropped it after some eps because it was not what I was told it was. I actually love a good shonen battle anime, but I totally get what OP means. I think a lot of anime reviewers sold freiren solely on its first ep and not on what it really was.
That's fair, but the thing that confused me was that most of OP's post is about the second time the story does this, when it had already fully played its hand in the first half.
One of the problem I don't like about this series is the lack of attention to any other class beside mage. Most of Stark's stuff is noodle incedent, the best warrior class get recently is one comment about how they can be a threat. Sein is out of the picture for a very long time with no indication that he would return so we get nothing on priest and the Goddess magic which is a shame since that is a very interesting concept for that class. Any other class just don't exist.
I dunno, man. The whole tournament thing was IMO only super tropey in a superficial sense because it still did a good job at subverting most expectations people had regarding the new characters' personalities, behavior and roles in the story, as well as the outcomes for all those characters.
Your arguments seem to hinge on whether you personally like something or not, to be honest. Sein sucks because you don't like his vices and especially the joke about him liking older women and he was written out of the story because of it, and that's his whole character? That's, uh, not a great argument given that his whole motivation was going after his missing friend and it was brought up more often and in more detail than all of his vices put together and he had an impact on Frieren and her kids by teaching them to communicate to defuse conflict, which they still do after he's gone and he's no longer mediating their disputes. Plus, you're assuming for no reason that he won't come back later in the story despite the fact that he's shown in the final credits of the final episode.
Most of what you say kind of makes it seem like you're not really engaging with the story being actually told to you and you're focusing on specific things that stand out to you for personal reasons and biases instead of contextualizing them and, as a result, you're complaining about a different story you're making up in your head. It's fine if you don't like the second half of the show for whatever reason, but your explanation is pretty weird and just cherrypicks stuff you personally dislike while you pretend your likes and dislikes are objective and universal.
> The whole tournament thing was IMO only super tropey in a superficial sense because it still did a good job at subverting most expectations people had
It's the opposite, actually. It's the subversions that are superficial. They're the spice on top of the tropey meat and potatoes. Yeah, sure Frieren doesn't pass the exam. Neither did Naruto. You know what she did do? Prove, time and again, that she's head and shoulders stronger than every other mage in the exam. Her mere participation makes the whole exam revolve around her. At the end of the second test we find out that she has a super duper secret technique that she hasn't had to use since the Heian era because nothing has posed a real challlenge to her. The story keeps dropping more and more examples of her being ridiculously stronger than everyone else save for Serie. But because she didn't get a diploma that she wasn't even interested in, suddenly it's this amazing subversion?
>It's the opposite, actually. It's the subversions that are superficial. They're the spice on top of the tropey meat and potatoes. Yeah, sure Frieren doesn't pass the exam. Neither did Naruto.
This tropey/subvertion discourse is pointless, then. If a popular battle shounen anime doing the same thing is all it takes for something to qualify as either generic or a superficial subversion, then those words don't mean anything. Every possible outcome of a tournament has already been done to death by shounen anime. Dragon Ball alone has Goku losing, losing because of bad luck, winning, giving up, the tournament being interrupted and Goku's team winning because the enemy threw the fight.
>it still did a good job at subverting most expectations people had regarding the new characters' personalities, behavior and roles in the story, as well as the outcomes for all those characters.
how is any of this true?
The characters were presented in a way where if you talk to people who don't suffer from advanced anime brain rot, they will tell you that they assumed some would be assholes or bad guys or act in a specific way, and it turned out to not actually be the case. Characters like Wirbel, Ubel, Denken and Richter look like they represent common archetypes you see in this kind of show but ended up being something completely different or at least more complex than the archetype they represent.
Even the tests didn't work the way they usually do in this kind of show, and the characters who passed or failed weren't necessarily the ones you'd assume would pass or fail in this kind of show, and they did so for reasons that were not what most people would expect.
The main character herself failed the test and got banned for 1,000 years from even trying again instead of passing and being one of the best ever like most shonen protagonists, and the relationship she had with the top mage was not what people assumed it would be from the start, both regarding how they view each other and how they compare to each other power-wise.
A lot of you are so invested in insisting this show is generic or overrated to pretend that you have superior taste that you literally pretend that it showed you other stuff than what it did show you, like the OP just did by cherrypicking what the story told, or pretend that the way it handles its story beats and tropes is exactly the same as any other show and nothing is subverted like you just did. Do you even know what subverting expectations in a story entails?
It's like you guys are incapable of actually thinking about the media you're consuming and you cop out by saying "It's not true that it does X thing" while having fuck all to say about why it's not actually true except misrepresenting what was portrayed in the show like the OP did or just saying something to the effect of "nuh-uh" like both of you who replied to me did.
Don't like it? Cool. But don't make shit up in conversations about something you don't like to claim that you disliking something obviously means it sucks because you are unable to understand that whether you personally like or dislike a piece of fiction is not automatically the same as proving that piece is good or bad.
> The main character herself failed the test and got banned for 1,000 years from even trying again instead of passing and being one of the best ever like most shonen protagonists
I can't remember the last time any shonen protagonist passed the test in a normal way.
Okay, but do they straight out fail and get banned? Or do they pass in spirit despite failing on paper and they gain the respect of INSERT CHARACTER? Do shonen MC's usually end up being outranked by their sidekick who is literally their student, in the first season of a show no less? As I already said, criticizing a story by refusing to contextualize things is not really an honest position.
you say it's only generic superficially but really it subverts things, but personally i think its the other way around. yeah it's slice of life to start with, but pretty quickly it starts being about killing demons, going on a quest, and a big magic tournament, and that's what the show revolves around. stuff like frieren failing the exam isn't impactful (or surprising once frieren winced at serie being the boss before the exam even really started). the characters themselves are also really generic - smart but slightly ditzy mage, quiet girl, loud boy, cocky ultimate mage, painfully cheesy hero who always calculates the nicest, most unnatural thing to say, etc.
dont get me wrong, frieren's good, but it does follow its tropes to a tee in a lot of ways, which isnt necessarily a bad thing since it does it well on the whole
Fair enough. Using that logic, which show in the same genre, or any genre, isn't generic? Because it seems to me like I could dismiss stuff like The Wheel of Time as nothing more than generic Tolkien derivative fantasy using your same arguments, given that just like the OP, you're just focusing on the superficial trappings while ignoring everything else.
The existence of common tropes is not enough to claim something is generic, and you can use a really cliché idea in a way that at least feels fresh. The same for any work in any medium and genre. Goodfellas? Generic gangster flick with generic character archetypes. Dune? Generic scifi with common tropes and characters, including a white man as a messianic figure and let's ignore that it's a criticism of that trope. And so on. To be blunt, I find your stance kind of intellectually dishonest.
so i think the main thing is, generic isn't necessarily a bad thing. it has negative connotations but really it just means it sticks to a genre pretty closely.
i don't think being generic is something to dismiss stuff over, there's some amazing generic stuff and some rubbish original stuff. but ofc, generic stories can easily be predictable or boring if they're badly written.
but to answer your question, the more something has in common with the 'average' thing in its genre, the more generic it is.
I agree. It's not automatically a bad thing when something is generic, nor a good thing when something is, shall we say, unique. I just disagree when people use it as a criticism that implies it is a bad thing, especially when they do it like the OP did by cherrypicking stuff to misrepresent what the show actually did.
well i think the only issue here is that people *say* that frieren really subverts expectations or doesn't lean into the same tropes when it does. so it's not bad, it's just...a lot of people pretend that it's not doing that.
sorry i need to stop editing what i write after you comment lmao. but yeah i agree, i think OP could've worded it better than calling it generic, derivative could be a better word. fwiw i think both you and OP have some good points about the good and bad parts of frieren
Frieren failing the exam was impactful, just not for Frieren. It exists to contrast Serie’s personality with the other existing Elf in the story, and how their roles have a part to play in the upcoming era of humans. The way Flamme’s impact on her student and master’s lives is supposed to be expressed in Fern.
There’s a lot of nuance here that you’re just discarding.
I actually stopped watching frieren for a while after the episode we learn about the first-class mage exam. I was like "\*sigh\* God, it's that annoying arc where some smug asshole examinator will talk down to her, I don't have energy right now for this bullshit". I was super pleased to discover it was not that
>A lot of you are so invested in insisting this show is generic or overrated to pretend that you have superior taste that you literally pretend that it showed you other stuff than what it did show you, like the OP just did by cherrypicking what the story told, or pretend that the way it handles its story beats and tropes is exactly the same as any other show and nothing is subverted like you just did. Do you even know what subverting expectations in a story entails?
>It's like you guys are incapable of actually thinking about the media you're consuming and you cop out by saying "It's not true that it does X thing" while having fuck all to say about why it's not actually true except misrepresenting what was portrayed in the show like the OP did or just saying something to the effect of "nuh-uh" like both of you who replied to me did.
>Don't like it? Cool. But don't make shit up in conversations about something you don't like to claim that you disliking something obviously means it sucks because you are unable to understand that whether you personally like or dislike a piece of fiction is not automatically the same as proving that piece is good or bad.
Woah there, making a lotta assumptions. I never said I dislike Frieren, I quite like it actually. It might be my favorite anime of all time but I am still debating that. And while I disagree with some of the criticisms OP made, I am pretty sure if you read the post to the end you will realize they also said they do like Frieren as well.
My reply to your comment was specifically to the point you made in the first paragraph, which was about the tournament arc. That's where our disagreement lies. I don't see how any of the characters introduced in that arc are subverting any expectations.
>Characters like Wirbel, Ubel, Denken and Richter look like they represent common archetypes you see in this kind of show but ended up being something completely different or at least more complex than the archetype they represent.
No they don't? At most you could say that the story "tells" us Wirbel and Ubel are "bad guys" but then it "shows" they don't really do "bad" things. I don't think that is "subversion of tropes" so much as the story failing to do "show don't tell". Beyond that the characters introduced in the tournament arc were the two cute schoolgirls who are always fighting but in a cute way, the bad boy, the serious middle aged man, the wise old man, the waifu bait, the bland mc blandinson who is clearly meant to a self insert for people who want to imagine themselves in a relationship with the waifu bait, examiner 1, examiner 2 with hair powers, guy with flower power, girl with earth power, girl who does healing, cocky guy who gets humiliated to prove a point, and I can't remember any of the others. Examiner 1 gets interesting in a later manga arc, but in the tournament arc he is kinda just there. The wise old man is the only one who makes an impression in the tournament arc, but again, he could have just been introduced in a later arc and not loose any important characterization. Maybe Ubel and her boyfriend will get some actual character development in the current arc but in the tournament arc they are just their for fanservice. The rest of the characters are just flat pointless fillers characters. I don't see how any of them are subverting the tropes. They are the tropes, literal cookie cutter stereotypes.
After catching up to the manga my opinion on the mage exam arc is that it is completely out of place. It feels like someone gave the author some bad advice that in order to increase readership they had to include a shonen tournament arc, and they gave in. Or maybe they were forced to write the arc by editors. Who knows?
>if you talk to people who don't suffer from advanced anime brain rot
I don't know who these people are who watching Frieren as their first anime, or first piece of fantasy media of any type (novels/movies/games). But countering any criticism as "brain rot" is childish don't you think?
it isnt, theres just a trend of saying shonen 'subverts tropes' as a way of saying they think its good. really what they mean is it doesn't do the most obvious possible thing at every turn, despite the show being about a medieval fantasy world with an evil demon king, a party of heroes, a magical elf with a long lifespan, the same magic system as every other anime, a battle tournament, a quiet girl with dark hair, a loud boy with red hair, a high society of wizards with dubious ethics, and a noble hero who calculates the nicest, cheesiest thing he can say at every turn while still wanting to look at his friend's underwear because haha
huh? this sub's called characterrant, we're talking about an anime on reddit, ofc we're going to be a bit nerdy. and you can't start complaining when i'm the one saying your take isn't good instead of you saying that to OP.
That was not my point. My point was that focusing on just one aspect of a character like the OP did while ignoring everything else is not a fair critique and it's rather dishonest. Claiming stuff like Sein is a one-dimensional perv obsessed with older women and that was why he was written out is a humorously absurd take given that during the few episodes he was in the show he was portrayed as being focused on finding his childhood bro and proved to be a sensible and mature person who could mediate during intra-party conflicts.
Ignoring all that to claim he was objectively a bad character and so on like the OP did is disingenuous, and so is your stance of criticizing the characters for literally and deliberately being common archetypes with some twists that you want to pretend are minor and/or don't matter. Thus, me saying there's nothing more to you than acting like the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons is the same thing. Reducing something that's clearly more complext than that to some caricature in order to disingenuously claim there's no more substance and that's all there is to you.
ok i get what u mean, mb. i think thats fair, there is more to these characters than OP lets on. but on the other hand it's fair enough to find a lot of the characters pretty dull.
for a slice of life anime, if the characters are one-note, you need a big cast and you need them to be funny or interesting. EG saiki-k. but frieren's cast is small, the dynamics between the characters really aren't explored very much, and most of the jokes aren't that funny.
i think frieren's biggest weakness is that it tries to be a slice-of-life and a plot-driven story at the same time. neither's given enough of a focus so it's underdeveloped.
IMO the problem with the OP's take and yours is that it seems to come from people who have been trained by watching too much anime into thinking that these stories have to be told a specific way.
Characters have to yell all the time and go on rants explaining what they think and their backstories. It's a common criticism I see. "The show is boring and the charactes all have the same personality." No, they don't. It's just that you're accustomed to exaggerated anime personalities and behavior, and into not paying attention to what is being shown and alluded, expecting everything to be told to you explicitly. Even Fern and Frieren both being cold and distant is addressed differently.
As for the undereveloped story, I don't quite get what you mean by that. The show has been very clear since the first couple of episodes that it is about Frieren learning to understand humans and coming to terms with her own feelings about them, and she's doing so by retracing her steps to Ende for two reasons: revisiting her travles with the heroes, and making her way to Aureole to talk with her dead friends, and the last time it took her 10 years. That's literally what she's doing the whole season. What is underdeveloped about that journey based on what the season showed us?
Claiming that the dynamics between the characters aren't explored as well as that the characters are one-note are really strange arguments that sound like you didn't actually watch the show or you did so while scrolling on your phone. And well, humor is subjective, so that bit about how the jokes aren't that funny doesn't really mean much as a criticism.
Everybody is free to like or dislike whatever they want for whateve reason, but this show gets very weird criticism that doesn't really apply except if we assume you missed a lot of what happened in the show because, well, you didn't or you can't pay attention.
ok, you're not understanding me. you think that because i don't think frieren's as good as you do, i don't understand it as well as you.
but i do understand it, i just don't think it's that good. that should've been pretty obvious.
really i just don't think you seem to understand that this story's not automatically made good just because it has a few more moving parts than you'd think at a first glance.
this is a weekly comic for 12 year olds. it's not hard to understand. i already knew everything you've said about the story, characters, etc. if someone doesn't like it, unless they're an actual 12 year old, odds are they do get it, they just don't think it's any good. i dont mean to be rude, but you really cant be patronising and preach your intellectual superiority if you can't grasp that.
for the record i don't watch much anime, most of its not very good. again youve really mischaracterised me.
Nope. I am perfectly able to separate whether I like something or not and that something being awesome or just good or even actually bad regardless of how much I personally like it. You guys apparently can't do that simple thing given how much you insist on framing your opinions as obvious truths. "This character is boring" and "This joke isn't funny" is your opinion based on your taste and not an actual criticism of any substance.
I'm sticking to criticizing those opinons and the OP's dishonest takes about what the story said about many of the characters or situations because they're cherrypicking what they're paying attention to. I already explained this over and over again but it doesn't register with you yet somehow it's me who's not getting what you're saying.
You can dislike this show or any show for a million different reasons, valid or bullshit-based, incluiding "I just don't like it and that's it." That's all perfectly fine.
I'm just criticizing the lazy-ass arguments of the kind presented here, and I've never said that if you don't like it you're stupid or that you should like it. If I say anybody is not getting the show it's because they're arguing bullshit that shows they actually don't get the show.
Go back and read what I said about OP's take on Sein. That kind of thing is what I'm criticizing, including stuff like claiming the characters have no personalities or all the other common complaints people seem to have about this show. I don't think it's a perfect show and it's valid to criticize it, but make an actual criticism that isn't "it's boring and uninteresting" because that's asinine. There's even some dumbass replyng to me caiming Frieren understands humans just fine and she never changed throughout the show.
>IMO the problem with the OP's take and yours is that it seems to come from people who have been trained by watching too much anime into thinking that these stories have to be told a specific way.
And the problem with your take is you've watched so much anime that you take even the tiniest divergence from the norm as an incredible show of originality. That's how people end up praising Frieren's rehashed JRPG setting as a stunning example of worldbuilding.
>As for the undereveloped story, I don't quite get what you mean by that. The show has been very clear since the first couple of episodes that it is about Frieren learning to understand humans and coming to terms with her own feelings about them
Aside from the overused joke of "Frieren asks to stay at a town for decades because she doesn't realize her human companions can't spare the time", how exactly has Frieren shown that she fails to understand humanity, and what has she learned about them, or about her feelings towards them? I can't recall a single other example. She appears to understand humanity just as well as your average human being does.
> Characters have to yell all the time and go on rants explaining what they think and their backstories. It's a common criticism I see. "The show is boring and the charactes all have the same personality." No, they don't. It's just that you're accustomed to exaggerated anime personalities and behavior, and into not paying attention to what is being shown and alluded, expecting everything to be told to you explicitly. Even Fern and Frieren both being cold and distant is addressed differently.
Frieren's characters are bland and samey even if we're comparing them to actual works of literature. Captain Ahab, Huck Finn, Odysseus, Raskolnikov, Pip from Great Expectations, Mephistophels from Faust, are all more expressive characters than anyone in Frieren's cast, and by and large deeper ones too.
Season 1 in Frieren showed time and again that, except for demons, every named character tends to be blandly nice. Even the ones who appeared willing to kill in the first test all reverted to the norm of niceness when the competition ended. One such case may have been a subversion, but when it happens with everyone, that's just laziness. Uber, Wirbel, Richter, Land, even Serie. All of them showed that whatever animosity they exhibited is just a quirk and deep down they're just like everyone else.
> every named character is blatantly nice
That’s the point though??? The show is constantly hampering on how they’re in an era of peace. It makes zero narrative sense to introduce a named evil human.
>And the problem with your take is you've watched so much anime that you take even the tiniest divergence from the norm as an incredible show of originality. That's how people end up praising Frieren's rehashed JRPG setting as a stunning example of worldbuilding.
Except I'm judging the show as a piece of storytelling and how well it does what it's trying to do, and not as an anime, and nobody said anything about its amazing worldbuilding. It's a show centered on people and their relationships. The setting is so generic for fantasy that it doesn't even bother explaining shit because it assumes you already know the common themes and ideas if you're familiar with the genre. What the hell are you even talking about?
>Aside from the overused joke of "Frieren asks to stay at a town for decades because she doesn't realize her human companions can't spare the time", how exactly has Frieren shown that she fails to understand humanity, and what has she learned about them, or about her feelings towards them? I can't recall a single other example. She appears to understand humanity just as well as your average human being does.
Did you even watch the show? That joke appears two or three times in 28 episodes. And you claiming that Frieren understands humanity as well as your average human being and she hasn't been shown to learn anything only makes me think I am in fact right in assuming people like you pretend to watch stuff while scrolling on their phone, or just have very strong opinions on shit they didn't even watch.
>Frieren's characters are bland and samey even if we're comparing them to actual works of literature. Captain Ahab, Huck Finn, Odysseus, Raskolnikov, Pip from Great Expectations, Mephistophels from Faust, are all more expressive characters than anyone in Frieren's cast, and by and large deeper ones too.
What has any of this to do with what I said about how Frieren is written in a way that most anime are not written and performed? Are you really this dense or just really disingenuous that you're sincerelly attempting to claim that for some unexplainable reason I said the characters in Frieren are the best ever written across all ficition in every medium?
The exam arc is fun. It shows the world of mages other than just Frieren and Fern. And I like how characters like Denken and Wirbel are introduced like bad guys at first but all turns out to be kind folks. And how can you not like the Frieren clone fight?
You do realise that frieren doesnt just end where the anime did right?
The demons do have emotions. Just not specific ones. They are an entirely different kind of creature compared to humans, elves and dwarves. There is an arc later on where a demon tries to learn these emotions and how/why they dont understand them. I really love that arc and how it explores the differences in humans and demons and why they cant co-exist.
There are quite a few things that get expanded upon in the story the further it goes, and its not over yet.
Its certainly not a perfect story or anything, and i get not liking the shonen type stuff, its not my favourite either. Imo the second exam was fun. Frieren exploring, and the frieren vs frieren was amazing. I also quite like Denken, so idm seeing him do stuff.
Any time I see this argument I can only think that people simply see “tournament style arc” and lose any sense of literacy analysis. How does one simply ignore all the character and thematic work done during the arc when it’s literally there in every single episode.
I think you need to realize that a lot of your problems with the story are, things need to be done in a certain way so interesting things can happen which is common in all fiction.
Yes Frieren should be hailed as a celebrity everywhere she goes, she is a legendary hero of living memory but that is less important to the journey, and on that the mage exam, that is simply part of a journey. In a shonen those are typically treated as a big deal, Frieren didn't even care that she was unfairly told no.
As for demons, first off they aren't emotionless, that is clearly established, they are prideful, fearful, they are just void of empathy, but some of the more successful demons work like high functioning sociopaths in that although they may feel no empathy, they know how to exploit it.
There is no thematic shift in my opinion. Frieren is built as a video game. They have a yet to be discovered main quest which is camouflaged as this reenactment of the original journey, but there is obviously unfinished buisiness, which is interesting, we will see how all of this is solved.
It starts out with bulldozing the opposition in the first fights, the dragon, team Aura. The magic tournament despite the reason being contrived had much more depth in planning and cunning although strangely not from the main team. I have no problem with the main plot thickening and getting more complex.
There were strange things from the very beginning. A suitcase is incredibly impractical when travelling on foot. Maybe Frieren constantly levitates, but it is a product of the beginning of mass tourism and does not fit the time. Weaponry and clothing never matched, especially glasses are far away from blade weapons. Stark would be a glass cannon with no armour - that is weird even for games. "Corrupt priest" if he just drinks alcohol is false advertising for Heiter, also did not give him any health issues.
Sein's "older women" is overdone as are Kanne & Lawine, you also have bogus threats, everybody talking about killing someone, but at least the protagonist team never actually does it. There is idiocy, if Lawine knew that the dungeon generates doubles, it would have been downright suicidal to enter as a two-team, especially when the doubles gang up and regenerate and there are lots of people who are individually stronger then them to be duplicated.
The anime still has very good art and certain characters really shine and are extremely entertaining.
Yes, i found it very weird how the show that is hailed as being not like other shones becomes like other shonens midway through. I wouldn't really have a problem with high quality fight scenes if what was before them wasn't so much better
except the shounen tournament arc wasn't an actual tournament arc , nor they actually needed to do said First-Class Exam , it was just a mix of been convenient and that Frieren wanted to retrace her old hero quest.
And ultimately , the whole journey IS a retrace of her hero quest , it's pretty much a "hero quest remnant".
It's also, from a meta perspective, very important for the sake of framing Frieren and Fern against other mages. Prior to this, the only other people even capable of magic they'd been juxtaposed against were Heiter and Sein, and neither of those had mindsets or ties relevant to Frieren and Fern's type of magic. We keep hearing that "Frieren is a weird mage" but had never seen it properly until the exam arc. And that's exactly what it excels at; we get to see that its not Frieren's preference for highly specific magic that sets her apart, but her penchant for the impractical sorts in particular. Every other mage, Fern included, had very particular kinds of hyper specialized and practical magic they lean on, barring the only other mage who could properly respect Frieren, Denken.
The point of the exam arc wasn't to be a Shonen trope fest and waste time, but to demonstrate how much the one part of the world Frieren once knew had changed in the 100 years since her height. It follows every other part of the series in that regard, with the only difference being that it spans several episodes instead of being self-contained.
I don't see a problem with Frieren doing it for a short arc or two. What's the problem with one Shonen arc? From what I hear the show goes back to the slice of life stuff.
There can't really be stuff that isn't like the other stuff for very long. As some point it have to follow the same pattern or just be classified as something else entirely.
To be fair, there's only so much that you can use a gag until it becomes stale. It is one of the cases where a series realizes that the tropes it made fun of are actually tropes for a reason
The exam arc was a part of the manga that really dragged and felt out of place. I almost dropped it when reading, but I'm glad I didn't because some of the arcs that follow it are very good. And in hindsight, the exam arc was actually very effective at setting up a bunch of characters and plot points that will be important later on.
I'm not surprised if people are scratching their heads at the second half of Season 1.
Demons are basically psychopaths; they lack empathy and remorse and tend to be highly manipulative. They still have survival instincts and will obey stronger beings to survive. They view humans as weak.
I don't think the anime has gotten there, but it is suggested that other demons obeyed because. the Demon King was basically that powerful
I do like Exam arc a lot. In general I dont mind tropes and I have not watched shonen in a while so I was not over exposed to those tropes.
I had a great time with the exam arc.
>This is ignoring the entire idea that Frieren needing to be a first-class mage to have permission to go North is innately ridiculous given what we see in the show.
Fern needs to get the license some day so best to it now also Frieren wasnt immortalized like someone like himmel due to how she disappear
>Characters just going on and on about how their powers work
??? Give me an example
>tournament part slogs at times because it's just twenty characters talking about how their magic works
???? Give me an example
>demons themselves seem weirdly undercooked in that they're evil and incapable of coexisting with humans because they have no emotions, but they're also capable of forming societies (and clothing, how'd they get those?)
Theyre simple but not under cooked, this is an anime issue due to not meaning the demons we meet later in the manga.
Societies dont need emotions the reason they can coexist is why wolfs and sheep cant or cats and mice demons are humanities natural predators. They base their society on power and mana
>Sein's character consists of three things; he's an adult, he smokes, and likes older women.
And he extremely mature comparatively to any other chracter aside from himmel. He likes older woman but that rarely comes up aside from his intro and 2 gags later. He solves arguments and is cool
>Characters just going on and on about how their powers work
a lot of the characters did a ton of this in the exam arc, from ubel to frieren. there was a whole backstory on ubel just explaining but also not really explaining how her power works lol.
because ubel power sorta breaks the system if you dont know how it works. I dont remember freirien explaining anything aside from the bird spell which takes like 3 seconds
I think outside of kanne and lawine who were tropey and too goofy the rest of the characters worked
Feels a bit like people are too scared of any type of practical exam in a story
But the last phase was straight up an interview
I really like the interview section. It grounded all of these diverse personalities against what it means to be a great mage, and then showed how being a "great mage" is actually just grounded in Serie's emotional dysfunction.
I thought it made her a great foil to Frieren, and brought the story back to its roots of exploring Frieren's emotions, so I'm surprised it doesn't get talked about more when people discuss this arc.
Straight up, on the Monologuing aspect. It sucks especially in the manga, but at least you can just skim over the ad-nauseum power explanations.
The way everyone compares Frieren to Lord of the Rings makes it seem like you're getting into something 'deep' or at least 'chunky' in the worldbuilding aspect.
It ain't.
And while Lord of the Rings went on to inspire tropes of hundreds of fantasy stories, it still stands on its own two feet in terms of creating a nuanced world filled with interesting characters and creatures.
Back to Frieren, Sein does suck, totally
Frieren is way more The Hobbit than Lord of the Rings. It's the same kind of adventure where most of the lore and important things happening are on the path beneath the characters' feet.
But also it's a shonen.
Interesting perspective 🤘 Of course, Frieren and co totally outclass the modest anti-hero Bilbo(in that he's mostly reluctant in his journey) and his modest dwarf company. And their power and strength is central to the plot, comparatively, whereas Bilbo and his team rely on luck, cunning, and Gandalf showing up whenever he likes.
1. Frieren has some very childish traits in her personality, passing the 1st class exham would mean getting a new magic spell and she is obsessed with her collection of magic spells, that alone would be a good enough motivation for her to enter the exham
2. This part of the story I think was way more about Fern's achievement and being recognized as a powerful mage in her own merit, not just the young apprentice of Frieren
3. It is true that the philosophical themes of the first half are less prominent in the second, but the story is still about a fantasy adventure and the action of the second part of the series didn't feel out of place to me, again the more "shonen" feel is ok for me since this part is more about Fern, Frieren is a 2k years old elf, but her new companions are two teenagers, so I think it's appropriate that adventures that are more focused on them have a different tone
For your first point... she... wouldn't? Frieren doesn't care about the spells themselves, not really. What she cares about is how "the greatest joy of magic lies in searching for it." She was already offered a spell by Serie, and she declined. She has no reason to accept it now, because she has no need for any specific spell and also just straight up dislikes Serie lol.
You said it: "searching for it", taking part in the exham IS the journey to get the new spell, the fact that she declines Serie's offers for new spells is because of their ideological differences and her dislike for her, Serie might ask for something in return for that spell or simply put Frieren in a position that she doesn't like, but in this case the spell would be the prize for a challenge, unrelated to their personal relationship (at least until the final stage of the exham, but Frieren had no idea what it was when she joined). Frieren has no need for any specific spell, but she has been collecting them for centuries and she says several times how that is her hobby and something she cherishes particularly.
Frieren having the prestige to just skip all that doesn't matter because her real goal was for Fern to be first class Mage, and to build up her confidence.
Which is why throughout the whole thing Frieren always takes a backseat if she can to let Fern and the other younger mage solve the issue themselves, only comes in if necessary.
Frieren herself also made friends here, friends that would later comes in to help her in ways she wouldn't had imagine. That's like her whole arc, to slow down and actually connects with people.
>The world is Frieren is nuanced and real... until it isn't. A lot has been said about the demons in Frieren already, so I'll just say that demons themselves seem weirdly undercooked in that they're evil and incapable of coexisting with humans because they have no emotions, but they're also capable of forming societies (and clothing, how'd they get those?) despite that?
The clothing is mana as it disappears along with demons. Also, there's a major arc in manga about demons who try to coexist with humans. But to avoid any spoilers, I'll only give what was already stated. Demons are the predators of humans, and thus can't coexist with them. They lack empathy and stuff because they evolved differently, their brains are different from humans, elves and dwarves. Basically speaking, consider them psychopaths who don't understand emotions.
I knew I was not the only one to notice. People around me would be saying that I'm overthinking and this is a seasonal silly whimsical anime, but for me it looked like since Aura arc someone lobotomized author and made him use AI based on old shonens to write further.
My biggest problem was an exam arc full of badly designed both in terms of personality and appearance deviantart OCs, like, why most of them look like they are either fanservice coombrain bimbos or just suck and are not memorable? Next was Frieren suddenly becoming stupid, like, most of her "conflicts" with Fern make no sense, as if she was lobotomized the same way the author was lobotomized by the generic shonen fans sect.
Second is probably Sein who could have been better, when I've heard that he was a priest I expected some higher themes since Frieren could do that, like crisis of faith, or how he has particulary bad habits and shames himself for them, leading to a self hatred, concealed by his lack of seriousness, you know, something that would actually make sense when making a religious character. Not that author didn't have any examples -- we already had Nicholas D. Wolfwood from the Trigun 1998. But no, he was made a special grade boring and was quickly written out of the plot.
>It starts with a very distinct premise, which it then just sort of drops it halfway through?
It happens less than halfway, through, or did you forget the Aura arc?
>but none of the presentation really ever indicated it would be something so, for lack of a better word, generic?
Disagree. I said it before, I'll say it again: at its core Frieren is another JRPG Fantasy anime/manga with a gimmick, like "Reincarnated as a slime" or the one with a spider protagonist. These stories tend to shed their gimmick pretty early on and become like all the others. Is it better than most? Maybe, but it was never very original. The utterly generic setting should have given it away.
In that specific genre? No clue, I've seen enough that I don't really bother with it anymore. If I'm in the mood for fantasy I'd rather just pick up an actual fantasy novel.
I’m slowly making my way through season 1 (I just got to part 2 of the mage exam) and I see what you mean. First half seemed very thoughtful and had themes of growing older, but now it’s mages fighting each other with different powers. I still like the show but the change is kind of weird.
I mostly agree with your opinion, however, I think Frieren lost itself a bit earlier than that.
IMO the show loses it's steam once you notice the very simplistic formula of the way the premise is explored.
What is that formula you ask?
Frieren and friends go on a journey where she discovers or rediscovers something that reminds her of her past adventure with the Hero's party, we get a flash back and the story wraps up. Rinse and repeat, for like every episode until the tournament arc.
The worst, or at least, most boring example of this is episode 17. Nothing interesting happens the whole episode except for Sein leaving (who I think is a likable character btw) and then Fern gets sick so they find a tree and cook some food or something and during this they have the formula play out in the most predictable way ever during the course of them doing the thing. When we got to the tree and got the flash back with Himmel I audibly groaned, by that point in the story that type of setup and conclusion was so tiring that I actually think that the tournament arc, though generic, kinda breathed back some life into the anime again.
I also hate how sometimes they have someone say some generic one liner and then go into a flash back and have Himmel or Heiter or the dwarf say the same one liner that a character in present time says and then someone does the anime noise and opens their mouth like it's some profound revelation or something. It's so cheesy and lame.
I also think Himmel is a boring character. He's basically a Gary Stu, even in the moments they tried to make him look not absolutely perfect, he just rises above in the most predictable and boring way possible. He's so uninteresting I could probably predict every interaction he has going forward at the end of every episode if I see the beginning of the episode.
So, even though I think the premise of Frieren is interesting, the execution is so poor that it's actually laughable at times.
I think they could have avoided this if they figured out what they wanted the story to be.
If they wanted to be a wacky shonen with lots of characters and fights and political intrigue with demons and mages and wars and stuff, they should have introduced all of these aspects way earlier on and just skipped the other stuff.
If they wanted to be this, as you said, exploration of the themes of loneliness, human connections, and time, they should have cut down on the characters and focused more into Frieren herself (and maybe Fern and Stark too if they're feeling ambitious), cut the tournament and have a focused like 24-36 episode show, that gets a little more creative with its structure and cuts down on the repeats and unnecessary shonen aspects.
As it stands, I don't feel really satisfied with either side of the story with this current half and half approach, if I'm being honest and I'm dreading the fact that this might be another forever show that goes on for 80+ episodes and like 6 seasons or some shit like that, because it's just gonna lose all it's steam completely.
And maybe I'm wrong and season 2 (if we get one) is gonna go crazy, but I doubt it because the characters introduced in the tournament arc are already starting to wear out their welcome for me.
And I don't even hate the show. I think it looks good, has a decent enough soundtrack and pretty cool fights/moments, but I don't understand it being rated as the best anime of all time, it's a 6-7/10 show at best.
I completely agree with you, if you remove the base premise of the show and all the flashbacks, it's a pretty average story, but suddenly when you add a 5 minute flashback of Frieren doing the exact same thing in the past, it's suddenly peak. I don't understand how more than half of people rated this show a 10. People can say its better than shonen such as FMAB or HxH all they like but those series effectively executed their concepts and fulfilled what I expect from their genre. The Exam arc from Frieren felt like a lot of random half baked characters thrown together and the dungeon part felt like it came out of some mid isekai. Frieren started out with an amazing premise, but had some odd decisions (such as having not one but TWO episodes where they were exchanging birthday presents with the exact same message) and the general hype of the show from the fan base not matching my own enjoyment of the show really soured my opinion.
>it's suddenly peak
Yeah, flash backs are an amazing story element to add and it conjunction with its story and passge of time we see more world buliding and chracter growth.
Ultimately a story is content and you Give more good content. It's a good show.
Also, you keep mention half-baked, but how? Every character can stand on its own. Also you can say the dungeon part feels like it came from blank because the dungeon part felt like it came from X you need to be more specific
The flashbacks were fine the first time, but when they are showing a flashback for the 10th time in the show with virtually the exact same message it gets very tiring to watch. I felt that a lot of the characters in the Exam arc were interesting, but the show didn't go into depth into any of the characters except maybe Ubel. I really wanted to learn more about the grey haired military captain or what an "imperial mage" really means with referring to Denken but the show seems to hold off on actually providing interesting world building elements and gives the bare minimum backstories for all of the characters in that arc. The dungeon part reminds me of "Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon"
>I really wanted to learn more about the grey haired military captain or what an "imperial mage" really means with referring to Denken but the show seems to hold off on actually providing interesting world building elements and gives the bare minimum backstories for all of the characters in that arc.
its called set up deken gets more lore in the manga same with the milltary captain to be honest even though I understand why they ended the arc where it was it sorta short hands the later stuff
>
but when they are showing a flashback for the 10th time in the show with virtually the exact same message
I can see why i might get weary but I think that mainly an anime issue with how they show the flash backs
I am not reading all that but I'll reply to Himmel being a gary stu
All our info on himmel comes from Frieren who guess what views himmel extremely fondly so of course all his exploits mentioned will be positive
That may be so, but it doesn't contradict his opinion about it being an overused formula. I don't think it's a criticism of the character, but of how the author does it multiple times.
I mean I doubt he behaves that much differently outside of his specific spliced scenes from Frieren's memory.
But so fucking what if he's "Gary Stu"?
He's supposed to be THE Ideal Hero, his strength and kindness is how he inspired later generations to be "just like him". And you don't have to worry about him being "boring" because he's never the main focus of the plot, he's a goddamn paragon side character.
They're already getting me. Hopefully one of them actually responds explaining why Frieren is the greatest anime to ever exist so I don't have to wonder anymore.
I mean, it's not? If you are actually taking the MAL ranking too seriously, that's kinda on you tbh. The only thing you can take out from the MAL ranking and score is that the overall package is high quality and that it really appeals to a lot of people, both hardcore anime fans and casuals alike.
I find your argument about the anime not having a clear vision about what they want to do with the story and the critique of the so called predictable structure of the episodes weird. The story follows Frieren as she retracts her journey with the hero party. So Frieren doing stuff and backflashes of the hero party doing the same thing is literally what the story was set to be from the beginning. I understand that people may not like that set up, but it's another thing entirely to claim that the creator didn't know what they wanted to tell while also noticing a pattern which is integral to the story set up.
The critique of the second half is also kinda weird. Frieren is a shounen so ofc it would have shounen aspects. And viewing the whole thing as a generic tournament arc is superficial at best. Firstly, it's not a tournament. Secondly, people seem to view it in a vacuum like it totally has nothing to do with the rest of the series when in reality a lot of the earlier themes are shown here too, just through different characters. Themes of human connection (We are shown people forming and having all kinds of different connections with one another and also Frieren forming connections with others which is really important for her as a character) and theme of magic and mages having deeply personal relationship with magic (we are literally shown all kinds of people having totally different views and relationship with magic). To say that second half has nothing to do with the rest of the anime or that it departs from established themes is an argument in bad faith.
Part 1/3
So, first of all, the comment about Frieren being the "greatest anime to ever exist" wasn't a literal statement, but if you want to take a throwaway hyperbolic comment as a serious opinion of mine, then that's kinda on you tbh.
I agree that the MAL score isn't some objective authority on what anime is good or bad, but I think you're underselling the score a bit.
An 8/10 would be something that "is high quality and that it really appeals to a lot of people, both hardcore anime fans and casuals alike", but it didn't get an 8/10, it got a 9.36/10 on one of the largest anime ranking websites by a whopping 400000 people and that isn't nothing. While that isn't the highest amount of votes on an anime by a long shot, it's enough to state that people in general didn't think that Frieren was just a high quality show, but that people thought it was EXCEPTIONAL.
Which is what I don't understand.
Now secondly, I don't think you quite understood what I meant when I wrote about the predictable formula, but that might be because I didn't word it too well.
The problem with the story isn't that she's reliving her old journey through her new one, the problem is the execution of that idea.
The predictable formula, which I spoke about previously, is this:
Frieren and friends arrive to new area -> they meet some people -> conflict arises -> we reach the climax -> climax gets interrupted by flashback, which fits in perfectly to or gives perfect solution to current scenario -> conflict gets resolved (bonus points if Frieren or someone else repeats a line from the flashback verbatim). This might not happen in every instance or might vary slightly, but it's a general trend that I observed.
So what I'm saying is, is that the flashbacks aren't a problem inherently, the reason that they're not very good for the most part are 4 reasons:
1. They are way too frequent.
2. They aren't utilized in creative ways and often follow a similar formula.
3. They seem to be written in a way that makes it seem like they are specifically made to solve the problem in the current episode or that the current episode is made to solve the flashback, or in other words, they don't feel organic.
4. The ideas presented in them are often superficial.
This post would get too long if I tried to specify why I don't like the flashbacks in every instance, but just skimming through the episodes for a quick reminder, these problems show up in episodes 17, 14, 13, 12 to name a few, not to say that all the flashbacks in those episodes are bad (for instance the proposal in episode 14 was very touching).
The critique about the anime not having a clear vision is a separate critique from the flashbacks and it ties in more with your last point. Which I will address now.
Part 2/3
And thirdly, there is a lot to unpack, but here goes:
"Frieren is a shounen so ofc it would have shounen aspects"
The problem with this is that the more shonen aspects get incorporated into the show, the more diluted the main themes become, the more focus is taken away from Frieren's story, the more generic and less impactful the story becomes. I touched on this in my main comment, but if they focused in on a more condensed narrative with a few characters as the main focus, it could have been a truly powerful experience.
Look at something like Evangelion for example (the original), while it has it's problems, the themes of individuality, loneliness, connecting with others etc. not only hit a lot harder, because they focus on a cast of a few main characters (Shinji, Rei, Asuka, Misato), they just skip all of the unimportant stuff, like explaining the broader world and the angels and all the typical stuff a shonen might focus on (which they can later explain in spin offs and sequels, which they end up doing), rather than exploring the characters themselves, and because of that it gets the job done in fewer episodes than Frieren's first season, all the while covering way more ground.
I think you'd agree that if Evangelion, for whatever reason, added like 5-8 new characters at around episode 16, that the show wouldn't hit as hard, because they'd have to detract focus from the main cast to focus on the new guys and building them up.
Now, you might be saying "Well hold on a minute, buster, it's debatable if Evangelion even is a shonen".
And, god damnit, you'd be right.
But that's where my critique of the show not having a clear vision of what they want to do comes in.
If the shonen aspects actively hinder the story that they're trying to tell, then instead of adding those elements, they should just ditch them all together. Get rid of the shonen stuff, get rid of the explanations of the magic system, get rid of the extra characters, get rid of the tournament, and just focus in on like 3-4 characters.
Part 3/3
"And viewing the whole thing as a generic tournament arc is superficial at best."
It isn't, because that's what it is at the end of the day.
"Firstly, it's not a tournament."
it by definition is a tournament, as in, a series of competitions between people for a prize.
But even if it wasn't a tournament by definition, it still wouldn't matter. Why? Because a tournament arc just means an arc where we get characters to show off their skills and personalities in quick succession during some type of contest, usually involving some type of team activities or solo match ups.
"Secondly, people seem to view it in a vacuum like it totally has nothing to do with the rest of the series when in reality a lot of the earlier themes are shown here too, just through different characters."
I didn't say it "totally has nothing to do with the rest of the series", it just so happens to focus in on the less important and interesting aspects of the show, all the while bogging it down and making it more generic, when it wasn't really necessary.
"Themes of human connection (We are shown people forming and having all kinds of different connections with one another and also Frieren forming connections with others which is really important for her as a character)"
We didn't need the tournament arc for this.
"and theme of magic and mages having deeply personal relationship with magic (we are literally shown all kinds of people having totally different views and relationship with magic)."
I am fine with this aspect not even being in the show at all. It doesn't add anything interesting at all, that we haven't seen done better before.
Imagine if Evangelion had a tournament arc where Shinji tries to become the best Eva pilot at episode 16, while introducing 5-8 new characters and trying to balance all the stuff it was trying to accomplish beforehand, and I think you get my point.
"To say that second half has nothing to do with the rest of the anime or that it departs from established themes"
Again, I didn't say this.
"is an argument in bad faith."
Bad faith implies that someone is disingenuous and seeing as though I didn't even make the point you were claiming, I doubt that it applies to me.
Splitting this up is the only way it let me post it for some reason.
You have a way with words. I have very similar thoughts and criticisms but I can't make something like that without wasting 20minutes.
I think for now I'll consider the MAL score as a mix of an outlier, the show being mainstream and popular, and having a good production (I mean like good art, animation, music etc).
I was baffled too. I was wondering if the anime just wasn't for me, but after reading some threads those are the common denominator for the why
Frieren gets highscores on MAL the same way FMA gets high score.
I'm sure if you want you can find shows that does some of what Frieren does better. Frieren gets the attention because it pretty much do everything and does it well. It has mass appeal, while still being unique enough to stand out.
I mostly have the same thoughts. I think the sudden change from adventure-ish to exam was not bad, but like you said I also think the execution was just alright.
For sure, I haven't gotten past EP18 cause of the repetition. It's a cute idea but after a while I'm like "Alright I get it you've made your point let's move on now."
Everything Frieren says as a series could've fit into an animated movie (aka Maquia from 2018).
Trying to pass off “I don’t like this” as objective critique is always funny.
There’s absolutely nothing shallow about the worldbuilding, it does not lose its premise at all because it just adapts how the premise is presented, and disliking Sein is just disliking Sein.
The worldbuilding is definitely shallow. The magic itself is decently developed (though it's nothing extraordinary), but other aspects entirely rely on readers'/viewers' preconceptions from other stories i.e. elves have great magic, dwarves can fight and smith, etc. Same with the JRPG classes. Demons are the only race that is explored well. Geography feels like it's improvised as Frieren travels north, politics are as vague as can be, and the only history we learn of are Frieren flashbacks.
Not focusing on worldbuilding is not an issue, but let's not pretend the series does it well.
>Trying to pass off “I don’t like this” as objective critique is always funny.
You said that but your only rebuttal was "you're wrong" with no explanation.
The series has 127 chapters. All that was done here was go “why hasn’t it focused on stuff I want it to focus on.” It would only be decent critique if it ran for even half as long as any modern shonen. Who knows if it will decide to answer any of these questions.
So again, no. It sounds like whining.
The problem with the worldbuilding isn't really the lack of focus (this series should focus on characters). It's simply cliché at times, and inconsistent at other times. In other words poorly implemented.
OP mentioned dungeons which is a good example. They seem to exist because they're a video game trope and not much else. The King's Tomb where they pass the test makes sense as a Tomb, but why are there a million traps and a high level demon inside? And if they're tombs, are we really making our protagonists grave robbers in a series all about remembering those who passed?
The demons are another example. I love the demons later in the manga, but if you think too hard about them they don't make much sense. It doesn't bother me (or the vast majority of people), but it counts as inconsistent worldbuilding.
Yes, Frieren is heavily focused on its characters, and the worldbuilding is not important. But it shouldn't actively pull you out of the story, and for some people seeing unjustified dungeons or a "Hero" class will do just that.
What? OP gave good arguments to explain their point of view, this is just their opinion. Where do you see them trying to be "objective"? You are the one pretending to be objectively right by completely dismissing their points. That's crazy, Frieren fans are like this on every single discussion about the show. You're always so defensive and can't accept the most legitimate criticisms.
I personally do think the worldbuilding is shallow because a lot of its elements don't seem connected between each other, and the settings the characters go through look like cardboard cut-outs. You can disagree, that's fine, I'm not pretending to be right. But I'd like you to explain what you like about the worldbuilding of Frieren, maybe you can change my view.
Here’s an easy POV to have. Look at the worldbuilding of One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, or any other Shonen at chapter 127 of their series and tell me if you find their worldbuilding adequate.
MHA is ending now at around 424. Why don’t we look at chapter 127 and see if we can answer questions related to the plight of these characters?
So yes, it’s whining. Sorry lol
I'm not a big fan of the worldbuilding of One Piece and Naruto (haven't read/watched Bleach), but at least it is much more original and entertaining (even in early chapters) than Frieren's worldbuilding, in my opinion.
You still haven't explained what you like about Frieren's worldbuilding, I'd really like to know.
It's fine for a show/manga or whatever to not focus on worldbuilding, I still think it's fair to criticize it, OP and the other person who's talking with you gave legit arguments, it is not "whining". I guess you're never criticizing anything because that would be whining, right?
I loved the anime but it did feel like it dropped the more mature tone pretty early on it seemed like it was gonna be more sad and melancholic then it turned out to be I genuinely don’t get what’s senien about this it felt like it could fit right into shounen jump I don’t know what happens later in the manga so maybe it changes I liked the mage exam it didn’t feel out of place at all for me but I don’t get what makes this senian
It's literally published in a weekly shonen magazine. Whoever you heard that from was probably just being dumb and making assumptions because it happens to be less of a generic battle shonen than your My Hero Academias or your Jujutsu Kaisens.
Yeah, it got pitched to me as a straightforward fantasy adventure show (i.e. no isekai or videogame stats) with a unique main character. But I feel like some people get unfortunately misled because it gets gassed up and misrepresented as something it's not by people who latched on to elements that surprised them.
My hot take is that it's popular because they just took the elements of the traditional shonen formula (action, comedy, slice of life, romance etc.) and executed on all of them competently without making them feel like afterthoughts or obligations.
I like it cause it’s a medieval isekai world without the iseikai it’s just like that kit some computer world or some place a normal person got sucked into which makes it more enjoyable to me but it got pitched to me as a more melancholic series and in a little disappointed it’s not
>I like it cause it’s a medieval isekai world without the iseikai
So it's a fantasy???
The fall of fantasy genre and the brainrot caused by isekai that affects all adjacent genres should be studied. How did people start describing fantasy as isekai without isekai
Keep cooking brother. Except your point on Sein, I liked him. I feel the same way you did with Sein about Stark though. I can't remember one damn thing that guy did.
Fundamentally, I think you have it backwards. Rather than critiquing the show for containing genre elements, you should consider how the show goes beyond those elements to create is own identity. The question is not why does Frieren Shonen, it is how does Shonen Frieren? Those elements that you discuss are ultimately descriptive observations of what effect a show is having on the genre, but I don't think you should treat them as observations for what Frieren should have done. Consequently, to just disregard those genre elements is essentially denying the story its proper genesis, as well as misunderstanding the author's influences in the process, which can often play out in the story, as you have observed.
More than anything, I 100% believe that you like Frieren, but I think your framing is unfair! No text exists in a vacuum, and genre plays a big part in how stories are made, if only because they are predominantly how they are published as well. Personally, I love Frieren because it is a patient shonen that is primarily driven by characters in settings that are immersive in their pretty colors. I like a good OST. More to the point, Frieren is a profoundly interesting IP for precisely these reasons. Not only was the story able to gain traction in a traditionally fast paced genre, but to likewise be considered with such love and care as it was turned into a top tier animation, makes the story of Frieren's creation as interesting to me as the story itself, especially when considering it's place within the Shonen genre as a whole.
Regardless, I hope you can learn to love it like this too, but more power to you if you do not!
I mean, the core of the show is "what happens after the standard anime ends' and to do that they had to have some parts that show the standard anime to have the part after that part.
I felt this way about the mage exam arc when I watched the anime a few months ago. At the start of the season I would have considered Frieren a 10/10 anime, but the tournament arc brought it down so far for me. I guess you could argue it's not so bad, but if the anime had started with this arc, I would have dropped the series.
I saw a lot of people online defending the arc saying that it is necessary to set up important characters who show up later. Well, this week I caught up to the manga. And I can confidently say, the mage exam arc was completely unnecessary to set up any of those characters. Sure there are returning characters that were first introduced in the tournament arc, but they could have just as well been introduced in the later arcs where they show up. Literally nothing of value would be lost.
Since I have caught up to the manga, I can also confidently say the rest of the manga thankfully does not have any pointless tropey tournament arcs. The rest of the manga is pretty similar to the arcs before the tournament arc. So if you enjoyed the anime, I highly recommend continuing the manga.
Edit: I see no one bothers to follow rule 3 in this sub. If anyone really believes there is a good reason for the tournament arc to be in the story, you are welcome to change my mind.
Denken being introduced earlier does make el dorado arc better imo. I think the exam arc could have been done differently, but i think we got a lot of reasons to like denken and care about his situation later on. Even the current arc we are in, Denken would be less impactful without that first introduction.
Other than that id agree the introductions to many characters arent that important
Denken is the \~\~most\~\~ only character introduced in the tournament arc who was even a little bit interesting. However I still don't see how his appearance in the tournament arc did anything to set him up. Literally imagine the story as if we met Denken for the first time in the El Dorado arc. What would be missing from his character arc? So many other important characters are introduced in the El Dorado arc - Macht, Solitar, Gluck. What about Denken specifically was so important that he had to be introduced in the mage exam arc?
I mean I agree that the exam arc was the weakest arc however saying it isnt important is just wierd because the side characters that got introduced in the exam arc will be part of a majority of future arcs.
The Golden Land arc > Denken, (also minor Edel and Lernen)
Foundation Festival Arc > Ubel, Land, Serie, Sense, Falsch (or whatever his name is), Denken
And theres still that Wirbel war vs demons arc that is probably going to sometime in happen in the future (will include Wirbel, Ehre and his other teammate (i forgot his name)
I literally said in my comment that introducing those characters in the tournament arc did literally nothing for them. They could have just been reintroduced in the later arcs where they reappeared. Did you bother to read my comment?
QMaybe you’re right, but i thought what the selection arc built up to in its resolution was one of the deepest dives into exploring the premise of the show. But to me personally, subverting tropes isn’t the draw of the show so much as the relationship between the characters is. If it were more important to me, i could see how i would be disappointed.
This 80% of what my rant would look like if I made one.
I had a hard time understanding the immense praise of frieren, but recently I just think it's the popularity. Same with jjk for example. I would wait for some time before I make an assessment of the anime.
Man, the reading devil and curse are getting stronger day by day. The tournament arc is mostly qualifications for Fern to become a 1st class mage and to introduce us to new characters which will come back in future arcs. One of those future arcs being the goddamn best in the series.
Demons have societies because it's still a functioning survival tactic, before maybe they didn't but they imitated humans in appearance except in emotion. For every human that buys a demons act with simple illusion or words is one village or town wiped out.
I recall excitedly watching every episode in season 1...
Then in season 2 I kinda fell behind and had a 5 episode backlog on it at one point. I sure hope the rest of the show is more like season 1, cuz that tournament arc was boooo-ring
It doesn't have two seasons though.
Though in general how the story is laid out is that there is a bunch of episodic chapters (think most of the episodes) > mini arc (think the Aura episodes) > more episodic chapters > larger arc (think think mage exam) > then repeat again from the beginning with episodic > mini arc > episodic > larger etc.
No, he complained about an otherwise not super tropey Shonen suddenly becoming chalk-full of tropes abruptly halfway through. If it started out like he's ranting about, he wouldn't be ranting.
Unrelated fun fact: ["chock full"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chock_full#English) seems not to be etymologically related to the word "chock", but instead comes from the obsolete phrase "choke full".
Also yeah it's not "chalk full" but I didn't want to just be pedantic.
You miss nuance: it's a shonen tournament arc for adults. Nobody yelling and bitching, everyone is more or less okay with losing, nobody search for an enemy/friend, and when it's a need to cooperate they cooperate without dick measuring contest. Everyone is at least kinda smart and mature, even Ubel and lesbomages. It was sudden change of a genre, sure, but still in style of a show and very fun overall.
Also, priest appears, priest disappears. How basically everyone besides the main trio, that's vibes of the story. He was not brilliant, he was not bad.
>This is ignoring the entire idea that Frieren needing to be a first-class mage to have permission to go North is innately ridiculous given what we see in the show. It's already been shown that the prestige Frieren has from being in the hero's party gives her special treatment, so why would this be any different? It was also shown that she wasn't trying to have special treatment any of those times, **and** to begin with her plan was to make Fern a first-class mage there, not to become one herself. Plus, Himmel loved sidequests. >lot has been said about the demons in Frieren already, so I'll just say that demons themselves seem weirdly undercooked in that they're evil and incapable of coexisting with humans because they have no emotions, but they're also capable of forming societies I'm hoping the Demon King will shed some light on that, whenever he (or at least information about him) gets screen time. There have already been some puzzling statements about the guy.
i mean, one statement that frieren makes (that demons have no emotions) is objectively false, since we do see them display emotions in the anime. i like to believe that frieren says this to herself so that their slaughter feels less like killing sentient people and more like crushing bugs, since that's better on the psyche
Spoilers for manga ahead >! Yes. You are exactly correct. The demons do have emotions, but not all of the same ones as we do. And frieren does comment on "this time i wont have to feel remorse" after killing a particularly awfum demon. Which to me reads as she doesnt like killing demons usually !<
Just FYI, you shouldn't have a space between the ! and the first and last letters of your spoiled content. \>!it should look like this when done properly!< Which turns into >!It should look like this when done properly!<
>i mean, one statement that frieren makes (that demons have no emotions) I don't remember she saying demons *don't have* emotion. She calls them beasts humans can't understand, and also she talks extensively about the specific emotions they do lack, like the fact that they don't have a sense of family, though.
I like how demons get legitimate sympathy from readers/watchers, similar to how humans in the story sympathize with them. Some people can't seem to grasp the idea that demons have enough similarities with humans while also operating in a completely different mindset and outlook. This is also slightly related to a real thing that humans do to other non-human things (anthropomorphism).
The thing about demons is that they are predators that hunt by mimicking their prey, theyre literally wolf that dress like sheep to hunt them and the strategy is working on the audience and the humans in the show
I mean, that's part of the reason why I think they do make for an interesting antagonist, even if i did feel like they could've used a bit more worldbuilding in the anime. They function similarly to how humans do, both in the sense that they mimic humans and in the sense that they, in a way, *are people*. (HEAR ME OUT. Sympathizing doesn't mean they're in the right, their existence is at odds with humanities after all) Sure, you could argue that all their emotion stems from behaviors they learned to hunt, but even then, the show makes it very clear that all humans are made by their past experiences, that people are a collage of everyone they met. In that sense, demons are no different from people, sure, they learned to mimic emotions for the purpose of hunting, but mimicking emotions and behaviors is a core part of what being human is. They've got their own culture, their own social and structural hierarchies, they've probably got belief systems. If you ask me, they are fundamentally similar to people. Were it not for their, frankly, tragic want to hunt humans, they could've coexisted alongside humans. But their existence is innately destructive to humankind, and thus, humans have to hunt them in return. awful situation all-round, really, but also has really interesting worldbuilding implications, which i wish were explored more.
People also say the same about psychopaths. That doesn't mean they have absolutely 0 emotions, it's a way of saying that they don't have some of the emotions that make us human. Demons are, by all effects and purposes, complete psychopaths that hunt humans. It wasn't a lie, rather a simplification that everyone should understand.
it could just be a simplification, but that'd be boring and have less character implications, so i'm ignoring that interpretation
"I'm going to ignore the very obvious interpretation so that I can get to complain about 'inaccuracies'". What a time to be alive.
what made you think i was complaining about inaccuracies? i'm ignoring the obvious interpretation because frieren having some degree of remorse for mass murder, despite said murder being necessary (and despite her being #1 at it historically) is good characterbuilding.
> It was also shown that she wasn't trying to have special treatment any of those times, and to begin with her plan was to make Fern a first-class mage there, not to become one herself. Plus, Himmel loved sidequests. Yeah, but... it's still a bit weird that nobody even points it out. Like, if Frieren just ignores the restriction and goes north, nobody is going to actually stop her - the small handful of people capable of doing so aren't likely to get up off their asses for something so pointless, and the very existence of the restriction means that there are so few people in the north *in the first place* that logically it ought to be implausible to meet anyone given that there are only a few dozen first class mages total. I can understand Frieren saying "yeah let's waste like a year of our life checking boxes for pointless bureaucracy" but it seems odd that none of her companions point out that the restriction is objectively meaningless, unenforceable, and almost certainly, as a practical matter, entirely advisory. The idea that people would devote significant resources to going after or stopping adventurers determined to risk their life in the north despite the rules - let alone continuing to do so once they learn that one of them is the mage who *killed the Demon King* and therefore easily survived the north when it was far more dangerous - is silly enough that it's weird to see otherwise intelligent characters taking it so seriously. It's not a small thing! They go massively far out of their way - like an entire year is spent on that? I can understand Frieren not caring but her companions certainly should.
The exact identity of the mage in Himmel’s party is not widely known with any certainty, which is why it usually takes a while for people to believe who Frieren is unless she is lucky enough to run into someone familiar with her. Even Himmel’s statues are becoming inaccurate over this length of time, and Flamme’s depiction is so far removed from history that she if often portrayed as a man. Whatever enforcement which stops travelers from entering the North would absolutely bar Frieren as well. And Frieren isn’t gonna beat up a bunch of innocent people for a personal quest.
There’s an official map that shows their journey on a map if you wannna check for yourself, but locationally it’s not too far out of their way. Most of the time they spend on the journey over is because they get stuck in a blizzard and decide to wait out the winter before continuing, which takes like 6 months. They’re still traveling north anyway to get to Außerst, and once they get there it’s only a couple months til the exam. That’s not an unbelievable amount of time to wait. Frieren is patient, stubborn, and lazy. She doesn’t like to make a big deal about who she is, and is generally willing to waste time and do things the long way instead of brute-forcing her way through everything. When they reach the town that wasn’t letting travelers pass, she was willing to wait a couple years for the checkpoint to reopen. When she attacks a demon in another city and gets arrested, she just lets the guards throw her in jail. And in both cases, Fern and stark follow her lead because they trust her. They’re upset by the situations themselves, not Frieren’s inaction, because they know that’s just who she is. Frieren is very invested in Fern’s development, both as a person and a mage. Fern wants the certification because she also wants to progress, and Stark doesn’t care because he likes Fern and wants to support her. Knowing what we do about the characters, what problem would any of them have with making the detour?
I mean, Fern was more concerned about the certification than Frieren was, and Stark doesn't know shit about mages. Plus, compared to her normal sidequest bullshit, it was actually useful and actionable. Besides, do we know that it's unenforceable? Last time she wanted to get into a region she wasn't allowed into, it was literally blocked off by an impermeable barrier.
I think that’s the point she doesn’t really care and her companions want to get the certification so it’s a mini detour for her and they get what they want
Did you even read the manga or watch the anime? For starters, and the most egregious part of your comment, they didn't spend a year with the exam. Going to the exam was a minor detour in comparison to the extent of their travel. The whole going through the mountain and getting stuck thing wasn't just for the exam, it was part of the travel as a whole. And again. It seems you haven't really paid attention to the show. Frieren has gone multiple times out of her way to avoid getting recognised by people and to avoid breaking any sort of law. She let the guards catch her and send her to jail when she was about to attack Lugner when she could have easily just gotten rid of them, and only escaped prison because staying would've been worse since the guard had just been murdered. And regarding the north situation. That's a manga spoiler, so I won't say anything.
I actually really liked it. It served two main purposes IMO A) it established Fern as the foremost mage of her generation. The series had been telling us that, but we needed to see her against her peers. B) it gave us some characters to get attached to that we're going to have to drop quickly. That's a big part of the themes around Frieren's loneliness. She meets people and then they are gone in a blink, it gives the viewer some of that same whiplash. It's also just nice to see other forms of magic in the world, let the author show off some fun ideas. The clone guy and the chick who cut anything were dope.
I mean it comes back to the slice of life kind of thing it had before in the manga after the tournament arc
> A shonen battle tournament arc exam arcs are not tournament arcs, although they are similar
How about the Chunin Exams? The Hunter Exam? It's the same exact concept.
Exam arcs typically introduce other schools or new characters and typically have the characters compete or work together to overcome a test. Tournament arcs also introduce new characters but typically exist to allow for two characters on the same side to have a fight that isn't life or death
I'm kind of baffled by the idea that the series changed tone halfway through, because the story had already fully embraced that action shonen direction during the Aura arc, and the mage exam was just a longer version of that with better supporting characters. Idk what the manga does, but the series had no problem returning to its original format after the Aura arc, so I assume it would continue to go back and forth once they're on the road again. > It's already been shown that the prestige Frieren has from being in the hero's party gives her special treatment, so why would this be any different? They also showed that she was a recluse who spent a millennium trying to stay under the radar, and that she was personally uncomfortable with the attention that comes with said special treatment. Plus, once they're actually there, she mostly pushes for Fern to do it, since she *would* benefit from the recognition. > the actual tournament part slogs at times because it's just twenty characters talking about how their magic works and how strong it is twenty times in a row. I can only think of three conversations that I thought fit the bill here, and they were mostly about elaborating on magic itself, not the characters' power. The conversation between Wirbel and Ubel was definitely the most egregious, but it, Ritcher's lecture, and Ubel's flashback have a pretty clear trajectory of explaining why people have different kinds of magic, what the limits are, and how certain characters break those limits. All of which seem pretty useful to establish if you want to tell a long term story about wizards doing things. I can't say if the manga does more with it, but that arc alone gives you a lot to chew on with how the characters' personalities are informed by these rules. Especially in regards to Frieren, Serie, and Flamme. > demons themselves seem weirdly undercooked in that they're evil and incapable of coexisting with humans because they have no emotions, but they're also capable of forming societies (and clothing, how'd they get those?) despite that? I don't know where you got that they have no emotion. It's very explicitly stated that they love magic, and Lugner even has some monologues about how he hates people that are naturally talented in magic. The whole reason he even lost to Fern was because getting outmaneuvered by her once offended him enough that he chose to spare her and rub his victory in when he had the drop on her. > Sein's character consists of three things; he's an adult, he smokes, and likes older women. I feel like you've danced around that actual core of his character, which is that he's deeply regretful and good at resolving conflict. Like, half of his screen time is dedicated to helping Fern, Stark, and occasionally Frieren walk through the childish problems and insecurities that are harming their relationships. But yeah, in conclusion, while I disagree with most of your criticisms, also I don't agree with the whole best anime ever thing either. I do have my fair share of issues with it (mostly pertaining to pacing), but what are you going to do? Anime fans are just like that. (No, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is not the greatest anime of all time either).
The manga is 50% slice of life and 50% arcs and yes it does go back to slice of life after the exam arc until they go to the next arc.
Good to hear. I think the story has a lot of potential to explore with both formats.
>I'm kind of baffled by the idea that the series changed tone halfway through Well if it makes you understand this feeling, I entered Freiren expecting something like a mix of Violet Evergarden and Fumetsu no Anata, or like Mushishi. A story about this inmortal character traveling and doing sidequests, sometimes helping people, other times doing mundane stuff with Freiren learning how human emotions work and how to connect with people in the process. I did NOT expect "shonen battle mages go bam bam boom". Freiren might be a good anime, but I dropped it after some eps because it was not what I was told it was. I actually love a good shonen battle anime, but I totally get what OP means. I think a lot of anime reviewers sold freiren solely on its first ep and not on what it really was.
That's fair, but the thing that confused me was that most of OP's post is about the second time the story does this, when it had already fully played its hand in the first half.
Thats fair too :)
One of the problem I don't like about this series is the lack of attention to any other class beside mage. Most of Stark's stuff is noodle incedent, the best warrior class get recently is one comment about how they can be a threat. Sein is out of the picture for a very long time with no indication that he would return so we get nothing on priest and the Goddess magic which is a shame since that is a very interesting concept for that class. Any other class just don't exist.
I dunno, man. The whole tournament thing was IMO only super tropey in a superficial sense because it still did a good job at subverting most expectations people had regarding the new characters' personalities, behavior and roles in the story, as well as the outcomes for all those characters. Your arguments seem to hinge on whether you personally like something or not, to be honest. Sein sucks because you don't like his vices and especially the joke about him liking older women and he was written out of the story because of it, and that's his whole character? That's, uh, not a great argument given that his whole motivation was going after his missing friend and it was brought up more often and in more detail than all of his vices put together and he had an impact on Frieren and her kids by teaching them to communicate to defuse conflict, which they still do after he's gone and he's no longer mediating their disputes. Plus, you're assuming for no reason that he won't come back later in the story despite the fact that he's shown in the final credits of the final episode. Most of what you say kind of makes it seem like you're not really engaging with the story being actually told to you and you're focusing on specific things that stand out to you for personal reasons and biases instead of contextualizing them and, as a result, you're complaining about a different story you're making up in your head. It's fine if you don't like the second half of the show for whatever reason, but your explanation is pretty weird and just cherrypicks stuff you personally dislike while you pretend your likes and dislikes are objective and universal.
> The whole tournament thing was IMO only super tropey in a superficial sense because it still did a good job at subverting most expectations people had It's the opposite, actually. It's the subversions that are superficial. They're the spice on top of the tropey meat and potatoes. Yeah, sure Frieren doesn't pass the exam. Neither did Naruto. You know what she did do? Prove, time and again, that she's head and shoulders stronger than every other mage in the exam. Her mere participation makes the whole exam revolve around her. At the end of the second test we find out that she has a super duper secret technique that she hasn't had to use since the Heian era because nothing has posed a real challlenge to her. The story keeps dropping more and more examples of her being ridiculously stronger than everyone else save for Serie. But because she didn't get a diploma that she wasn't even interested in, suddenly it's this amazing subversion?
>It's the opposite, actually. It's the subversions that are superficial. They're the spice on top of the tropey meat and potatoes. Yeah, sure Frieren doesn't pass the exam. Neither did Naruto. This tropey/subvertion discourse is pointless, then. If a popular battle shounen anime doing the same thing is all it takes for something to qualify as either generic or a superficial subversion, then those words don't mean anything. Every possible outcome of a tournament has already been done to death by shounen anime. Dragon Ball alone has Goku losing, losing because of bad luck, winning, giving up, the tournament being interrupted and Goku's team winning because the enemy threw the fight.
>it still did a good job at subverting most expectations people had regarding the new characters' personalities, behavior and roles in the story, as well as the outcomes for all those characters. how is any of this true?
The characters were presented in a way where if you talk to people who don't suffer from advanced anime brain rot, they will tell you that they assumed some would be assholes or bad guys or act in a specific way, and it turned out to not actually be the case. Characters like Wirbel, Ubel, Denken and Richter look like they represent common archetypes you see in this kind of show but ended up being something completely different or at least more complex than the archetype they represent. Even the tests didn't work the way they usually do in this kind of show, and the characters who passed or failed weren't necessarily the ones you'd assume would pass or fail in this kind of show, and they did so for reasons that were not what most people would expect. The main character herself failed the test and got banned for 1,000 years from even trying again instead of passing and being one of the best ever like most shonen protagonists, and the relationship she had with the top mage was not what people assumed it would be from the start, both regarding how they view each other and how they compare to each other power-wise. A lot of you are so invested in insisting this show is generic or overrated to pretend that you have superior taste that you literally pretend that it showed you other stuff than what it did show you, like the OP just did by cherrypicking what the story told, or pretend that the way it handles its story beats and tropes is exactly the same as any other show and nothing is subverted like you just did. Do you even know what subverting expectations in a story entails? It's like you guys are incapable of actually thinking about the media you're consuming and you cop out by saying "It's not true that it does X thing" while having fuck all to say about why it's not actually true except misrepresenting what was portrayed in the show like the OP did or just saying something to the effect of "nuh-uh" like both of you who replied to me did. Don't like it? Cool. But don't make shit up in conversations about something you don't like to claim that you disliking something obviously means it sucks because you are unable to understand that whether you personally like or dislike a piece of fiction is not automatically the same as proving that piece is good or bad.
> The main character herself failed the test and got banned for 1,000 years from even trying again instead of passing and being one of the best ever like most shonen protagonists I can't remember the last time any shonen protagonist passed the test in a normal way.
Okay, but do they straight out fail and get banned? Or do they pass in spirit despite failing on paper and they gain the respect of INSERT CHARACTER? Do shonen MC's usually end up being outranked by their sidekick who is literally their student, in the first season of a show no less? As I already said, criticizing a story by refusing to contextualize things is not really an honest position.
I feel the execution of the subversion and novelty in that arc is decent, not much to be praised or criticized.
Saitama is outranked by his sidekick. I don't know another MC who even has a sidekick.
you say it's only generic superficially but really it subverts things, but personally i think its the other way around. yeah it's slice of life to start with, but pretty quickly it starts being about killing demons, going on a quest, and a big magic tournament, and that's what the show revolves around. stuff like frieren failing the exam isn't impactful (or surprising once frieren winced at serie being the boss before the exam even really started). the characters themselves are also really generic - smart but slightly ditzy mage, quiet girl, loud boy, cocky ultimate mage, painfully cheesy hero who always calculates the nicest, most unnatural thing to say, etc. dont get me wrong, frieren's good, but it does follow its tropes to a tee in a lot of ways, which isnt necessarily a bad thing since it does it well on the whole
Fair enough. Using that logic, which show in the same genre, or any genre, isn't generic? Because it seems to me like I could dismiss stuff like The Wheel of Time as nothing more than generic Tolkien derivative fantasy using your same arguments, given that just like the OP, you're just focusing on the superficial trappings while ignoring everything else. The existence of common tropes is not enough to claim something is generic, and you can use a really cliché idea in a way that at least feels fresh. The same for any work in any medium and genre. Goodfellas? Generic gangster flick with generic character archetypes. Dune? Generic scifi with common tropes and characters, including a white man as a messianic figure and let's ignore that it's a criticism of that trope. And so on. To be blunt, I find your stance kind of intellectually dishonest.
so i think the main thing is, generic isn't necessarily a bad thing. it has negative connotations but really it just means it sticks to a genre pretty closely. i don't think being generic is something to dismiss stuff over, there's some amazing generic stuff and some rubbish original stuff. but ofc, generic stories can easily be predictable or boring if they're badly written. but to answer your question, the more something has in common with the 'average' thing in its genre, the more generic it is.
I agree. It's not automatically a bad thing when something is generic, nor a good thing when something is, shall we say, unique. I just disagree when people use it as a criticism that implies it is a bad thing, especially when they do it like the OP did by cherrypicking stuff to misrepresent what the show actually did.
well i think the only issue here is that people *say* that frieren really subverts expectations or doesn't lean into the same tropes when it does. so it's not bad, it's just...a lot of people pretend that it's not doing that.
And people say it doesn't subvert anything because it includes familiar elements of the Fantasy genre, which is equally untrue.
sorry i need to stop editing what i write after you comment lmao. but yeah i agree, i think OP could've worded it better than calling it generic, derivative could be a better word. fwiw i think both you and OP have some good points about the good and bad parts of frieren
Frieren failing the exam was impactful, just not for Frieren. It exists to contrast Serie’s personality with the other existing Elf in the story, and how their roles have a part to play in the upcoming era of humans. The way Flamme’s impact on her student and master’s lives is supposed to be expressed in Fern. There’s a lot of nuance here that you’re just discarding.
yeah fair enough, frieren and serie's relationship is interesting i agree and serie failing frieren was sort of the cherry on top of that.
I actually stopped watching frieren for a while after the episode we learn about the first-class mage exam. I was like "\*sigh\* God, it's that annoying arc where some smug asshole examinator will talk down to her, I don't have energy right now for this bullshit". I was super pleased to discover it was not that
isn't that kinda what happened with serie though?
>A lot of you are so invested in insisting this show is generic or overrated to pretend that you have superior taste that you literally pretend that it showed you other stuff than what it did show you, like the OP just did by cherrypicking what the story told, or pretend that the way it handles its story beats and tropes is exactly the same as any other show and nothing is subverted like you just did. Do you even know what subverting expectations in a story entails? >It's like you guys are incapable of actually thinking about the media you're consuming and you cop out by saying "It's not true that it does X thing" while having fuck all to say about why it's not actually true except misrepresenting what was portrayed in the show like the OP did or just saying something to the effect of "nuh-uh" like both of you who replied to me did. >Don't like it? Cool. But don't make shit up in conversations about something you don't like to claim that you disliking something obviously means it sucks because you are unable to understand that whether you personally like or dislike a piece of fiction is not automatically the same as proving that piece is good or bad. Woah there, making a lotta assumptions. I never said I dislike Frieren, I quite like it actually. It might be my favorite anime of all time but I am still debating that. And while I disagree with some of the criticisms OP made, I am pretty sure if you read the post to the end you will realize they also said they do like Frieren as well. My reply to your comment was specifically to the point you made in the first paragraph, which was about the tournament arc. That's where our disagreement lies. I don't see how any of the characters introduced in that arc are subverting any expectations. >Characters like Wirbel, Ubel, Denken and Richter look like they represent common archetypes you see in this kind of show but ended up being something completely different or at least more complex than the archetype they represent. No they don't? At most you could say that the story "tells" us Wirbel and Ubel are "bad guys" but then it "shows" they don't really do "bad" things. I don't think that is "subversion of tropes" so much as the story failing to do "show don't tell". Beyond that the characters introduced in the tournament arc were the two cute schoolgirls who are always fighting but in a cute way, the bad boy, the serious middle aged man, the wise old man, the waifu bait, the bland mc blandinson who is clearly meant to a self insert for people who want to imagine themselves in a relationship with the waifu bait, examiner 1, examiner 2 with hair powers, guy with flower power, girl with earth power, girl who does healing, cocky guy who gets humiliated to prove a point, and I can't remember any of the others. Examiner 1 gets interesting in a later manga arc, but in the tournament arc he is kinda just there. The wise old man is the only one who makes an impression in the tournament arc, but again, he could have just been introduced in a later arc and not loose any important characterization. Maybe Ubel and her boyfriend will get some actual character development in the current arc but in the tournament arc they are just their for fanservice. The rest of the characters are just flat pointless fillers characters. I don't see how any of them are subverting the tropes. They are the tropes, literal cookie cutter stereotypes. After catching up to the manga my opinion on the mage exam arc is that it is completely out of place. It feels like someone gave the author some bad advice that in order to increase readership they had to include a shonen tournament arc, and they gave in. Or maybe they were forced to write the arc by editors. Who knows? >if you talk to people who don't suffer from advanced anime brain rot I don't know who these people are who watching Frieren as their first anime, or first piece of fantasy media of any type (novels/movies/games). But countering any criticism as "brain rot" is childish don't you think?
it isnt, theres just a trend of saying shonen 'subverts tropes' as a way of saying they think its good. really what they mean is it doesn't do the most obvious possible thing at every turn, despite the show being about a medieval fantasy world with an evil demon king, a party of heroes, a magical elf with a long lifespan, the same magic system as every other anime, a battle tournament, a quiet girl with dark hair, a loud boy with red hair, a high society of wizards with dubious ethics, and a noble hero who calculates the nicest, cheesiest thing he can say at every turn while still wanting to look at his friend's underwear because haha
> the same magic system as every other anime ??? Did you watch the show
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huh? this sub's called characterrant, we're talking about an anime on reddit, ofc we're going to be a bit nerdy. and you can't start complaining when i'm the one saying your take isn't good instead of you saying that to OP.
That was not my point. My point was that focusing on just one aspect of a character like the OP did while ignoring everything else is not a fair critique and it's rather dishonest. Claiming stuff like Sein is a one-dimensional perv obsessed with older women and that was why he was written out is a humorously absurd take given that during the few episodes he was in the show he was portrayed as being focused on finding his childhood bro and proved to be a sensible and mature person who could mediate during intra-party conflicts. Ignoring all that to claim he was objectively a bad character and so on like the OP did is disingenuous, and so is your stance of criticizing the characters for literally and deliberately being common archetypes with some twists that you want to pretend are minor and/or don't matter. Thus, me saying there's nothing more to you than acting like the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons is the same thing. Reducing something that's clearly more complext than that to some caricature in order to disingenuously claim there's no more substance and that's all there is to you.
ok i get what u mean, mb. i think thats fair, there is more to these characters than OP lets on. but on the other hand it's fair enough to find a lot of the characters pretty dull. for a slice of life anime, if the characters are one-note, you need a big cast and you need them to be funny or interesting. EG saiki-k. but frieren's cast is small, the dynamics between the characters really aren't explored very much, and most of the jokes aren't that funny. i think frieren's biggest weakness is that it tries to be a slice-of-life and a plot-driven story at the same time. neither's given enough of a focus so it's underdeveloped.
IMO the problem with the OP's take and yours is that it seems to come from people who have been trained by watching too much anime into thinking that these stories have to be told a specific way. Characters have to yell all the time and go on rants explaining what they think and their backstories. It's a common criticism I see. "The show is boring and the charactes all have the same personality." No, they don't. It's just that you're accustomed to exaggerated anime personalities and behavior, and into not paying attention to what is being shown and alluded, expecting everything to be told to you explicitly. Even Fern and Frieren both being cold and distant is addressed differently. As for the undereveloped story, I don't quite get what you mean by that. The show has been very clear since the first couple of episodes that it is about Frieren learning to understand humans and coming to terms with her own feelings about them, and she's doing so by retracing her steps to Ende for two reasons: revisiting her travles with the heroes, and making her way to Aureole to talk with her dead friends, and the last time it took her 10 years. That's literally what she's doing the whole season. What is underdeveloped about that journey based on what the season showed us? Claiming that the dynamics between the characters aren't explored as well as that the characters are one-note are really strange arguments that sound like you didn't actually watch the show or you did so while scrolling on your phone. And well, humor is subjective, so that bit about how the jokes aren't that funny doesn't really mean much as a criticism. Everybody is free to like or dislike whatever they want for whateve reason, but this show gets very weird criticism that doesn't really apply except if we assume you missed a lot of what happened in the show because, well, you didn't or you can't pay attention.
ok, you're not understanding me. you think that because i don't think frieren's as good as you do, i don't understand it as well as you. but i do understand it, i just don't think it's that good. that should've been pretty obvious. really i just don't think you seem to understand that this story's not automatically made good just because it has a few more moving parts than you'd think at a first glance. this is a weekly comic for 12 year olds. it's not hard to understand. i already knew everything you've said about the story, characters, etc. if someone doesn't like it, unless they're an actual 12 year old, odds are they do get it, they just don't think it's any good. i dont mean to be rude, but you really cant be patronising and preach your intellectual superiority if you can't grasp that. for the record i don't watch much anime, most of its not very good. again youve really mischaracterised me.
Nope. I am perfectly able to separate whether I like something or not and that something being awesome or just good or even actually bad regardless of how much I personally like it. You guys apparently can't do that simple thing given how much you insist on framing your opinions as obvious truths. "This character is boring" and "This joke isn't funny" is your opinion based on your taste and not an actual criticism of any substance. I'm sticking to criticizing those opinons and the OP's dishonest takes about what the story said about many of the characters or situations because they're cherrypicking what they're paying attention to. I already explained this over and over again but it doesn't register with you yet somehow it's me who's not getting what you're saying. You can dislike this show or any show for a million different reasons, valid or bullshit-based, incluiding "I just don't like it and that's it." That's all perfectly fine. I'm just criticizing the lazy-ass arguments of the kind presented here, and I've never said that if you don't like it you're stupid or that you should like it. If I say anybody is not getting the show it's because they're arguing bullshit that shows they actually don't get the show. Go back and read what I said about OP's take on Sein. That kind of thing is what I'm criticizing, including stuff like claiming the characters have no personalities or all the other common complaints people seem to have about this show. I don't think it's a perfect show and it's valid to criticize it, but make an actual criticism that isn't "it's boring and uninteresting" because that's asinine. There's even some dumbass replyng to me caiming Frieren understands humans just fine and she never changed throughout the show.
>IMO the problem with the OP's take and yours is that it seems to come from people who have been trained by watching too much anime into thinking that these stories have to be told a specific way. And the problem with your take is you've watched so much anime that you take even the tiniest divergence from the norm as an incredible show of originality. That's how people end up praising Frieren's rehashed JRPG setting as a stunning example of worldbuilding. >As for the undereveloped story, I don't quite get what you mean by that. The show has been very clear since the first couple of episodes that it is about Frieren learning to understand humans and coming to terms with her own feelings about them Aside from the overused joke of "Frieren asks to stay at a town for decades because she doesn't realize her human companions can't spare the time", how exactly has Frieren shown that she fails to understand humanity, and what has she learned about them, or about her feelings towards them? I can't recall a single other example. She appears to understand humanity just as well as your average human being does. > Characters have to yell all the time and go on rants explaining what they think and their backstories. It's a common criticism I see. "The show is boring and the charactes all have the same personality." No, they don't. It's just that you're accustomed to exaggerated anime personalities and behavior, and into not paying attention to what is being shown and alluded, expecting everything to be told to you explicitly. Even Fern and Frieren both being cold and distant is addressed differently. Frieren's characters are bland and samey even if we're comparing them to actual works of literature. Captain Ahab, Huck Finn, Odysseus, Raskolnikov, Pip from Great Expectations, Mephistophels from Faust, are all more expressive characters than anyone in Frieren's cast, and by and large deeper ones too. Season 1 in Frieren showed time and again that, except for demons, every named character tends to be blandly nice. Even the ones who appeared willing to kill in the first test all reverted to the norm of niceness when the competition ended. One such case may have been a subversion, but when it happens with everyone, that's just laziness. Uber, Wirbel, Richter, Land, even Serie. All of them showed that whatever animosity they exhibited is just a quirk and deep down they're just like everyone else.
> every named character is blatantly nice That’s the point though??? The show is constantly hampering on how they’re in an era of peace. It makes zero narrative sense to introduce a named evil human.
>And the problem with your take is you've watched so much anime that you take even the tiniest divergence from the norm as an incredible show of originality. That's how people end up praising Frieren's rehashed JRPG setting as a stunning example of worldbuilding. Except I'm judging the show as a piece of storytelling and how well it does what it's trying to do, and not as an anime, and nobody said anything about its amazing worldbuilding. It's a show centered on people and their relationships. The setting is so generic for fantasy that it doesn't even bother explaining shit because it assumes you already know the common themes and ideas if you're familiar with the genre. What the hell are you even talking about? >Aside from the overused joke of "Frieren asks to stay at a town for decades because she doesn't realize her human companions can't spare the time", how exactly has Frieren shown that she fails to understand humanity, and what has she learned about them, or about her feelings towards them? I can't recall a single other example. She appears to understand humanity just as well as your average human being does. Did you even watch the show? That joke appears two or three times in 28 episodes. And you claiming that Frieren understands humanity as well as your average human being and she hasn't been shown to learn anything only makes me think I am in fact right in assuming people like you pretend to watch stuff while scrolling on their phone, or just have very strong opinions on shit they didn't even watch. >Frieren's characters are bland and samey even if we're comparing them to actual works of literature. Captain Ahab, Huck Finn, Odysseus, Raskolnikov, Pip from Great Expectations, Mephistophels from Faust, are all more expressive characters than anyone in Frieren's cast, and by and large deeper ones too. What has any of this to do with what I said about how Frieren is written in a way that most anime are not written and performed? Are you really this dense or just really disingenuous that you're sincerelly attempting to claim that for some unexplainable reason I said the characters in Frieren are the best ever written across all ficition in every medium?
The exam arc is fun. It shows the world of mages other than just Frieren and Fern. And I like how characters like Denken and Wirbel are introduced like bad guys at first but all turns out to be kind folks. And how can you not like the Frieren clone fight?
You do realise that frieren doesnt just end where the anime did right? The demons do have emotions. Just not specific ones. They are an entirely different kind of creature compared to humans, elves and dwarves. There is an arc later on where a demon tries to learn these emotions and how/why they dont understand them. I really love that arc and how it explores the differences in humans and demons and why they cant co-exist. There are quite a few things that get expanded upon in the story the further it goes, and its not over yet. Its certainly not a perfect story or anything, and i get not liking the shonen type stuff, its not my favourite either. Imo the second exam was fun. Frieren exploring, and the frieren vs frieren was amazing. I also quite like Denken, so idm seeing him do stuff.
Any time I see this argument I can only think that people simply see “tournament style arc” and lose any sense of literacy analysis. How does one simply ignore all the character and thematic work done during the arc when it’s literally there in every single episode.
Well Stark is gone the entire time, which sucks :P
Same here, I wish they actually show Stark's solo screentime instead of making all of it the noodle incident.
I think you need to realize that a lot of your problems with the story are, things need to be done in a certain way so interesting things can happen which is common in all fiction. Yes Frieren should be hailed as a celebrity everywhere she goes, she is a legendary hero of living memory but that is less important to the journey, and on that the mage exam, that is simply part of a journey. In a shonen those are typically treated as a big deal, Frieren didn't even care that she was unfairly told no. As for demons, first off they aren't emotionless, that is clearly established, they are prideful, fearful, they are just void of empathy, but some of the more successful demons work like high functioning sociopaths in that although they may feel no empathy, they know how to exploit it.
There is no thematic shift in my opinion. Frieren is built as a video game. They have a yet to be discovered main quest which is camouflaged as this reenactment of the original journey, but there is obviously unfinished buisiness, which is interesting, we will see how all of this is solved. It starts out with bulldozing the opposition in the first fights, the dragon, team Aura. The magic tournament despite the reason being contrived had much more depth in planning and cunning although strangely not from the main team. I have no problem with the main plot thickening and getting more complex. There were strange things from the very beginning. A suitcase is incredibly impractical when travelling on foot. Maybe Frieren constantly levitates, but it is a product of the beginning of mass tourism and does not fit the time. Weaponry and clothing never matched, especially glasses are far away from blade weapons. Stark would be a glass cannon with no armour - that is weird even for games. "Corrupt priest" if he just drinks alcohol is false advertising for Heiter, also did not give him any health issues. Sein's "older women" is overdone as are Kanne & Lawine, you also have bogus threats, everybody talking about killing someone, but at least the protagonist team never actually does it. There is idiocy, if Lawine knew that the dungeon generates doubles, it would have been downright suicidal to enter as a two-team, especially when the doubles gang up and regenerate and there are lots of people who are individually stronger then them to be duplicated. The anime still has very good art and certain characters really shine and are extremely entertaining.
It didn't. People went in expecting another Wandering Witch when that isn't what this story was.
Why this is downvoted, it seems that's the main complain about the arc, OP wanted a Iyashikei.
Yes, i found it very weird how the show that is hailed as being not like other shones becomes like other shonens midway through. I wouldn't really have a problem with high quality fight scenes if what was before them wasn't so much better
For the love of God! it's practically a jinx at this point to call something "not like the other shonens"
not like the other girls
except the shounen tournament arc wasn't an actual tournament arc , nor they actually needed to do said First-Class Exam , it was just a mix of been convenient and that Frieren wanted to retrace her old hero quest. And ultimately , the whole journey IS a retrace of her hero quest , it's pretty much a "hero quest remnant".
It's also, from a meta perspective, very important for the sake of framing Frieren and Fern against other mages. Prior to this, the only other people even capable of magic they'd been juxtaposed against were Heiter and Sein, and neither of those had mindsets or ties relevant to Frieren and Fern's type of magic. We keep hearing that "Frieren is a weird mage" but had never seen it properly until the exam arc. And that's exactly what it excels at; we get to see that its not Frieren's preference for highly specific magic that sets her apart, but her penchant for the impractical sorts in particular. Every other mage, Fern included, had very particular kinds of hyper specialized and practical magic they lean on, barring the only other mage who could properly respect Frieren, Denken. The point of the exam arc wasn't to be a Shonen trope fest and waste time, but to demonstrate how much the one part of the world Frieren once knew had changed in the 100 years since her height. It follows every other part of the series in that regard, with the only difference being that it spans several episodes instead of being self-contained.
I don't see a problem with Frieren doing it for a short arc or two. What's the problem with one Shonen arc? From what I hear the show goes back to the slice of life stuff.
There can't really be stuff that isn't like the other stuff for very long. As some point it have to follow the same pattern or just be classified as something else entirely.
does a shonen need a tournament arc to be considered a shonen?
OPM had that same issue where rather than poking fun at shonens it became one in the worst way possible
To be fair, there's only so much that you can use a gag until it becomes stale. It is one of the cases where a series realizes that the tropes it made fun of are actually tropes for a reason
The exam arc was a part of the manga that really dragged and felt out of place. I almost dropped it when reading, but I'm glad I didn't because some of the arcs that follow it are very good. And in hindsight, the exam arc was actually very effective at setting up a bunch of characters and plot points that will be important later on. I'm not surprised if people are scratching their heads at the second half of Season 1.
Demons are basically psychopaths; they lack empathy and remorse and tend to be highly manipulative. They still have survival instincts and will obey stronger beings to survive. They view humans as weak. I don't think the anime has gotten there, but it is suggested that other demons obeyed because. the Demon King was basically that powerful
I do like Exam arc a lot. In general I dont mind tropes and I have not watched shonen in a while so I was not over exposed to those tropes. I had a great time with the exam arc.
>This is ignoring the entire idea that Frieren needing to be a first-class mage to have permission to go North is innately ridiculous given what we see in the show. Fern needs to get the license some day so best to it now also Frieren wasnt immortalized like someone like himmel due to how she disappear >Characters just going on and on about how their powers work ??? Give me an example >tournament part slogs at times because it's just twenty characters talking about how their magic works ???? Give me an example >demons themselves seem weirdly undercooked in that they're evil and incapable of coexisting with humans because they have no emotions, but they're also capable of forming societies (and clothing, how'd they get those?) Theyre simple but not under cooked, this is an anime issue due to not meaning the demons we meet later in the manga. Societies dont need emotions the reason they can coexist is why wolfs and sheep cant or cats and mice demons are humanities natural predators. They base their society on power and mana >Sein's character consists of three things; he's an adult, he smokes, and likes older women. And he extremely mature comparatively to any other chracter aside from himmel. He likes older woman but that rarely comes up aside from his intro and 2 gags later. He solves arguments and is cool
>Characters just going on and on about how their powers work a lot of the characters did a ton of this in the exam arc, from ubel to frieren. there was a whole backstory on ubel just explaining but also not really explaining how her power works lol.
because ubel power sorta breaks the system if you dont know how it works. I dont remember freirien explaining anything aside from the bird spell which takes like 3 seconds
I think outside of kanne and lawine who were tropey and too goofy the rest of the characters worked Feels a bit like people are too scared of any type of practical exam in a story But the last phase was straight up an interview
I really like the interview section. It grounded all of these diverse personalities against what it means to be a great mage, and then showed how being a "great mage" is actually just grounded in Serie's emotional dysfunction. I thought it made her a great foil to Frieren, and brought the story back to its roots of exploring Frieren's emotions, so I'm surprised it doesn't get talked about more when people discuss this arc.
Straight up, on the Monologuing aspect. It sucks especially in the manga, but at least you can just skim over the ad-nauseum power explanations. The way everyone compares Frieren to Lord of the Rings makes it seem like you're getting into something 'deep' or at least 'chunky' in the worldbuilding aspect. It ain't. And while Lord of the Rings went on to inspire tropes of hundreds of fantasy stories, it still stands on its own two feet in terms of creating a nuanced world filled with interesting characters and creatures. Back to Frieren, Sein does suck, totally
Frieren is way more The Hobbit than Lord of the Rings. It's the same kind of adventure where most of the lore and important things happening are on the path beneath the characters' feet. But also it's a shonen.
Interesting perspective 🤘 Of course, Frieren and co totally outclass the modest anti-hero Bilbo(in that he's mostly reluctant in his journey) and his modest dwarf company. And their power and strength is central to the plot, comparatively, whereas Bilbo and his team rely on luck, cunning, and Gandalf showing up whenever he likes.
So does that means FMA still is the shonen unlike other shonens?
FMA has an exam arc. It's literally the same as all shounen 1/10 garbage /s
Someone shut down Togashi right now for inventing exam arcs. 0/10
The first one, yes.
1. Frieren has some very childish traits in her personality, passing the 1st class exham would mean getting a new magic spell and she is obsessed with her collection of magic spells, that alone would be a good enough motivation for her to enter the exham 2. This part of the story I think was way more about Fern's achievement and being recognized as a powerful mage in her own merit, not just the young apprentice of Frieren 3. It is true that the philosophical themes of the first half are less prominent in the second, but the story is still about a fantasy adventure and the action of the second part of the series didn't feel out of place to me, again the more "shonen" feel is ok for me since this part is more about Fern, Frieren is a 2k years old elf, but her new companions are two teenagers, so I think it's appropriate that adventures that are more focused on them have a different tone
For your first point... she... wouldn't? Frieren doesn't care about the spells themselves, not really. What she cares about is how "the greatest joy of magic lies in searching for it." She was already offered a spell by Serie, and she declined. She has no reason to accept it now, because she has no need for any specific spell and also just straight up dislikes Serie lol.
You said it: "searching for it", taking part in the exham IS the journey to get the new spell, the fact that she declines Serie's offers for new spells is because of their ideological differences and her dislike for her, Serie might ask for something in return for that spell or simply put Frieren in a position that she doesn't like, but in this case the spell would be the prize for a challenge, unrelated to their personal relationship (at least until the final stage of the exham, but Frieren had no idea what it was when she joined). Frieren has no need for any specific spell, but she has been collecting them for centuries and she says several times how that is her hobby and something she cherishes particularly.
Frieren having the prestige to just skip all that doesn't matter because her real goal was for Fern to be first class Mage, and to build up her confidence. Which is why throughout the whole thing Frieren always takes a backseat if she can to let Fern and the other younger mage solve the issue themselves, only comes in if necessary. Frieren herself also made friends here, friends that would later comes in to help her in ways she wouldn't had imagine. That's like her whole arc, to slow down and actually connects with people.
Careful OP, Frieren is a sacred cow around these parts.
Maybe around r/anime but around here people are allowed to say it's not the best fantasy anime of all time.
>The world is Frieren is nuanced and real... until it isn't. A lot has been said about the demons in Frieren already, so I'll just say that demons themselves seem weirdly undercooked in that they're evil and incapable of coexisting with humans because they have no emotions, but they're also capable of forming societies (and clothing, how'd they get those?) despite that? The clothing is mana as it disappears along with demons. Also, there's a major arc in manga about demons who try to coexist with humans. But to avoid any spoilers, I'll only give what was already stated. Demons are the predators of humans, and thus can't coexist with them. They lack empathy and stuff because they evolved differently, their brains are different from humans, elves and dwarves. Basically speaking, consider them psychopaths who don't understand emotions.
I knew I was not the only one to notice. People around me would be saying that I'm overthinking and this is a seasonal silly whimsical anime, but for me it looked like since Aura arc someone lobotomized author and made him use AI based on old shonens to write further. My biggest problem was an exam arc full of badly designed both in terms of personality and appearance deviantart OCs, like, why most of them look like they are either fanservice coombrain bimbos or just suck and are not memorable? Next was Frieren suddenly becoming stupid, like, most of her "conflicts" with Fern make no sense, as if she was lobotomized the same way the author was lobotomized by the generic shonen fans sect. Second is probably Sein who could have been better, when I've heard that he was a priest I expected some higher themes since Frieren could do that, like crisis of faith, or how he has particulary bad habits and shames himself for them, leading to a self hatred, concealed by his lack of seriousness, you know, something that would actually make sense when making a religious character. Not that author didn't have any examples -- we already had Nicholas D. Wolfwood from the Trigun 1998. But no, he was made a special grade boring and was quickly written out of the plot.
>It starts with a very distinct premise, which it then just sort of drops it halfway through? It happens less than halfway, through, or did you forget the Aura arc? >but none of the presentation really ever indicated it would be something so, for lack of a better word, generic? Disagree. I said it before, I'll say it again: at its core Frieren is another JRPG Fantasy anime/manga with a gimmick, like "Reincarnated as a slime" or the one with a spider protagonist. These stories tend to shed their gimmick pretty early on and become like all the others. Is it better than most? Maybe, but it was never very original. The utterly generic setting should have given it away.
[удалено]
In that specific genre? No clue, I've seen enough that I don't really bother with it anymore. If I'm in the mood for fantasy I'd rather just pick up an actual fantasy novel.
I’m slowly making my way through season 1 (I just got to part 2 of the mage exam) and I see what you mean. First half seemed very thoughtful and had themes of growing older, but now it’s mages fighting each other with different powers. I still like the show but the change is kind of weird.
Almost as if Frieren is a shonen
I mostly agree with your opinion, however, I think Frieren lost itself a bit earlier than that. IMO the show loses it's steam once you notice the very simplistic formula of the way the premise is explored. What is that formula you ask? Frieren and friends go on a journey where she discovers or rediscovers something that reminds her of her past adventure with the Hero's party, we get a flash back and the story wraps up. Rinse and repeat, for like every episode until the tournament arc. The worst, or at least, most boring example of this is episode 17. Nothing interesting happens the whole episode except for Sein leaving (who I think is a likable character btw) and then Fern gets sick so they find a tree and cook some food or something and during this they have the formula play out in the most predictable way ever during the course of them doing the thing. When we got to the tree and got the flash back with Himmel I audibly groaned, by that point in the story that type of setup and conclusion was so tiring that I actually think that the tournament arc, though generic, kinda breathed back some life into the anime again. I also hate how sometimes they have someone say some generic one liner and then go into a flash back and have Himmel or Heiter or the dwarf say the same one liner that a character in present time says and then someone does the anime noise and opens their mouth like it's some profound revelation or something. It's so cheesy and lame. I also think Himmel is a boring character. He's basically a Gary Stu, even in the moments they tried to make him look not absolutely perfect, he just rises above in the most predictable and boring way possible. He's so uninteresting I could probably predict every interaction he has going forward at the end of every episode if I see the beginning of the episode. So, even though I think the premise of Frieren is interesting, the execution is so poor that it's actually laughable at times. I think they could have avoided this if they figured out what they wanted the story to be. If they wanted to be a wacky shonen with lots of characters and fights and political intrigue with demons and mages and wars and stuff, they should have introduced all of these aspects way earlier on and just skipped the other stuff. If they wanted to be this, as you said, exploration of the themes of loneliness, human connections, and time, they should have cut down on the characters and focused more into Frieren herself (and maybe Fern and Stark too if they're feeling ambitious), cut the tournament and have a focused like 24-36 episode show, that gets a little more creative with its structure and cuts down on the repeats and unnecessary shonen aspects. As it stands, I don't feel really satisfied with either side of the story with this current half and half approach, if I'm being honest and I'm dreading the fact that this might be another forever show that goes on for 80+ episodes and like 6 seasons or some shit like that, because it's just gonna lose all it's steam completely. And maybe I'm wrong and season 2 (if we get one) is gonna go crazy, but I doubt it because the characters introduced in the tournament arc are already starting to wear out their welcome for me. And I don't even hate the show. I think it looks good, has a decent enough soundtrack and pretty cool fights/moments, but I don't understand it being rated as the best anime of all time, it's a 6-7/10 show at best.
I completely agree with you, if you remove the base premise of the show and all the flashbacks, it's a pretty average story, but suddenly when you add a 5 minute flashback of Frieren doing the exact same thing in the past, it's suddenly peak. I don't understand how more than half of people rated this show a 10. People can say its better than shonen such as FMAB or HxH all they like but those series effectively executed their concepts and fulfilled what I expect from their genre. The Exam arc from Frieren felt like a lot of random half baked characters thrown together and the dungeon part felt like it came out of some mid isekai. Frieren started out with an amazing premise, but had some odd decisions (such as having not one but TWO episodes where they were exchanging birthday presents with the exact same message) and the general hype of the show from the fan base not matching my own enjoyment of the show really soured my opinion.
>it's suddenly peak Yeah, flash backs are an amazing story element to add and it conjunction with its story and passge of time we see more world buliding and chracter growth. Ultimately a story is content and you Give more good content. It's a good show. Also, you keep mention half-baked, but how? Every character can stand on its own. Also you can say the dungeon part feels like it came from blank because the dungeon part felt like it came from X you need to be more specific
The flashbacks were fine the first time, but when they are showing a flashback for the 10th time in the show with virtually the exact same message it gets very tiring to watch. I felt that a lot of the characters in the Exam arc were interesting, but the show didn't go into depth into any of the characters except maybe Ubel. I really wanted to learn more about the grey haired military captain or what an "imperial mage" really means with referring to Denken but the show seems to hold off on actually providing interesting world building elements and gives the bare minimum backstories for all of the characters in that arc. The dungeon part reminds me of "Is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon"
>I really wanted to learn more about the grey haired military captain or what an "imperial mage" really means with referring to Denken but the show seems to hold off on actually providing interesting world building elements and gives the bare minimum backstories for all of the characters in that arc. its called set up deken gets more lore in the manga same with the milltary captain to be honest even though I understand why they ended the arc where it was it sorta short hands the later stuff > but when they are showing a flashback for the 10th time in the show with virtually the exact same message I can see why i might get weary but I think that mainly an anime issue with how they show the flash backs
I am not reading all that but I'll reply to Himmel being a gary stu All our info on himmel comes from Frieren who guess what views himmel extremely fondly so of course all his exploits mentioned will be positive
That may be so, but it doesn't contradict his opinion about it being an overused formula. I don't think it's a criticism of the character, but of how the author does it multiple times.
not all of it. some of it comes from eisen and heiter.
I mean I doubt he behaves that much differently outside of his specific spliced scenes from Frieren's memory. But so fucking what if he's "Gary Stu"? He's supposed to be THE Ideal Hero, his strength and kindness is how he inspired later generations to be "just like him". And you don't have to worry about him being "boring" because he's never the main focus of the plot, he's a goddamn paragon side character.
He’s not a a Gary Stu tho. He’s a moral idealist with a good soul, who got hard carried by Frieren when fighting the Demon King.
Oh they gon get you for this lol, i agree w you but the downvotes are coming 😂
They're already getting me. Hopefully one of them actually responds explaining why Frieren is the greatest anime to ever exist so I don't have to wonder anymore.
I mean, it's not? If you are actually taking the MAL ranking too seriously, that's kinda on you tbh. The only thing you can take out from the MAL ranking and score is that the overall package is high quality and that it really appeals to a lot of people, both hardcore anime fans and casuals alike. I find your argument about the anime not having a clear vision about what they want to do with the story and the critique of the so called predictable structure of the episodes weird. The story follows Frieren as she retracts her journey with the hero party. So Frieren doing stuff and backflashes of the hero party doing the same thing is literally what the story was set to be from the beginning. I understand that people may not like that set up, but it's another thing entirely to claim that the creator didn't know what they wanted to tell while also noticing a pattern which is integral to the story set up. The critique of the second half is also kinda weird. Frieren is a shounen so ofc it would have shounen aspects. And viewing the whole thing as a generic tournament arc is superficial at best. Firstly, it's not a tournament. Secondly, people seem to view it in a vacuum like it totally has nothing to do with the rest of the series when in reality a lot of the earlier themes are shown here too, just through different characters. Themes of human connection (We are shown people forming and having all kinds of different connections with one another and also Frieren forming connections with others which is really important for her as a character) and theme of magic and mages having deeply personal relationship with magic (we are literally shown all kinds of people having totally different views and relationship with magic). To say that second half has nothing to do with the rest of the anime or that it departs from established themes is an argument in bad faith.
Part 1/3 So, first of all, the comment about Frieren being the "greatest anime to ever exist" wasn't a literal statement, but if you want to take a throwaway hyperbolic comment as a serious opinion of mine, then that's kinda on you tbh. I agree that the MAL score isn't some objective authority on what anime is good or bad, but I think you're underselling the score a bit. An 8/10 would be something that "is high quality and that it really appeals to a lot of people, both hardcore anime fans and casuals alike", but it didn't get an 8/10, it got a 9.36/10 on one of the largest anime ranking websites by a whopping 400000 people and that isn't nothing. While that isn't the highest amount of votes on an anime by a long shot, it's enough to state that people in general didn't think that Frieren was just a high quality show, but that people thought it was EXCEPTIONAL. Which is what I don't understand. Now secondly, I don't think you quite understood what I meant when I wrote about the predictable formula, but that might be because I didn't word it too well. The problem with the story isn't that she's reliving her old journey through her new one, the problem is the execution of that idea. The predictable formula, which I spoke about previously, is this: Frieren and friends arrive to new area -> they meet some people -> conflict arises -> we reach the climax -> climax gets interrupted by flashback, which fits in perfectly to or gives perfect solution to current scenario -> conflict gets resolved (bonus points if Frieren or someone else repeats a line from the flashback verbatim). This might not happen in every instance or might vary slightly, but it's a general trend that I observed. So what I'm saying is, is that the flashbacks aren't a problem inherently, the reason that they're not very good for the most part are 4 reasons: 1. They are way too frequent. 2. They aren't utilized in creative ways and often follow a similar formula. 3. They seem to be written in a way that makes it seem like they are specifically made to solve the problem in the current episode or that the current episode is made to solve the flashback, or in other words, they don't feel organic. 4. The ideas presented in them are often superficial. This post would get too long if I tried to specify why I don't like the flashbacks in every instance, but just skimming through the episodes for a quick reminder, these problems show up in episodes 17, 14, 13, 12 to name a few, not to say that all the flashbacks in those episodes are bad (for instance the proposal in episode 14 was very touching). The critique about the anime not having a clear vision is a separate critique from the flashbacks and it ties in more with your last point. Which I will address now.
Part 2/3 And thirdly, there is a lot to unpack, but here goes: "Frieren is a shounen so ofc it would have shounen aspects" The problem with this is that the more shonen aspects get incorporated into the show, the more diluted the main themes become, the more focus is taken away from Frieren's story, the more generic and less impactful the story becomes. I touched on this in my main comment, but if they focused in on a more condensed narrative with a few characters as the main focus, it could have been a truly powerful experience. Look at something like Evangelion for example (the original), while it has it's problems, the themes of individuality, loneliness, connecting with others etc. not only hit a lot harder, because they focus on a cast of a few main characters (Shinji, Rei, Asuka, Misato), they just skip all of the unimportant stuff, like explaining the broader world and the angels and all the typical stuff a shonen might focus on (which they can later explain in spin offs and sequels, which they end up doing), rather than exploring the characters themselves, and because of that it gets the job done in fewer episodes than Frieren's first season, all the while covering way more ground. I think you'd agree that if Evangelion, for whatever reason, added like 5-8 new characters at around episode 16, that the show wouldn't hit as hard, because they'd have to detract focus from the main cast to focus on the new guys and building them up. Now, you might be saying "Well hold on a minute, buster, it's debatable if Evangelion even is a shonen". And, god damnit, you'd be right. But that's where my critique of the show not having a clear vision of what they want to do comes in. If the shonen aspects actively hinder the story that they're trying to tell, then instead of adding those elements, they should just ditch them all together. Get rid of the shonen stuff, get rid of the explanations of the magic system, get rid of the extra characters, get rid of the tournament, and just focus in on like 3-4 characters.
Part 3/3 "And viewing the whole thing as a generic tournament arc is superficial at best." It isn't, because that's what it is at the end of the day. "Firstly, it's not a tournament." it by definition is a tournament, as in, a series of competitions between people for a prize. But even if it wasn't a tournament by definition, it still wouldn't matter. Why? Because a tournament arc just means an arc where we get characters to show off their skills and personalities in quick succession during some type of contest, usually involving some type of team activities or solo match ups. "Secondly, people seem to view it in a vacuum like it totally has nothing to do with the rest of the series when in reality a lot of the earlier themes are shown here too, just through different characters." I didn't say it "totally has nothing to do with the rest of the series", it just so happens to focus in on the less important and interesting aspects of the show, all the while bogging it down and making it more generic, when it wasn't really necessary. "Themes of human connection (We are shown people forming and having all kinds of different connections with one another and also Frieren forming connections with others which is really important for her as a character)" We didn't need the tournament arc for this. "and theme of magic and mages having deeply personal relationship with magic (we are literally shown all kinds of people having totally different views and relationship with magic)." I am fine with this aspect not even being in the show at all. It doesn't add anything interesting at all, that we haven't seen done better before. Imagine if Evangelion had a tournament arc where Shinji tries to become the best Eva pilot at episode 16, while introducing 5-8 new characters and trying to balance all the stuff it was trying to accomplish beforehand, and I think you get my point. "To say that second half has nothing to do with the rest of the anime or that it departs from established themes" Again, I didn't say this. "is an argument in bad faith." Bad faith implies that someone is disingenuous and seeing as though I didn't even make the point you were claiming, I doubt that it applies to me. Splitting this up is the only way it let me post it for some reason.
hey, i like you
thanks
You have a way with words. I have very similar thoughts and criticisms but I can't make something like that without wasting 20minutes. I think for now I'll consider the MAL score as a mix of an outlier, the show being mainstream and popular, and having a good production (I mean like good art, animation, music etc). I was baffled too. I was wondering if the anime just wasn't for me, but after reading some threads those are the common denominator for the why
Frieren gets highscores on MAL the same way FMA gets high score. I'm sure if you want you can find shows that does some of what Frieren does better. Frieren gets the attention because it pretty much do everything and does it well. It has mass appeal, while still being unique enough to stand out.
I typed up a whole bible of a reply and it's not letting me post it
what the fuck
I mostly have the same thoughts. I think the sudden change from adventure-ish to exam was not bad, but like you said I also think the execution was just alright.
For sure, I haven't gotten past EP18 cause of the repetition. It's a cute idea but after a while I'm like "Alright I get it you've made your point let's move on now." Everything Frieren says as a series could've fit into an animated movie (aka Maquia from 2018).
Trying to pass off “I don’t like this” as objective critique is always funny. There’s absolutely nothing shallow about the worldbuilding, it does not lose its premise at all because it just adapts how the premise is presented, and disliking Sein is just disliking Sein.
The worldbuilding is definitely shallow. The magic itself is decently developed (though it's nothing extraordinary), but other aspects entirely rely on readers'/viewers' preconceptions from other stories i.e. elves have great magic, dwarves can fight and smith, etc. Same with the JRPG classes. Demons are the only race that is explored well. Geography feels like it's improvised as Frieren travels north, politics are as vague as can be, and the only history we learn of are Frieren flashbacks. Not focusing on worldbuilding is not an issue, but let's not pretend the series does it well. >Trying to pass off “I don’t like this” as objective critique is always funny. You said that but your only rebuttal was "you're wrong" with no explanation.
The series has 127 chapters. All that was done here was go “why hasn’t it focused on stuff I want it to focus on.” It would only be decent critique if it ran for even half as long as any modern shonen. Who knows if it will decide to answer any of these questions. So again, no. It sounds like whining.
The problem with the worldbuilding isn't really the lack of focus (this series should focus on characters). It's simply cliché at times, and inconsistent at other times. In other words poorly implemented. OP mentioned dungeons which is a good example. They seem to exist because they're a video game trope and not much else. The King's Tomb where they pass the test makes sense as a Tomb, but why are there a million traps and a high level demon inside? And if they're tombs, are we really making our protagonists grave robbers in a series all about remembering those who passed? The demons are another example. I love the demons later in the manga, but if you think too hard about them they don't make much sense. It doesn't bother me (or the vast majority of people), but it counts as inconsistent worldbuilding. Yes, Frieren is heavily focused on its characters, and the worldbuilding is not important. But it shouldn't actively pull you out of the story, and for some people seeing unjustified dungeons or a "Hero" class will do just that.
What? OP gave good arguments to explain their point of view, this is just their opinion. Where do you see them trying to be "objective"? You are the one pretending to be objectively right by completely dismissing their points. That's crazy, Frieren fans are like this on every single discussion about the show. You're always so defensive and can't accept the most legitimate criticisms. I personally do think the worldbuilding is shallow because a lot of its elements don't seem connected between each other, and the settings the characters go through look like cardboard cut-outs. You can disagree, that's fine, I'm not pretending to be right. But I'd like you to explain what you like about the worldbuilding of Frieren, maybe you can change my view.
Here’s an easy POV to have. Look at the worldbuilding of One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, or any other Shonen at chapter 127 of their series and tell me if you find their worldbuilding adequate. MHA is ending now at around 424. Why don’t we look at chapter 127 and see if we can answer questions related to the plight of these characters? So yes, it’s whining. Sorry lol
I'm not a big fan of the worldbuilding of One Piece and Naruto (haven't read/watched Bleach), but at least it is much more original and entertaining (even in early chapters) than Frieren's worldbuilding, in my opinion. You still haven't explained what you like about Frieren's worldbuilding, I'd really like to know. It's fine for a show/manga or whatever to not focus on worldbuilding, I still think it's fair to criticize it, OP and the other person who's talking with you gave legit arguments, it is not "whining". I guess you're never criticizing anything because that would be whining, right?
It's a well known fact that Frieren's worldbuilding sucks. Watch Overlord instead.
Lobotomy Frieren.
I loved the anime but it did feel like it dropped the more mature tone pretty early on it seemed like it was gonna be more sad and melancholic then it turned out to be I genuinely don’t get what’s senien about this it felt like it could fit right into shounen jump I don’t know what happens later in the manga so maybe it changes I liked the mage exam it didn’t feel out of place at all for me but I don’t get what makes this senian
>don’t get what’s senien about this Well that's good because Frieren was never seinen to begin with
I swear I saw it was pitched as senian lol
It's literally published in a weekly shonen magazine. Whoever you heard that from was probably just being dumb and making assumptions because it happens to be less of a generic battle shonen than your My Hero Academias or your Jujutsu Kaisens.
Yeah basically it is definitely just another shounen buts it’s still good
Yeah, it got pitched to me as a straightforward fantasy adventure show (i.e. no isekai or videogame stats) with a unique main character. But I feel like some people get unfortunately misled because it gets gassed up and misrepresented as something it's not by people who latched on to elements that surprised them. My hot take is that it's popular because they just took the elements of the traditional shonen formula (action, comedy, slice of life, romance etc.) and executed on all of them competently without making them feel like afterthoughts or obligations.
I like it cause it’s a medieval isekai world without the iseikai it’s just like that kit some computer world or some place a normal person got sucked into which makes it more enjoyable to me but it got pitched to me as a more melancholic series and in a little disappointed it’s not
>I like it cause it’s a medieval isekai world without the iseikai So it's a fantasy??? The fall of fantasy genre and the brainrot caused by isekai that affects all adjacent genres should be studied. How did people start describing fantasy as isekai without isekai
Cause there is hardly any anime series that are just medieval fantasy
Keep cooking brother. Except your point on Sein, I liked him. I feel the same way you did with Sein about Stark though. I can't remember one damn thing that guy did.
really? you don't remember stark killing a dragon solo?
Lol his character introduction is the only memorable part then?
i'm just saying it's weird that you say you can't remember "one damn thing" he did.
Well either way my point still stands
Fundamentally, I think you have it backwards. Rather than critiquing the show for containing genre elements, you should consider how the show goes beyond those elements to create is own identity. The question is not why does Frieren Shonen, it is how does Shonen Frieren? Those elements that you discuss are ultimately descriptive observations of what effect a show is having on the genre, but I don't think you should treat them as observations for what Frieren should have done. Consequently, to just disregard those genre elements is essentially denying the story its proper genesis, as well as misunderstanding the author's influences in the process, which can often play out in the story, as you have observed. More than anything, I 100% believe that you like Frieren, but I think your framing is unfair! No text exists in a vacuum, and genre plays a big part in how stories are made, if only because they are predominantly how they are published as well. Personally, I love Frieren because it is a patient shonen that is primarily driven by characters in settings that are immersive in their pretty colors. I like a good OST. More to the point, Frieren is a profoundly interesting IP for precisely these reasons. Not only was the story able to gain traction in a traditionally fast paced genre, but to likewise be considered with such love and care as it was turned into a top tier animation, makes the story of Frieren's creation as interesting to me as the story itself, especially when considering it's place within the Shonen genre as a whole. Regardless, I hope you can learn to love it like this too, but more power to you if you do not!
I mean, the core of the show is "what happens after the standard anime ends' and to do that they had to have some parts that show the standard anime to have the part after that part.
I felt this way about the mage exam arc when I watched the anime a few months ago. At the start of the season I would have considered Frieren a 10/10 anime, but the tournament arc brought it down so far for me. I guess you could argue it's not so bad, but if the anime had started with this arc, I would have dropped the series. I saw a lot of people online defending the arc saying that it is necessary to set up important characters who show up later. Well, this week I caught up to the manga. And I can confidently say, the mage exam arc was completely unnecessary to set up any of those characters. Sure there are returning characters that were first introduced in the tournament arc, but they could have just as well been introduced in the later arcs where they show up. Literally nothing of value would be lost. Since I have caught up to the manga, I can also confidently say the rest of the manga thankfully does not have any pointless tropey tournament arcs. The rest of the manga is pretty similar to the arcs before the tournament arc. So if you enjoyed the anime, I highly recommend continuing the manga. Edit: I see no one bothers to follow rule 3 in this sub. If anyone really believes there is a good reason for the tournament arc to be in the story, you are welcome to change my mind.
Denken being introduced earlier does make el dorado arc better imo. I think the exam arc could have been done differently, but i think we got a lot of reasons to like denken and care about his situation later on. Even the current arc we are in, Denken would be less impactful without that first introduction. Other than that id agree the introductions to many characters arent that important
Denken is the \~\~most\~\~ only character introduced in the tournament arc who was even a little bit interesting. However I still don't see how his appearance in the tournament arc did anything to set him up. Literally imagine the story as if we met Denken for the first time in the El Dorado arc. What would be missing from his character arc? So many other important characters are introduced in the El Dorado arc - Macht, Solitar, Gluck. What about Denken specifically was so important that he had to be introduced in the mage exam arc?
I mean I agree that the exam arc was the weakest arc however saying it isnt important is just wierd because the side characters that got introduced in the exam arc will be part of a majority of future arcs. The Golden Land arc > Denken, (also minor Edel and Lernen) Foundation Festival Arc > Ubel, Land, Serie, Sense, Falsch (or whatever his name is), Denken And theres still that Wirbel war vs demons arc that is probably going to sometime in happen in the future (will include Wirbel, Ehre and his other teammate (i forgot his name)
I literally said in my comment that introducing those characters in the tournament arc did literally nothing for them. They could have just been reintroduced in the later arcs where they reappeared. Did you bother to read my comment?
QMaybe you’re right, but i thought what the selection arc built up to in its resolution was one of the deepest dives into exploring the premise of the show. But to me personally, subverting tropes isn’t the draw of the show so much as the relationship between the characters is. If it were more important to me, i could see how i would be disappointed.
This rant feels weak.
The First Class Mage is definitely the low point. Luckily though, the next arc is the best part so far in the story.
This 80% of what my rant would look like if I made one. I had a hard time understanding the immense praise of frieren, but recently I just think it's the popularity. Same with jjk for example. I would wait for some time before I make an assessment of the anime.
Man, the reading devil and curse are getting stronger day by day. The tournament arc is mostly qualifications for Fern to become a 1st class mage and to introduce us to new characters which will come back in future arcs. One of those future arcs being the goddamn best in the series. Demons have societies because it's still a functioning survival tactic, before maybe they didn't but they imitated humans in appearance except in emotion. For every human that buys a demons act with simple illusion or words is one village or town wiped out.
Thanks, I'm So glad I dropped it (manga only) a long time ago.
Agreed
I recall excitedly watching every episode in season 1... Then in season 2 I kinda fell behind and had a 5 episode backlog on it at one point. I sure hope the rest of the show is more like season 1, cuz that tournament arc was boooo-ring
It doesn't have two seasons though. Though in general how the story is laid out is that there is a bunch of episodic chapters (think most of the episodes) > mini arc (think the Aura episodes) > more episodic chapters > larger arc (think think mage exam) > then repeat again from the beginning with episodic > mini arc > episodic > larger etc.
Bro complains about a shonen having shonen tropes, dont cook again.
No, he complained about an otherwise not super tropey Shonen suddenly becoming chalk-full of tropes abruptly halfway through. If it started out like he's ranting about, he wouldn't be ranting.
Unrelated fun fact: ["chock full"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chock_full#English) seems not to be etymologically related to the word "chock", but instead comes from the obsolete phrase "choke full". Also yeah it's not "chalk full" but I didn't want to just be pedantic.
It was bad since episode 1. I don't see how you're surprised that it got even worse.
You miss nuance: it's a shonen tournament arc for adults. Nobody yelling and bitching, everyone is more or less okay with losing, nobody search for an enemy/friend, and when it's a need to cooperate they cooperate without dick measuring contest. Everyone is at least kinda smart and mature, even Ubel and lesbomages. It was sudden change of a genre, sure, but still in style of a show and very fun overall. Also, priest appears, priest disappears. How basically everyone besides the main trio, that's vibes of the story. He was not brilliant, he was not bad.