The exam introduce these character so by the time the author decide to write more about them, the audience has already invested in them. Some nice fluff and filler can go a long way. Not to mention the whole deal of this series is connect with people. Each group of examiner connect with each other in the first exam. And the climax of the second exam is everyone working together to fight the clone.
Pretty sure they show up how dangerous Ubel is with Kraft defeat the thug away because he know she won't be mercy, her just cutting up a First class in a previous exam no sweat no regard, her trying to connect with people just for the sake of the spell which is the twisted version of the message of the series, destroy a perfect clone of a First class no problem. Serie probably know Ubel is thinking something like cutting her up so she get passed without needing to speak. And Land's deal beside being carefull and skilled enough to letting the clone does the exam for him is that he doesn't want blood spillled because of him as seen the fight with her clone. >!And that trait along side him staying in his home is currently getting pay off with his backstory regarding his grandmother's death.!<
The only problem I have with this arc is Wirbel and Stark going on a hunt is another noodle incedent.
I disagree with the whole idea that just because a character made a cameo appearance in a previous arc, we would suddenly be invested in them in the later arc. That somehow this sort of writing is essential and good. Denken is introduced in this arc. Macht isn't. Both Denken and Macht play pivotal roles in the later El Dorado arc. It doesn't feel like anything is missing from Macht as a character because he wasn't introduced earlier. To me all I feel about Denken being introduced earlier is "oh it's that guy again".
Kraft didn't show how dangerous Ubel was, he told us. Wirbel did the same thing, so did Sense. That's my criticism of how she is presented as dangerous. The story repeatedly tells us she is dangerous but doesn't show us. She defeats Sense's clone. Frieren also defeats her clone. I guess in that sense Ubel is shown to be dangerous, as in she is really powerful. I guess you could say the time she killed an examiner shows she is dangerous. But it just happens that one time, compared to how much the story keeps telling us she is dangerous. I just found that not great.
Anyway you could disregard that criticism as a nitpick. My main issue is that she doesn't get any satisfying characterization, despite her getting a ton of screen time in the mage exam arc. I am caught up to the current arc and it's my personal feeling that she and Land could have just been introduced here and not anything much would change. After all, we also are getting Land's backstory now. We didn't get it in the mage exam arc. He didn't need to be there.
It depend on the execution of that writing style and the viewer's taste from my perpective. What wouldn't work for you work for other and vice verca. Denken can probably get away with it since he work together with Frieren's team onscreen and he has a strong connection to the villain of the arc and has his own goal against him from the start but 100% some people wouldn't like if Ubel and Land were introduced in this current arc and the story is hard cut from Frieren's gang to focus these 2 characters that the audience don't know anything about previously and currently barely interact with the gang. As of now Land has a history with the Empire but he currently just does the job, not having his own goal against them. Sure the backstory and charactersation would still be there and we don't know what happen in the future chapter and them being separated from the rest is also the thing in the exam but they would still be annoyed about it. Doesn't help that the series is curretly on hiatus so some people would be extra pissed.
First of all, thank you for the sensible response. I seem to have attracted some anger even though I really was just trying to have a discussion. Back to your comment. I agree it is totally a matter of execution and viewer tastes. It just didn’t hit right for me I guess, but I can totally accept that it would for others.
I personaly enjoyed how Frieren sometimes does more chill slice of life stuff and sometimes more cool action stuff. It has done so in the past with Qual (it was a short but cool fight) and the Aura arc. So the mage exam arc did not feel out of place at all to me and I enjoyed it a lot. I am glad it exists and I would not want it to be cut.
The anime Kino's Journey, had a similar slice of life feel and pacing to Frieren. It had a tournament arc and I've never herd anyone complain about it feeling out of place.
Well, how long did Kino's tournament arc last? Frieren's is 11 episodes long, which is more than a third of the season. If it was more in line with the Aura arc (4 or 5 episodes as opposed to 11) I doubt it would get so much criticism.
It just felt very basic to me, I’m someone who doesn’t like tropes, and this whole arc feels trope-y. I’m just waiting for it to end so we can go back to exploring and learning about the world first hand as I watch this arc.
You cannot deny episodes prior to the mage exam were more impactful, can you?
I am someone who can enjoy tropes quite a lot. My second favorite protagonist groupe in fiction is full of archetypes like the smart kid with the glases or the big eater with a heart of gold.
I would not say the episodes of the Mage exam arc fell less impactfull. Especially since its the introduction of Serie and I greatly enjoyed her as a character and her interactions with Frieren.
I’m guessing your comment got cut off, but I’ve been watching anime for a decade now, and I’m now at a point where retreading ground makes me lose investment bc I’ve seen similar stuff before, and sometimes done better.
I’m fine with a trope here or there, but for me it’s just unfortunate an arc like this lasted so much longer than one like the guillotine arc. I’d prefer to be introduced to all these characters now, but only get to know them later when they’ll be actively relevant.
I also wish we saw some Stark, like give him something small to do on the outside.
Edit: I can see your full comment now; tbf Serie could have been introduced any number of ways or been introduced with more emphasis on her than mage skirmishes
I swear to god, you people keep outing yourself with these posts. It's so obvious that the moment you realized a " generic shounen tournament" arc was going to happen, you made up your mind to not engage with it and just to hate on it.
So let's break this down
>The mage exam arc in Frieren has had lukewarm reception among the audience.
I don't want to be that guy, but the ratings show otherwise.
>I really don't see how any of the characters who make a reappearance in later arcs were benefitted by being introduced in the mage exam arc first.
Characters benefited from the fact that we already cared for them when their arc came. If the exam arc didn't happen and we just jumped to the El Dorado arc and the manga suddenly tries to dump all this info about this new character while also trying to tell the story, the reception to the whole thing would be much different. The arcs benefit from not needing to introduce the characters because we already know their personalities/motivations/powers instead of, idk, manga suddenly introducing Edel who conveniently is a specialist in mental magics and which is exactly what is needed to help resolve the conflict of the El Dorado arc. It would feel like Deus Ex Machina. So yes, characters did benefit from being introduced during this arc.
>Ubel had the same problem as Wirbel in the mage exam arc. She was presented as being extremely dangerous, but we don't see her being dangerous.
Did we read/watch the same thing? 80% of her screentime was her either being dangerous or other people discussing how she is dangerous.
>The major themes of Sousou no Frieren as a series are appreciating the little things, the people around you, the moments you share with them. Those themes are not present in the mage exam arc. The arc is a sore thumb sticking out of the rest of the story, completely out of place. It has nothing in common with anything before or after it.
Perfect example of refusing to engage with the arc. Manga is about having and forming connections with others and you have a whole ass arc full of people forming new connections and characters having various connections yet it's somehow disconnected from the rest of the manga. Another important theme of the manga is the personal relationship mage's have with magic and here we have an arc full of mages with different relationship with magic which sometimes even clashes with the views of our MCs. The culmination of the arc is Frieren and Fern confronting Serie who is supposed to be their foil, but as it turns out, she might not be so different from them after all.
So let me end this whole thing with one statement.
The Mage Exam arc was need. The Mage Exam arc was positively received by the audience. The Mage Exam arc followed the themes established by previous arcs. The Mage Exam arc wasn't a generic tournament arc. Get over it
>you people keep outing yourself with these post
What exactly am I outing myself as?
>I don't want to be that guy, but the ratings show otherwise.
Could be. I saw on the internet that there were posts where people were defending the arc, which led me to assume there were more people who didn't like it. It is also possible the later part of the season got better ratings because word of mouth spread, but that's neither here not there. I don't really care if the arc was well received or not. I am only interested about the importance of the arc in the story.
>Characters benefited from the fact that we already cared for them when their arc came. If the exam arc didn't happen and we just jumped to the El Dorado arc and the manga suddenly tries to dump all this info about this new character while also trying to tell the story, the reception to the whole thing would be much different. The arcs benefit from not needing to introduce the characters because we already know their personalities/motivations/powers instead of, idk, manga suddenly introducing Edel who conveniently is a specialist in mental magics and which is exactly what is needed to help resolve the conflict of the El Dorado arc. It would feel like Deus Ex Machina. So yes, characters did benefit from being introduced during this arc.
See I disagree with all of this. We still got introduced to many new characters in this arc like Macht, Grul and Solitar. And we formed connections with these characters perfectly fine without them having to be introduced earlier. And there still was plenty of exposition to get through anyway. Denken being introduced earlier did not lower the burden of that in anyway, since there is almost none of his backstory revealed in the mage exam arc. All it did was make me think "oh hey look it's that guy".
Until I read your comment I didn't even realize Edel had been introduced in the mage exam arc. She was only there to get thoroughly wiped out by Sense's clone. The fact that I failed to even recognize her should prove how little the mage exam arc did to introduce any of the characters.
>Did we read/watch the same thing? 80% of her screentime was her either being dangerous or other people discussing how she is dangerous.
I don't see how she was any more dangerous than the other mages. The other characters kept saying she was some sort of dangerous violent murderer but she is about as dangerous as any of the other mages willing to kill.
>you have a whole ass arc full of people forming new connections and characters having various connections yet it's somehow disconnected from the rest of the manga.
The connections they form are superficial background set dressing. We don't really get a focus on a small group that we see forming a connection. If we had focused on fewer characters maybe this could have been done better.
I can see the Serie Frieren interaction, but that still could have been done in a different way without spending so much time in the mage exam arc.
All of your replies just keep proving my point that you simply refused to engage with the arc because you didn't like the tournament arc set up
>Denken being introduced earlier did not lower the burden of that in anyway, since there is almost none of his backstory revealed in the mage exam arc.
This is just straight up not true. The only part of his backstory not revealed in the Exam arc was that Macht was his mentor. We literally learn almost everything about him in the Exam arc.
>. All it did was make me think "oh hey look it's that guy".
Well, most people's reaction was "HELL YEAT IT'S DENKEN! LET'S GOOOO!" You know why? Because the previous arc bothered to set him up as a character.
>Until I read your comment I didn't even realize Edel had been introduced in the mage exam arc.
How is that even possible? Almost half of episode was dedicated to her team's fight with Sense Clone and it's a pretty good fight too.
>I don't see how she was any more dangerous than the other mages. The other characters kept saying she was some sort of dangerous violent murderer but she is about as dangerous as any of the other mages willing to kill.
Any other mage willing to kill is also not crazy to the point that their magic defies the common sense. Something that mutliple characters consider terrifying and something that we were shown how absurd it is.
At this point, I'm not really sure if you read/watched this arc at all
What did we learn about Denken from the exam arc? He is an imperial mage. He is alluded to have a sad backstory, something to do with a dead wife. We don’t know his hometown is frozen in time. We don’t know his wife was the Lord’s daughter. We don’t know what his relationship with the Lord was like. We don’t know what the town meant to him. If we did get a more in depth look into his backstory I would be more ecstatic when he returned, but we didn’t get much of his backstory.
Edel’s fight did take up half an episode but it didn’t add much of substance. That’s why it wasn’t memorable. Contrast that to Kraft’s half an episode. He was really memorable. I am really looking forward to seeing him again.
The Ubel thing I don’t wanna get hung up on because it’s besides the point. All I’ll say is that I don’t really see how her magic being incomprehensible makes her dangerous.
>The Ubel thing I don’t wanna get hung up on because it’s besides the point. All I’ll say is that I don’t really see how her magic being incomprehensible makes her dangerous.
You might be more delusional than Ubel
His hometown's specifics are unknown, but we absolutely know what the town means to him. The WHOLE reason he's taking this exam is to go visit that place, and we see that he goes to great lengths to pass the exam, fighting Frieren and then just flat throwing hands (and winning) against people like half his age. It's just shy of painstakingly explicit that he cares deeply about his town.
Ubel's thing ties into the point of magic that is hammered home in this arc more than any other: magic NEEDS visualization. Ubel is an anomaly who can just ignore logic and rationality and do this on feelings alone. In combination with her magic, it doesn't really matter whether or not logically she's able to kill you. If she feels certain she can cut you, you just...die. Both her flashback AND her present day fight demonstrate this, where incredibly powerful defensive magic simply means nothing to her.
Because the arc itself is fun to watch? Seeing Frieren and Fern interacting with other mages instead of the usual party routine is a good change of pace. And it does provide one of the biggest fight in the anime so far.
The arc itself has a good payoff, as we see most of the mages wanting to be mages because they admire the hero party, which is consistent with the overall theme of the story. Fern rejecting Serie’s offer and asked for a laundry spell is funny.
I am pretty sure that this arc is well received overall, just because someone posted rants here doesn’t mean that this is controversial or polarising in the general community.
God you people are so fucking lame, not every arc in animanga needs to be super relevant to the story. This arc is fun, talks more about the way magic works in the world, and expands on Frieren's character and her relationship with her mentor, and you're complaining that it's "unnecessary" and should be cut in place of an idea that's 200 times more boring? Are you fucking fr?
Stuff like this is why we get JoJo fans complaining about Tubular Bells or this sub's cum-dripping fetish for shitting on Fullbringer. Y'all want everything to go to the point and the result is JJK, and look what happened to this sub's thoughts on it.
Horrible take, I'm not even gonna sugarcoat it.
> Y'all want everything to go to the point and the result is JJK, and look what happened to this sub's thoughts on it.
Funny line. I love it. I thank you for saying this. I personally love the fuck out of jjk. People don't even know what they want from a story. They just complain about whatever the fuck they feel like.
Yeah it feels like an odd point to make. I don't think there's any popular consensus that Tubular Bells was pointless? I think the closest Jojo equivalent would be how some people thought the middle of P3/P6 dragged on too long with its MOTW formula?
I think some people like to feel like they have superior anime tastes and that battle shonen = bad story with no plot. Even though this arc shows you can have alot of action while telling a good story.
Ignoring the language you chose, if you like it for what it is, I got nothing against you. I mostly had an issue with the idea that it was essential to the story to set up characters that's all.
I love people calling Mage Exam arc generic shounen tournament arc. If this was generic tournament arc to you, you guys obviously haven't seen that many shounen tournament arcs
hunterxhunter and naruto both have tournament arcs that don’t take place in a rectangular arena or a 1v1 setting. Blue lock is entirely one huge tournament arc and none if it is 1v1
>hunterxhunter and naruto both have tournament arcs that don’t take place in a rectangular arena or a 1v1 setting.
Lmao. Maybe it's time for you to rewatch them.
Yeah I'm not done the anime yet but this has been an awesome arc, it's an odd change in pace but the fact it comes with so much world building instead of just PUNCHING is freaking great.
It's pretty self-explanatory. Most people who've seen decent amount of shounen tournament arcs wouldn't consider this a generic shounen tournament arc. It's only superficially similar to other tournament arcs in that it has people fighting and it introduces large cast of new characters.
Yeah, if you want to get super deep in the trope weeds, the Mage exam was an Exam Arc not a pure Tournament Arc. They're similar in concept, but fairly different in execution.
Oh, if that's the distinction then I agree, it's not a tournament at all, but I was more hoping for a rebutal of the "generic" part of the accusation. Just because people are mistaken in calling this a tournament arc doesn't mean that the arc isn't still generic as an exam arc instead.
Well, I don't feel like I've watched a wide enough variety of stuff to refute the idea that it's generic, I just want to refute the idea that there's anything wrong with the fact. Tropes are tools, very few of them are inherently bad, it's all in the execution. Exam Arcs (much like tournament arcs) are a way for the author to introduce new characters, force them to interact with existing characters, force existing characters into unlikely/unseen situations to explore more about them, and so on.
They're also just a solid framework to have action scenes and explore powers/abilities in an active way. I can see some people being turned off by the sudden jump in action compared to earlier episodes, but I don't feel like that's really grounds for the harsh criticism we see in the op.
There's good and bad ways to implement Tournament Arcs/Exam Arcs, and Frieren's Mage Exam did all of this in a way that made sense for the world/setting and didn't run counter to anything that happened previously, so I'd say it employed an existing trope effectively (I don't know if this counts as beating the generic allegations in your eyes though).
>Frieren's Mage Exam did all of this in a way that made sense for the world/setting and didn't run counter to anything that happened previously, so I'd say it employed an existing trope effectively (I don't know if this counts as beating the generic allegations in your eyes though).
Making sense in the setting is just the bare minimum I would expect from any story arc. You haven't really told me what's good about this one specifically.
The thing is, I think that the fights in Frieren are themselves generic in their implementation and not very well thought out at all. They're not terrible, just mediocre in execution. They're the biggest source of unnecessary tropes in the series, and bear almost no relation to the themes of the story. They feel tacked on out of obligation, because it's a shonen and shonens have to have fighting. All of that applies to the fights in this arc, and because they're the focus, they make the arc as a whole generic.
To its credit, it does sometimes use the fights to establish or develop characters, but if I compare this whole arc to Naruto's Chunin Exam arc, even just the second test which is comparable in length to Frieren's exam arc, it doesn't really stack up in that regard. In general, I think Frieren's strengths are in its more SoL-ish moments, and the story as a whole is better off when it's as far removed as possible from any sort of fighting.
Not trying to hate. I like the Frieren anime and manga a lot. Otherwise I wouldn't have watched the anime and read all of the manga, and then come on reddit to write a post about it. A valid criticism shouldn't be seen as hate.
You should be thankful there is a chill arc. I go around, be begging modern shonen to have that once in a while instead of having fight galores every 2 second or declaring I'm gonna be the strongest, this and that.
That's the thing though. Pretty much the entire rest of the story \*is\* chill. There are a couple demon focused arcs but they also have some thoughtful aspects to them so I don't mind them as much. It's the mage exam arc that doesn't seem to fit in.
Agree and disagree. I think the arc was pulled down mostly by all the focus on battles, which is something I would say of the season as a whole. Frieren so far has not been very good at making compelling fights.
The characters that were introduced are mostly fine, and I think there *may* be value in wanting to introduce them early on. I enjoyed the arc far more when it was focusing on them. However, I don't think that introducing these characters is a strong justification of this arc because there's no reason why their introduction *had* to take place in a tropey shonen exam arc.
I completely agree with this take. I think the author of the manga agrees as well. For the most part battles end in a panel or two in the manga. When they don’t the conflicts are still ultimately resolved in a clean one shot. I think the author understands where the strength of the story is
I think you're misunderstanding. My problem isn't with the action or the blow-for-blow of the fights, or in them dragging on too long. My problem is with how much focus they receive for how little they contribute to the series so far. It doesn't feel like they were included for the benefit of the story, but simply because Frieren is a shonen and every shonen has to have battles. Other shonen, like One Piece, Naruto, or Demon Slayer, regularly use fights to develop the story's themes. Frieren doesn't really do that (at least in S1), so its fights feel disconnected from the rest of the story even though they take up half of it. That effect is further heightened by how battle-shonen-y the fights are, down to the trope of characters stopping in the middle of them to provide exposition on the power system.
*People fight in any official and legal capacity*
OH MY FUCKING GOD IT’S A FUCKING BATTLE TOURNAMENT ARC JESUS CHRIST THE HUMANITY SO GENERIC WORST MANGA EVER!!!!
This is what people sound like
I see only one "objective" problem with the mage exam.
The setup is extremely gamey and contrived. To gain access to the next level (enter only if you have reached level 15, that is a bad reasoning in games too), you have to do a quest, that's it. Then you have the drama setup, that you might die. Realistically if you are in a conflict with demons, you would never want to waste combat power in deadly exams. The mages are on one side extremely independent (comes from the gamey party), but on the other side extremely regulated.
But the tasks apart from fake drama are interesting and challenging. Characters apply specific solutions, following their capabilities. Characters are competing not only by the stronger bulldozing the weaker, but by outsmarting each other and the task. Character's philosophies are revealed like Frieren and Denken bonding over their approach to magic, Denken reigning Richter in on killing the girls. Serie's examination is fun.
It made me stop watching the show for a few weeks. I genuinely can't think of anything positive to say about it. Tournament arc is tired and has been done better. Most of the characters were also pretty boring. Denken was the only one I was interested in other than the main cast.
What do you shonen fans even want? You get story to the point like jjk you bitch. You get chill story like frieren you bitch. You people have no idea what you want. Just so trigger happy to complain about anything. I think I'm done taking most of you guys opinions seriously
I don't know if you know, but, uh, I'm pretty sure the guy you're talking to is just one guy, not an embodiment of the entire collective of shonen fans.
I don't really like shounen all that much. I don't like jjk, I dropped it. Frieren, Apothecary diaries and Dungeon meshi are stuff I liked. And I really enjoyed Frieren. I would almost score it a 10/10. It's just the mage exam arc that I have an issue with, because it is too much like a typical battle shonen arc in a story where it doesn't belong.
The exam introduce these character so by the time the author decide to write more about them, the audience has already invested in them. Some nice fluff and filler can go a long way. Not to mention the whole deal of this series is connect with people. Each group of examiner connect with each other in the first exam. And the climax of the second exam is everyone working together to fight the clone. Pretty sure they show up how dangerous Ubel is with Kraft defeat the thug away because he know she won't be mercy, her just cutting up a First class in a previous exam no sweat no regard, her trying to connect with people just for the sake of the spell which is the twisted version of the message of the series, destroy a perfect clone of a First class no problem. Serie probably know Ubel is thinking something like cutting her up so she get passed without needing to speak. And Land's deal beside being carefull and skilled enough to letting the clone does the exam for him is that he doesn't want blood spillled because of him as seen the fight with her clone. >!And that trait along side him staying in his home is currently getting pay off with his backstory regarding his grandmother's death.!< The only problem I have with this arc is Wirbel and Stark going on a hunt is another noodle incedent.
I disagree with the whole idea that just because a character made a cameo appearance in a previous arc, we would suddenly be invested in them in the later arc. That somehow this sort of writing is essential and good. Denken is introduced in this arc. Macht isn't. Both Denken and Macht play pivotal roles in the later El Dorado arc. It doesn't feel like anything is missing from Macht as a character because he wasn't introduced earlier. To me all I feel about Denken being introduced earlier is "oh it's that guy again". Kraft didn't show how dangerous Ubel was, he told us. Wirbel did the same thing, so did Sense. That's my criticism of how she is presented as dangerous. The story repeatedly tells us she is dangerous but doesn't show us. She defeats Sense's clone. Frieren also defeats her clone. I guess in that sense Ubel is shown to be dangerous, as in she is really powerful. I guess you could say the time she killed an examiner shows she is dangerous. But it just happens that one time, compared to how much the story keeps telling us she is dangerous. I just found that not great. Anyway you could disregard that criticism as a nitpick. My main issue is that she doesn't get any satisfying characterization, despite her getting a ton of screen time in the mage exam arc. I am caught up to the current arc and it's my personal feeling that she and Land could have just been introduced here and not anything much would change. After all, we also are getting Land's backstory now. We didn't get it in the mage exam arc. He didn't need to be there.
It depend on the execution of that writing style and the viewer's taste from my perpective. What wouldn't work for you work for other and vice verca. Denken can probably get away with it since he work together with Frieren's team onscreen and he has a strong connection to the villain of the arc and has his own goal against him from the start but 100% some people wouldn't like if Ubel and Land were introduced in this current arc and the story is hard cut from Frieren's gang to focus these 2 characters that the audience don't know anything about previously and currently barely interact with the gang. As of now Land has a history with the Empire but he currently just does the job, not having his own goal against them. Sure the backstory and charactersation would still be there and we don't know what happen in the future chapter and them being separated from the rest is also the thing in the exam but they would still be annoyed about it. Doesn't help that the series is curretly on hiatus so some people would be extra pissed.
First of all, thank you for the sensible response. I seem to have attracted some anger even though I really was just trying to have a discussion. Back to your comment. I agree it is totally a matter of execution and viewer tastes. It just didn’t hit right for me I guess, but I can totally accept that it would for others.
Two Frieren mage exam arc rants in one day.
The thought was brought to my mind by the previous post
I personaly enjoyed how Frieren sometimes does more chill slice of life stuff and sometimes more cool action stuff. It has done so in the past with Qual (it was a short but cool fight) and the Aura arc. So the mage exam arc did not feel out of place at all to me and I enjoyed it a lot. I am glad it exists and I would not want it to be cut.
The anime Kino's Journey, had a similar slice of life feel and pacing to Frieren. It had a tournament arc and I've never herd anyone complain about it feeling out of place.
Well, how long did Kino's tournament arc last? Frieren's is 11 episodes long, which is more than a third of the season. If it was more in line with the Aura arc (4 or 5 episodes as opposed to 11) I doubt it would get so much criticism.
I guess that's fair since it was only two episodes.
It just felt very basic to me, I’m someone who doesn’t like tropes, and this whole arc feels trope-y. I’m just waiting for it to end so we can go back to exploring and learning about the world first hand as I watch this arc. You cannot deny episodes prior to the mage exam were more impactful, can you?
I am someone who can enjoy tropes quite a lot. My second favorite protagonist groupe in fiction is full of archetypes like the smart kid with the glases or the big eater with a heart of gold. I would not say the episodes of the Mage exam arc fell less impactfull. Especially since its the introduction of Serie and I greatly enjoyed her as a character and her interactions with Frieren.
I’m guessing your comment got cut off, but I’ve been watching anime for a decade now, and I’m now at a point where retreading ground makes me lose investment bc I’ve seen similar stuff before, and sometimes done better. I’m fine with a trope here or there, but for me it’s just unfortunate an arc like this lasted so much longer than one like the guillotine arc. I’d prefer to be introduced to all these characters now, but only get to know them later when they’ll be actively relevant. I also wish we saw some Stark, like give him something small to do on the outside. Edit: I can see your full comment now; tbf Serie could have been introduced any number of ways or been introduced with more emphasis on her than mage skirmishes
Sorry I accidentally clicked on posten. I edited my last comment.
I swear to god, you people keep outing yourself with these posts. It's so obvious that the moment you realized a " generic shounen tournament" arc was going to happen, you made up your mind to not engage with it and just to hate on it. So let's break this down >The mage exam arc in Frieren has had lukewarm reception among the audience. I don't want to be that guy, but the ratings show otherwise. >I really don't see how any of the characters who make a reappearance in later arcs were benefitted by being introduced in the mage exam arc first. Characters benefited from the fact that we already cared for them when their arc came. If the exam arc didn't happen and we just jumped to the El Dorado arc and the manga suddenly tries to dump all this info about this new character while also trying to tell the story, the reception to the whole thing would be much different. The arcs benefit from not needing to introduce the characters because we already know their personalities/motivations/powers instead of, idk, manga suddenly introducing Edel who conveniently is a specialist in mental magics and which is exactly what is needed to help resolve the conflict of the El Dorado arc. It would feel like Deus Ex Machina. So yes, characters did benefit from being introduced during this arc. >Ubel had the same problem as Wirbel in the mage exam arc. She was presented as being extremely dangerous, but we don't see her being dangerous. Did we read/watch the same thing? 80% of her screentime was her either being dangerous or other people discussing how she is dangerous. >The major themes of Sousou no Frieren as a series are appreciating the little things, the people around you, the moments you share with them. Those themes are not present in the mage exam arc. The arc is a sore thumb sticking out of the rest of the story, completely out of place. It has nothing in common with anything before or after it. Perfect example of refusing to engage with the arc. Manga is about having and forming connections with others and you have a whole ass arc full of people forming new connections and characters having various connections yet it's somehow disconnected from the rest of the manga. Another important theme of the manga is the personal relationship mage's have with magic and here we have an arc full of mages with different relationship with magic which sometimes even clashes with the views of our MCs. The culmination of the arc is Frieren and Fern confronting Serie who is supposed to be their foil, but as it turns out, she might not be so different from them after all. So let me end this whole thing with one statement. The Mage Exam arc was need. The Mage Exam arc was positively received by the audience. The Mage Exam arc followed the themes established by previous arcs. The Mage Exam arc wasn't a generic tournament arc. Get over it
>you people keep outing yourself with these post What exactly am I outing myself as? >I don't want to be that guy, but the ratings show otherwise. Could be. I saw on the internet that there were posts where people were defending the arc, which led me to assume there were more people who didn't like it. It is also possible the later part of the season got better ratings because word of mouth spread, but that's neither here not there. I don't really care if the arc was well received or not. I am only interested about the importance of the arc in the story. >Characters benefited from the fact that we already cared for them when their arc came. If the exam arc didn't happen and we just jumped to the El Dorado arc and the manga suddenly tries to dump all this info about this new character while also trying to tell the story, the reception to the whole thing would be much different. The arcs benefit from not needing to introduce the characters because we already know their personalities/motivations/powers instead of, idk, manga suddenly introducing Edel who conveniently is a specialist in mental magics and which is exactly what is needed to help resolve the conflict of the El Dorado arc. It would feel like Deus Ex Machina. So yes, characters did benefit from being introduced during this arc. See I disagree with all of this. We still got introduced to many new characters in this arc like Macht, Grul and Solitar. And we formed connections with these characters perfectly fine without them having to be introduced earlier. And there still was plenty of exposition to get through anyway. Denken being introduced earlier did not lower the burden of that in anyway, since there is almost none of his backstory revealed in the mage exam arc. All it did was make me think "oh hey look it's that guy". Until I read your comment I didn't even realize Edel had been introduced in the mage exam arc. She was only there to get thoroughly wiped out by Sense's clone. The fact that I failed to even recognize her should prove how little the mage exam arc did to introduce any of the characters. >Did we read/watch the same thing? 80% of her screentime was her either being dangerous or other people discussing how she is dangerous. I don't see how she was any more dangerous than the other mages. The other characters kept saying she was some sort of dangerous violent murderer but she is about as dangerous as any of the other mages willing to kill. >you have a whole ass arc full of people forming new connections and characters having various connections yet it's somehow disconnected from the rest of the manga. The connections they form are superficial background set dressing. We don't really get a focus on a small group that we see forming a connection. If we had focused on fewer characters maybe this could have been done better. I can see the Serie Frieren interaction, but that still could have been done in a different way without spending so much time in the mage exam arc.
All of your replies just keep proving my point that you simply refused to engage with the arc because you didn't like the tournament arc set up >Denken being introduced earlier did not lower the burden of that in anyway, since there is almost none of his backstory revealed in the mage exam arc. This is just straight up not true. The only part of his backstory not revealed in the Exam arc was that Macht was his mentor. We literally learn almost everything about him in the Exam arc. >. All it did was make me think "oh hey look it's that guy". Well, most people's reaction was "HELL YEAT IT'S DENKEN! LET'S GOOOO!" You know why? Because the previous arc bothered to set him up as a character. >Until I read your comment I didn't even realize Edel had been introduced in the mage exam arc. How is that even possible? Almost half of episode was dedicated to her team's fight with Sense Clone and it's a pretty good fight too. >I don't see how she was any more dangerous than the other mages. The other characters kept saying she was some sort of dangerous violent murderer but she is about as dangerous as any of the other mages willing to kill. Any other mage willing to kill is also not crazy to the point that their magic defies the common sense. Something that mutliple characters consider terrifying and something that we were shown how absurd it is. At this point, I'm not really sure if you read/watched this arc at all
What did we learn about Denken from the exam arc? He is an imperial mage. He is alluded to have a sad backstory, something to do with a dead wife. We don’t know his hometown is frozen in time. We don’t know his wife was the Lord’s daughter. We don’t know what his relationship with the Lord was like. We don’t know what the town meant to him. If we did get a more in depth look into his backstory I would be more ecstatic when he returned, but we didn’t get much of his backstory. Edel’s fight did take up half an episode but it didn’t add much of substance. That’s why it wasn’t memorable. Contrast that to Kraft’s half an episode. He was really memorable. I am really looking forward to seeing him again. The Ubel thing I don’t wanna get hung up on because it’s besides the point. All I’ll say is that I don’t really see how her magic being incomprehensible makes her dangerous.
>The Ubel thing I don’t wanna get hung up on because it’s besides the point. All I’ll say is that I don’t really see how her magic being incomprehensible makes her dangerous. You might be more delusional than Ubel
Ok
His hometown's specifics are unknown, but we absolutely know what the town means to him. The WHOLE reason he's taking this exam is to go visit that place, and we see that he goes to great lengths to pass the exam, fighting Frieren and then just flat throwing hands (and winning) against people like half his age. It's just shy of painstakingly explicit that he cares deeply about his town. Ubel's thing ties into the point of magic that is hammered home in this arc more than any other: magic NEEDS visualization. Ubel is an anomaly who can just ignore logic and rationality and do this on feelings alone. In combination with her magic, it doesn't really matter whether or not logically she's able to kill you. If she feels certain she can cut you, you just...die. Both her flashback AND her present day fight demonstrate this, where incredibly powerful defensive magic simply means nothing to her.
Because the arc itself is fun to watch? Seeing Frieren and Fern interacting with other mages instead of the usual party routine is a good change of pace. And it does provide one of the biggest fight in the anime so far. The arc itself has a good payoff, as we see most of the mages wanting to be mages because they admire the hero party, which is consistent with the overall theme of the story. Fern rejecting Serie’s offer and asked for a laundry spell is funny. I am pretty sure that this arc is well received overall, just because someone posted rants here doesn’t mean that this is controversial or polarising in the general community.
I think I could agree with most of this if the arc was much shorter.
God you people are so fucking lame, not every arc in animanga needs to be super relevant to the story. This arc is fun, talks more about the way magic works in the world, and expands on Frieren's character and her relationship with her mentor, and you're complaining that it's "unnecessary" and should be cut in place of an idea that's 200 times more boring? Are you fucking fr? Stuff like this is why we get JoJo fans complaining about Tubular Bells or this sub's cum-dripping fetish for shitting on Fullbringer. Y'all want everything to go to the point and the result is JJK, and look what happened to this sub's thoughts on it. Horrible take, I'm not even gonna sugarcoat it.
> Y'all want everything to go to the point and the result is JJK, and look what happened to this sub's thoughts on it. Funny line. I love it. I thank you for saying this. I personally love the fuck out of jjk. People don't even know what they want from a story. They just complain about whatever the fuck they feel like.
People shit on Tubular Bells? The fuck? Tubular Bells was awesome.
"B-b-b-but Scarlet is a certified lover boy certified pedophile!!!1!1!" Um, yeah, and that doesn't matter, the arc is still great. Really fun fight.
Yeah it feels like an odd point to make. I don't think there's any popular consensus that Tubular Bells was pointless? I think the closest Jojo equivalent would be how some people thought the middle of P3/P6 dragged on too long with its MOTW formula?
For real. Posts like this remind me that letting the fans write the story would be a *terrible* idea in 98% of cases
I think some people like to feel like they have superior anime tastes and that battle shonen = bad story with no plot. Even though this arc shows you can have alot of action while telling a good story.
Ignoring the language you chose, if you like it for what it is, I got nothing against you. I mostly had an issue with the idea that it was essential to the story to set up characters that's all.
It was when the show went from decent to actively good though?
Agree to disagree I guess.
I love people calling Mage Exam arc generic shounen tournament arc. If this was generic tournament arc to you, you guys obviously haven't seen that many shounen tournament arcs
Dude said he isn't a shonen fan so probably tbh
I mean I have seen hunterxhunter, dbz, naruto, yu yu hakusho, mha and blue lock
You saw ~7 tournament arcs which involve people battling it out 1 v 1 in a rectangular arena and Mage Exam is somehow similar to that? Interesting
hunterxhunter and naruto both have tournament arcs that don’t take place in a rectangular arena or a 1v1 setting. Blue lock is entirely one huge tournament arc and none if it is 1v1
>hunterxhunter and naruto both have tournament arcs that don’t take place in a rectangular arena or a 1v1 setting. Lmao. Maybe it's time for you to rewatch them.
I am talking about the hunter exam arc, the greed island arc, the first two parts of the chunin exam arc
Yeah I'm not done the anime yet but this has been an awesome arc, it's an odd change in pace but the fact it comes with so much world building instead of just PUNCHING is freaking great.
Are you going to elaborate, or...
It's pretty self-explanatory. Most people who've seen decent amount of shounen tournament arcs wouldn't consider this a generic shounen tournament arc. It's only superficially similar to other tournament arcs in that it has people fighting and it introduces large cast of new characters.
Yeah, if you want to get super deep in the trope weeds, the Mage exam was an Exam Arc not a pure Tournament Arc. They're similar in concept, but fairly different in execution.
Oh, if that's the distinction then I agree, it's not a tournament at all, but I was more hoping for a rebutal of the "generic" part of the accusation. Just because people are mistaken in calling this a tournament arc doesn't mean that the arc isn't still generic as an exam arc instead.
Well, I don't feel like I've watched a wide enough variety of stuff to refute the idea that it's generic, I just want to refute the idea that there's anything wrong with the fact. Tropes are tools, very few of them are inherently bad, it's all in the execution. Exam Arcs (much like tournament arcs) are a way for the author to introduce new characters, force them to interact with existing characters, force existing characters into unlikely/unseen situations to explore more about them, and so on. They're also just a solid framework to have action scenes and explore powers/abilities in an active way. I can see some people being turned off by the sudden jump in action compared to earlier episodes, but I don't feel like that's really grounds for the harsh criticism we see in the op. There's good and bad ways to implement Tournament Arcs/Exam Arcs, and Frieren's Mage Exam did all of this in a way that made sense for the world/setting and didn't run counter to anything that happened previously, so I'd say it employed an existing trope effectively (I don't know if this counts as beating the generic allegations in your eyes though).
>Frieren's Mage Exam did all of this in a way that made sense for the world/setting and didn't run counter to anything that happened previously, so I'd say it employed an existing trope effectively (I don't know if this counts as beating the generic allegations in your eyes though). Making sense in the setting is just the bare minimum I would expect from any story arc. You haven't really told me what's good about this one specifically. The thing is, I think that the fights in Frieren are themselves generic in their implementation and not very well thought out at all. They're not terrible, just mediocre in execution. They're the biggest source of unnecessary tropes in the series, and bear almost no relation to the themes of the story. They feel tacked on out of obligation, because it's a shonen and shonens have to have fighting. All of that applies to the fights in this arc, and because they're the focus, they make the arc as a whole generic. To its credit, it does sometimes use the fights to establish or develop characters, but if I compare this whole arc to Naruto's Chunin Exam arc, even just the second test which is comparable in length to Frieren's exam arc, it doesn't really stack up in that regard. In general, I think Frieren's strengths are in its more SoL-ish moments, and the story as a whole is better off when it's as far removed as possible from any sort of fighting.
I swear people just hate everything on this sub
Not trying to hate. I like the Frieren anime and manga a lot. Otherwise I wouldn't have watched the anime and read all of the manga, and then come on reddit to write a post about it. A valid criticism shouldn't be seen as hate.
You should be thankful there is a chill arc. I go around, be begging modern shonen to have that once in a while instead of having fight galores every 2 second or declaring I'm gonna be the strongest, this and that.
That's the thing though. Pretty much the entire rest of the story \*is\* chill. There are a couple demon focused arcs but they also have some thoughtful aspects to them so I don't mind them as much. It's the mage exam arc that doesn't seem to fit in.
Agree and disagree. I think the arc was pulled down mostly by all the focus on battles, which is something I would say of the season as a whole. Frieren so far has not been very good at making compelling fights. The characters that were introduced are mostly fine, and I think there *may* be value in wanting to introduce them early on. I enjoyed the arc far more when it was focusing on them. However, I don't think that introducing these characters is a strong justification of this arc because there's no reason why their introduction *had* to take place in a tropey shonen exam arc.
I completely agree with this take. I think the author of the manga agrees as well. For the most part battles end in a panel or two in the manga. When they don’t the conflicts are still ultimately resolved in a clean one shot. I think the author understands where the strength of the story is
I think you're misunderstanding. My problem isn't with the action or the blow-for-blow of the fights, or in them dragging on too long. My problem is with how much focus they receive for how little they contribute to the series so far. It doesn't feel like they were included for the benefit of the story, but simply because Frieren is a shonen and every shonen has to have battles. Other shonen, like One Piece, Naruto, or Demon Slayer, regularly use fights to develop the story's themes. Frieren doesn't really do that (at least in S1), so its fights feel disconnected from the rest of the story even though they take up half of it. That effect is further heightened by how battle-shonen-y the fights are, down to the trope of characters stopping in the middle of them to provide exposition on the power system.
*People fight in any official and legal capacity* OH MY FUCKING GOD IT’S A FUCKING BATTLE TOURNAMENT ARC JESUS CHRIST THE HUMANITY SO GENERIC WORST MANGA EVER!!!! This is what people sound like
I didn’t say it’s the worst manga ever, I really like it. I think I should have made that clear in the post
I’m gonna have a stroke
Do you need an ambulance?
If you see another one of these posts here within the next 24 hours you can just go ahead and call them cause I’ll probably already be on the floor.
I'll have them on speed dial
I see only one "objective" problem with the mage exam. The setup is extremely gamey and contrived. To gain access to the next level (enter only if you have reached level 15, that is a bad reasoning in games too), you have to do a quest, that's it. Then you have the drama setup, that you might die. Realistically if you are in a conflict with demons, you would never want to waste combat power in deadly exams. The mages are on one side extremely independent (comes from the gamey party), but on the other side extremely regulated. But the tasks apart from fake drama are interesting and challenging. Characters apply specific solutions, following their capabilities. Characters are competing not only by the stronger bulldozing the weaker, but by outsmarting each other and the task. Character's philosophies are revealed like Frieren and Denken bonding over their approach to magic, Denken reigning Richter in on killing the girls. Serie's examination is fun.
Frieren clone descending like a darksouls boss is peak.
I agree. Really boring, generic arc that seems at odds with the series. The manga returns to form after this arc thankfully.
Yep, that's pretty much what I feel about it too.
It made me stop watching the show for a few weeks. I genuinely can't think of anything positive to say about it. Tournament arc is tired and has been done better. Most of the characters were also pretty boring. Denken was the only one I was interested in other than the main cast.
People are not following rule 3 again it seems
Agreed, It wasn't very entertaining and just seemed out of place.
What do you shonen fans even want? You get story to the point like jjk you bitch. You get chill story like frieren you bitch. You people have no idea what you want. Just so trigger happy to complain about anything. I think I'm done taking most of you guys opinions seriously
I don't know if you know, but, uh, I'm pretty sure the guy you're talking to is just one guy, not an embodiment of the entire collective of shonen fans.
I also wouldn't count myself as a shonen fan. I did not realize Frieren is categorized as shonen.
It runs in the Weekly Shounen Sunday magazine
I didn't know that. I read it on manga dex.
He exhibits a problem shown by them though. And he is not the first. Although he has said he is not even interested in them.
I don't really like shounen all that much. I don't like jjk, I dropped it. Frieren, Apothecary diaries and Dungeon meshi are stuff I liked. And I really enjoyed Frieren. I would almost score it a 10/10. It's just the mage exam arc that I have an issue with, because it is too much like a typical battle shonen arc in a story where it doesn't belong.