Sousou no Frieren
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Started watching the anime Sousou no Frieren (Update: Watched 16 episodes in one sitting).
It has some interesting parts, like how an evil mage/monster was sealed for 80 years because his magic was too strong. When he is released all his spells turn out to be really weak because during that time the understanding of magic developed so much that they managed to teach every mage to deflect that kind of spells. I’m not sure how much this kind of “long term” tropes there will be, but I hope at least some. The books by Cixin Liu are probably the best example.
A bit similar is how Frieren collects spells that are seemingly all trivial. But imagine the accumulated knowledge if you managed to keep up such a routine for thousands of years. I think the main point of this series is the praise of persistence in arts and work. There’s also plenty of “life is beautiful and memories are everything” vibes, which might be why this is so popular (#1 on MAL apparently, but that site is very biased).
Update: Interesting point about age in a late episode: A dwarf has lived for so long that he has forgotten the face and voice of the woman whose sake he decided to protect a certain village. However he hasn’t forgotten the decision, so he’s weirdly stuck doing something with questionable purpose. The dwarf implies Frieren might face the same thing, after all she knew Himmel and the others quite “recently” so even though she still remembers them well, that might not last. I wonder if most people actually have similar issues affect them majorly, myself included. You start doing something with a purpose, but over time the purpose gradually shifts to something completely else, or perhaps it somehow becomes easier to keep on doing the thing than stop, so that you will carry on without remembering the original reason.
Hmm, for me an activity whose purpose has changed the most might be learning Japanese. Obviously in the beginning it was very much about learning the new language and enjoying all the doors that opened. However, even though I still regularly do things to upkeep and improve my skills, I wonder if I have any true desire to learn the language anymore. I kind of feel like I “already know the language” even though that’s obviously rubbish (I probably couldn’t hold a simple conversation for example). What I mean is I achieved the level I thought I could reasonably achieve and the language then became less like a fancy dream of future and more like something I fondly remembered having learned in the past. My language skills are very tied to the Japanese media which are my treasured hobby. It makes complete sense for me to learn the language only for that reason.
This show knows how to do with just a few characters.
I also like the trope where the main character is ridiculously powerful compared to others, which is a rare one because it doesn’t work without some kind of balancing force. In Akagi it’s how he makes every challenge ten times more dangerous to match his abilities. In Gintama it’s that the problems are usually not something to be solved by force but by friendship.
This show reminds me of LotR — Frieren is like Gandalf. No one understands her spells because she’s so old and rare (she last saw another elf 400 years ago). She goes on without drawing any attention and as a result the people and demons barely have heard about her and have no grasp on her abilities. Physical conflict is also rare in this series (so far), so the power difference does not come up very often.
Damn, this demon girl Linie had the best design. Never been so sad to see a villain die for good.
This series is very good at portraying heroes in my opinion. By this I mean “heroism” as the quality to overcome mere humanity. The warriors are scared of fighting, and just when you think they are going to tap into some shounen-like infinite reservoir of determination, they actually run away. But then they come back for one last try. Also just now Frieren asks her teacher “how long do I have to keep up this tiring magic spell to hide my powerlevel?”, and she gets exactly the answer I guessed: “As long as I have been doing. For the rest of your life”. I think it summarizes “heroism” very well that your answer to that is basically “Oh. I see. Damn…” and then never tell anyone about the burden, ever.
Also funny example about heroes is when Frieren suggests escape plan from a carriage carried by a flying monster: She will fly carryng one person and Fern will simlarly carry another… leaving Stark puzzled what he is supposed to do. “You can jump down. You’re a warrior. A fall from this height won’t kill you”. There are other examples where I think it’s cool how trusting she is. I get the vibes that it’s not that she thinks they are strong enough to survive, but that since they are heroes they are responsible for their own lives. They can challenge enemies stronger than themselves, or they can run if they feel like they can’t win.
Dense male character is actually great when there is no romance in the series. Also funny that he is the weakest one in the party when it comes to anything physical other than swinging axes at monsters. He’s always the first one to pass out, the only one to get sick, and so on. Also really sensitive in a way unbecoming of a man, which makes for good laughs. In a party full of women, he’s the most feminine. Reminds me of Mikoshiba from Nozaki-kun (maybe because he’s color is also stark red).
Also there is this trope where everyone in the party is very strong on their own, and then there’s the one weak guy who is always put through hellish training even though he will never catch up (or will he?). Not sure if I can’t think of other examples — maybe the MC in Medaka Box?
“This party is lacking something”, says the new man, “do you know what it is?”. Fern suggests a “thief” because Frieren is always falling for mimics. Cue video of her being eaten by a chest.
It’s pretty cool that the demons are kind of pioneers on magic and really proud about that. Almost all human magic seems to be developed by analyzing the demon magic, although there was at least those offensive spells they developed to fight the demons. Also I noted that Frieren only collects spells, never develops her own, although this is very common in fiction. I don’t know why the authors so rarely include meaningful research of magic in the works, even though such “creativity” is so obviously close to their own work so it should be something they know about.
I think though that the demons should have more human-like qualities to make the morality spectrum more gray. It would probably fit this work better than the demons being completely soulless and thus killable without remorse.
It’s a bit disturbing how each episode counts time as years of the death of hero Himmel.
Watching more Frieren. Hah, now she finally encountered a chest, and Fern says they already identified it as a mimic. “Fern, that spell is only 99% accurate.” The teacher who chose to follow their party stares in disbelief as Fern is trying to pull her out from the jaws of the beast.
That idea with bottled golems to save you from a pinch in a dungeon puzzle… damn genius and cool.
Frieren: “This looks like the main route, lets turn back.” Himmel taught her you have to explore the whole dungeon level before proceeding. (Essential RPG playing technique)
Dark copies of the mages who entered the dungeon appear to fight them. They have exactly the same abilities and behavior as the originals, except that they are all going to try to kill you without mercy. This is a very common trope, I don’t dislike it in anime, although in games it’s usually tedious. But now there’s a cool twist: due to random spread of the copies the heroes don’t apparently fight their own selves but other dark versions of the other explorers. So for example we have this party of semi-villains from the previous round that we are getting to root for little by little. And now they will be facing… dark Frieren. That was a seriously cool cliffhanger.
Another party encounters dark version of the 1st class mage teacher who adminstrates the test.
The glasses guy (Ranto/Land) and the evil girl are also quite the pair. I’m imagining the stoic guy is thinking to himself “Damn, this girl can’t be left alone or terrible things will happen”, and she kind of knows what he is thinking and drags him along for fun, but in the end his plan is working out because she never ends up killing anyone anymore. That kind of side character relationships are the best in fiction. I don’t think I’ve seen it pulled off by any author though. I always imagine things like this when meeting new characters and relationships that haven’t yet been fully fleshed out, but always the author ends up doing something more boring.
The parties gather one by one at the last room before the dark Frieren and plan carefully their course of action. One of the last parties to arrive tells how a previous expedition got killed save for few survivors in that very room, because the dark copies always start to gather there eventually.
Yesterday I wrote about how it’s difficult to write a hero that is overwhelmingly powerful. In this series the pattern has been mostly to not let her fight so much and focus on her companions. Or when she does fight, focus on the details that allowed her to win rather han the action itself (kind of like in Sherlock Holmes and other “howdunnits”). Here’s yet another variation. Frieren fights herself, so the fight comes down to if Fren who is locked in the room with the two of them can survive and manage to execute a plan to give a slight advantage to the real Frieren.
Stark is meditating on his own and some weird old dude keeps coming to tell him various wise things. On the last visit the man is just leaving with “I have nothing more to teach you” when Frieren and Fren arrive, asking Stark who is that old man and he just goes “I have no idea”.
Frieren’s advice to Fren on the “interview” of Serie as to who may become a 1st rate mage: “Just as no matter what I will tell Serie she will fail me, no matter what you will tell her she will pass you.”
I love how Frieren ranks spells and Fren is starting to understand. Fren’s request as reward for becoming 1st rank mage is a spell that cleans clothes, absolving the party from washing them. Frieren describes the spell as “legendary-level spell from the era of mythology”.
Finished the first and only season. Was the right call to wait until it aired in full. Definitely “peak isekai”, right next to Mushoku Tensei. I guess I’d say the biggest weakness is that the series is “boring”, too slice-of-life-like. I just don’t like that genre very much, and when combined with fantasy it’s especially hard for me. It’s the reason I was never able to watch Mushishi, Natsume Yuujinchou, Spice and Wolf, or Kino no Tabi.
I also wished this series had more depth in the lore side. To be honest, I’m not sure how much better isekai can get, it’s a rather restricted genre I think, and everything within it seems to have been extensively explored in the past decade. What I wish would replace it is not a genre but more speculative stories with unique and interesting “magic” systems that make sense and give raise to the world and story, something like in Fate/ and Touhou.
Although in the end, I suppose mostly I want just more of the same stuff the Japanese do so well. Cool fights, weird ideas, intertextual works, and impossibly cute girls. I think I will keep watching anime and reading manga for many decades more if series like these keep getting made. But recently they seem quite rare and I’m thinking there is a real possibility that human creativity will plummet, and Japan in particular might face challenges that might cripple the industry. But for now, lets wait for the second season of Frieren.