Forty-Bot
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User ID: 298
Forty-Bot
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1d ago
Watson's The Play of the Hand
I like his methodical approach. Although it's hard to practice his advice since some of these scenarios don't come up very often.
Forty-Bot
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2d ago
So Westernized in fact that they straight up take place in fantasy Europe most of the time and not fantasy Japan.
Except Gintama (which takes place in alternate-universe Japan where fashion did not advance past 1850).
Forty-Bot
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2d ago
Legend of the Galatic Heroes is too old. Recency bias is a big thing
As it happens, LotGH is number 11 :)
A unique factor for MAL in particular is the tendency for some shows to blow up in popularity
Frieren aired in '23/24 so it's not like it just came out. Maybe it's the second season?
Forty-Bot
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2d ago
Yeah, I think that's a necessary (but insufficient) condition to be on top.
Forty-Bot
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2d ago
Mushi-shi
Would you consider Kino's Journey also in this genre? "Character goes around from place to place encountering the people there and then moves on without much actually happening."
(I would say that Frieren does a much better job at this than both of those anime in terms of tying individual episodes into a larger narrative)
Forty-Bot
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2d ago
I don't think anyone minds that the longstanding plot wasn't wrapped up in the first season when the ending feels emotionally complete and the entire journey up until that point has been so beautiful and refreshing.
I don't really think the show really went anywhere emotionally. So it's sort of vacuously true that it's emotionally complete because we never took a journey in the first place. There are seeds of things which could develop into interesting bits later on, but they have not shed their cotyledons. The characters have developed somewhat, but in fairly milquetoast ways.
Evan Call's score elevates the show to another level
I did not think the music was particularly noteworthy. Functionally, it works well, but it's not something I would specifically call out.
Is it tropey? [...]
These are not actually the tropes I meant:
- They travel over a vast continent, but everyone speaks Japanese and has the same culture.
- The (nominal, unnamed) state rules over this vast area. They established an impermeable internal border (something that even modern states cannot do), settle disputes (we never see feuds or raids between polities), raised a standing army, have a system of magical ratings and exams, and enforce a magic escort system. This level of state capacity implies an at least nominally-centralized rule, but we actually have a decentralized hereditary feudal system.
- This land is wealthy and properous (there are jewelry and artifact shops in every city and ordinary people buy from them, commoners get their photos taken, and the state can afford to wage a centuries-long war against a tenacious foe without excessive debt or taxation). Yet the land is mostly wilderness, even in the area surrounding large cities. With the technology shown, everything that can transport food eats it too (except ships but there is a vast interior and most cities are not situated on navigable waterways). So how are they extracting wealth from this country?
- Magic is widespread (if uncommon), yet the life of most people is indistinguishable from the modern conception of what life was like a millenium ago. In fact, life seems to be the same as a millenium ago even in the anime (as shown in Freiren's recollections). Magic is the only area that seems to experience advances; everything else is static.
- People literally refer to themselves as their class, saying things like "I'm a warrior, not a hero" and discuss proper party composition and tactics.
- There are modern restaurants with French service.
- Frieren carries around spare clothes, days worth of food, a dozens of magical artifacts and books, a fishing rod, and an iron kettle (!), all in a suitcase. No one else ever carries anything. At least this gets lampshaded.
- All the important characters have neon hair and clothes :^)
Now, this are a fairly-standard set of tropes for a D&D-ish anime, but the only aspect Frieren is interested in is the personal experience of Frieren's longevity. I don't really think tropes like having a mostly-good church or black-and-white morality are any more unusual than any of the other things I listed above.
So what's up with Frieren: Beyond Journey's End? It's the number one show on MAL with an average rating of 9.24 after almost a million reviews. However, it doesn't really fall into traditional categories of top anime. For example, the rest of the top 10 is:
- Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood Actually a good show, and long
- RE:Zero season 4 Final season of a popular show
- Steins;Gate Actually a good show
- Chainsaw Man - The movie Bonus content for a popular show
- Gintama: The Final Bonus content for a popular show
- Attack on Titan season 3 part 2 Penultimate season of a popular show
- Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run Bonus/currently-airing content for a popular show
- Hunter x Hunter (2011) Actually a good show, and long
While some of the list is made up of actually good shows, a lot of it is the final season/bonus content for a popular anime. Basically the only people who watch this stuff have already seen everything in the show up to this point, so they are rather predisposed to like the ultimate content. Longer anime (like FMA:B and HxH) also have some of this effect because if you watched (e.g.) 150 episodes of something you'd better like it (not to say that they're bad anime, just that this helps push them into the top 10). But Frieren is the first season of a new show and only has 24 episodes so it doesn't really fall into this category.
It's also not exactly a groundbreaking anime. It's heavily trope-y and mostly uninterested in examining the assumptions of its world, except of course for the ramifications of having effectively-immortal beings. This latter aspect is explored in depth (especially through Frieren's interpersonal relationships) and this is done reasonably well. Narratively, the show is incomplete, and doesn't even end on a particularly dramatic note (with the last 8 episodes or so spent on a mostly-self-contained subplot). None of the ongoing hooks were resolved at the end of the season. The art/music/VA are neither exceptionally good nor bad. Overall, I would say it's a fine anime. I talked with someone else I know IRL who likes anime, and he agreed that it's good, but not greatest of all time.
So why is it rated so highly? Perhaps it's the second season, but (as discussed above) in that case the second season should be rated higher than the first, but it currently sits at 8.84. Maybe because it's widely available on streaming platforms? Paging @Lewyn @vorpa-glavo who have recommended this in the past.
Rugby is no better than foodball in the CTE department. Sure, it's a yellow (or red) to initiate contact with the head, but there are plenty of head injuries that occur through the physical nature of the game by no fault of the players. You can't watch a game without (at least) a player getting sent off for an HIA.
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