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Notes -
I appreciate the detailed reviews!
Of the anime you note, I've sampled Frieren, Violet Evergarden and Dungeon Meshi. By which I mean I watched maybe 30 minutes of each before getting distracted and not finding the impetus to continue. That says more about me than it does about the show, and I'm open to giving them a proper go.
In the case of VG, is the movie a 1:1 reprise of the show? The former is what I had half-heartedly begun.
The VG movie (actually I lied there are actually two but one is more a side-story) is actually more of an epilogue of sorts, so I'd strongly recommend watching or trying the series first instead. IIRC the show starts to truly get going by the third episode (and if you're the impatient type you could honestly start there and be OK), but the most memorable and highest rated ones are a little back-loaded in the season.
I've tried a few episodes of Dungeon Meshi but it didn't really hook me, so I can't speak to the praise there.
However, with Frieren I'd say two episodes is the minimum to get a proper feel (concludes a bit of a mini-arc), although the story (such as it is) doesn't properly take shape until the fourth episode and we don't meet the last major companion travelling with Frieren until the fifth, so although I'd still consider it excellent it is very much a slow burn, contemplative kind of show. With that said, it makes the smaller pieces of action even more memorable, but they are still sparse. Somewhat famously, in episode seven or so, we find out that although the show doesn't have an actual big bad (the major plot after all is that she already helped save the world) there are still a few demons out and about that didn't get defeated along with their leader. These demons are worse than irredeemable (in fact they pretend to have emotions and feelings to disguise their true identity as pure predators of humanity) which at least in anime terms is a bit of a trope reversal.
None of that is to say that a certain minimum is required for most shows, but you know how it is, "will I like this" is a tricky question to answer anime or no. One of the only anime where I'd consider it truly mandatory is My Star (Oshi no Ko) where the first episode is a full hour or so on purpose, knowing that you need the full time for it to make sense (also a fun show, about the dark side of the entertainment/movie industry, saying more is a spoiler) because of said major spoiler that changes the course of the show entirely occurring at the end of it. I think Madoka Magica is classically the other, where episode 3 or so has a major twist, but I haven't seen it myself so I couldn't say.
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