Frieren, Tropes and the concept of love

There are very little shows out there that give me the same kind of satisfaction that I get, when a piece of media manages to not only gloriously shine, but also completely encapsulate an audience simply by being the truest on most honest version of itself it can be. Frieren is one of those shows, and I will know spend the following paragraphs explaining what I mean by that.

In recent times, when it comes to anime, the Fantasy Genre has been in kind of an awkward position. While we are still getting a number of high quality Fantasy Shows every year, it just hasnt really felt like that to me. Personally, Fantasy in anime has felt incredibly stale and oversaturated for actually quite some time now.
And finishing that sentence, many might already have a particular Genre in Anime in mind, that might be part of this resoaning.

And the reason for that lies in both: The Isekai Genre and its older brother, the Fantasy Genre itself. It uses established tropes we are familiar with as a substitude for worldbuilding elements.

We dont need an explanation for its magic system, its like an RPG, ok? We dont need an explanation of the world, its races, politics or geography. Have you ever played Dragon Quest? Many authors use our established knowledge of common Fantasy Elements, in order to more easily flesh out the story they actually want to tell.
The author of Goblin Slayer reaaaally wants to write about killing Goblins. He doesnt need to come up with his own Fantasy Monster, that acts and looks completely identical to Goblins and then explain them to us over the course of the story. And frankly he doesnt have to. We got no time, there are Goblins to be killed.

This isnt actually supposed to come off as dismissive as it actually sounds. Hell, especially in recent times, many authors just simply dont feel like they have the time to properly flesh out the world surrounding their story. It has become increasingly more tough to both maintain interest in your story or even to spark interest in the first place.
So why not help yourself a little bit with a Genre that we associate with a number of well known concepts.

But while that explains Isekais and Fantasys insane quantity in recent times, I just think its a shame so many of these archetypes arent used to tell compelling stories, but just to fill in the gaps of a pre existing one. And this too me is one of the reasons for this current feeling of saturation. If so many shows use common Fantasy Elements in such ways, then we wont see them in any new variations.
The entire point of why they are here in the first place is because they wont get further exploration. We are getting a large variety of new stories, just not particularly Fantasy ones.

And thats where a particular anime about an awkward Elf Mage Girl manages to shine.

What Frieren does so right

My god, while I was already sold on the show upon just hearing the synopsis years ago, I wasnt prepared for how much I would grow to enjoy it. Every aspect of this show and its story about a practically immortal elf grieving her deceased party members and going on a journey to learn more about humanity and herself just captivated me.

The reason for why I think it works so well, lies in the two most important aspects, this show had to nail for its premise:
The mood correctly coming across and making us care about these characters.

Regarding the tone, this show gets easy A Grades. Animation, direction, sound design. Everything works together perfectly to capsulate the current feelings of a scene. It can feel somber and relaxed without losing momentum. Its action can make you feel excited, without seeming out of place. It can feel sad, without being melodramatic.
It gave me kind of a similar feeling like playing Breath of The Wild for the first time and just being perfectly enraptured by this mood it wants to convey to you.

However, the reason I actually wanted to make this video lies in the second point.
Do we care about these characters? And this is where the genius of this show shines through.
The entire premise of the show hinges on one single aspect. Elves posess are longer livespan than most other races. Meaning: They will outlive the majority of most if not all their companions over the course of their life. This is a fact that holds true in practically every show with conventional elf characters, but we ususally dont get to see that, because thats not the story they want to tell.

And thats the reason why Frieren works so well. Its the logical, earnest route for this character to head to. A being with such a long lifespan obviously would have a different perception of time, of relationships, of simply life. How does the way her internal logic work matter when interacting with the world? How does it affect its other characters? Are her views ever challenged? Which events or conversations could change parts of her viewpoints?
And most importantly, what can an audience get out of her story, what parallels do we begin to see while following her journey?
Frieren does not feel fresh because it came up with a new premise, it felt fresh because it felt so sincere in its premise.

Almost every aspect of this show has its roots in a well known, established trope, either Fantasy or just in Anime in General. These tropes are then being played completely straight and this is where they become interesting.

One of the greatest examples for that has to be its magic system. The way magic works in this show is only briefly and very vaguely explained but it often comes down to one very vital fact. Visual Imagination. A mage can only conjure what they are able to imagine.
The rules are incredibly simple, yet are able to be used in an endless variety of interesting ways. Take a mage that can cut anything she believes she is able to. The simpler and more warped her worldview is, the more terrifying her abilities become.
Or take Serie, the most powerful character introduced so far. She may have been stronger than the demon King, yet didnt fight him, because she wouldnt have been able to win, simply for the fact that she wouldnt be able to invision an era of peace.

This way of earnest exploration actually works in two ways. A character like Land for instance comes of at very cliché at first. The character that wears glasses, shows little emotion and everything goes according to his plan. But due to the good will and trust the audience already has at this point of the show, this played out trope becomes interesting again.
While we would barely question his behaviour in a different show, here it is being adressed directly by one of its characters. What life has he led to be the way he is? What happened to become so distant to each and everyone around him? Figuratively and literally.

And the thing that gets me is that you are able to reapeat this song and dance with every characte in this show that at first might seem to just be a trope.

And this again is where the genius lies. Frieren uses tropes not as a substitude for storytelling. It uses them in service of it.

And the story the show manages to tell with this is nothing short but beautiful.

Its about love

To me the last stretch of episodes perfectly underlines my believe that Frieren is a show about compassion and the way it is being preserved.
Beforehand we learned that Flammes favourite spell of all is the one that makes a field of flowers and that she is the one that taught Frieren the very same. This same spell later one becomes the reason Himmel would become fond of her and eventually invite her on his journey to defeat the Demon King, which is how she ends up becoming friends with and ultimately joining the Hero Party. And later on, the bonds she made with them become the reason she meets Fern, Stark and to an extent everyone else in the series.

From my point of view the Flower Spell represents Flammes love and compassion, a small part of the kind of things she holds dear, her humanity. And its by entrusting this to Frieren, this little symbol of compassion, that it manages to be the spark that continues to burn, the flame that just continues to grow.... wait a second.

(My god, this is show is good.)

But whats even more interesting is that the person that taught Flamme about magic was Serie. A person that, at least to her own words, had very little interest in Flamme and only taught her on a whim.
Serie always felt like a mirror to Frieren to me. A version she could become or already to an extent has. Distant, still figuring out her feelings towards companions long past.
And even so, she still managed to give Flamme this gift that would later on become a gift to so mayn other characters as well.
From my viewpoint this is a message about love. It is about how love can spring from everyone and from everything and about how it will always find a way to perservere throughout any stretch of time, and how people manage to pass it on to each other, even if they are gone.

And what really gets me is that again, this message was able to be conveyed this way by using long established tropes. It all comes down full circle.

Anyways, this was all just supposed to be a simple review about how I thought Frieren was great and a 9/10 but I might have lost the plot at some point. Oh well, good show.

Witches with dreams that make me happy

Even though at times I would love to call myself a person with so to say "good taste" in anime, I often find myself in the difficult position of havin to ask myself what that even means.

While my absolute favourite stories are those that are rich in theme and character with a message that you are able do find if you are willing to look for it, that shouldnt mean that only a complexe show is deserving of a high score.
To me complexity doesnt automatically create a good story, the same way cinnamon doesnt automatically create a better cake. Adding it might make it taste better, but it can also create a way too cinnamonly experience that just doesnt feel good.

And Little Witch Academia is one of the best cinnamonless experiences I have had in a while.

I just loved this show. Every episode, every scene, every frame just constantly oozes this warm yet vibrant energy. The animation never fails to either just look absolutely stunning or to just match itself to any given tone. Be it incredibly smooth and eciting action scenes or fun and snappy comedic moments. The anime never fails like it just half-asses any moment, that it wants to show you. It looks and feels like a childhood, that I have long forgotten and has now been resurrected with Studio TRIGGERS love for animation.

But its the characters in this show that actually create the magic. (This is the only pun, that I will make for this review.)
Every major characters design is just so vibrant with personality and instantly reconizable, yet also manages to stay fairly simply with an incredibly soulful artstyle.
And kind of the same way could I describe their actual personalities as well. No one in the cast comes of as unlikeable or overstays his welcome. A statement that suprises me the most, when talking about Akko.
By all metrics, this little Gremlin with her energetic and honstly sometimes somewhat egoisitc nature, should feel annoying or overbearing at times, but that never happens.
The purity behind her motivations fueled with raw determination, paired with the worldview of a childish that still needs to learn a lot of the world she is living in, that makes it just so hard to not both root for and love this girl in a way that reminded me of how I am rooting for a Monkey D. Luffy as well.

And its in these simple ideals of childlike wonder and determination that the shows message manages to shine through. Your passion and growth behind the pursuit of any interest or activity means more than your actual skill.

As someone that is still very much trying to get a hang of things like drawing or "writing-anime-reviews" a message like that means a lot to me and I am glad I allowed this show to tell it.

I think hardly anyone will do wrong by watching this show and anyone that gives it a fair chance will get something out of it.

I-can-fix-him-Simulator
Up until now I have had very little experience with any shoujo anime or manga. The only one, that I've had completed so far was Sugar Soldier, which I enjoyed far more than initially expected.

Having now finished "Wolf Girl and Black Prince" I am so incredibly glad that my first experience did not come from this one, because my god.

In all fairness, I came into this show with already quite a bias, having heard from friends, that watched the show in their teenage years, how much of an embarrassing shitshow this title was going to be. I am saying this to put into context how shocked I was with the overally quality being even lower than actually expected.

It is not just the story and the characters that dont work to any satisfying degree on any possible level but they are a great place to start. These are not characters. Neither do they show any resemblance to any actual human being beyond a surface level. It doesnt matter how illogical or infuriating they behave in any given scene, the anime will pretend that it is actually a master of story writing with its many "emotional" moments it pretends it earned. The only character I could tolerate was Ayumi. I like Ayumi. She did nothing wrong once.

But the worst offender has to have been Kyouta. It is actually baffling how much of a contrast there is between how much he acts like an unlikable, whiny, spoiled child and how the show acts at any given point as hes actually the most attractive human being on this earth since the conception of man. I am still trying to find a single positive trait about him. At his best most he does the bare minimum. He is very rarely at his best.

The overally production isnt any better in the slightest. It has actually been awhile since I have seen an anime where it just seems so obvious that not a single person cared. Neither in terms of direction, animation or soundtrack was theire any ounce of fucks that were given. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe someone somewhere really had some passion for this project. But if so then I did not notice.

The Opening of this anime must have been the funniest example of this. So incredibly bland and void of subastance for the one thing in your production where you want to shine the most. I especially like the last 15 seconds where it feels like the song and visuals were ready to end but someone on the team was like "Shoot, we still have to fill 15 seconds. Quick, add some scenes that mean nothing!"

However, the most aggrevating part must have been just how overall toxic the message of this anime is.
"Just keeping hanging onto your toxic partner, he is just reallyyyy bad at conveying his feelings. Dont you dare try and find someone that treats you better or doesnt verbally abuse you. Thats not real love."
I personally know many friends that actually read/watched this title when they were growing up (for some reason it was reasonably successful in Germany) and the "moral" that children get out this just kind of suck.

I didnt want this anime to stand out among my ratings but I even struggled to justify giving it something above a 10. It is a piece of art that, whose only redeeming quality to me has been, that I can now appreciate good shows a little bit more. So thanks I guess.

Dont watch this, nothing is being lost.