Josee to Tora to Sakana-tachi
A Whisker Away
Ninja Scroll (2003)
Nichijou
Area 88 (1985)
Figure 17
Read or Die
Jungle Taitei: Yuuki ga Mirai wo Kaeru
Metropolis
JJBA Phantom Blood
JJBA Diamond is Unbreakable
Pluto
Demon Slayer
Takarajima
Battle Programmer Shirase
Alien 9
Gokushufudou
Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
Cencoroll
Kimi wa Houkago Insomnia
Dominion Tank Police
Diebuster
Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still
To Your Eternity
Parasyte the maxim
Chainsaw Man
Jigokuraku
My Home Hero
Hotaru no Haka
Venus Wars
Gunbuster
JJBA Stone Ocean
Ginga Nagareboshi Gin
Tetsuwan Birdy
Gunsmith Cats
Ao Ashi
Yofukashi no Uta
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
Porco Rosso
When Marnie was There
Inferno Cop
Arashi no Yoru ni
Tenki no Ko
My Roommate is a Cat
Kokora ga Sakebitagatterunda
Ousama Ranking
Lupin III: The First
Maquia
Air
Key the Metal Idol
Carried by the Wind
The Orbital Children
Shikimori-san
Sword of the Stranger
Goodbye, Don Glees!
Re:Zero
Lycoris Recoil
Deaimon
Hotarubi no Mori e
Cider no you ni Kotoba ga Wakiagaru
Taishou Otome Otogibanashi
Golden Time
Ginban Kaleidoscope
Osu!! Karate-bu
Heike Monogatari
Hai to Gensou no Grimgar
Ryuu no Haisha
Japan Sinks
The Day the Earth Moved
Kageki Shoujo!!
Niea_7
Police in a Pod
Koroshi Ai
Wolf Children
Bubble
The pacing seemed fine but I haven't read the manga so I can't compare. In terms of animation it is better than s2, but don't expect top tier animation (animating thousands of soldiers isn't easy).
Kingdom s1 was dragged down by the animation, storywise I liked it (especially the last arc) more than s2, s4 and s5. s3 is the best season, but I feel like it's going to be an exception and not the rule.
Dude I just read through what I wrote and I have so many god damn grammar and spelling mistakes It's not even funny. I really need to proof read shit before sending it lol
okay how is it a nigh-masterpiece? That's an even bigger claim that i don't get even if i were to agree the direction is a 10/10 masterpiece (that's me with Sentou Yousei Yukikaze yet it's only my #33 best) bcoz the essence is simply nowhere worthy of that. Part of the criticism
Because I think it exceeds in every area. It's extremely well written, it has top of the shelf production, It has extremely likable characters, fantastic world building and directing on top of it.
The only thing it's missing is more moments that make me go "yes, this is what peak of anime looks like"
There were a handful of scenes that made me feel like that, but they weren't enough.
bcoz the essence is simply nowhere worthy of that.
I would beg the differ. I don't think a show needs to be some psychological mindfuck that bring my entire morality into question to be a masterpiece. It just needs to exceed at everything that it wants to do, and have the ambition to be something truly great.
umm, he does? Like the choice of making the flow this formulaic and not otherwise is HIS. Even if you say "the source material is like that" why not use his authority as a director to innovate?
If he changes the manga to improve it, it's not him being an impressive director anymore, it's him being an impressive writer. and that aside Most people like the flow, A LOT, I am one of them. Why fix something that isn't broken.
I mean you think it's broken, but I and most other people don't.
1. the contrast/brightness where things look bright and cheerful most of the time unlike those 4 i mentioned which also have grittiness to them and OPM in particular gets very bright when needed and the opposite when needed, and ofc JoJo which is known for tonal shifts in its colour schemes. I mean tbf Frieren being the comfy show it is doesn't really need dark feels to it (Yuru Camp, Bartender & Azumanga would object) but the rest tackling this element + looking good in it does nothing but giving them an edge over it
If you look at this director's other works like bocchi the rock, He is more than capable of massively changing the look and feel of the scene, and goes absolutely bunkers to make the jokes land.
And the laughing dog episode of sonny boy, can goes from grim and dark to disturbingly bright from one scene to another
Frieren's lack change in the bright colour pallet and keeping a consistent style is a very deliberate choice.
That is the very thing that makes you so observed in the world, it almost makes you forget that this is an animated show, and you almost feel like you are a part of the world itself.
Which is why I'm telling your problem isn't actually with the directing. The nature of frieren's story IS mondain, and regular.
2. shading where their scenes look more cinematographic the way live action shows do (imagine playing with your camera and capturing pictures without filters vs with filters and Frieren looks like the former - a little raw)
This is again, playing into that same thing, adding that type of shading is not necessary depending on the art style the show is going for.
That "little raw" is exactly why it works for the story that frieren is trying to tell. Before criticizing the director, you first need to ask yourself "why did he do it like this"?
which is why:
3. both which at least half of these fall in this category including Monster (check out Twin Peaks), KnY, OPM, Bebop and Oshi no Ko
I think it would be a wrong comparison to directly compare elements like these with "this had it, but that other thing didn't"
If you added the type of shading that I believe you were talking about to something like mob psycho, I go as far as saying It would straight up ruin the show's art style.
So, you can't really just say "frieren didn't do this"
you need to ask yourself, why frieren specifically would benefit from it.
For some reason even with the multiple intances of life-threatening situations you can't actually feel the tension watching it. Idk why exactly but maybe it's the execution. The camerawork as well. Very basic and unengaging.
I am pretty confident in saying you are in a tiny minority with this one. I was at the edge of my seat during the most of the action scenes. specially the one with stark and fern fighting the 2 demons. If not for jjk s2 existing that would EASILY be my favourite fight of the entire year. maybe even the last 2 years.
Monogatari series - the direction is pretty much Madoka Magica but slightly more realistic, slower in pacing and more dialogue heavy (mostly between 2 persons), a little taste of it
This is great, but it's great for monogatari, If frieren was directed like this, I wouldn't like as much as I do now. Frieren's directing is focused on bringing out the emotions and observing you in it's world, this style wouldn't replicate that.
Dr. Stone - going back to my analysis on Frieren's monotony, to compare, Dr. Stone does have a silent montage sequence as well but only once in ep 1 but also adds time lapse
Those monotone time lapses, are some of my favourite scenes in the show.
The dr stone time lapse to me is just a time lapse, it's there to show what happened in X time and time much else. It's what I would expect a time lapse to be.
But frieren's feels like a small part of a journey. It drags you in, and makes you feel like those scenes could have been actual memories. and that is BECAUSE of it being monotone, It wouldn't have that effect on so many people if it wasn't.
Akudama Drive - remember the scene transition https://imgur.com/4pJHeNZ
not many anime has this uniqueness
I adore akudama drive probably more than anyone else you know, I literally just rewatched it for the third time and made a 30 minute long video essay about it, and I am telling you, a highly stylized super cool transition like this would add nothing to a show with the tone of frieren.
Like this has been the issue, you are trying to say "well this show did it and it was great, so why didn't frieren do it?"
That type of scene transition is brilliant in a show like akudama drive, but it would NOT work in something like frieren. It would for something like highschool of the dead, blue lock, or maybe even jojo, but not frieren.
"hey i haven't seen that before, interesting".
Which bring me to this.
There is a distinct difference between being "unique" and being "good".
Frieren does have some unique choices, but you are right for the most part, it doesn't have some super creative or unheard of touch. and that's fine. It's just extremely well done.
Take a look at that Dr. Stone clip for example - that soil container thing breaks, the music comes in, the silent montage begins while accompanied by the tune, shows Senku and Taiju doing their things with some wholesome moments, implies that quite some time has passed with the beard, all the way to the end when he poured the liquid again, seemingly not working at first, frustration ensues and finally, EXHILARATION when it actually worked. Not to mention the soundtrack itself is good, very calming and cheerful. Kinda eases off the earlier frustration. I don't remember Sousou no Frieren doing any of these things.
This sounds extremely weird to me, because to me frieren does this exact thing, and it does it much, much better.
I think the soundtrack of frieren is exceptional, and the time lapses drag me in a way that I can think of only a few other anime replicating. one of those being sonny boy which this director had actually worked on.
i'm not referring to you though. I said "its fans" and i don't consider you as part of them.
What?
Ok I don't think frieren is the second coming of christ, but it is in my top 3 of last year, and a show that I consider to be a near masterpiece, that I would put in my top 30 or so. So I don't think I'm "not a fan". I guess I'm not a die hard fan, but still.
I still immensely enjoyed it and think extremely highly of it.
Idk what kind of direction that you mean or the metric you use
To me directing is these stuff:
- shot composition
- Scene transition
- camera movement
- fight or just movement choreography in general
- not the pace of the show, BUT the pace of the scene, like knowing how long to hang onto any given shot is a part of directing to me
- I also count art style shifts or experimental choices to be credited to the director, but I'm not 100% sure if that's always the case
So, I would say while not completely different, our definition isn't exactly the same or similar either.
it's the FLOW of the show that's repetitive.
1. The characters go on a journey for a certain objective eg searching for magic related stuff,
2. They have short fights + devising plans for it (typical battle shounen stuff),
3. The show shows silent montages of those processes happening,
4. Characters like Stark, Fern, or the bff girls throwing their (lame childish) tantrums amid,
5. Specific slow (and BORING) scenes of the characters slowly walking towards somewhere,
6. Feet shots (camera angle),
7. Frieren encounters a certain moment that takes her back to her past experience and,
8. Some episodes end with a Frieren's "watch out, i'm boutta be badass" moment.
Like to me none of these have anything to do with directing. you could write frieren as a novel with no images and all of these still would be problem. I don't think you would say a literal book can have poor directing!
I get your complaint, and while I can argue on why I don't consider it a problem at all, that would be a completely different arguments. Like to me none of these examples are about directing, they are from the source, unless the director went out of their way to change what they were adapting, these "problems" would still exist.
So I don't see why you would consider them directing issues. Like I am pretty certain the director doesn't even have control over most of these.
To give you an exact reference, I have seen 26 of your examples (28 if we count akudama drive and sonny boy), and out of them, these are the only ones that I personally think are as good as or better than frieren in terms of directing.
Sonny boy
Steins;gate
Madoka magica
Nichijou
Death note
For AOT it really depends on the season
Heavenly delusions is a close one too
Like I absolutely would not compare Oshi no ko's directing with frieren. Maybe if I only looked at the stand out moments and pretended like the rest of it didn't exist, but I can count the scenes where the directing of oshi no ko impressed me on one hand.
It wasn't bad or anything, but it, dr stone, and a few more of these aren't even close if you ask me.
Demon slayer as another example, the directing is comparable or arguably better in the action scenes and a handful of other ones, but most of the normal demon slayer scenes have the most boring direction imaginable.
also this thread isn't even about the directing, it's about background art, which is not fully unrelated to directing, but it is a completely separate thing for the most part.
Tbh, i DO believe that there are hundreds of anime series out there that are at least equal to Frieren's direction quality. Those four, Frieren itself, i saw you mentioning Sonny Boy and Akudama Drive, and the rest of them excluding series that release only one ep per several months:
The thing is, while all your examples are undeniably well directed, I would personally put frieren in the upper level of them in terms of directing. meaning I would put it in the top 30% of the list.
I haven't seen a lot of them though, so this is based on the ones that I have seen.
That said:
Yeah, you know Frieren isn't the only one. Just that its fans are behaving as if it's an unprecedented artistic achievement the medium has seen to date.
I never said it is, It is a show that I believe has top of the shelf directing, but I would say that about like 10-20 other anime that I have seen. And that is out of only the 200 or so anime that I have watched.
I don't think frieren is the only one, I never said it is the only one. I just said it's really damn good at it. I don't understand why you want it to be a race, just because I and others praise frieren's directing as being fantastic quality, it doesn't mean there aren't other shows that reach it's level.
And the thing is, a lot of anime directors have their own signature strengths and weaknesses, so even if there were hundreds of anime that I thought had frieren quality directing. Only this director specifically is great in this specific way.
Look at your examples, the directing jojo is good for completely different reasons compared to made in abyss.
Because of that, while we can agree on and recognize what great directing looks like, the literal best comes down to pure subjectivity on who's style someone prefers. and of course you will hear popular shows get used as examples more often, because they are in more people's basket to pick from.
and there are more external media, telling people why the directing and other aspects are good.
The topic got block, so I'll write the reply here:
you say hundreds and then casually show me cowboy bebop, berserk, one punch man, and monster?
The shows directed by greats of the anime industry?
Watanabe, or Natsume in particular are literal legends in the directing side of the anime industry.
Of course frieren isn't the only anime with fantastic directing. all your examples also have legendary directing work, done by masters of the art. I wouldn't say there are HUNDREDS of shows with directing this good. but it is true that frieren is far from being the only one.
It might be possible that they messed with the pacing in order to find a good ending point for the anime, I wasn't bothered by that but I remember that my favorite cours were the 2nd and the 3rd. My biggest gripe however was how they censored Ren's issue with cocaine: it was kinda left implied in the last few episodes, and I feel that the adaptation stopped there because they couldn't go on past that point without explicitly addressing it.
Nana is missing a couple of episodes (ep 9 and probably another one, yt says that two videos are unavailable), not sure if you can find them somewhere else on youtube. Feel free to skip ep 6 since it is basically a repetition of ep 1 (it made sense when it was airing, not anymore)
Yeah the fan service though infrequent is still immature.
Oh if you read those threads let me know if you have any thoughts, especially since we never concluded our SEL discussion. I actually rewatched SEL for that debate. As for Texhnolyze I'm in the middle of rewatching it and I think it's even worse than I remember.
Hey man, I'm truly sorry for responding two months late lol. Stuff kept getting in the way and I also kept putting it off.
Gurren Lagann is probably the best embodiment of the shounen spirit, wherein the shounen spirit is the "try harder/just do it/overcome all obstacles in your way using pure willpower" energy. I usually don't like this kind of thing in shounens because it allows protagonists to brute force their way to victory when in reality victory in anything usually takes a lot of skill. However, here it's excused and fits because the context is that the protagonist and the rest of humanity don't believe in themselves, so the shounen message being shoved down your throat makes sense because people who don't believe in themselves really do just need to go out there and do it.
It's got nice character development for Simon in the first half, while the second half is arguably just a repeat of the message with amped up stakes. Kamina's death is put to good use rather than done just for melodramatics since it forces everyone else to carry on his legacy. However, none of the other characters stand out. Towards the end when people were dying in battle I didn't care for any of them or know their names.
It's got the trademark Trigger humor but unfortunately I didn't find it that funny after a while. So in the end, while I can't really knock Gurren Lagann for anything major and I respect what it does, my personal apathy for the characters and tone keeps this series from being a favorite for me.
All Comments (367) Comments
Because I think it exceeds in every area. It's extremely well written, it has top of the shelf production, It has extremely likable characters, fantastic world building and directing on top of it.
The only thing it's missing is more moments that make me go "yes, this is what peak of anime looks like"
There were a handful of scenes that made me feel like that, but they weren't enough.
I would beg the differ. I don't think a show needs to be some psychological mindfuck that bring my entire morality into question to be a masterpiece. It just needs to exceed at everything that it wants to do, and have the ambition to be something truly great.
If he changes the manga to improve it, it's not him being an impressive director anymore, it's him being an impressive writer. and that aside Most people like the flow, A LOT, I am one of them. Why fix something that isn't broken.
I mean you think it's broken, but I and most other people don't.
If you look at this director's other works like bocchi the rock, He is more than capable of massively changing the look and feel of the scene, and goes absolutely bunkers to make the jokes land.
And the laughing dog episode of sonny boy, can goes from grim and dark to disturbingly bright from one scene to another
Frieren's lack change in the bright colour pallet and keeping a consistent style is a very deliberate choice.
That is the very thing that makes you so observed in the world, it almost makes you forget that this is an animated show, and you almost feel like you are a part of the world itself.
Which is why I'm telling your problem isn't actually with the directing. The nature of frieren's story IS mondain, and regular.
This is again, playing into that same thing, adding that type of shading is not necessary depending on the art style the show is going for.
That "little raw" is exactly why it works for the story that frieren is trying to tell. Before criticizing the director, you first need to ask yourself "why did he do it like this"?
which is why:
I think it would be a wrong comparison to directly compare elements like these with "this had it, but that other thing didn't"
If you added the type of shading that I believe you were talking about to something like mob psycho, I go as far as saying It would straight up ruin the show's art style.
So, you can't really just say "frieren didn't do this"
you need to ask yourself, why frieren specifically would benefit from it.
I am pretty confident in saying you are in a tiny minority with this one. I was at the edge of my seat during the most of the action scenes. specially the one with stark and fern fighting the 2 demons. If not for jjk s2 existing that would EASILY be my favourite fight of the entire year. maybe even the last 2 years.
This is great, but it's great for monogatari, If frieren was directed like this, I wouldn't like as much as I do now. Frieren's directing is focused on bringing out the emotions and observing you in it's world, this style wouldn't replicate that.
Those monotone time lapses, are some of my favourite scenes in the show.
The dr stone time lapse to me is just a time lapse, it's there to show what happened in X time and time much else. It's what I would expect a time lapse to be.
But frieren's feels like a small part of a journey. It drags you in, and makes you feel like those scenes could have been actual memories. and that is BECAUSE of it being monotone, It wouldn't have that effect on so many people if it wasn't.
Akudama Drive - remember the scene transition
https://imgur.com/4pJHeNZ
not many anime has this uniqueness
I adore akudama drive probably more than anyone else you know, I literally just rewatched it for the third time and made a 30 minute long video essay about it, and I am telling you, a highly stylized super cool transition like this would add nothing to a show with the tone of frieren.
Like this has been the issue, you are trying to say "well this show did it and it was great, so why didn't frieren do it?"
That type of scene transition is brilliant in a show like akudama drive, but it would NOT work in something like frieren. It would for something like highschool of the dead, blue lock, or maybe even jojo, but not frieren.
Which bring me to this.
There is a distinct difference between being "unique" and being "good".
Frieren does have some unique choices, but you are right for the most part, it doesn't have some super creative or unheard of touch. and that's fine. It's just extremely well done.
This sounds extremely weird to me, because to me frieren does this exact thing, and it does it much, much better.
I think the soundtrack of frieren is exceptional, and the time lapses drag me in a way that I can think of only a few other anime replicating. one of those being sonny boy which this director had actually worked on.
What?
Ok I don't think frieren is the second coming of christ, but it is in my top 3 of last year, and a show that I consider to be a near masterpiece, that I would put in my top 30 or so. So I don't think I'm "not a fan". I guess I'm not a die hard fan, but still.
I still immensely enjoyed it and think extremely highly of it.
To me directing is these stuff:
- shot composition
- Scene transition
- camera movement
- fight or just movement choreography in general
- not the pace of the show, BUT the pace of the scene, like knowing how long to hang onto any given shot is a part of directing to me
- I also count art style shifts or experimental choices to be credited to the director, but I'm not 100% sure if that's always the case
So, I would say while not completely different, our definition isn't exactly the same or similar either.
1. The characters go on a journey for a certain objective eg searching for magic related stuff,
2. They have short fights + devising plans for it (typical battle shounen stuff),
3. The show shows silent montages of those processes happening,
4. Characters like Stark, Fern, or the bff girls throwing their (lame childish) tantrums amid,
5. Specific slow (and BORING) scenes of the characters slowly walking towards somewhere,
6. Feet shots (camera angle),
7. Frieren encounters a certain moment that takes her back to her past experience and,
8. Some episodes end with a Frieren's "watch out, i'm boutta be badass" moment.
Like to me none of these have anything to do with directing. you could write frieren as a novel with no images and all of these still would be problem. I don't think you would say a literal book can have poor directing!
I get your complaint, and while I can argue on why I don't consider it a problem at all, that would be a completely different arguments. Like to me none of these examples are about directing, they are from the source, unless the director went out of their way to change what they were adapting, these "problems" would still exist.
So I don't see why you would consider them directing issues. Like I am pretty certain the director doesn't even have control over most of these.
Sonny boy
Steins;gate
Madoka magica
Nichijou
Death note
For AOT it really depends on the season
Heavenly delusions is a close one too
Like I absolutely would not compare Oshi no ko's directing with frieren. Maybe if I only looked at the stand out moments and pretended like the rest of it didn't exist, but I can count the scenes where the directing of oshi no ko impressed me on one hand.
It wasn't bad or anything, but it, dr stone, and a few more of these aren't even close if you ask me.
Demon slayer as another example, the directing is comparable or arguably better in the action scenes and a handful of other ones, but most of the normal demon slayer scenes have the most boring direction imaginable.
also this thread isn't even about the directing, it's about background art, which is not fully unrelated to directing, but it is a completely separate thing for the most part.
The thing is, while all your examples are undeniably well directed, I would personally put frieren in the upper level of them in terms of directing. meaning I would put it in the top 30% of the list.
I haven't seen a lot of them though, so this is based on the ones that I have seen.
That said:
I never said it is, It is a show that I believe has top of the shelf directing, but I would say that about like 10-20 other anime that I have seen. And that is out of only the 200 or so anime that I have watched.
I don't think frieren is the only one, I never said it is the only one. I just said it's really damn good at it. I don't understand why you want it to be a race, just because I and others praise frieren's directing as being fantastic quality, it doesn't mean there aren't other shows that reach it's level.
And the thing is, a lot of anime directors have their own signature strengths and weaknesses, so even if there were hundreds of anime that I thought had frieren quality directing. Only this director specifically is great in this specific way.
Look at your examples, the directing jojo is good for completely different reasons compared to made in abyss.
Because of that, while we can agree on and recognize what great directing looks like, the literal best comes down to pure subjectivity on who's style someone prefers. and of course you will hear popular shows get used as examples more often, because they are in more people's basket to pick from.
and there are more external media, telling people why the directing and other aspects are good.
you say hundreds and then casually show me cowboy bebop, berserk, one punch man, and monster?
The shows directed by greats of the anime industry?
Watanabe, or Natsume in particular are literal legends in the directing side of the anime industry.
Of course frieren isn't the only anime with fantastic directing. all your examples also have legendary directing work, done by masters of the art. I wouldn't say there are HUNDREDS of shows with directing this good. but it is true that frieren is far from being the only one.
Oh if you read those threads let me know if you have any thoughts, especially since we never concluded our SEL discussion. I actually rewatched SEL for that debate. As for Texhnolyze I'm in the middle of rewatching it and I think it's even worse than I remember.
Gurren Lagann is probably the best embodiment of the shounen spirit, wherein the shounen spirit is the "try harder/just do it/overcome all obstacles in your way using pure willpower" energy. I usually don't like this kind of thing in shounens because it allows protagonists to brute force their way to victory when in reality victory in anything usually takes a lot of skill. However, here it's excused and fits because the context is that the protagonist and the rest of humanity don't believe in themselves, so the shounen message being shoved down your throat makes sense because people who don't believe in themselves really do just need to go out there and do it.
It's got nice character development for Simon in the first half, while the second half is arguably just a repeat of the message with amped up stakes. Kamina's death is put to good use rather than done just for melodramatics since it forces everyone else to carry on his legacy. However, none of the other characters stand out. Towards the end when people were dying in battle I didn't care for any of them or know their names.
It's got the trademark Trigger humor but unfortunately I didn't find it that funny after a while. So in the end, while I can't really knock Gurren Lagann for anything major and I respect what it does, my personal apathy for the characters and tone keeps this series from being a favorite for me.