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Apr 13, 2024
Chainsaw Man is a very surprising show. While it aired at a time when I had stopped watching anime, I still heard and saw a lot about it. Unless you've been living under a rock, it's impossible not to know about Power and Makima, they're literally everywhere online, but most people seem to be lusting over those girls for all the wrong reasons. Seeing people compare CSM to Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen, two animes I dropped because of how egregiously unrealistic and artificial their side characters felt, I never was very inclined to watch CSM, especially because of all the hype it got. I
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thought it would be another shounen plagued by the same old tired tropes, main character syndrome and incredibly unbelievable cast of side characters, but I'm very happy to admit I was wrong.
If you've heard about it from the internet, CSM seems to boil down to over the top action scenes and a teenager fawning over a dommy mommy or two, but it's much more than that. It's visually exceptional, making full use of interesting and original shot composition, framing, angles and subjective camera. The backgrounds are absolutely beautiful, often dark, painted with washed out colors without much contrast, it gives the anime a very serious and eerie tone which totally fits its narrative. The characters' bright tones coupled with the abundance of blood and guts spilled in an over the top fashion during every fight, reminiscent of a Tarantino movie without the foot fetish scenes, create an absurdly realistic and almost phantasmagorical setting for the show. What I find fascinating about this CSM adaptation is its use of silence. While the action scenes are what people seem to focus the most on, which is completely fine, I don't think they're the highlight of the show. What stuck to me the most were those slow, meditative, comtemplative scenes. MAPPA is not afraid to let the anime's characters simply be, without forcing exposition and filling every scene with action. These slowed-down scenes contrast well with the exaggerated fighting scenes and can also serve, paired with a very good ost and sound design in general, as build-up for emotional scenes.
The way MAPPA gives time to the characters to breath offers them depth. We're not simply shown what they do, but how they do it, and that 'how' is what defines them. Why does Aki grind his own coffee beans? Why does he smoke a cigarette every morning? Why does he tie his hair up like that? Answering these question is not always easy, but it's the process of trying to understand the characters' actions that enables the viewer to feel a connection to them. Unlike most shounen's characters, the characters of CSM feel surprinsingly humane, their actions and emotions make sense. They're broken human beings, full of traumas they're trying to cope with each in their own way, they have qualities but many flaws, they're manipulative, egoistic, scared of the future, their dreams more often than not out of reach. The show respects its characters, no matter their sex, female characters don't solely exist as stepping stones for the male ones, they have their own goals, they have agency. What makes CSM especially refreshing is how Denji, while being the main character of the show, is very often not its main focus, which gives side characters room to develop. Shounen animes often seem to portray a main character propelled in a dangerous world, but most of the times, the viewer is supposed to relate to that character and to want to be in his place. I don't think that's the case with CSM, atleast for me, not once in the show did I want to exchange my place with Denji's, or any other character's. They're all going through hell on a daily basis, and this is what gives so much more weight to the domestic scenes where they just seem like normal, regular human beings enjoying life.
The very impressive visuals coupled with dramatic, often tragic characters, create a series articulated around cycles of loss, manipulation, attachment issues and parataxic distortion. Makima, the 'dommy mommy' that everyone seems to be lusting about, is a big driving force of the show, embodying its core themes. Her expert manipulation is what orchestrates most of what happens in the story, she seems to be in control of everything and everyone. Stopping at her looks and the way she makes Denji sexually interested in her would be a great disservice to how deep and interesting she is, she is truly terrifying. The focus on sexual acts will probably rebut some viewers, but it's important to note that these are not in the show for fanservice, they're part of Denji's characterization and growth, his search of a connection that he only seems to be able to actualize through basic needs; they serve a well defined purpose.
This show doesn't seem for everyone, while the actions scenes are cool and the characters are hot, the overall feeling of it all is very depressing. The characters seem to be stuck in an endless loop of violence and loss, and that cyclical nature of the narrative is highlighted by the show's very first and last scene which are almost identical. That being said, the over the top action scenes serve as a low bar of entry which enables the anime to be enjoyed by most, it's thus hard not to recommend it. The anime being only 12 episodes long is its biggest issue, but it serves as a very good introduction to its world, characters and themes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Apr 8, 2024
Jigokuraku is a very interesting show, it features fascinating themes, good character development and an engrossing story and world. However, as good as these individual elements are, the show never capitalizes on its strengths and falls into the trap of overexplanation, forced exposition, rushed character development and terrible pacing, creating a somewhat memorable series served in an extremely clumsy and awkward way. I'm sure this is partly an anime issue but as I've not read the manga I can't speak about it. Instead of showing and not telling, the anime tells and doesn't show much.
The show follows a bunch of criminals sentenced to death, accompanied
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by executioners, embarking on a journey to a mysterious island supposedly holding the key to immortal life. Succeeding in coming back from this perilous adventure would give complete absolution to one criminal. However, things aren't as easy as they seemed as everyone succombs one after the other... Jigokuraku's approach to the way it delivers its story is misplaced, instead of focusing on one character, it constantly switches its focus as the criminals each go their own way trying to find the "Elixir of Life". The show's direction, or lack there-of is its biggest downfall. We get introduced to almost every side character, complete with a backstory told through numerous flashbacks, only for most of them to die right after. The show doesn't know where to focus its attention, it's trying to do everything at once, to be everything, to check all the boxes, but it ultimately fails to keep the viewer's attention. Too many side characters, too many flashbacks, too much exposition, every step forward is followed by 3 steps backwards; watching this show felt like walking through mud or swimming against a strong current.
This is not to say that the characters are bad, in fact I found most of them, alongside their backstory and development, interesting. But because of this overloaded cast of characters, the character development is rushed every single time. I would compare Gabimaru, the show's main character, to Killua, as Jigokuraku seems very much inspired by Hunter x Hunter. They're both very similar, they were trained since birth to be perfect killing machines, but they come to realize their own worth and to accept their own feelings. Their development is pretty similar, but Gabimaru goes through as much development in 2 episodes than Killua does in 100. The payoff is extremely unsatisfying. This tendency to rush development is valid for every other character, it takes them 5 minutes to become a completely different person. Here is also one of the show's issue: characters are very inconsistent, they act in completely unbelievable ways. Gabimaru goes from a stone-cold killing machine to Socrates dispensing moral teachings in the span of a couple episodes. The female main character, Sagiri, is a completely different person in episode 1 and 2. The criminals and their executioners are laid-back and surprinsingly goofy; needless to say, the humour is completely out of place as it kills all the tension the anime is trying to build. On top of that, the antagoniststs are not particularly interesting, they simply lack motivations, they've been fucking each other on an island for 1000 years and that's basically it.
The show's most interesting but also problematic theme is its commentary on Taoism which manifests in the search of the middle-ground. This is a very widespread topic discussed in many different religions and philosophies. Mediocrity used to equate to perfection, the middle state in which nothing needed to be added or removed. This concept is materialized in the antagonists of the series who use it to fuel their strength, but is also embodied by Sagiri. Being a female executioner in a world of men, she must constantly deal with prejudices concerning her status as a woman. She acts as a very remarkable beacon of female empowerment by finding the middle ground in the war of sexes. She finds true strength by being both logical but emotional, both fearless and afraid, both empathetic and apathetic. However, this commentary on sexes comes with a caveat. I'm not sure if the author is sexist or if he's very clumsy in the way he displays the themes of his story, but there's an awkward link between sexes and qualities: men are strong, logical and dependable while women are weak, emotional and fickle. The strong female empowerment achieved through Sagiri is also undermined by the way other female characters are treated: they're all half naked, cunning, and try to seduce men to take advantage of them, and seem mostly there for fanservice.
Jigokuraku is made up of interesting topics and characters that are unfortunately handled in a very clumsy way, in other words the author has all the ingredients but doesn't know how to cook. It's sad to see an anime with such potential squander it in such fashion. I still found it relatively enjoyable to watch. The characters are cool, the fight scenes are nicely animated, the setting is nightmarishly beautiful and fascinating. The author should've tried to apply their own theme to their show by trying to find this golden mean, but they instead went too much to one side, adding too much superfluous expostion, too many needless side characters, too many badly timed flashbacks. Instead of reaching the golden mean, Jigokuraku reaches mediocrity with its pejorative meaning. A 5/10 would've been fitting, but I'll give it +1 for the way it incorporates its themes into its narrative.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Apr 1, 2024
Are you feeling a bit down? Do you need a break from the harsh reality, or maybe a break from watching shitty self insert power fantasies? Like a checkpoint in a video game, Kamichu! will provide you with a safe place to rest and heal your soul. Even though the series is chock-full of cuteness that would put Hello Kitty to shame, it doesn't shy away from exploring more serious subjects like hard work, debts or poverty, creating a complex and endearing slice-of-life story.
Uncle Ben would summarize Kamichu! with the iconic proverb "with great power comes great responsability", or in that case something more like
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"godhood oblige". Indeed, the anime narrates the struggles of Yurie, a shy middle-schooler who happened to become a god. She might be blessed with incredible power, but great power begets great expectations. Through her struggle to learn how to use her newly-found powers and how to balance her responsabilities with her school life, Yurie gets an early taste of adulthood. But she also learns how to be confident, kind and helpful, she comes to realize the importance of honesty and the value of friendship and memories. Yurie not knowing what kind of god she is (as there are many other gods in Kamichu!'s world) is an obvious reference to her not truly knowing who she is or wants to be, she is in search of her own identity.
Because its story is presented through the perspective of teenagers, Kamichu!'s world is coated with a layer of innocence and naivety that allows serious subjects to be explored in a lighthearted manner but also tends to create a clash of ideals between kids and adults. In an adult world, it's all too easy to lose sight of what's truly important and sometimes a shift of paradigm is needed to see things in simpler terms. This theme is present through most of the narration which includes a strong emphasis on Shinto religion. As a westerner, I can't help but be reminded of the practice of cledonism, a type of divination popular in Ancient Egypt and Greece which attributed special meaning to words, especially to those of children. The particular agency of children, who can see things in simple terms, is for example examplified by Pollux, a Greek author from the 2nd century AD, who describes in his Onomasticon how the sacrifice of a ram in honor of Heracles was solved thanks to children. Because of a flood, the ram was not able to reach the sanctuary, so the children created a substitute of the animal by placing four twigs under an apple and two twigs on top of it: those were its limbs and horns. This story, despite probably being fictive, highlights how children's games and agency could solve serious issues in a ritual environment. I doubt the author had Pollux's Onomasticon in mind when they wrote the story, but I'm sure the special place kids occupy in society is not exclusive to western culture and it's no coincidence if Yurie is described multiple times as naive and simple-minded. We see throughout the show how her words, imbued with innocence and simplicity, are able to create change in those around her, in particular adults.
Apart from Yurie, the show also features two main side characters. These two, despite not being explored much, give an interesting balance to the trio: Matsuri, who took upon herself to rebuild the fame of her shrine, sees Yurie as a god first and tends to use her powers to attract customers while Mitsue sees Yurie as her best friend first and puts honesty before anything else.
Overall, Kamichu! is a very pleasant anime to watch. It'll make you smile, maybe laugh, and probably overdose on cuteness. The show's animation is very good and every shot includes a lot of small details. The settings of the show and its music also create a sense of nostalgia or melancholy that makes you want to go back in time and relive those sweet childhood summer days. Kamichu! teaches us to love. It teaches us to be genuine, kind and respectful: it is the perfect feels-good anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 26, 2024
Shangri-La Frontier is a very paradoxal anime. While its story follows a high schooler (we'll call him Sunraku) playing a fully-immersive virtual reality video game named Shangri-La Frontier, the series actually doesn't feel like it was made for an audience of 'experienced gamers' but rather for people that don't know much about games or how a multiplayer environment functions.
There actually isn't much to talk about because there simply isn't much going on with the anime. There is no story, no meaningful goal, the characters are just there, we know next to nothing about them, there is no backstory, no character development, you're just watching a
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bunch of people play a video game. While the anime tries to be realistic by referencing real world video games' principles, any semblance of realism is broken by the absurdly strong MC and the author's misunderstanding of players' behaviours. If you play video games a lot you'll probably notice that a good part of the show doesn't represent actual multiplayer games, MMORPGs in this case. Am I supposed to believe that out of the 30 million people playing Shangri-La, no one has ever managed to kill 'unique monsters' before Sunraku? Am I supposed to believe that no one has ever gotten a certain unique scenario before Sunraku?
The show is plagued by the author not understanding MMORPGs and him desperately trying to make the MC special. He's supposed to be special because he plays a lot of 'trash games' which makes him really good at actual good games like Shangri-La? He's supposed to be special because he skipped the game's tutorial and dumped all his stat points into Luck? He's supposed to be special because he wears no armor and a goofy helmet while every other player wears normal gear? Does the author think everyone is a normie? Has he ever played games? If this was real everyone would be playing a female avatar wearing skimpy outfits. If dumping all your stats into Luck was so good everyone would do it. Another example of the author's poor understanding is showcased when one of the game's rule is explained: the game's NPCs can die and they don't respawn. Come on, anyone knows that if this was real people would purposefully kill all the NPCs in the game to troll the developers.
As stated there isn't much to say about the characters. No one really matters except for the MC, Sunraku. He's the god-gamer himself, able to immediatly understand and deal with everything the game throws at him. The issue with Sunraku is that he's too good while every other player is utterly incompetent even though they've been playing the game for way longer than him. The MC seems like a self-insertion from the author who's just displaying his gaming fantasies. As with any good story, there is a shy and submissive female character with voluptuous breasts whose sole personality trait is being in love with the MC. Can this trope just die already? Why is it so hard to write female characters?
How do you make a series about a guy playing a video game interesting? I don't think Shangri-La has the answer. Because the anime takes place inside a game where players respawn when they die, there is no tension or stakes which creates a stalemate of ideas where nothing can evolve, so the only factor left is enjoyment.
In short, if you're very familiar with video games, chances are you'll not enjoy this anime if you think too much about it as it feels like it was written by someone that doesn't actually play video games. But if you don't or only casually play games, enjoying this series should be way easier. While the pacing of the show is very slow and the MC never stops explaining everything he's doing, the art is pretty good and the animation is clean. Apprehend the show from a pure entertainment perspective, enjoy the fights and try not to cringe at the awful humor.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 25, 2024
If you like mindless self-insert power fantasy with decent animation you'll definitely enjoy Solo Leveling. This anime is just your standard run-of-the-mill power fantasy that doesn't do anything to stand out. Its only somewhat redeeming quality is its okay animation.
I went in with no expectation and was still disappointed, I can't describe this show without the word cringe. I'm not sure if the show was written by a 15 years old loser who never had human interaction in his life or by a self-aware author who just wanted to cater to a wide audience. This series just doesn't have anything worth mentioning: the characters are
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soulless, the MC is the most plain piece of crap imaginable designed so that every pathetic loser can relate to him, the story is non-existent and the animation is decent, while it definitely has high highs it's also very inconsistent.
The MC, Jin-Woo, is just your average self-insert power fantasy protagonist: physically average in every regard, dark-brown semi-long hair, kind and weak. Of course he has a female sidekick that's just madly in love with him. Since the show follows an arbitrary videogame logic, she is obviously a healer because she's a weak-minded girl and all she does is shout the MC's name and cry. The MC starts off as the weakest character in the show so that he can be constanly victimized but while exploring a low level dungeon he finds a high level secret area and somehow just becomes insanely overpowered (surely this hasn't been done a hundred times before already). His new ability allows him to cheat and completely ignore all the rules that everyone else has to follow, because he's so fucking special and he's the only character that matters. After this incident he gets a glow up: he gets a hot body by working out for a few days, his face changes, he gets a haircut, his voice changes, he becomes taller, he now wears a hoodie with a zipper because it's cooler I guess and everyone is in love with him because surely women only care about looks. Now that he's overpowered he can do whatever he wants and even his personality changes, he becomes absolutely unlikable.
As stated, there is no story, there are only setups for the MC to look cool, because that's the whole point of the anime, and I guess in a way it succeeds in that regard; I can atleast praise it for what it is and for knowing what it wants to be. But it's just personally cringe and painful to watch. The victimization of the MC literally never stops, his characterization is only done through traumatic flashbacks because having trauma makes you so fucking cool (no it doesn't, it's a serious issue please seek therapy). Everybody in this show is just a piece of shit that wants to bully or kill the MC until he goes full dark Sasuke mode and talks with a lower tone with dramatic music in the background and kills everyone but it's okay because it's self-defense.
In short, this anime is bankrupt in the originality department. You can figure out everything that's going to happen in the series after watching 30 seconds of the first episode. Maybe the author never wanted to write an original story, but atleast they could have made it watchable by having interesting characters or a power system that's not just arbitrary video game logic.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Mar 13, 2024
Sousou no Frieren is an anime that sets off to tackle interesting questions around the passage of time and human memory. Its very interesting premise and solid start, pleasing visuals and clean animation is however undermined by a lack of identity, stereotypical cast of characters, and nonsensical world-building which can create a rather frustrating series to watch. The show getting high ratings comes as no surprise as good visuals and quirky characters have become the norm. Its 1st place on MAL's ranking and the nonending praise it's receiving build expectations, expectations that were personally not met. Sousou no Frieren is by no means a bad
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show, but it struggles to become something special, not clearly knowing what it wants to be.
"I want everyone to remember us."
Will you be remembered after your death? Should you pass people's memory on after they die? The premise of Sousou no Frieren is extremely interesting. After defeating the demon lord for good, the party of heroes return home and they all go their separate way. Two of them, Himmel and Heiter, are humans, one, Eisen, is a dwarf and Frieren is an elf, blessed with long life. But the passage of time is cruel to humans, Himmel passes away some 50 years after the demon lord's defeat. At his burial, Frieren realizes that she cared for him but that, even after adventuring with him for 10 years, she barely knew anything about him. This is the setup for the series' plot: not understanding human emotions and relationships, Frieren decides she wants to know more about people. She spends some time with Heiter and his apprentice, Fern, and, after Heiter's death, she takes Fern as her own apprentice and sets off on a new adventure. The goal, this time, is to reach 'Ende', where heaven is supposedly being located, so that she could speak with her deceased friends one more time. Ende is located at the same place as the demon lord's castle, in the northernmost part of the continent. Her original adventure with the party of heroes lasted 10 years, and she now has the opportunity of walking in her old footsteps, reliving old memories to understand them better, and observe for herself the effect of time on people and the environment.
This setup is great, it gives Frieren room to grow by trying to empathize with humans through relationships with them. The first half or so of the series is pretty enjoyable. Through retrospection and introspection, Frieren is able to understand human feelings and herself a bit more, she slowly comes to realize the value of relationships and memory and finally appreciates, through flashbacks, the meaning of her former companions' words. The show thus explores subjects such as the passage of time, memory, embellished legends, or the importance of tokens to remember others. Despite this, all those themes are only explored at surface-level, everything is extremely simple. This can be positive, as there's no need to read between lines, everyone will understand what the show is trying to convey, but it can also leave you wanting more. The simplicity of the themes can also be noticed in its narrative, nothing surprising ever happens, making the whole very predictible, which is partly due to having an overpowered main character.
The second half of the anime seems to suffer from an identity crisis. Random events occur, they add nothing to the story or its themes, the retrospection becomes almost absent, and the last 10 episodes or so of the series are dedicated to an exam arc, because I guess it can't be a shounen without an exam arc! Yes there are a lot of fights, but the whole thing reads like a cheap way to show how much stronger and how much cooler than everyone else Frieren is. Frieren participates in the exam to become a first-class mage because she needs that certificate to travel to the north. But isn't she the legendary 1000+ years old elf mage that vanquished the demon lord? Why would she need a certificate? For some reason she decides to never tell anyone who she is, and somehow almost nobody recognizes her; it's not like she's a legendary figure with statues of her everywhere, she's also an elf, which is a race shown to be incredibly rare in this world. This situation happens multiple times and it just feels like a way to make Frieren look cool. "She's an overpowered 1000 years old mage but everybody underestimates her until she shows them just how strong she is!". The exam arc also suffers from an extended cast of side characters that shift the focus of the show on them. I wish the focus would've stayed on Frieren, because while I don't find the side characters to be bad, they're not particularly interesting and they're not what makes this show enjoyable in the first place. Thus, what started as a retrospective adventure of self-discovery turns into a battle shounen. At this point, it felt like I was watching Black Clover again, which was very unpleasant.
CHARACTERS
Let's talk briefly about characters. I wish I had more to say about them but I don't because they're unfortunately very bland. Frieren is an okay character, the issue I have with her is how unbelievable she seems. She's lived for more than a thousand years but she's unable to understand human emotions. Yes she's an elf and it's implied that they're different from humans, but we see other elves in the show that seem emotionally mature, I guess they're just older and have had more time to mature. She, on the contrary, has the emotional maturity of a teenager and can't understand conflict. On top of this, she has the appearance of a teenager, so her being that old doesn't really add much to the story, it just makes her character harder to believe. We do learn that she's had interactions with humans during her life, so I'd have expected her to be more mature. Fern, her apprentice, is pretty similar to her but has empathy so her interactions with Frieren add layers to her search of the understanding of emotions. Then there's Stark, a warrior that Eisen, the dwarf from the party of heroes, has asked Frieren to take with her. He follows the stereotype of the wimpy, cowardly but strong character that spends his time crying or shouting, similar to characters like Zenitsu from Demon Slayer or Usopp from One Piece, which I absolutely despise. He's mostly there to add teenage drama between him and Fern and for comedic relief. He really doesn't add much to the story. Speaking about comedic relief, humor in this show is very hit or miss. The 'jokes' consist of tropes repeated ad nauseam: Heiter is a 'corrupt priest' because he likes alcohol, Himmel thinks he's handsome, the other priest that we meet later on likes older women, Stark is a coward and everyone bullies him, Frieren sleeps a lot and always gets trapped by mimic chests, she's just so goofy! Humor is obviously very subjective, but it fell flat every single time for me. On top of that, the show has a tendency to add jokes right after an emotional moment which ruins that moment.
ART
The art of Sousou no Frieren is obviously very nice, which is partly why this anime receives so much praise. The character designs are nothing out of the ordinary but are nice to look at. My only 'issue' is that 90% of the female characters are drawn like kids or young teenagers. This includes very old characters, like Frieren and Serie who are both 1000+ years old, Aura, a demon said to be over 500 years old, or Sense, a first-class mage who looks like a little girl. These designs simply look a bit out of place and make the characters harder to take seriously, and doesn't apply to male characters: old male characters look old.
The backgrounds look nice but are pretty standard for animes set in a medieval fantasy setting. The show being animated by Madhouse (clearly with a decent budget), the animation stays extremely clean and fluid throughout the show.
'WORLD-BUILDING' and STORY STRUCTURE [The following sections contain spoilers]
I will now rant, in the next sections, about the worst parts of the show: its world-building and story structure. By world-building I mainly mean the rules regarding the world's logic, as the geo-political landscape of the continent the show takes place on isn't really explored, which isn't necessarily an issue. The problem with Sousou no Frieren is that it randomly dumps rules on you which either don't make sense or are completely inconsistent. This inconsistency also just exudes from every part the show. Some unimportant things are explained, some important concepts aren't.
DWARVES, ELVES AND DEMONS
We barely get any information about races. We know that there are dwaves and elves, and are told that elves can basically live eternally, have no romantic feelings or reproductive instincts. But elves do reproduce, since we encounter 3 of them that are of different ages in the show. Conveniently, Frieren's parents are never mentionned. Elves are incredibly rare, but no one seems surprised to see Frieren, or can't they see her massive pointy ears? Even in a medieval world with no internet, wouldn't it be very easy to recognize her? How many elf mages called Frieren are there on this continent?
I can accept this as a way to create opportunities where Frieren can show off, as mentionned before, because for some reason no one recognizes her and the ones that do underestimate her even though she's the legendary elf mage who defeated the demon lord, but what I can't accept is the way demons are portrayed in the show. The series repeats multiple times that demons are not humans (even though they look like them), they're 'wild beasts' that only use speech to deceive humans without understanding what words really mean. There is a dissonance between what's being said and shown here. We clearly see that demons have emotions and concepts such as pride, and they clearly understand what the words they're using mean since they themselves use words to talk to each other. Is that what the author intended? To show that demons are more humane than what people think? I don't think that's the case. The show also explains that demons have no concept of relationships or family, they only form bonds to beat humans and they abandon their children at birth. If they have no such concepts, why do they reproduce in the first place, is it just reproductive instincts? The show goes to extreme length to diabolize demons, to make them the bad guys. Frieren and her master state that all demons should be exterminated, it almost felt political. This was so extreme that I ended up rooting for the demons because they seemed like the most charismatic characters in the show.
NARRATIVE DIARRHEA
As mentionned above, the first half of the show is somewhat consistent, but the series starts introducing event around its half point that I just didn't understand (maybe I'm stupid). These weird narrative points are still present in the earlier episode but to a much lesser extent. For example Stark is Eisen's apprentice but after his training is complete Stark says that he has no fighting experience? Eisen is similar to Stark, he's a coward, and as such shouldn't he understand Stark's position? Why wouldn't he expose him to actual fights so that he can overcome his shortcomings? Throughout the show there are a couple episodes that revolve around drama between Fern and Stark that actually feel like a fanfic written by a teenager. These bits could've been interesting if Frieren was trying to understand these conflicts in order to resolve them, but she delegates this task to the other priest they briefly recruit. Talking about this priest, his addition to the story also doesn't really add anything, he comes and goes and is forgotten within the next episode. There is also an episode where Stark is recruited to act as a subsitute for a lord's son who passed away recently as he doesn't want to announce his son's death which would reduce the population's morale. This part was extremely weird: the lord just so happens to find Frieren and her companions outside his town, Stark just so happens to look EXACTLY like his son, and he's then trained to attend a formal public party. All these elements felt out of place in the story structure of the show as they didn't add anything of substance to its themes, it felt like the author didn't really know where to go with their story.
This narrative diarrhea as I call it is also prevalent when the author tries to explain how things work in the world of Sousou no Frieren. A good author recognizes the flaws in their narrative and answers questions as the story progresses, or makes characters asks those questions themselves. The author of Sousou no Frieren attempts this, but only answers a few select questions with explanations that make no sense for the most part. There's a point early in the series where Frieren's master, who has been training her to 'suppress her mana', explains why demons don't do it (this indeed could be a viewer's question: why don't demons hide their mana like Frieren does to take opponents by surprise?). She starts by stating (this could be a translation issue, I unfortunately don't understand Japanese) that demons can't hide their mana, then contradicts herself by saying they actually can and sometimes do to be stealthy, then contradicts herself one more time by declaring that hiding mana has no benefit for demons. Isn't the whole point of hiding your mana to be stealthy? It clearly does have a benefit. She then tells us that mana for demons is like clothing and ornaments for humans, they act as status symbols. Okay, but this is only useful when the demons are among themselves to establish hierarchy, why wouldn't they hide their mana when facing humans? This contradicts the whole narrative about how cunning and deceitful demons are (about using speech to deceive humans). The author could've just told me that demons are too proud to hide their mana and I would've been okay with it.
Another explanation is supposed to answer the question: why don't Flamme and Serie (two incredibly powerful mages) defeat the demon lord? The answer given by Flamme is that 'they seek battle so they can't imagine themselves living in an era of peace'. But do they? Serie is only shown sitting on a throne seemingly doing nothing, and Flamme is never portrayed as battle-hungry, her favorite spell is literally one used to create flowers. Just say they're not interested in fighting the demon king and I would've been okay with it.
MAGIC SYSTEM
These nonsensical explanations plague the magic system of Sousou no Frieren, or rather the absence of it. There is so much to be said about how magic makes no sense but I'll try to keep it brief. We get introduced pretty early to magic in the show. We are shown two things: you seemingly need a staff (or wand) to cast spells, and you need to find scrolls or grimoires to learn new spells. But that's not true because we later on see Frieren casting spells with her bare hands without explanations and we learn that humans can develop their own spells. This is already confusing, why is Frieren in constant search for grimoires if she can create spells herself? What's the limitations on those spells, how does the whole thing work? Again, some questions that could ask for answers get explanations by Frieren herself:
- Why can't Frieren or any mage remove curses with magic? because 'humanity doesn't understand curses' (but priests do apparently)
- Why don't the eagles just fly with the ring to ... No sorry, I mean: Why don't the mages just fly everywhere they need to go? because flight is a 'demon spell' that humanity doesn't understand so it uses a lot of mana.
This last point in particular, apart from making no sense (why is flight different than other spells?), completely contradicts an explanation made earlier in the series. In one of the earlier episodes, Frieren fights a demon that was sealed away 80 years earlier by the party of heroes because they couldn't beat it, his spell was too powerful. But this time she easily destroys him because she explains that in those 80 years, humanity studied that demon's spell, made it stronger and came up with defensive magic able to withstand it. So why didn't they do the same with flight? Is it different or did they not have time to study it? It sounds like an incredibly useful spell, so why didn't they start studying it earlier? I guess for the sake of the story's convenience...
Another example of why these magic rules are inconsistent is in the later episodes where a mage named Übel is able to cut through extremely powerful defensive spells because 'she can imagine it'. So now rules don't matter anymore, it's all about imagination. Übel literally even states that 'that kind of logic doesn't matter', and another character comments that it makes no sense. Is the show actually self-aware?
VIDEOGAME LOGIC
Another awkward aspect of the show is its tendency to rely on videogame logic, creating a feeling of artificiality. Why does Frieren need grimoires to learn new spells? Who even writes these grimoires? Frieren recruits Stark the warrior because she needs a 'front-liner' and then recruits a priest because they need a 'healer'. There is also a weird explanation about how priest's magic is different from mage's magic, and priests have increased resistance to curses (pure videogame logic). And why are characters divided into classes? There are so far warriors, monks, priests and mages. Why don't warriors learn magic? Do they not have access to the paladin DLC yet? Why don't mages learn priests spells? Frieren even says herself that you can learn priest's spells if you have holy scriptures, so why don't they all do that?
CONCLUSION
At the end of the day, Sousou no Frieren is by no means a bad show, but I personally don't think it deserves to be ranked #1 on MAL. The show, despite its interesting premise, does little to break out of the norm and to feel unique. Its first half is relaxing, it's cute and nice to look at, it's definitely enjoyable to watch if you ignore all the issues with the world's logic. The relatively strong start of the series unfortunately turns later into a self-insert power fantasy with extra steps.
Despite all this negativity and my mixed feelings towards it, it is clear that Sousou no Frieren carries all the ingredients necessary to make what most people consider a good show: a refreshing premise, quirky and good-looking characters sprinkled with some teenage drama and romance, pleasing visuals, amazing animation and a bunch of cool battles.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 3, 2023
What happened to Ousama Ranking's story? Did someone kidnap the author halfway in and force him to write a mediocre battle shounen with terrible pacing? This show is incredibly confusing.
In short, Ousama Ranking felt like watching two different shows. Its first half or so was actually very enjoyable, making use of complex and interesting characters in a context à la Game of Thrones topped with gorgeous art and symbolic writing - albeit as subtle as a brick through a window -, but then the fire nation attacked the mangaka or something must have happened because everything turned to trash. After the first half I just
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kept wondering what happened, what caused such a shift in quality, I was so focused on this that I could barely comprehend what I was watching anymore but maybe that's a good thing, in a way I got spared.
I don't want this to be a full review of the show, so I'll just briefly talk about the most important aspect of any show for me: its characters. Ousama Ranking's characters are surprinsingly good, or that's how they seem to be at the start of the show. They all have their backstory, allegiance and motivations and even those that appear shallow at first end up being interesting. Two characters have to be talked about: the two princes, Bojji and Daida. Daida is the second prince, he is gifted, strong-minded, ambitious and uncompromising. Even though he seems to be a complete asshole at first, it turns out that he has standards, morals that he's not willing to abandon. Bojji is the first prince, he is exactly the opposite of his brother. He is weak, cursed, and not fit to be a king. He is also deaf and mute.
This next paragraph contains spoilers
These two princes are interesting because of how drastically different they are and because they are basically competing for the crown after the death of their father. Even though Daida is most fit to become king, he's the second prince so Bojji should take the crown instead. This premise is very solid. It made me wonder how Bojji was going to deal with conflicts. Being deaf, he cannot hear what people are saying to him. Being mute, he cannot speak to them. Being extremely weak physically, he cannot resort to force to solve problems. How is he going to deal with his brother and everything else? What an interesting conundrum! Well, guess what... Everything that was established through the first half of the anime is simply thrown out the window. Daida is manipulated by a mirror and removed from the story because his father is reincarnated in his body and Bojji undergoes training which makes him the strongest character in the show (this is not a conjecture, it is stated in the anime). Daida's complex struggle to emulate his father's strength is gone. Bojji's physical handicap is gone; him being mute and deaf doesn't matter because he can read lips and people somehow understand him when he's 'speaking'. Thus, the anime turns into a battle shonen where there is absolutely no tension, people are gravely wounded but then healed, wounded again but healed again, and wounded one more time and left for dead just to be healed again because why not. Nothing seems to happen for the remainder of the show. We learn about the main antagonist's backstory which apparently is some sort of Japanese nationalistic memorandum. I was at first very confused by this backstory but it now unfortunately makes a lot of sense.
One last thing to mention is the series' main antagonists and one word to describe them is boring. The series goes into such great lengths to make them complex and misundertsood that it forgets to actually make them interesting.
If you really want to watch this series, just pretend it's 10 episodes long and has an ambiguous ending and call it quits, or turn your brain off and watch the whole thing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 1, 2023
If my experience with this anime had to be summarized by one word, it would be: disappointment.
The series starts off with a rock solid premise: the Abyss, a giant hole through the earth filled with valuable artifacts, uninimaginable creatures and realities beyond human comprehension. A city was built around this mysterious void on the surface and Divers are adventuring towards what seems to be the center of the earth, with their journey becoming increasingly difficult the deeper they go. A story about a giant abyss very reminiscent of Dante's journey through the nine circles of Hell, with a side of archaeology and a good amount
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of mystery? What's more to ask for? As an archaeologist myself and very avid reader, this premise had me extremely excited.
Unfortunately, as the story progresses, everything just falls flat. The sense of adventure and exploration is almost non-existent, the duality between the very young and innocent protagonists and the absurdly dangerous abyss they venture into is negated by plot conveniences, the ethical aspect of the Divers retrieving ancient relics and selling them on the surface isn't touched upon, the mystery generated by the Abyss is for the most part uninteresting because of how easily every question is answered, and the laws regarding the Abyss make absolutely no sense.
STORY
Very straightforward; Riko, the main character, wants to find her mom, a white whistle, who seems to be waiting for her at the bottom of the Abyss. The goal is thus very simple, to descend into the Abyss, but the execution is extremely difficult, facing the dangers this place has to offer. There isn't much to say about the story in itself, it just works. However, what doesn't work is the way it is executed. As mentionned above, I was expecting an adventure full of dangers and anguish, ripe with discovery of an ancient civilisation but also self-discovery, fear and doubts, regrets and hope. Almost none of that is present in this anime. Although the Abyss is presented as a very threatening place to go in, and almost impossible to come back from, the two protagonists of the story seem to just breeze through the various layers of this giant hole. Everytime danger arises, it is quickly taken care of by Reg, who just happens to be a robot equipped with a weapon "that defies the laws of the Abyss". When Reg finally finds himself faced with an opponent too strong for him, it is quickly revealed that she was just testing him and Riko. When Riko gets stabbed by a poisonous creature, a new character is conveniently introduced. She conveniently happens to have a immortal blob as a friend who conveniently can produce an antidote capable of curing Riko. Just when I thought Riko's own actions and carelessness would have consequences, i.e. her losing an arm, she is quickly taken care of and healed.
It is hard to really feel any sort of tension when nothing seems to be able to seriously threaten the protagonists. Reg is a seemingly immortal robot and Riko is equipped with the strongest plot armor she could find.
CHARACTERS
This is by far the show's most prominent issue. Almost none of the characters are interesting. Side characters are very quickly forgotten and don't really add anything to the story. Riko and Reg are headed into the depths of the earth, so one would think that the various dangers and characters they meet along the way would change their perceptions of the Abyss, of its creatures, of its artifacts; they would learn from these encounters and become better prepared to face this place and its hazards. Except they don't. Riko does learn some informations about her past but even this big plot twist actually doesn't matter because it doesn't actually change anything in the story, atleast in the first season. The various species of creatures they encounter also don't seem to alter in any way Riko's view on the Abyss. It's like she doesn't realize this place is dangerous and just keeps running off on her own despite being completely defenseless. This could be a way to add depth to her character and to emphasize her innocence by confronting her with the horrors of the Abyss. But one would expect some sort of character development from these encounters. Needless to say, Riko doesn't go through any developement throughout the series. She simply realizes, towards the start of her adventure that she is defenseless without Reg, but she seems to quickly forget that.
Speaking about Riko, there is almost nothing compelling about her character. Apart from knowing how to cook, she is pretty much useless. The story is basically the same as an escort mission from a video game where Reg has to make sure nothing serious happens to Riko. Reg is not a bad character, he is just very bland. Although he lost his memories, he doesn't seem to question anything around him. Is he a robot? If he is a robot, why does he act exactly the same as a human? Where does he come from? Why was he trying to go back to the surface? Why did he lose his memories? The relationship between Riko and Reg is very straightforward but one has to question why Reg is so intent on helping Riko reach the bottom of the Abyss; after all, he doesn't owe her anything, he's going on a near suicide mission just because? Maybe this will be explained later in the story.
The only other character that matters is Nanachi, and she is by far the most complex of the main trio. Without going into details, she actually has personal motivations which are a clever twist on a common trope and wants to use the protagonists to achieve her goal. Her backstory was way more interesting than anything else and I would've rather watched an anime with her as the main character.
One thing to note about the main characters is that they're all very young. As mentionned a clash between innocence and horrors could be an interesting path to character development, but that development just doesn't exist. I can't help but feel that the same show with adults as the main protagonists would've been infinitely better. Furthermore, the constant sexualization of Riko and Reg is greatly disturbing. Do we really need that many details about Reg having a penis depsite being a robot? Do we really need to see Riko naked at every turn, her clothes drenched in pee? I did say at the start of the review that I wanted a story about self-discovery, but I wasn't really thinking about this. Sexual discovery for children is obviously a very important and interesting topic, but it just seems out of place in the context of this anime.
WORLD
The world that the show takes place in is by far its most interesting part and will probably manage to maintain most viewer's (myself included) attention. It is engrossing, fascinatingly disturbing and frighteningly compelling. An Abyss filled with the ruins of an ancient civilization and grotesque monsters, the potential is infinite. Unfortunately, as I was watching the anime, I kept wanting more. I wanted to know about the world outside the Abyss, about the city around it, about how it was discovered, about how the discovery affected everything else, about the relics being sold on the surface, about the different layers, about the different whistles colors, about the creatures inside the hole, about the relationships between the different species and their environment, about how the Divers managed to go to the sixth layer and come back, about the different manmade structures, about this ancient civilization, ... But the anime just doesn't want to give exposition. It barely explains anything about what makes it interesting in the first place. The story is also full of plot conveniences where rules regarding the Abyss are only explained when the characters need to make use of them. Everything just feels extremely artificial.
It's a good opportunity to talk about pacing here. What makes the world of Made in Abyss even more infuriating, is that the story's pacing is all over the place. The anime spends 3(?) episodes on the surface introducing side characters that play no role in the story. Riko and Reg then take the plunge into the Abyss. We are also introduced to an array of different whistles that correpond to the depth their owner can go to. These actually do not matter because our two protagonists just rush through the first 3 or 4 layers with ease. The anime then spends a few episodes developing Nanachi's character and backstory, which is the best part of the show. And I feel like this is how every layer should've been. An opportunity for our protagonists to encounter side characters which will help them discover more about the Abyss and themselves and become more prepared to face it. But they don't need that because the Abyss is actually not really dangerous or they're just really lucky.
ENJOYMENT
I really wanted to enjoy this show, the synopsis got me very excited to say the least. The start was promising albeit a bit slow, but then the descent into the Abyss was just a mess of poor pacing, plot conveniences, lackluster character development and world building. The mystery surrounding the Abyss and the situations in which the characters could find themselves in still managed to keep me interested and make me watch to the end of the first season.
If you don't mind a mediocre story with even more mediocre characters Made in Abyss should definitely manage to keep you entertained thanks to its nightmarish yet beautiful world.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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