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Feb 20, 2025
As a side note I will be putting quotes around "Frieren" when talking about the story, and not the character.
"Sousou no Freren" is a fantasy adventure Shonen manga by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe whose work started publishing in Weekly Shonen in August 2020. The manga was already very popular before the anime came out, winning a few rewards during the time before the anime adaptation dropped in 2023. It's an understatement to say that the anime is pretty popular, amassing widespread mainstream recognition and arguably becoming the single most talked about anime since its release. At the time of writing this, the manga is
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currently on hiatus with 140 chapters and the anime is going to get its second season soon.
So really, how good is "Frieren"? There will be some spoilers ahead.
- Story Arcs
Beyond Journey's End
The story in "Frieren" is at its strongest at the beginning of the manga when it combs through the relationships between its characters, namely Frieren and her relationship with the others. As this is what everyone likes to talk about when discussing what makes the series so good. And don't get me wrong, they're right when they say that, as the first thirteen chapters truly are special. As we get to learn more about the people who have been in Frieren's life. We also learn about the experiences she had, and after Himmel's passing is when she realized just how precious they were to her. She shortly after learns about Aureole, a place where she can meet Himmel again. The beginning of the story is truly something amazing. It's just what comes after these chapters is where "Frieren" fizzles out.
Aura the Guillotine
In the very next arc, Aura the Guillotine, the issues of "Frieren" rear their ugly little heads and make it clear what this story is about. Two of the main problems with this arc and others are the portrayal/roles that the demons fulfill in the story, and the shift to a more action focused shonen as opposed to what is presented to the audience in the first arc. Though the Aura arc had a few of these issues, I wouldn't call it all that bad because we got to see a more in-depth look into Frieren's relationship with Flamme. Even during the confrontation between Frieren and Aura we see the effects that Himmel has had on her as she pays respects to the fallen soldiers after having defeated Aura. Other than those two instances, the arc was pretty uninteresting.
The traveling arcs are worth mentioning as they serve the reader with some really nice laid-back slice-of-life moments and also fulfill the hunger that the audience have for more Frieren/Himmel flashbacks that are absent in the main arcs. Ironically, these moments in between the arcs are substantially more enjoyable than most of the main arcs
First-Class Mage Exam
The Exam arc is where "Frieren" really starts to shift the focus away from what was initially established. Turning the laid-back emotion driven story of Frieren's self reflection on her past life into an action-oriented shonen. With Frieren and Fern needing to take the First Class Mage exam in order to continue their travels. This doesn't really make any sense considering what happened in Waal where Frieren is recognized as the mage who was a part of the Hero's party and is allowed to pass through.
If we're being honest though, the real reason why they need to do this is so the author can introduce characters in the most uninspired way possible, through what is essentially a tournament arc. What makes it worse is that there's barely any characterization for the characters being introduced. Not all of them are cardboard cutouts though, as Lawine and Kanne have a little more going on in their relationship than what's immediately on the surface.
This arc didn't really need to happen, it was just filler that took away from what actually makes "Frieren" good. These characters didn't need to be introduced in such a lazy way, they could've just popped up as they Frieren and the others made their way to Aureole. I'd even argue that this would actually improve the worldbuilding of "Frieren" if it was done this way. Overall just a disappointment of an arc.
The Golden Land
The only interesting part about the Golden Land arc was Macht himself and the drive he had to understand human emotions, no matter after being told by others that it was simply impossible. Be it the faulty, lackluster worldbuilding that surrounds the demons in the story or because of how dangerous his powers are to the others around him. Yet this arc has some the same problems as the Aura arc, only that this arc is more well executed because of the inclusion of Macht and how he was handled.
Goddess's Monument
The Goddess's Monument arc is by far "Frieren"'s most frustratingly disappointing arc. The Goddess's Monument arc has Frieren time travel back to the past where she's able to meet her party, the Hero's party, again. By concept alone, this should've been one of the best arcs in "Frieren" by having Frieren interact in a meaningful way with the others instead showed us the origins of Himmel's sword and how much he really likes it. Oh yeah, it also shows us how Himmel and Heiter are actually childhood friends. The reason this is so disappointing is that these are the type of scenes that should've been used for flashback sequences during Frieren's travels.
This was literally the golden opportunity to have Frieren actually have discussions and be friendly with Himmel and the others. I don't even have a problem with the action portions of the arc since it makes sense since she went back in time to before the defeat of the demon king. It's just another case where the author had a great idea but just could not stick the landing, and instead used this arc to introduce more demons who'll obviously appear later in the story with their own dedicated arcs.
The foundation festival isn't really worth mentioning, not only because is it not interesting, but also because it's not even finished. However, chapter 140 shows some promise that Serie might become a more compelling character than she initially let on.
To make it clear, I don't necessarily think that the action scenes in "Frieren" are a problem, I just don't like it when they're the main focus and causes other more interesting aspects of the story take a back seat for it.
Overall, "Frieren" had a very promising start, but things have slowly been going downhill ever since.
5/10
- Characters
The characters are what make "Frieren" what it is, as every interesting part of the story is about the relationships that the characters have with one another. That's not to say that every character is amazing, but they are what they are. Well, aside from the demons as they're all pretty lackluster when it comes to being actual characters.
I'd say that one the more interesting dynamics to look at would be the master-apprentice relationships that we see in the story. Because Frieren and Flamme are entirely different in the way that they teach their apprentice. In Flamme's case, when she finds a younger Frieren who is on the verge of death after failing to protect her village from invading demons, she takes Frieren and carefully "cultivates" her to be a perfect demon killing machine.
These teachings leading Frieren to isolating herself from others in order to continue to perfect her mana repression. Frieren does not raise Fern the same way that she was raised by Flamme, as she not only becomes an adoptive mother to Fern but also teaches her the joys of magic at an early age and has shown Fern the care and compassion that a mother would show her child. Notably, she also does not have Fern isolate herself for the sole purpose of killing demons!
Throughout the story there are some touching moments sprinkled throughout. Like one of the cardboard cutouts introduced in the Exams arc gets some nice development in The Golden Land arc. But honestly speaking, it's just not nearly enough that is needed for manga like this to have. It's honestly kind of disappointing when you consider how the author makes the active decision for things to be like that. Besides, it's not like the authors incapable of doing these things, because if you've read the story then you know they clearly are.
7/10
- The Demon Problem
To preface this section, I do have to say that I think demons are meant to be portrayed as mentally ill rather than any racial minority. This is proven by how the demons are represented in the series as they are unempathetic and unable to feel guilt for their actions, so they fit under the umbrella of ASPD well enough.
Not gonna spend too much time on this since this horse has been beaten into a gooey pulp already, but I think that the controversy surrounding the demons is because of the author's lackluster attempt at worldbuilding. We've heard many times, especially from Flamme and Frieren, that demons are "incapable of communicating with humans" or "only use words to deceive humans" as we see demons communicate with each other in the same arc these are stated. There are also demons stating similar sentiment, like "demons would have gone extinct if they felt grief"
But why? Why can't they communicate with humans? Why can't they feel grief for humans? What's the reason that they die out if they felt grief for humans? Are they even sentient? None of these questions are answered whatsoever in "Frieren", they're just stated as fact that the author lazily throws in to hand wave the issue away and expects the reader to accept it. If you're going to have the demons be real characters, namely any of the humanoid demon characters for example, then the least you can do is give a proper explanation as to why these things are the way they are.
Annoying/10
- Conclusion
It just feels like the author bit off more than he could chew. Unable to stick to the premise that was initially established and ended up with a story that's largely uninteresting. That's not to say that "Frieren" can't be good though, because the potential is clearly there as there are plenty of nice aspects in the story itself. It's just a little disappointing to see the shift from a laid-back emotionally driven story about the relationships between people slowly turn into an action-oriented shonen. Hopefully things change in the future, and it goes back to how it was in the beginning of the story. Since this manga has had such a cultural impact, I'd probably end up recommending it to anyone who wants to get into animanga anyways because I think it works well enough as a gateway.
So really, how good is "Frieren"? Well, it's no masterpiece, but it's just alright with all things considered.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 2, 2025
One Piece is a series that has been serializing for a whopping 27 years, and has built up a very large following in the meantime. At the time of writing this One Piece has 1135 chapters. So in other words, it's pretty long and intimidating to the majority of people wanting to get into OP. So, should those on the fence take a crack at One Piece? Well, that depends on what you're looking for.
(As a side note I will not be mentioning things regarding the Elbaph arc because it's not finished)
Story/arcs
The story is pretty simple to wrap your head around since it
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begins and, presumably, ends with Luffy setting sail with the goal of becoming the king of the pirates. Obviously the most important bits of the story are going to be in between him setting sail and him eventually becoming the king of the pirates. Now I'm not too big of a fan of how reductive certain fans are when talking about the overarching themes of One Piece as the typical watered down answer given is "It's about the journey rather than the destination." While I do think that interpretation has its merits, I do think that One Piece is a story of Luffy and his friends rising up and fighting back against the tyrannical power of the world government and for the liberation of all those who are oppressed by them, even if Luffy isn’t actively seeking that out. Be it the Straw hats defeating warlords who are legally allowed to wreak havoc on a populace because they’re allowed to thanks to the world government, defeating nuisances who are terrorizing people, or just fighting for the sake of saving their friends while stepping on the toes of the "founders" of the world.
Each of the arcs in One Piece have their own themes that are explored throughout the arc, duh. Some are great, some are good, but most are bad. Up until Arlong Park, the themes are pretty one note and aren't very interesting. Coincidentally, Arlong Park is exactly where the reader will notice that One Piece actually starts taking itself seriously and starts becoming better. That doesn't mean that every arc that comes after Arlong Park is amazing, but it does means that there's a noticeable difference in quality if you compare an arc like Baratie to something like Alabasta. There are 33 arcs in One Piece and out of the plentiful amount that One Piece has to offer, only 5 of them are good: Enies Lobby, Wano, Whole cake, Arlong park, and Marineford. Enies Lobby being head and shoulders above the rest. I don't really feel like diving into each of the arcs since that'd take forever but just keep in mind that for every Enies Lobby there are 6 Fish-Man Islands. So there's a lot of slog to parse through if you want to get to the good stuff.
Characters
The characters, like in any other story, are the central part of One Piece and are what makes One Piece what it is. Since without the characters there wouldn't be a story. The amount of characters there are in One Piece is exactly what you would imagine for a series that has been running for damn near 30 years. But unfortunately, they can be best described as a mixed bag, as you'll get characters who are genuinely amazing, like Robin, and characters who just suck and don't really play that big of a role in their respective arcs and honestly could've been cut entirely with no consequence because not much would have changed because of it, like Rebecca. Disappointingly, there are a hell of a lot more characters that fall on the Rebecca side than those that fall on the Robin side, be it whether or not they pass the vibe check or whether they're genuinely a good character. What contributes the most to this is the amount and quality of (or current lack of) character development that each of the characters have, namely the straw hat crew since they're the main characters but unfortunately not every crew member is treated equally in this regard.
That is insane because, depending on the member, the only time that each of the characters get development is within the arcs that they join the crew. This problem is especially bad post time skip as the only crew members that get any real development are Sanji, and, to a lesser extent, Jinbe. Luffy isn't mentioned here since he's a flat character. Like instead of wasting time on characters like Rebecca, why don't we get more meaningful moments between the straw hats and create more Robins? Since they all have vastly different personalities there's bound to be some good moments there. To name an example of a nice moment between the crew members, there's a moment after Thriller Bark where Zoro learns about the pain that his captain had to go through in the previous fight. Moments like these are good because they make the cast more likable. Bonney and Kuma are worth mentioning here because of how those two were handled, they single handedly saved Egghead from being a terrible arc to being acceptable because of how amazing their story is.
Speaking of the straw hats, they wouldn't be where they are now without Monkey D. Luffy. Luffy is the protagonist of the series, and one that I personally didn't come around to liking until Enies Lobby, which is like 400 chapters deep by the way. Luffy is pretty easy to understand as his motivations are pretty simple, to become the king of the pirates. He doesn't do what he does for fame, or to be liked. He doesn't want to be a hero, he "wants all of the meat," he wants to be the freest man on the sea. But this lovable goofball can't help but become emotionally invested in others affairs in every arc and to want to help out those who reach out to him and follow through with his actions and becoming a hero to them. And that's what makes his latest transformation such a good form for him, no matter how fucking stupid its inception is. It's perfect for him. Luffy is the perfect protagonist for One Piece.
Outside of Luffy and Robin the rest of the crew are, frankly, not as interesting. However there are Nami and to a lesser extent Sanji and Usopp. but I can't tell you that Zoro and Sanji are on the same level while keeping a straight face. Sanji's the better character in case you're curious. Zoro is a character who is in desperate need of development because he's pretty boring as he’s pretty much just a typical sword guy who does sword guy things, and it was pretty disappointing when Wano wasn't the arc to change things much like how Whole Cake was Sanji's arc. Jinbe did also get some, but not nearly enough, development throughout the time since his introduction in Impel Down, namely in Fishman Island and Whole Cake. Nami has Arlong park, Usopp has some interesting development during Water seven, Chopper's a cute doctor who does doctor stuff, Brook doesn't have any development outside of his introductory arc, and Franky's in the same boat as Zoro and Brook. Hopefully the straw hats get more focus in the upcoming arcs.
What's a shonen without its share of antagonists? And boy does One Piece have its fair share. Unfortunately the majority of them are awful as they're typically one-note about how cartoonishly evil they are, Spandam being the worst offender of this, since his presence in Enies Lobby was genuinely annoying and honestly makes the arc a tiny bit worse than it would’ve been otherwise. Though that doesn't mean that all of the antagonists are bad, since I do think that of the one-note evil antagonists, Oda really nailed it with Doflamingo. Katakuri is also up there for various reasons but I won't go into that now. If you're planning on getting into One Piece it's best to keep your expectations low. But I'd say that the main antagonist of the story, the world government, are actually pretty good for what they are.
Art
Even at the beginning of the series that art isn't that bad, but the art really starts picking up when the story reaches Arlong Park. Ever since Arlong Park Oda's art has been pretty great, especially with how amazing the fight sequences are and how easy they are to follow.
Humor
It’s worth touching upon the humor because a lot of the jokes and situations are actually pretty funny and does help ease things when things get pretty boring.
Despite its faults, the best things about One Piece is not only the worldbuilding but also how coherent and natural the transitions are when going from one arc to another. It's just really unfortunate that the characterizations of the characters are admittedly pretty bad. It is really disappointing when you consider that most of the Straw hats are like this too, but it is also best to keep in mind that the series hasn't ended yet and we could get some good development for the characters. For example, Usopp could get some nice development in the current Elbaph arc. It's also worth mentioning again that One Piece is currently 1135 chapters strong and still going, and it really does look like One Piece is on its final stretch. If there's one other thing that One Piece does well it's that it really does sell the idea that these guys are on an adventure sailing through the sea on their journey for the One Piece. And if you don't want to go on that journey, that’s fine. But if you choose to go on that journey, that’s great too, just don't fall down some stairs along the way.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 23, 2024
Season one isn't the craziest, and that's because the early arcs just aren't that interesting compared to the arcs that come later in the series. But that doesn't stop Dandadan from being a really fun show to watch if you throw expectations out the window and enjoy the pretty animations.
The anime, and that includes the manga, is easily at its worse when it's in between arcs and forces the audience to watch really stale slice of life moments between the characters while the story is in the process of moving on to the next alien/yokai for the gang to deal with. This is mainly because
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of how the humor is in this series, most of the jokes are admittedly pretty funny while others just fall flat. The manga does handle this better solely because you can just speed reed through these bits and be on to the next arc where things happen.
Speaking of the characters, Momo and Okarun are exceptions to the staleness because those two are really cute together. Other than those two, so far the rest of the cast has left a bit to be desired.
Episode 7 easily the best episode of the adaptation as everything about it is great and I'd urge viewers to at least watch up to it before deciding whether or not to continue the series. Sine moments like this, as few as there may be, will continue to come as more seasons get released.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 29, 2024
After seeing who the author was, I had pretty low expectations for this because of what the she has made in the past. And this thinking was justified for the first 10 chapters. However, after those 10 chapters the manga takes a noticeable step away from the dark edgy content and becomes more an enjoyable read. Albeit not by much, but enough to keep the attention of the reader.
The criticism of how horribly girls in their adolescence can treat each other at the drop of a hat in order to "fit in" is a core aspect to this manga. Kanae desperately tries to find a
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group of friends that will accept her, only to be met with the exact thing that she's worried about. After chapter 12 it more so focuses on the developing relationships between the characters, and more specifically Kanae and Hiroshi.
Outside of 3 characters, the rest of them are horrible people, and that's why they're interesting. Because if they weren't, then this manga wouldn't be worth looking at.
One of the things that I love about manga is seeing the journey the artist has taken in improving their art, and this is no exception. Comparing her older chapters to the newer ones is pretty noticable. That's not to say that the art at the beginning of the manga is bad, it certainly does have its charm.
Overall I did derive some semblance of enjoyment from seeing a mentally ill girl experience what love is like and try to protect that feeling, and if you're into that then you'll like it. If you can't get past the first 9 chapters, no one will blame you, since you aren't really missing much that can't be found elsewhere.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Oct 18, 2024
**TL;DR at the end**
Just like various other visual novel adaptations, the Steins;Gate 0 anime is very disappointing. It sucks to say this because the Steins;Gate adaptation was actually a pretty good alternative to the visual novel, well aside from the out of character moments that plagued it, an example of which being when Mr. Braun killed Moeka.
But why is it that the adaptation for S;G was good, but S;G0 was bad? The answer has to do with how each of the stories are handled in the visual novels. In S;G, the story is quite linear, only ever diverging when you are given the choice to
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view a few of the various endings of the game. In S;G0, however, the story is non-linear, as at the end of the common route there’s a moment where the game branches into two different paths, each path having different endings associated with them. The two paths, or routes, are “Promised Rinascimento” and “Vega and Altair”
This is important to mention because of how needlessly congested the adaptation is, since the adaptation team thought it’d be a good idea to try and merge both routes together which resulted in the ugly mutated amalgamation that we got. Not only do they merge the routes together, but they also throw in a drama CD to add a little spice to it. Because of the mess that they decided to make, that meant that changes had to be made, both to the story and to the characters, in order to try and make the story make sense.
The characters in S;G0 failed to hit the mark because many of the character arcs were incomplete and as a result, weren’t as impactful as they were in the visual novel. The moments where I appreciated what the adaptation team did with the characters are few and far between, one of which would be the lead up to Mayuri’s monologue in episode 17, this moment originally being from the drama CD mentioned earlier.
The story really does suffer because of how the team went about adapting it, merging all the routes together in an attempt to make it as close to the full package as possible. I don’t really understand why they decided to do it this way, instead I think a better way they could’ve adapted this would be to dedicate a cour to each route. One of my favorite scenes in the visual novel is at the end of the PR route, where a major turning point for Okabe occurs. But it’s butchered and stripped of its original purpose only to then be used as a direct jump-off point to include more Okabe x [Kurisu] moments because the team wanted to milk as much out of that pairing as possible.
There were also other points in the story where nothing made sense, one of those being when Okabe's reading steiner activated at the Christmas party. The part that makes this so silly is how, in the new worldline, time clearly passes, around a month to be specific. But when reading steiner is activated again and he's returned to his original worldline, he’s still at the Christmas party. I don’t need to tell you that this is impossible. The activation of reading steiner does not pause time, it only allows the user to retain the memory of previous worldlines when the worldline changes, but apparently the adaptation team just decided that it’d be okay to ignore how time works in a series where time travel is the central plot device.
The other point in the story that was complete nonsense was when Valkyrie, a resistance group in the future, had access to [Kurisu] and had it monitor Okabe while he was in a coma for 11 years. There are various reasons why I don’t like this, the biggest one being that since [Kurisu]’s data has been accessible to Stratfo since Amadeus’ inception. It’s not like Valkyrie doesn’t know this, because they use this against Stratfo to confuse them so that they aren’t able to capture Okabe before he can get to the time leap machine. This is an asspull that is used strictly so that the team has an excuse to squeeze in more Okabe x [Kurisu] moments, as if the anime is in desperate need of that.
One main problem with the adaptation is how they seemed to prioritize Okabe and Kurisu, which isn’t inherently a bad thing because I kind of liked episode 8 and what it was aiming for. But [Kurisu] is NOT a replacement for Kurisu, and it never has been, Maho even points this out. But it seemed like Okabe had a really hard time coming to terms with this as opposed to how he was in the visual novel. There's even a bad ending in the game which you get when Okabe fails to recognize this and treats [Kurisu] like a replacement for Kurisu. Even the conversation that Okabe has with the program is reminiscent of Okabe's and Kurisu's conversation in S;G before leaving the alpha worldline. It doesn't work for various reasons, the main of which being that Okabe now has the resolve to save Kurisu so he has no reason to bid his farewell to an AI.
There’s not really much to say as far as the soundtrack goes, since they’re mostly the same as the ones that appear in the visual novel. One of the things that really bugged me was the underutilization of the “Amadeus” track by Kanako Ito. I get that there is meaning to points of which this song is played but I feel like that reason doesn’t justify its underutilization.
All in all, you could maybe derive some resemblance of enjoyment out of the anime if you just ignore the glaring flaws, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It is a shame to see how awful the Steins;Gate 0 adaptation is compared to its predecessor.
TL;DR
The adaptation sucks. If you’re thinking about watching this after watching Steins;Gate, go read the visual novel instead, you won’t regret it. Hell, I’d even go as far as to say go back and read Steins;Gate too before you dive into Steins;Gate 0.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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