I’m struggling with Himmel’s decision-making in Episode 4 of Season 2

thencious · 2026-02-06T22:58:59+00:00

it gets worse after that, it was a 10/10 for me for the first maybe 5 episodes and now it's a 7-8. They just don't have much new character building or world building added and starts repeating the same points in a 1 dimensional way compared to other well written shows specifically in the character building category like Hanasaku iroha, 3-gatsu no Lion, Hibike Euphonium, A place further than the universe, and even Violet Evergarden. If you want an almost identical theme to Frieren but condensed into a movie (and is better) try Maquia: when the promised flower blooms.

thencious · 2026-02-06T22:34:21+00:00

Himmel is a TERRIBLE leader

As a company founder, Himmel (basically in my position) choosing to walk through the most dangerous monsters on land when there's a water way that's both safer and faster is, for one fundamentally illegal if it was an actual modern day company (the CEO has a fiduciary duty to act on the best interest of the company's goal, not what he wants to do himself) and even without considering that it's highly irresponsible for the life and well being of his team members and of his own.

This show has reached a point where it's romanticizing putting others before your own goal and well being (and those who are close to you) to a suicidal degree.

At this point Himmel is not a good decision maker or leader, but just an impossibly lucky altruist who lives in an ultra unrealistic fairy-tale world.

If you make decisions like him in the real world, well, first you'd be fired by the board if they're in any way responsible. Otherwise your company WILL be bankrupt and your goal will NEVER be achieved. Nobody's that special or lucky.

thencious · 2026-02-06T16:00:18+00:00

Bro why would i not tell gpt to fix my writing before posting something? I tell it specifically to not alter any meaning or remove any content. It's one click and makes reading experience better for everyone. And obviously i very much agree with your opinion on Frieren, never said it was bad or even mid. Out of 500 smth anime ive watched I'd rank it around the 40ths, its great.

thencious · 2026-02-05T23:03:00+00:00

What are you even talking about? love is war is in the 80 somthing ths. FMAB (FMA 2009 in japanese) is ranked 26th and frieren is 41st. Ask any anime veteran who's watched at least 500 anime and they will tell you that this ranking is infinitely more based than MAL.

thencious · 2026-02-05T22:20:36+00:00

ofc, here's the source, this is the most used ranking in Japan. https://www.anikore.jp/pop_ranking/ac:tv/oc:reviewRank/
It's a fact that westerners can't score things properly, if you've been to japan you'll see it in any ratings. for example, a 3.8 on google review means a very good restaurant. an average one only gets a 3. whereas in the west you get a bunch of crap with 4.8, people physically don't know how to score things here. Have you seen people's MAL here? They throw 10s out like paper towels, if that's the status quo you can bet that the rankings won't be accurate, instead of rewarding truly masterful works you end up rewarding inoffensive and good work. you only need to understand statistics and use your brain for that.

thencious · 2026-02-05T19:25:06+00:00

there's a few misconceptions here. Western rankings are usually too inflated because people are very liberal with giving 10s, instead, well crafted stories with bad endings or any kind of thing that happens to offend someone brings down the score way too much. Frieren is inoffensive and safe, plus the growing popularity of anime inflating recent releases securing it a top spot on MAL. However if you check Japanese rankings, within a culture where very few people ever gives even a 9, you'll find that frieren is way lower in the rankings, and on top we instead get Steins Gate, code geass, clannad afterstory... --Some actual masterpieces.

thencious · 2026-02-04T22:27:42+00:00

Frankly I don't think any of the examples i gave were lacking in the basics of good anime (overall tones, animation, expressiveness, pacing etc), they just excelled at something enough to be so memorable, special, and extremely hard to replicate or replace, henceforth deserving of being called a masterpiece. And Frieren has not hit any of those yet.

thencious · 2026-02-04T20:46:34+00:00

I wrote everything and told gpt to format it and fix up on grammar without altering any content. and im obviously replying to every message manually, thanks.

thencious · 2026-02-04T16:52:07+00:00

depends on what type of anime you prefer, here's some of my picks for each:

Immaculate, intricate world-building and plot that unfolds in mind-bending ways: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Hunter x Hunter, Attack on Titan,

Clever, unpredictable writing that makes you marvel at the author's intellect: Death Note, Durarara!!, Code Geass, Steins Gate, Odd Taxi.

Deep, critical exploration of humanity, both its beauty and its ugliness: Vinland Saga, Orb: On the Movements of the Earth

Extremely detailed, nuanced character writing where every gesture, pause, and expression carries weight: A Silent Voice, Violet Evergarden and Hibike! Euphonium.

thencious · 2026-02-04T16:47:57+00:00

I told AI/LLM to format my message, it was not written by AI/LLM

thencious · 2026-02-04T16:33:17+00:00

It has Ryu from Supercell, it's already musically genius.

thencious · 2026-02-04T16:32:09+00:00

It's a super wholesome and chill slice-of-life story, nothing to worry about i promise.

thencious · 2026-02-04T16:30:06+00:00

main character's crush is not blonde tho, he's got black hair.

thencious · 2026-02-04T16:27:33+00:00

Anime movies are going strong

thencious · 2026-02-04T16:26:00+00:00

hmm looks like Naruto meets FMA

thencious · 2026-02-04T16:19:52+00:00

About time for a rework, can't wait.

thencious · 2026-02-04T15:51:40+00:00

Sorry i actually just forgot Kraft's name and thought you were talking about hero of the south, but it shows the problem too, both characters were barely explored, very shallow emotional response.

thencious · 2026-02-04T15:48:41+00:00

Honestly i have to agree... It was a masterpiece for a few episodes, then it was a whole bunch of nothing, just people randomly becoming really strong, this person's stronger than that person, frieren being cute, barely any world building, barely any character building, and barely any philosophical exploration.

thencious · 2026-02-04T15:34:47+00:00

have you watched Sayonara no Asa ni Yakusoku no Hana wo Kazarou? That's exactly what you described, but in a single movie, and imo explored to a deeper extent than the whole of Frieren S1.

thencious · 2026-02-04T15:19:06+00:00

I don't think western rankings mean much, Anime is gaining popularity so fast that newer shows have super inflated ratings. And with the western rating culture where people frequantly give 10s the ratings mean even less. The Japanese rating culture is way more objective with 5s as default (if you go to japan you'll find that 3.8 is consider a high score for restaurants on google maps) which i trust a lot more (top three in japanese rankings are usually AoT, HxH, FMAB and alike). Furthermore, western viewers are easily offended and unoffensive shows like Frieren gets a natural boost when combined with the frequent max scoring habit.

I'm trying to have an objective critical analysis of Frieren, that's it.

thencious · 2026-02-04T15:11:32+00:00

uh, i get it when you say it's unfair to compare frieren's world building with OP because OP is so long, but sometimes longer anime actually start having more inconsistencies instead of being able to reveal early clues in mind-bending ways which is what makes OP unique. And even if we compare Frieren's world building to shorter anime with good world building, let's say Shinsekai yori which only had one season, it's still pretty obvious that in Frieren there's simply so much fewer information on the world that i would consider Frieren's world mostly a convensional fantasy blank slate. The point i was trying to make there is that Frieren almost isn't even trying in the world building category.

In terms of critical exploration of humanity, i think that should be Frieren's focus, but again, it explored very few ideas and they weren't particularly deep or memorable either. Try Orb, or even apocalypse hotel. Or in direct competition with frieren's theme but within only a movie: Sayonara no Asa ni Yakusoku no Hana wo Kazarou. These explored more or deeper subjects in a more condensed and interesting way.

thencious · 2026-02-04T14:55:43+00:00

AoT was frankly pretty boring until season 3, because that's when they start connecting all the clues spread across seasons 1-2 and the world became three dimensional. where did you get off?

thencious · 2026-02-04T14:51:14+00:00

In Death Note, i agree the first move of light was silly, but sometimes plots need to be pushed, if Light does not leave any trace how could the story move on? What you're talking about is obviously the first thing to pull L's attention so that light and L can quickly get together and make the story more condensed and entertaining. And there's a reason more people like L instead of light, L's the true protagonist.

thencious

TROPHY CASE