>>122073
>Frieren is the greatest anime of all time according to both anilist and MAL ratings
I don't agree with that but I certainly need to make some space for it in my top 100 now. Not sure what I should remove though... It was a great show, but I have my fears that S2 won't have this much of a positive reception since the score for the source material isn't as amazing. I haven't read the manga in its entirety yet though. The architecture and scenery looked fantastic. It was one of my favorite things about it. A lot of effort and passion was put into it for sure.

>>122080
>It's the post-credits of a standard JRPG
I wouldn't say that. Frieren is more of a typical fantasy setting. JRPGs almost never have elves or Tolkien stuff in general.

>>122084
>I wouldn't say that. Frieren is more of a typical fantasy setting. JRPGs almost never have elves or Tolkien stuff in general.
The adventure started with an audience with the king, being handed a pittance of money and being sent on the adventure.
A video game MC's usual rudeness to NPCs was then lampshaded, getting them almost killed.
Later, they went from dungeon to dungeon, exploring them in a completionist's approach, and from side quest to side quest, delaying the main task for a decade, while the final boss waited for them in his castle at the end of the world (despite trying to organize a war) the entire time.

These are interactive gaming cliches, not passive story-telling ones, because they don't make sense for passive story-telling.

>>122086
It has some isekai tropes, yes, but that doesn't make it a "standard JRPG". Stuff like Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger is what comes to mind when you think about it and Frieren isn't anything like them. Same thing for Dungeon Meshi. I wonder why it's so rare for Japanese games to have traditional fantasy settings since this isn't the case in anime/manga as there are quite a few examples.

>>122087
Thanks for the clarification.

>>122084
Season 2 will have what's in my opinion (and of many people honestly) the peak of the Frieren manga, so unless they botch it horribly I think it's bound to be similar or even better than this season.
Frieren's manga has a very good rating on the places I visit. It's better than the anime, I'd say, but that might just be because I don't like fight scenes and I love the absolute emotionless faces all characters have.

>>122073
Frieren is an interesting show. It relies on stereotypical isekai fantasy tropes for some world building (demon king, dungeon diving, OP main characters) but it's choice to take place after the world ending event is over, allows it to explore more grounded stories without being burdened by a sense of urgency to save the world or a need for progression to the demon king fight.
>>122084
>Tolkien stuff
I do like the Tokien influences in Frieren.
Elves shepherding humans and protecting them from demons, seems like it comes directly from Tolkien. The comparison between demons and orcs shouldn't be overlooked either. Both are unequivocally evil creatures that exist only as a mockery of other races. Also there is the comparison between Aureole and The Halls of Mandos. A lot of the setting in Frieren is drawn from Tolkien, more so than the usually isekai fantasy story.

>>122102
When it comes to saying "isekai fantasy tropes" at what point is it really isekai stuff vs simply typical fantasy stuff. Take the maou for instance, it isn't really that unique to isekai, Sauron is the maou, Maleficent is the maou, etc.

>>122103
"Isekai Fantasy" might be the wrong descriptor and it may be better as "Japanse-Western Fantasy" or "DnD inspired Japanese Fantasy". Hallmarks of the setting are anachronistic clothing, boarding schools, general setting is a mix of early victorian and late medival periods, distinct power levels, precursor civilization has more of a sci-fy than fantasy aesthetic, dungeon diving and adventurer guilds. As for story elements; some divine entity begins the story and the main character has some overpowered ability, main character gathers a harem, and central story is about defeating a demon king.

>>122105
Yeah, I think the west has now for years struggled to put its finger on the weird meta-cosmos that is Japanese western fantasy, and ended up defaulting to calling it isekai.

>>122106
I sometimes wonder how much Japanese Western Fantasy is the way it is because it developed detached from the cultural roots that underpin Western Fantasy (particularly Tolkien's works). Western Fantasy doesn't exist without Western Mythology and Fairytales or the Western Christianity, particularly the experiences of Christianity within Rome and the Christian-Muslim conflicts.
I don't know much about Far-Eastern or Japanese Mythology and Fairytales to really grasp any influences they may have on the Japanese Western Fantasy but I would bet they are as fundamental as the influence the West's have on it's fantasy. The one influence I am somewhat aware of is Journey to the West with it's group dynamic of 4-5 members being the basis for many Japanese Western Fantasy stories. I wouldn't be surprised if the male character with a harem of girls has a basis in some older stories outside of just being a vehicle for the male viewer to self-insert.

>>122109
>The one influence I am somewhat aware of is Journey to the West with it's group dynamic of 4-5 members being the basis for many Japanese Western Fantasy stories.
I strongly doubt that.
There are two influences that are closer and more pressing:
1) (if you actually need an external source): RPGs traditionally have fairly limited party sizes
2) simple conservation of attention: The more characters you drag around, the more characters need to be given attention. 4-6 main characters is standard for CGDCT as well as other genres.
>I wouldn't be surprised if the male character with a harem of girls has a basis in some older stories
That is not actually very old as a stereotype. The harem genre only really developed in the 80s and 90s, and that was initially outside of fantasy, into which it was eased by way of urban fantasy and the "magical girl fell into my lap" genre. Oh My Goddess, Tenchi Muyo etc.

>>122084
That image shows my one issue with Frieren's visuals and it's something I also blame other shows for, notably Musoku Tensei: too many filters! I bet it would look better without the haziness and film grain and maybe there's even chromatic aberration there!
To make my point I'll upload a scene from Undead Unluck episode 11 and then lazily apply filters to it to help demonstrate my point.

Here is the beautiful original! (there's some audio issue with the encode that didn't allow DaVinci to load it...)

>>122115
And here is is with the Mushoku Frieren filters!

>>122116
i see the issue now

>>122117
I actually made it a bit too blurry, but I think the film grain is still noticeable there at least. I need to learn Davinci one of these days so I can actually see the preview in full screen. I'd like to see a 'raw' version without the film grain and chromatic aberration, but the glowing and other effects look great to me.

>>122115
Wait, so the shab gets her long hair back??? Maybe it's worth watching then

>>122102
I disagree with the orcs part. In Frieren's world demons are a kind of monster that developed on its own according to regular evolutionary principles by specializing on aggressive mimicry and magic, meanwhile Middle Earth's orcs truly are the result of evil corruption from fallen higher beings. The former is only a mockery as much as a flytrap mocks flowers.
I'd like to point out as well that there is no clerical school of magic in Tolkien or even a priesthood, much less a profession of academic sorcerers, those are taken from elsewhere. Clerics in particular are a super D&D thing, the way they conduct miracles and relate to their god is actually kinda weird, especially here where they're chosen at random and have to make sense of it. The two stories share the gradual disappearance of elves too but the relationship there is rather superificial, in Frieren they're simply dying off due to autism and war while in Tolkien there's some fundamental astral destiny stuff going on with the fëa and hröa and other things that elude me, as well as in Frieren magical powers among men increasing as time goes on running contrary to what happens in Middle Earth.
I think Tolkien's influence on Frieren is exaggerated, perhaps because of how sincere the two are. It still lines up with Dragon Quest and Lodoss far more closely, both ultimately stemming from D&D. Same as Dungeon Meshi and Goblin Slayer.

>>122103
I'd argue the maou of current otaku media is more of an occupation than a true force of evil or antichrist figure like a dark lord proper is. More of a commander, king, or emperor, formally recognized as such by everyone around them.
So you find Helck starting off with a tournament to decide who the new maou will be, an office that in its setting implies no evil, it's simply the king of the inhumans. In Hataraku Maou or lv1 Maou after they've stopped being regnant they slide away to pass their time doing something else entirely. Sauron would never do that, because he's THE DARK LORD and his fallen nature defines him, he's truly the devil with Christian temptation and all, whereas such evil is often missing from Jap characters bearing the title. A lot of the time there's a catch to it which makes it differ from a DL, maybe it was a matter of circumstance, there was a misunderstanding, they were never evil to begin with, akshually it's the humans that are evil, or it's simply a joke.

A perfect example I believe is the maou from Maoujou, whose crime is... kidnapping a princess. And that's it really, he's playing defense, concerned with game design to match the heroes' advance, and doesn't try to pull any kind of invasion or anything or corruption or what have you even as they fly all the way to the capital. All he is, is the 王 of the 魔, hardly a harbinger of ruin for anyone in the story. The one feature he can be said to share with Sauron is leadership, but not a single other thing. He's also part of a royal family, succeeding his father, so even there he's rather mundane. Compare this with the opposing yuusha-tachi who aren't necessarily the chosen ones either but rather fulfilling an occupation too, a small group of people given the responsiblity of fighting back. See Himmel failing to take out the sword but going on to achieve victory anyways.

All in all there are commonalities, but that's because all of fantasy as we know it originates with Tolkien. It was certainly shaken up by RPGs, it seems replays became popular in the late 80s and THE replay, Lodoss, was first published in 1988, which I consider to be the true forefather of Jap high fantasy, Slayers too started coming out in 1989. Even the fat fucking elf references Lodoss right at the start. Meanwhile Wheel of Time would be published in 1990 and A Song of Ice and Fire in '91, I think those are some important points of divergence that could explain the state of things. Earlier stories like The Sword of Shannara and Conan did go into D&D, and therefore into Jap fantasy, but past the 80s it seems that's where we could draw the line.

>>122119
No, she doesn't. You should watch it for many other reasons, though. I hope someone here watches Undead Unluck as a result of my 150 posts about it

>>122123
>Clerics in particular are a super D&D thing,
It's literally biblical.

>>122128
Spellcasting isn't biblical.

>>122130
Miracles are acts of God, not caused by mere incantations. Clerics also have a reusable pool of magical power that's totally different from divine grace.

>>122131
>not caused by mere incantations.
And the same is true for DnD clerics. They call for the power of their gods.
(in fact, through bad writing the same is true for wizards, they all get their power from the goddess of magic)

>>122132
Then why do casters have limited powers if every higher being is constantly agreeing with them?

>>122133
Don't ask me how exactly the lore works. I never read the actual rule books. I only played games and talked about those with other players.

If you've ever played Baldur's Gate though, you may remember Viconia, who lost all her spellcasting powers when she disobeyed Lolth and would have died if not for the sacrifice of her brother.

>>122134
Well, there you have the difference: gods in D&D give you a measurable automatically-refilling power source for you to do whatever you want with as long as they're okay with you as a person without giving much mind to limited individual actions, but that's not how miracles work. In the Bible, or at least according to Christians, miracles happen because God decided to either intervene directly or less directly with the Holy Spirit acting through something or someone, you can't call upon God to help you anytime because grace is unearned and undeserved, a gift by a loving father. Working harder or achieving more things won't grant it to you, as per Ephesians 2:8-9:
>For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith
>—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
>not by works, so that no one can boast.
Whereas clerics and paladins REQUIRE devotion and work to obtain their powers in the first place, the biblical God can act through whoever He wants whenever He wants and it's a fleeting thing. In RPGs characters also grow stronger and learn more spells by earning experience as time passes, but God doesn't ever use spells, slots, or mana, he can do anything limitlessly, and Elijah doesn't need to carry around a spellbook with Revivify in it.
For a comparison with polytheism and how it differs there too there's this video that includes the matter of veneration and priesthood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3DgX78Qi_c

>>122123
> The former is only a mockery
Mockery wasn't the best word for the comparison of orcs and demons. Speaking strictly from what I've seen in the anime, demons are a reflection of elves, similar to how orcs are a reflection of elves. In Frieren demons and elves are actually quite similar, with their main differences being an inherent malevolence towards humans and presence of horns vs pointy ears. Both species dedicate their long lives to honing a particular skill and generally have detached, almost apathetic, views towards humans. Notably elves in both settings serve to guide humans towards future in which humanity is the ruler of the world; while orcs and demons are directly opposed to this view and seek to create a world in which there respective leaders are in charge (Morgoth/Sauron and The Demon King respectively).
Frieren does lack the more intentional moral reasoning for demon creation but the Demon King and demons serve a similar role that Morgoth/Sauron and orcs play in the Tolkien; as ancient, evil creatures opposed to elves and the "rise of man".

>All in all there are commonalities, but that's because all of fantasy as we know it originates with Tolkien
With respect to your discussion of Dark Lords earlier, I think it's important to note that Dark Lords in a lot of Japanese media do still have a passing resemblance to Sauron but like you said they are not really like Sauron upon closer inspection. The lack of Christian influence and meta physical evil in the Dark Lords' character says something about what the culture/author considers important about the story.

I appreciate the bits of history and chronological context, I don't really read but it seems like i should atleast watch the Lodoss adaptation to get some context of Japanese fantasy.

>>122136
Ahhhh, a mirror image. Alright, alright, that makes much more sense, yeah, I can see that.
>says something about what the culture/author considers important about the story
To be fair, the Encyclopedia of Fantasy in its entry on DARK LORD states that "DLs are frequently rooted in whatever political or religious figures happened to be worrying readers at the time" (interestingly Paul Atreides matches this) but that of Sauron's meaning and actions "much genre fantasy simply copies this." So really, more like what worried Tolkien, and inherited by those that came afterwards.
>seems like i should atleast watch the Lodoss adaptation
Super recommended as a historical thing, I've seen Frieren repeatedly described as Lodoss Afterstory. Eisen's grandpa is in it.

BY THE WAY CHECK OUT THIS BEAUTIFUL ENTRY ON GENRE FANTASY FROM 1997 ABSOLUTE GOLD

>>122135
>a measurable automatically-refilling power source for you to do whatever you want with as long as they're okay with you as a person
No, that is not quite right. They feed you power constantly. When Bhaal was dead, people were legitimately surprised that his clerics continued to receive power from him.
It's probably more like how the internet works. All users can access an internet forum. But that does not mean that the website is on everybody's computers. It's just automatically accessible so long as you have an internet connection, the correct address, and haven't gotten your account banned for misconduct.
The idea that specific individuals are more divinely empowered than others is also strongly implied by the grouping of the miracles towards a small group of miracle workers (and in fact, Judea had a concept of prophets and healers. Later, during the middle ages, Christians continued to follow this idea and had actual fights over the possession of certain holy remains that they were sure had miraculous properties.

>but God doesn't ever use spells, slots, or mana,
That's just complaining about the fact that DnD is a game.

>>122149
Well, akshually, vancian magic is older than D&D. The memorization of spells and their usage through slots as ammunition was first written about in The Dying Earth, a novel which faced none of the limitations of being a game:
>Turjan closed the book, forcing the spell back into oblivion. He robed himself with a short cape, tucked a blade into his belt, fitted the amulet holding Laccodel’s Rune to his wrist. Then he sat down and from a journal chose the spells he would take with him. What dangers he might meet he could not know, so he selected three spells of general application: the Excellent Prismatic Spray, Phandal’s Mantle of Stealth, and the Spell of the Slow Hour.
Then after using it the spell goes poof and you have to re-memorize it again later. The fact that God doesn't use prepared spells is of great importance, because neither does Gandalf or any faerie or daimon of auld, but Goblin Slayer's Priestess and Frieren do, with accompanying finite energy sources that the previous set lacks. This is a specific kind of spellcasting that Vance formulated with his mixture of sci-fi and fantasy and didn't exist prior to that, and D&D makes it weirder by going from Vance's world of scientific wizardry as the sole source of power to a setting where all these different sources of magic coexist.

Now, God's grace itself is indivisible (or at least so has a Catholic told me), that's why every fragment of the True Cross has miraculous healing powers that are not proportional to their size, they don't scale. Relics like that do appear in the bible serving as further evidence that God acted through them and thus post-mortem miracles are a requirement for the canonization of a saint. That certain people are closer to God is one of the principles behind intercession, so explains the Catechism that:
>956 The intercession of the saints. "Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness. . . . They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus . . . . So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped."
But it's always up to God, everything down to the smallest detail, they cannot use this closeness to coerce him or the like. The fact that clerics can continue to use magic even after Bhaal's death does set a difference there because all miracles are acts of God, by God, not of the associated person, it reinforces that the fantasy deity is a source rather than an actor. The internet is not a person either, while God is.

>>122156
I will concede that DnD clerics are not literally biblical but merely inspired by the bible.
We also have to make allowance for the fact that DnD is in fact polytheistic. While there is an entity that is supposed to be the stand-in for God (being called AO), the gods that people interact with are not omnipotent, are not omnipresent and are certainly not omniscient. They trust their agents to do the right thing in their names.

>>122158
Did not mean to sage with the second post.

>>122158
Exactly, that's why I'd rather describe it as a deposit more than anything else. Its gods aren't able to keep up with all of their followers like an omni-ist deity would.

The climax of the OP of Sengoku Youko looks really beautiful. It's hard to compete with the other stuff that was airing, but it's worth mentioning that it looks great, too. The more impactful moments of the story definitely have an extra notch of quality to them.
I've watched the first 12 seconds at the beginning of this clip so many times, the music and the visuals are just so good.
I wonder what will look amazing in Spring?

the lainteens

Precure Allstars F didn't really have much of a story, but the visuals were really good. The scenery in the SoL-y parts was especially beautiful.

>>122397
Well, SoL-y is the wrong term to use. The happy parts? The uhh... casual? My brain can't seem to function.
Anyway, I wanted to upload more of the finale but there's just too much animation and I'd have to upload 4 files that are a minute each and it would be 120mb. So instead here is the last minute of the finale. Spoilery in the sense that you'll know what it looks like, but not spoilery in the sense that it follows every other villain-of-the-week formula.

WHO DO YOU THINK WE ARE?
Ah, I just realized I kept the subs in. Well, it takes 10 minute for my CPU to 'search' for the part of the video to encode so I don't want to do it again.

I think the biggest issue Dungeon Meshi has is that it's an ADHD test to see if you can stick with it and separate the subtle movements of the plot in the first half from the movements of other foodporn bores. 13 episodes in and there's been a major development for both the goals of the cast and the dungeon itself. The anime is showing itself (in plain daylight now) to be far more than what you'd expect of a typical cooking anime, yet there are still those that dropped it in the beginning turning their nose to it for being tricked by the facade.

Even then, I think the facade portion of the anime was played well enough on its own to have been one of the better foodporns in the genre. Especially given that it had more dungeoning and adventure than 95% do. Kinda funny how the painting episode which I thought was just a really well done one-off session turned out to be so much more integral to the story than I ever expected. I wonder if Laios really was able to make a mark on the history of the dungeon by entering into those paintings or if the lunatic magician just resides a portion of his conscious in them. Hmmmm

>>122626
Yes, making the first several episodes nothing but boring foodporn is an excellent way to ensure that only people who want boring foodporn are still watching when you stop being boring foodporn. Truly a genius strategy.

>>122627
One could say the author was simply pretending to be retarded

>>122626
>>122627
Yes, it's something that seems average and quirky at first glance with its topic about cuisine, but gets a lot more interesting later on as noted by me in: >>121760
Anime is affected too much by first impressions and the "3 ep rule" thing. It's also a lot harder to progress through an anime's history than it is to progress through a manga history.

New OP is a lot better than the first one by the way. Just started watching it. The first OP did not help with trying not to make the show seem monotonous.

>>122627
The heavier themes were always present, they were just pushed out of mind of the party so that they could trudge along and not fall into despair at the overbearing task in front of them which was descending into the depths of the dungeon and taking on a dragon with a ragtag party of 4 adventurers with a limited supply of goods and a limited amount of time.

>>122634
That's a meaningless point. A story's theme's are determined by what the author gives focus.
Even if an anime declares at the beginning of the story that the world is ending, say, with a rolling text before the first episode of K-On!, that alone doesn't make the setting of K-On! apocalyptic. It's still the same series, except with an odd opening.
Fantasy series routinely deal with technically very dark stuff, but they tend to focus on the heroic aspect of it all because that's usually what the readers are there for. If we for instance learn that war is terrible, it's commonly in a montage where the hero emotes about the senseless loss of life, before the story moves on, in much lighter tones.

This is not a criticism of Dungeon Meshi.

>>122632
>the "3 ep rule" thing.
Exists specifically to counter how often anime give false first impressions. Grabbing the audience is a necessity even in forms of media where the audience only has to show up once, like movies or some games. If you can't do something interesting in an hour of screentime, an audience that values their time will leave.

>>122634
Have heavy themes doesn't make something entertaining or interesting. Even after 150 chapters of getting invested in the characters and wanting to see them succeed, I was barely able to keep forcing myself through the slew of 3-gatsu cooking chapters because it's horribly boring even if it does serve a narrative purpose (though not enough to justify the amount of time spent on it).

I remember that riiight when it came out and I posted >>118166 I was feeling rather ehhh combined with how I do think a majority of tabletop-based fantasy either doesn't manage to be as interesting as or doesn't elicit as strong a response as a good gaming experience, or just /tg/ stories really. It's much more impactful when I'm the one without spell slots trying to run the fuck away. I wouldn't have paid any attention to DM if its reputation didn't precede it, and I still think that's a bad sign, but I have a fairly more positive view of it now.

Now, it's not exactly MiA as I compared it to then but from early on the details it put into its food autism gave the hints of a worldbuilding that, although it may seem generic, is far more thought out than most fantasyland fiction and constantly relevant to the plot. The one that's really stuck with me is the rainbow ice cream made from impromptu holy water and the chills of dispelled specters. Or its thoroughness in rebuilding the bone structure of everything the dragon had digested before carrying out a resurrection using its entrails. That's special, that's unique, a great mix of what it has going for it. But the episode when it's Chilchuck getting trapped in a room figuring out how to get out, not so much. What I hope it'll do now that it's getting super serious is continue to rely on this worldbuilding, like it happened in today's episode with its twist on a practice that's been well established and the goodwill you'd typically expect from it. They're introducing a lot more characters too, but I haven't seen anyone voice displeasure over it so I expect it to work out. Pretty nice stuff. (I also did just heavily spoil myself by looking at fanart and I gotta say it looks cool.)

How do you feel about 3D cars?
It's kind of weird to think how it's become noteworthy to have 2D cars; it's something I actively noticed in Astro Note. Although the "car" is 2D here you can tell that they kind of resisted moving the camera around much since it's extra work.
As a whole I don't really care that much about vehicles being 3D. Of course I'd prefer them to be 2D since they look far better, but I guess if corners are going to be cut somewhere then I think cars are possibly the least offensive things to skimp on. It's a bunch of straight lines and they're not particularly expressive if the story isn't centered on them. It kind of extends to mechanical stuff, too, like the weapon here. In 3D modeling there's two main branching paths that people specialize in and hard surfaces for man-made stuff is separate from natural things. Organic material is far more nuanced for reasons that are probably obvious.

I think it's also worth mentioning that Astro Note has a nice style to it. An anime original with a great retro-ish cartoony look. The dog in particular is very fun.

>>123800
God, that looks terrible. Even the animated parts feel static. Nothing interacts with anything else.
The wheels turn into rockets, while the car's motion is perfectly monotonous.
Girl is sitting perfectly still while her cube turns into a massive gun.

this is cheap as shit.

>>123803
Do you have an opinion on what I said in the post itself? I even mentioned that the camera is static because they didn't want to "animate" a car. It's very much not an action show so it's kind of surprising they tried at all, and without a 3D car as well, but they did.
Dealing with "this is shit, that is shit, the thing you like is shit, everything is shit" people is exhausting when people actually want to discuss things.

>>123804
>Do you have an opinion on what I said in the post itself?
Sorry, I just skipped past that initially.
I don't really feel very purist about the 2D/3D thing. I prefer when the final product looks like a single thing, rather than a bad mesh of handdrawn animation and CGI. But other than that preference, I think that animators should use CGI wherever they think it is appropriate.
>It's very much not an action show so it's kind of surprising they tried at all,
I would argue that they did not.
Ignoring the short lane-change maneuvering thing, I am not complaining about bad animation. The clip's defining feature is the lack of animation.

I am not demanding explosions here, or high-speed action. I am asking for the animated objects to visibly respond to stimuli.