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icyll · 9 months ago

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The After-party World, An Analysis of the Anime "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End"

Okay, so… I don't like Frieren. In fact I very much hate dislike it. Now what I'm going to do in this note is to explicate my main reasons for why I think Frieren is not a good anime, and how I'm in total disagreement with probably everything that people seem to believe to be the case about it. In doing so, I will explore three main points. One regarding the general message of the anime, or what it is about. The other being somewhat related to the same matter, but probably in a rather indirect way. And the third being the characters, one of them in particular. At the end I will make a general observation and try to expand on the minor points related to it.

So first of all, from what I have been able to notice, a lot of people, in fact the majority of its audience, believe that the main message of Frieren (we're going to assume there is one) is that we should move on from the past, while still cherishing our good memories from it and holding on to them. My dear frierends, even if that is what Frieren is supposed to be about, it does a very bad job of delivering that message, as much as it might have convinced some people that that's what it is about.

The whole plot of the anime (as far as such a thing manages to exist amidst all the flashbacks and the reminiscence) is about a lonely mage's journey to a place where she thinks there might be a trace of her past companions left. So that in itself is enough for us to suspect that the main character has not totally moved on from what has happened to her. If Frieren had moved on, she wouldn't have made it her life purpose to meet again with her deceased lover and friends.

Even after taking responsibility for her apprentice, she fails to actually do anything responsible and spend her time on a worthwhile endeavor, and instead just aimlessly wanders around collecting useless spells and fake grimoire ascribed to her (again) deceased master. Can we really say that she only does that because its her hobby, or is it because she hasn't moved on from losing her master neither, and is trying to gather all the scattered pieces of her lost belongings to maybe reassemble them into at least a resemblance of that lost heritage?!

The one person that she begins her journey with was left under her care by a dead friend, and the next person that joins her party was also requested to be taken in by an old friend of her, who probably would've joined in himself were he feeling like it. And at last the other member of the party is simply a placeholder for Heiter. Literally a duplicate. Somehow everything in the present has to be connected to things in the past in most possible ways, and even completely mirror them.

Freerun sees everything through the lens of her memories, and barely manages to see anything for what it is. Places that she visits are not this or that place that is such and such in and out of itself, it's the place that Heiter said that and Eisen did that and Himmel did this. She seems to be literally unable to comprehend anything without interpreting it by referring it to her memories. She has to take us through the whole memory of Himmel posing for the sculptors every time she sees a statue of him.

Now on to the next thing I want to deal with. The closest I think this anime ever gets to making any sensible point is when Frieren tells the priest "But that's just what you want…" when they are talking about there being a heaven. That's probably the first and last wise thing she says, only for it to be followed with a "Yeah, it might be better this way," referring to believing in an afterlife, in contrast to not believing in it. We are expected to accept that believing that there is a heaven without any reason is the right thing to do, only because apparently it is better this way. So much for moving on from the past, huh.

By enforcing the idea of an afterlife the author moves further away from preaching acceptance and detachment (of the kind associated with this anime.) By admitting that it is probably better to believe that there is a heaven where our loved ones go after their death, Frieren shows that she is less detached from her past than ever. She hasn't left her past behind, enough for this to be a story of moving on and looking forward to the future, if she has to cope so hard by believing in a heaven, and one on Earth at that! Unless of course that's what everyone's idea of 'moving on' is, and I'm just oblivious.

And now the characters. Sometimes in order for one to be able to connect with a work of fiction there needs to be some likable characters. It is not necessary, but it's better than nothing, especially when that fictional work doesn't have much else going for it. Now here in the case of this anime, most characters are acceptable, if not down right horrible or annoying. I'd say the best character in regards to likability is Stark. He is kind, respectful, and hard-working. But I wish he wasn't that patient with a certain somebody.

It seems for this anime when it comes to how they feel about them the community has focused more on the looks of the characters than their personality. This isn't anything new of course, but Frieren just isn't the kind of anime that you would do that with. There's much more attached to a character than just how they look or behave on a surface level. Yeah this character might be a tsundere and most anime have one or two characters like that, but those anime don't try to be deep (usually.) Frieren does, and so I'm going to treat it differently. And this is where Fern comes in.

Fern is (almost) everything wrong with this anime. Everything else about Frieren could've been flawless, and she would've been able to single-handedly ruin it. She alone is enough to make this anime annoying to a point that you couldn't watch one episode of it. IF and only if you see her for what she is. Not for the little tsundere girl that pouts for you, and not if you are a free-for-all masochist. She's whom I wish Stark had less patience with. Like, man, have some self-respect for the goddess's sake.

Fern is not cute, or a likable character. She is just rude, a prude, and imprudent. She is self-righteous, and doesn't know respect, for others and their boundaries. Even if you don't agree, the author is very much aware of that, and that's why she in the episode about her birthday goes through a development point which is supposed to open her eyes to how she has been presumptuous in regard to her attitude towards Stark. But of course as most character developments in most anime it is one of those that its effects hardly lasts until the end of the episode in which it occurs. Of course, that's what the fans are in it for, why would you get rid of it?!

This story takes place in a dead world. The Story has already ended, and it is as if the author is narrating it from the end to the beginning, such that the story is altogether 'spoiled' in a way. That could have been a fair approach to take, but the way it's done in Frieren is crude and unrefined. Frequent flashbacks of Himmel and the heroes journey at the turn of every corner is taken to a point that it's just ridiculous. This story takes place too much in the past.

It is hard to care about anything that happens in this world. The journeys they make and the challenges they face are more like the clean-up after a party. There is not much significance attached to them. All the important stuff have already happened when the original heroes were trying to defeat the demon lord. One may argue that there is another story-line independent from that of the heroes, that of Stark and Frieren and Fern in the present time, and therefore that's not so much the case, but with how much that alternative story looks like an extension of the past one and an attempt at a replication of it, it just cannot serve as a replacement for it.

I believe that starting from the "Journey's End" is not a good idea in general. That of course means it's not just Frieren, it's all of the stories that start from the end that I've got a problem with. But I'm not stubborn about it, I could see myself enjoying a story of this kind if it's well executed, but I can't do that with Failuren given the inconsistencies in its concepts and its nihilistic atmosphere, that makes you feel like none of the things you encounter in the course of the story matter in any way.

Yes, there has been a past. And you want to talk about that. But if you're going to put the audience through the things that are happening in the present, you can at least try to make them not appear so pointless. When all the purpose lies in the past, and the contemporary characters are hardly anything that one could become attached to given how they are just shadows of the previous set of characters, the present ceases to matter. And on top of that how even the past parts of the plot do not contain much that would appear of considerable significance is the nail in the coffin.

The interpersonal matters of the characters do not compensate for the lack of external conflicts when the characters are just stock that could be easily replaced with anyone else, without a particular background or personality attached to them except for the bare minimum that helps distinguish them from each other. This anime tries very hard to appear deep by long stares into the horizon and longer gaps of silence, but it only shows the depth of its foolishness. Frieren thus fails to add up to much in the end.

I must inform you here that I did not watch all of Frieren. No, that doesn't invalidate my point. If an anime is so unbearable that you can't bring yourself to finish it, then maybe it does deserve some criticism. Also, just as a movie that has murder happening all through it, and in the end those people that were seemingly killed turn out to have actually survived the murders, is not a movie about anything but murder, whatever might happen in those few left episodes that I haven't watched doesn't make too much difference for me as this anime has already spent enough time in the manner I described here for me to think of it like this and for it to be too late to redeem itself as far as I'm concerned.

Finally, I want to say it is just sad and frustrating for me to see such a flawed anime being glorified to the extent it has, as if all the anime of the past that were much better don't even exist, and Frieren is the best thing ever made (I suppose that's just another case of humanity's memory being refreshed every now and then, but anyway!) I believe Frieren doesn't deserve the acclaim it has received, and here I tried to persuade at least some of you of the same. Thanks for reading!

#criticism #anime critique #anime #frieren anime #sousou no frieren

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icyll · 1 year ago

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Some Thoughts About Sam Yang's Art

First of all, as I'm going to be mostly critical of his work, I would like to make it clear that I'm not saying these as an artist, as I'm obviously nowhere near as good or skillful as him, but as an observer. Also, as a big part of the online art community and Sam's audience are young people who might be passionate or even sensitive about the subject, I would like to point out that nothing I say means anything about Sam, and to take that further it might not even proof anything about the art made by Sam neither! It is simply my impression of it, and me, if anything, is what you will learn the most about!

So you probably know Sam! If not, he usually goes by SamDoesArt on most platforms, so you can look it up and check his art out. He has an interesting style, cool forms, a few OCs that he likes to draw, nice colors and all! He is also active on Youtube where he makes reaction videos and pretty decent tutorials, which as someone that's trying to learn art I can't say I haven't learned a few things from.

Now while writing this and reflecting on the subject, I came to realize that my issue with his art is not rooted in something solely related to the art, but also a certain approach to art in general! So the next two paragraphs deal with that.

I sometimes see artists treating art in a way that I would describe as too "technical." It is as if their emphasis and efforts in art are focused on and revolve around a lot of theory, technique, structure, and know-how. And this, in my opinion, is not the best approach to have. To my mind, this is an extension of the process of making art into a craft, and by that I don't just mean trying to make money out of your art, but rather turning it into a profession, a thing that you can do, which at the end would add up to a bunch of procedures and skillsets.

This sort of attitude, this treatment that has such an industrial and production-oriented view of art, does not seem right. Sure, technique is required. For the expression of one's artistic ingenium an efficient instrument is needed, and that would be the properly trained and developed mind and body of the artist person. But currently that doesn't seem to be the reason the majority of artistic activity is focused on this aspect.

Now as for Sam's art, traces of the same tradition can be found. Everything is good. Things look nice, art is well done, but then what?! What's the substance, the value, the meaning behind it all? What does it add up to? What is pointed at by the art? Sure, there are multiple answers to these questions that I too can think about.

Not all art has to be meaningful, as not all art has to look nice. But, here's a thing, wouldn't you prefer that the art both were meaningful and looked nice?! Also, to compare art to a person, most people would agree that they have met good looking people that quickly became no more fun to be around because of how shallow or indifferent in their personality they were at least once! It's the same with Sam's art : It's NICE, then it's nice, then it's alright. Now what do I mean by meaning in art and how do I not perceive it in Sam's art?

First, I want to direct your attention to the backgrounds. They're usually the most ordinary, not at all out of this world backgrounds. Store, road, train-station, sky, etc. Now the problem with that is it does not tell a story at all; it only shows us what we already know about! Everyone has seen cities and the sky. Lack of any clue to anything beyond keeps the art from separating itself from the world of our experience and telling the story of something else. It is on the same level as anything that we see in our daily life.

To clarify this point, think of any movie or story that happens in the same world as ours. Now if that movie shows us a few hours of strictly the same things that we always encounter in our daily lives, we won't walk away from it thinking it was a good one. There is something about realistic movies that separates them from the 'real,' and that is what I'm saying is lacking in the art of the guy we're talking about.

There is so little other than a person (who is again most ordinary and typical, to add to the previous point) in a piece of his work that each piece feels more like a pose, a gesture, than a work of art. Rather than feeling like a captured moment of a dynamic world, it comes off more as an image of a statue somewhere. It ends in itself, there and then, and is done.

Moreover, I don't know if he is of the type to sometimes use photos for objects in the environment or all of the background, but often the environments are way more realistic in their style than the characters. This itself sticks out as a symptom of a lack of imagination in creating the backgrounds and on a deeper level the whole piece itself. The contrast between the realistic environments and the cartoony characters gives the art a commercial look, and is reminiscent of the cartoon face filter that would transform the person but keep the background. Is it meant to appeal to the same audience that liked that?!

So why does any of that matter? Because I think it matters what we call art! I do really think that there is a duality of what we may call productivity and creativity, of craft and art. I may talk about that more later, but here I just want to say that at this point, other than maybe the style which may be a bit creative, although I don't know how much of it is original, this is production, not art.

Additionally, I would also like to make it clear why I wrote this… article?! and why I thought this should be talked about. I think it is good for things to be known for what they are, and so in the same way it is good that people be known to do what they do, and not what they don't. Sam does draw, but does Sam art?! Not as much.

Finally, as a sort of disclaimer, I want to add that I do realize that Sam is not the only artist that I think these things are true about, and that there are artworks done by him that are not how I described. It's just that those are few, and I know Sam somewhat more so there's also that. Plus I like the guy :D❤

#art criticism #art critique #criticism #art #sam yang #samdoesarts

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