Credit where credit is due, A-1 cooked with the animation in Solo Leveling this and last week.
Surprised that Dungeon Meshi didn't do better given the content of episode 13, but I saw a lot of people thinking the series had concluded last week, so it makes sense.
Edit:Just remembered DunMeshi got blocked by its own cour 2 announcement and the article about the word isekai.
Eh there were multiple anime that didn’t perform well karma wise because of announcements. Solo leveling, apothecary and even Dangers in my heart this week.
Had there not have been any announcements, chances are the placements would still be the same as today.
Congratulations to Frieren for reaching the highest Karma post black-out, and second highest since 2023!
I wonder what would Frieren's karma be had it aired in the Karmageddon back in Winter and/or Spring 2020 2021. Will it reach AOT or Re:Zero's level back then?
I can't take it anymore. I'm sick of Frieren. I log on to Reddit and the first post I see? Frieren. I try to browse Youtube videos instead and my recommended videos? It's all Frieren. My phone buzzes, I pick it up. It's a message from my grandmother. Something catches my eye. Her profile pic? It's Frieren. I instinctively fling the phone away from me. I decide to take my dogs, Hund and Katze, out for a walk instead. I call out to them but they don't come running to me like usual. I eventually find them in the living room, their attention completely focused on the television. I look to the screen - it's Frieren's feet. I give a sigh of resignation and sit down to join them.
A mere 10 years have passed and Frieren already has me by the throat. I write fanfics and draw fanart for her. I make long youtube video essays with titles like "Frieren - an anime that defined a generation". I make new accounts on MyAnimeList to rate the show 10/10 - it's a battle of endurance against the relentless assault of the FMA fanboys. She isn't satisfied. I try to watch other anime, but it's not the same. "You don't need anyone else, they'll never be good enough," she tells me. "It's time for another re-watch." She grabs Himmel and throws him back into his coffin.
She leans over and whispers in my ear "You need to buy more merchandise, I can get a Season 2 with more funding". I can't buy the Frieren: Beyond Journey's End" Limited Edition Blu-ray DVD set, I don't have enough money. She grabs my credit card. It declines. "Guess this is your journey's end." She grabs Fern. She says "Fern, use Zoltraak." There is no hint of sadness in her eyes. I'm vaporized by nothing but pure, unfiltered sakuga. What a cruel world.
I finished Frieren the other day. Yeah, this anime was everything people hyped it up to be and more. Can't really say or add anything that hasn't been said. Premise, world building, characters, animation, art & character design, music, Übel's armpit. All top notch. Also so many unique takes on Übel's armpit. It constantly subverted my expectations and I mean that in the best way possible because it's never forced just for the sake of Übel's armpit. I'm a sucker for Übel's armpit that really makes the world feel deep and alive and Übel's armpit does that amazingly well. Highly recommend it if you are a fan of Übel's armpit!
Displaying her mastery over magic and staves, Frieren sends a Zoltraak hurling to her opponent. The Zoltraak will move with her for the ability's duration, dealing Magic DMG to all opponents in its path.
The fact that it beat Attack on Titan's finale straight up, makes me think that anything is possible...granted Attack on Titan didn't have the exponential power of r/all working in its favor.
Karmageddon back in Winter and/or Spring 2020
Two things:
As the person who coined the term Wintermageddon, I think Karmageddon might be even better
That was Winter/Spring 2021. Winter 2020 was actually the worst Karma Season we've ever had.
granted Attack on Titan didn't have the exponential power of r/all working in its favor.
Yoo, actually though. I was surprised to see a post from r/anime in popular on a un-logged in reddit page. I feel like this will just increase the parity between mainstream and niche shows though.
I meant the sub 20k AOT episodes. I think it was in Season 4 part 1 where there were quite a few episodes that were consistently around 17k, then the hype episodes would shot up over 20k.
Reddit shut down third-party apps and angered a lot of the userbase, so many subreddits protested by going private. Unsurprisingly it didn't change anything, but interaction has never reached the same levels since.
I fucking hated the ending. They dumbed it down way too much. I've read the LN and heard The Author it seems had some regrets with the initial story elements and wanted to change how she dealt with the saint. But if this is how the author intended it to be and the manga follows suit, then it's just lame as shit. The LN1's end is 10 times better.
The Villain actually was mirroring the MC and way more sympathetic. Anime just made him one dimensional.
Anime original endings (according to LN readers, can't tell as a manga reader as it hasn't gotten there yet) usually are a bad sign for the possibility of a season 2 tho...
Mainly cause the top comments mentioned an ongoing series with a 1-volume adaptation and that blew people's minds enough to go to the source corner, where they found out about Alicia changes.
Spider Isekai comes to mind, I don't know exactly how many comments the source corner got but it the threads overall had massive amounts of comments compared to it's Karma. 2k comments for a 2k karma (at the time) show.
Some other non-Frieren shows that also had their MAL scores increase from before and after their final episodes (probably missed a couple, my bad). Might be useful if you're thinking of picking up a show that you missed before the Spring season gets rolling, IDK.
Time for Torture, Princess - 6.81 to 7.30 (+0.49)
Foolish Angel - 6.45 to 6.87 (+0.42)
Brave Bang Bravern - 7.46 to 7.77 (+0.31)
Gushing Over Magical Girls - 7.55 to 7.73 (+0.18)
Ragna Crimson - 7.46 to 7.62 (+0.16)
Dangers in My Heart - 8.80 to 8.92 (+0.12)
Weakest Tamer - 7.44 to 7.56 (+0.12)
Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic - 7.46 to 7.57 (+0.11)
It's three shows, lol, because Frieren is not included there. So yes... wild season... well, last 6 months I guess. Apothecary and Frieren both started in October last year, Fall 2023, not Winter 2024, the season that just ended.
Frieren, Apothecary Diaries, and Dangers stood head and shoulders above everything else. 3(for me) 10/10 shows in the same damn season is insane
And this isn't dissing the source material at all in the slightest, but all 3 are improvements on the source material. The music, the VAs, the atmosphere, the visuals, etc all added to further improve these stories.
Genuinely some of the best adapted anime I've seen
Finally, some respect for one of the best “comfy” shows to come out lately.
All of these shows that I’ve watched (besides SL) were very much deserving of a higher score by people who stuck out past 2-3 episodes. Although imo Foolish Angel is still way too low for being such a fun romcom ride.
Agreed! That one segment [Torture anime]where Hime-sama takes a night-time stroll with Giant feels like it came straight out of Yuru Camp.
Foolish Angel is one I'll be going back to watch. Only watched the first episode at the start of the season to scope it out but I've heard it improves a lot.
So happy to have watched weekly during the time Frieren was airing, I'm glad that I was able to digest every episode as opposed to binging them, I think it made the whole thing more rewarding and it made for a better experience, at least for this, it was a perfect weekly watch, hope season 2 will happen by the same team.
Frieren is one of those rare anime that benefit from watching weekly. The 4 episode premier gives you the idea that this series is supposed to be slow paced and that's not a weakness. It's meant to be watched weekly. I had a blast.
I'm glad undead unluck managed to make it into the top 10 for its finale, the show was was extremely overlooked and deserved to do way better if not for being stuck in hulu jail for the first few months
With Frieren's ending I hope Witch Hat Atelier anime is made with this much care and beauty, it will be an experience too good for us mortals.
And I wish some of my favourite can get this good care.
Even after we saw the staff for Frieren I don't think anyone expected it to turn out the way it did. So for your own sake, to avoid disappointment, best to never expect this sort of treatment for any manga/LN.
If we do somehow get it, AMAZING, outstanding, but best to always keep expectations in check.
I just need them to announce the studio + director for WHA already. Doing a proper adaptation seems like a Herculean feat, but I know if it's done well it's immediately my AotY 🙏🙏🙏
I started Frieren on a whim Friday night. Well I finished all 28 episodes Saturday afternoon. Didn't expect it to actually be that great. 10/10 picked up the manga already.
Frieren finished with a bang this season. Here are some of its Karma feats:
Its 11347 Karma this week is the 61st highest total of all-time and surpassed Attack on Titan (11131 Karma) for the highest since the shutdown.
It became just the 14th anime to record a 10000 Karma Episode
Its final Karma average across its 28 episodes was 5498 Karma making it to 26th all-time and beating out Mushoku Tensei 2P1 for highest since the shutdown
Narrowing it down to just the episodes that aired this season (its second cour), it averaged 6536 Karma which ranks 21st among all single season karma totals
Its seasonal Karma Average of 6536 Karma more than doubled up all other anime this season, a feat that was last accomplished by Chainsaw Man in Fall 2022 but hadn't previously been accomplished since Attack on Titan on Fall 2020.
Narrowing it down 1 step further, its final 6 episodes averaged an astounding 7711 Karma
And truly spectacular performance by Apothecary Diaries to make the discrepancy not worse tbh. Almost two 9.0 anime from Fall/Winter, truly just blessed seasons. A shoe-in Anime of the year and really a contender for best of the decade, and a show that in most other years would've been competing for that AotY title.
Apothecary Diaries is actually in third place with around a 2750 Karma Average. Due to its strong start, Solo Leveling is still #2 with around a 3000 Karma Average.
The brief reign of the villainess anime is over, at least temporarily. After airing three this season, the next one isn't until Fall 2024, with I'll Become a Villainess That Will Go Down in History. The main character there embraces the villainess role, but the relationship between villainess and heroine is like Yumiella and Alicia, and the royal family encourages the villainess, like in VL99. The main character (named Alicia, oddly enough) is chuuni enough that she views her help as villainy.
Of the three we got this season, I would rank them: Villainess Level 99, 7th Loop, and then Doctor Elise, though I liked all three. VL99 didn't have great animation (and the CGI was terrible), but within budget constraints it did a good job of adapting its source material.
7th Loop looked quite good, in contrast, and while the premise and main character is terrific, it does suffer from characters acting in ways to make the plot happen rather than completely naturally. (Maybe this is better in the original LN.) Hilariously, it has one of the best action scenes of the season, when Rishe uses the door like a normal person.
Doctor Elise was better than I expected. I haven't read the manhwa, but I've heard it mainly get lukewarm recommendations by other OI readers. But what we get is "What if your usual shoujo heroine was Dr. House". (In comparison, Apothecary Diaries more like "What if Dr. House was Dr. House", just in a different setting.) I'm sure I could definitely do a splenectomy now, if it ever comes up.
For other anime I watched, the expected great ones (Frieren, AD, and Dungeon Meshi) were indeed great. Chained Soldier was a misfire, at least compared to the source. Instant Death wasn't bad, but it was also a disappointment relative to both the LN and the manga. I think they adapted 4 LN volumes in 12 episodes. This meant that they cut out most of the jokes, and the already hectic pacing became very difficult to follow.
it does suffer from characters acting in ways to make the plot happen rather than completely naturally.
I only had a few small complaints about the series, and this was probably the biggest of them.
The most noticeable example to me was when Michel randomly found Rishe's garden while wandering around. That specific one doesn't really affect the overall plot much (they could've easily met some other way), but it just felt jarring and lazily written.
Perfect banner for Undead Unluck. I'm glad that it made it back into the top 10 for its final episode. It got a bit rocky in the middle there and has some faults but they absolutely nailed the ending. One of the most emotional final episodes this season IMO and dare I say the best ending of a show I watched this season. Can't wait til August first for the potential season 2 announcement.
As of course frieren has been a treat. A well deserved 1st place on this list.
Undead Unluck was one of my favorite shows this season. Very unique power system. Some people really got screwed with the curse that came with their power.
Clearly Bravern made a tactical error:He approached from the east in the morning, with the sun at his back. But he instead should have approached from the west in the evening, with the sun at his back.
Frieren absolutely smashed its previous record giving us the highest score since the Oshi no Ko premiere, beating even the AoT finale and it also for the second time this season more than tripled the score of the 2nd place finisher.
Speaking of second place, Apothecary Diaries got a very respectable 3.5k
after last week was swamped with announcements including one for its own S2.
Solo Leveling wrestled back 3rd place from Dungeon Meshi with a banger fight episode.
And most importantly Bravern rose another 7 ranks for its final episode.
unless Spice and Wolf comes out of the gate sprinting, seems like next week will be Solo Leveling's first crown (also need to see how Dungeon Meshi performs this coming week), btw do the leaked KonoSuba thread count though?
Yes. Although with another thread coming for its originally planned release historians will have to make a decision which one they'll count towards its season average.
well, it still wont beat solo leveling this week any way lol, just hope that Frieren's high karma count is not just a fluke and we are back to 3-4k averages
Sorry to break it to you but look at absolutely everything else this season, yes, Frieren's karma was the exception, not an indication that we are back to pre-blackout numbers.
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u/Lev559https://anime-planet.com/users/Lev559Mar 31 '24edited Mar 31 '24
Karma in general is up though. Just look at the top posts this year
I'd say Spice and Wolf (airing tomorrow) and Yuru Camp (airing on Thursday) have the potential to beat it out. I have no idea what to expect for Spice and Wolf's Karma, but I feel like 3500 is a real possibility while Yuru Camp Season 2 premiered with 4394 Karma back in Winter 2021.
The literal All-Time peak season of r/anime. All shows that aired during that time will have a very hard time reaching anywhere near the same numbers now including Mushoku and Slime which are about to air and both hit above 10k back then.
Yeah, I don't have huge hopes for Yuru Camp. After its 4300 Karma premier it only averaged around 1500 the rest of the season. Spice and Wolf is the true challenger.
Seriously, how impressive is that? Let's not forget that Mahoako had almost no hype before this season started and that even ecchi fans were much more focused on Chained Soldier back then. Now it's the only new (non-sequel) anime that managed to get over 100k twitter followers and with no sign of slowing it's momentum.
Mahoako's BD sale numbers are also going to be insane. There's no way it doesn't get a second season.
Sousou no Frieren and The Apothecary Diaries finished their run in the top 2 as expected. Sousou no Frieren and Apothecary Diaries cinema coming to an end.
Tearful goodbyes aren’t our style, after all, it would be embarrassing when we met again.
That final Frieren episode deserved its karma just for that quote alone, it’s almost like it was meant for us too lol. What an absolutely perfect line to finish off the masterpiece that Frieren was, and I’m gonna try applying that mindset for every amazing anime that’s ended.
This season was just absolutely stacked and I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did at all. There’s multiple new anime amongst my favorites now. We had:
Peak ecchi (Gushing over Magical Girls)
Peak fantasy (Frieren)
Peak romance (The Dangers in my Heart)
Peak drama (Apothecary Diaries)
And several other peak shows of course.
I’m sure all of these will absolutely get another season and I’m very excited for it in the future. Very strong season overall and its definitely up there in my favorites as well.
Frieren, the Apothecary diaries, Bravern, Cherry Magic 30 years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard, Delicious in Dungeon, 7th time loop, A sign of affection and Villainess lv99 were all amazing imo.
I enjoyed Mashle, Doctor Elise, Mr Villain's Day Off, Bucchigiri, Solo Leveling and dangers in my heart too. The demon prince of momochi house was mice but I still think it deserved a better treatment
This link has been updated with E28 stats. But this is the first time I've ever personally graphed a show since G-Witch, and unlike before, I only made this last week. Arguably this chart stunned me more, though.
As for my rating? 10/10 or 5/5 stars. How much more can I ask?
As the perfect storm passes, the elven mage Frieren stands alone.
And as this journey ends, what's left in its wake is an audience awestruck by the fact that an adaptation like this is even possible.
Every reader had high hopes and higher expectations, but there was always that small voice nagging them about a "just okay" treatment for this manga. The panelwork and art have a rather dry presentation, after all, and the stoicism on display has a tendency to dull the emotional value of its story. It didn't have to be mostly on-ones, we thought -- that's too much to ask even for MADhouse. And after the much-maligned meltdown over at MAPPA, some of us were even willing to settle for something flatter and more typically-produced if it meant that team can go from Chapter 1 to 60 in good time.
Twenty-seven airing weeks later, however, it had now become clear that no one settled for anything less than reaching the height of their craft.
Such effort and care bore such sweet fruit, and Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is all the better for it. Even now, I struggle to find a good place to start, because I can pick out a single element of this adaptation and get lost in the details or be reduced to a raving, bumbling mess trying to evangelize this anime to normies whose most recent exposure to medieval fantasy is either Vikings or Game of Thrones.
Maybe I should take a page from the elf herself, then, and start at the end, retracing the steps that led me to both reading the manga and watching the anime. Because, I suppose, it's only fitting that I truly appreciate what this anime has done by looking back from where we stand now.
Kanehito Yamada's Frieren at the Funeral, with art by Abe Tsukasa, starts from the end of a typical medieval-fantasy RPG journey featuring a heroic swordsman, holy cleric, dwarven warrior and elven mage. As far as tropes go, the archetypes are an easy baseline that serves to expedite a lot of potential explanations, which makes starting from where most adventures end -- with glorious fanfare and enshrinement in legend -- a vital choice for the story this manga wants to tell. It manifests itself in art that, at least in black-and-white is at times drab, with stiff poses for the characters and backgrounds that are often reused to the point where the surroundings blend into each other.
The moment the first scene begins in the anime, however, this realm comes alive.
The setting of Frieren can (and does) still get out of the way easily enough to let its characters shine, but Sawako Takagi's art direction and Harue Ono's palette means that the world thrives in color, sound and motion, making it vibrant and worth exploring. You gain a sense of wonder at how much time has passed, the changes in these lived spaces as one nigh-unchanging constant lives among them, yet it's rendered in an almost-impressionistic style that blurs the lines enough to reflect Frieren's mental state and overall outlook.
In its quiet moments, Frieren can capture subtle details in the behavior of its characters or superimpose them in imagery of grand scale, a luxury afforded by the massive room that anime frames give. But when it's time to make noise and take names, that same art direction becomes a canvas for action director Toru Iwasawa to use as a way to expand on the other oft-levied criticism about the manga: its staid action sequences.
Stark's fight with the dragon was only two pages long at best. The anime? It had 90 seconds of glory, including a difficult "GoPro onboard" shot of Stark taking the dragon for a ride. The dungeon battle against clone Frieren? It included spells unseen in the manga, spaced apart by a first-person handheld shot of Frieren looking on at Fern with proud, reassuring eyes. Even Qual's demise was preceded by orchestrated motions that the manga left frozen in time. The best part is that the adaptation doesn't reserve its most high-effort work to big moments: even something as simple as taking off cloaks is lavished with on-ones that feel inconsequential until you find out why Fern took it off.
And it doesn't stop with animation. The compositing maximizes the frame when needed yet allows for breathing room to let the quiet moments feel comforting, while Kashiko Kimura's editing lets the story move backwards and forwards in time through match cuts that further emphasize Frieren's links with the past and present. It's another flourish afforded by an audiovisual medium that expands on the ideas set by the manga while following its story "to the letter" -- it did not feel like anything is missing.
But arguably the biggest driving factor for that expansion is sound. Both Evan Call (OST) and Kanako Arima (sound design) bring their A-game to this adaptation, with music and sound cues that build up and enrich every second of this show. Their work here is so effective, I bet those cues are playing in your head right now as you read (or re-read) the manga. It's uncanny how often this happens in my experience and it's been hard to shake off the sound of the anime in my head.
Not that I mind of course -- both the JP and EN voice cast go above and beyond in portraying a cast of characters that, with few exceptions, seem stoic almost to a fault, able to bring out subtle emotions and unique inflections that often get lost in the formalist, reverent, at times casual and deadpan tone of the manga's dialogue. Of course, they're still mostly pretty deadpan, but because everything else about the sound work is turned up to 11 to help tell the story of a given episode, characters don't need to shout so hard or wear their emotions on their sleeve. Even in moments where one may expect internal voiced monologue, there is none, and it makes the times where characters do explain themselves feel special, especially when the demons take on our valiant heroes.
All these come together in a production led by rising star director Keiichiro Saito that is magnitudes greater than the sum of its parts, capable of being the Saturn V rocket that boosts the manga's story to a height so absurd it borders on incomprehensible. The manga could've gotten away with half of what we got in terms of production effort. But looking back now, the overall treatment helped round out some of the stoic edge the manga exuded in its presentation. Or rather: it made the stoicism more palatable while deepening the small flashes of emotion you see. Same with the action: all the pizzazz is in service of driving home just how skilled these mages have to be to preserve a realm full of weird trinkets and idyllic people and reminders of fading legacies. That's the feedback loop that makes the anime effective.
Are there faults? Eh, a few. It's not a perfect 10 on MAL, after all. I wish Sein had more to do and stuck around as Stark's companion. Its flashback structure may wear out its usefulness in time. The fights in the first exam could've used extra seasoning (though I understand why they held back). Fern's worst tendencies are amplified with sound where the manga may let it blend into the background. Some music tracks are overused, especially in battle. Some say that terms of progression, the Mage Exam arc is a hard stop from the progress of the journey, which was the point of the manga. The weird obsession with lower limbs may be jarring to others. And its obvious JRPG system tends to be frustrating in terms of its worldbuilding prowess.
But these flaws fade away the moment you rewatch, and they're easy to forgive when the love for the craft results in an entertaining product so solid, you can safely recommend this to a normie who's TV diet is majority Netflix, Disney+ or HBO. After the 2-hour premiere I knew that the adaptation was in good hands, but even I was not prepared for the greatness it was capable of showing week after week. It's equally comfortable walking as it does sprinting and fighting, and revels in the world furnished for these people to live in. And the technical triumphs make possible telling a powerful story about grief, loss, magic, the transience of time, the price of immortality, and the value of social connections. It's a phenomenon today because every aspect of Frieren was written, drawn and produced with love and respect for the source material and its audience alike.
With time, Frieren will be derided as overrated by those who were not on the ground floor when the show premiered. They may raise great points, but they'd also be watching an anime divorced from the crowd whose mouths salivated in anticipation of each episode coming out. They'll be watching Frieren having already been annoyed at being bombarded by fanart, memes, reviews like mine and better writers, marketing material, merch, and that ever-present MAL score. It's become a Reiwa-era Citizen Kane, which is a bad way to sell Frieren: Beyond Journey's End to people. Instead, it's a great, feature-complete anime adaptation of an equally great medieval-fantasy manga. That's all it is at the end, and how Himmel would've recommended it to me.
I think any manga adaptation can be fucked up. Anime in particular tends to towards underreactions rather than overreactions, so Frieren could easily have been a disaster.
At this point, I think the Frieren manga is almost underrated. The character designs are all from the manga. While the author is addicted to anti-climax (like the Stark versus dragon fight), it works well in on the page. While the fight scenes aren't kinetic like in a real fighting manga like JJK, the author is really good at the dramatic beats. For example, the sequence of panels where Fern surprise-attacks Lugner from the window are thrilling even in the manga.
Frieren is the rare case where a top-tier manga gets a top-tier anime. It only works when talented people understand what they are adapting while also understanding how to improve on it in animation.
This is such a glowing review and the more I read about Frieren the more I want to love it. I'm just struggling to get hooked. Everything people say about it makes me think it should be having me hooked and in love with it, but I'm just not really getting it. I'm like, maybe 5 episodes in season 1.
I kind of wonder if people love it so much because it's like one of the few animes right now that's serious, doesn't follow typical anime tropes, isn't an isekai right now. Like one of the few animes where the creators actually just tried to make a genuine try at a typically good piece of media and storytelling, rather than just pump out more trash.
11.3k karma for Frieren in a post-blackout /r/anime? A 9.39 MAL score? Incredible. What else is there to say.
The finale boost for a lot of shows this week propelled overall karma to an almost 6k increase to 31.5k karma.
It didn't truly weigh in how much Solo Leveling cratered in karma these recent weeks until I saw this week it got a +771 karma boost which still doesn't really come close to The Apothecary Diaries 3.5k karma at 2nd.
Will miss seeing Yumiella faces in the banners of the weekly karma rankings.
I’d like to note that both Apothecary Diaries and Solo leveling episode’s karma got fucked by the announcements on that day tbh.
I think we would’ve seen much higher karma for both had they actually been on the front page of The subreddit. Especially for Apothecary’s finale and that Action packed Solo leveling episode
Every anime that announced their sequels right before the final episode this week ended up cock blocking their own finale discussion thread, in a way Frieren not announcing season 2 is a blessing in disguise lol
Everything got hurt by the AnimeJapan stuff, Frieren included, which sounds wild when you look at that number. But it's true, considering the numbers it was pushing Frieren didn't spend nearly as much time as it usually spends at number 1. Then it was off the front page shocking fast. Compare it to the series finale of Attack on Titan, which spent twice as much time at number 1... yeah.
I can't even imagine what it would have done almost any other weekend.
Granted, I don't expect that much higher (at most 12k would be my guess on a less busy weekend), but it certainly would have overtaken Oshi no ko's premiere 48 hour karma total. (I think that required like 300 karma more)
So yes, hard to say how much potential karma Frieren lost, but absolutely every discussion thread was hurt that weekend.
So the fact we are looking at this karma ranking and it still ended up over 30k... that's crazy. I'd have to check but I think that must be the highest total of the season, right?
Gushing over Magical Girls was an amazing anime and a great adaptation of the manga.
A lot of people seem to believe that an anime that’s very lewd can’t also be legitimately good, but that’s wrong. Every genre has it’s masterpieces and just like how „100 Girlfriends“ was a great harem comedy that even people who didn’t really like the genre could enjoy, MahoAko was a great ecchi comedy that skillfully avoided a lot of annoying tropes and pitfalls you often see in many other ecchi anime.
The story, the characters, the humor, the pacing, the OST and the voice acting are all top notch and deserve more appreciation.
Utena has become one of my favorite anime characters of all time. She’s a seriously well-written and interesting protagonist who is both a badass Girlboss and a dorky Girlfailure and who is always entertaining and fun to watch. I also love her interactions and dynamics with the other characters and how she influences and improves their lives, despite being the villain. Fuuka Izumi’s incredible VA performance elevated Utena as a character even more.
The comedy in MahoAko is hilarious and often very creative. On top of that, it’s a yuri anime without bait or „will-they-won’t-they“ nonsense. There were also a lot of wholesome slice of life moments and each one of those scenes made the cast more likable.
MahoAko did so many different things and it executed all of them very well. I can’t wait for season 2!
Yeah I don’t even normally watch ecchi nowadays but Gushing over Magical Girls was something else. Personal favorite of the season. I think one of the reasons I liked Gushing so much was because the ecchi was really unique and included kink and fantasy elements into it, which I found really entertaining to watch. I might have awakened new kinks after watching this show 👀
There is no inherent reason why having bare boobs in your story should exclude writers from putting some effort into the narrative and it's high time people started realizing that.
Frieren is genuinely a once in a decade anime, for me personally. It’s my genre for sure, but I think it was just done so amazingly , I usually like anime with action pretty much every other episode, whilst Frieren was slower in parts I never felt it had a bad episode. Also had a lot of episodes hit the feels which I never really get with anime (Except the scene in naruto when you see his parents death and they are saying all that mushy stuff jeez shit hit hard af) anyways back to Frieren, Beautifully animated, and many have said it stays true to the source material which is great I suppose. My husband and I called it Frieren Fridays and were really looking forward to it every week. For anyone that is still on the fence, please give it a watch, truly a masterpiece in my humblest of opinions ofcourse
I just finished Frieren like 5 mins ago. I'm crying y'all, what even is this feeling? It's not exactly sad, it just knows where to get me everytime, what the fuckkkk 😭
Anyway, now I can't go outside and get groceries 🥺
On Wednesday I ended three shows I was watching on that day:
Classroom of the Elite was one big setup before Ayanokouji’s 2nd Year as he and Kei became a couple (I was so happywhen that happened, at least to the moment he compared Kei to a book xD). He bet with the chairman and Suzune and we also know that a member of a White Room will be among the new first year students… Overall, this episode made me want a sequel very badly.
Frieren, Apothecary Diaries, Villainess LV99, 7th Time Loop, Solo Leveling. You will be missed! Some of these are in bad need of sequels. Hope to get some news in the coming months.
Compared to the big reviews I posted, I don't have a ton to say about Apothecary Diaries despite being in the threads for it. Mostly it's because I got sick and I couldn't start writing about it, but partly because anything I say would only echo the praise it's already gotten.
What I can say, however, is that anyone who foolishly compares this to Frieren for "best anime" is exactly that. Some people bring up production effort, others bring up the more palpable intrigue or Maomao being far more interesting to follow than Frieren and Fern. But again: it's what losers do to divide an audience that have already decided that Maomao and Fern are friends now. Because Kusuriya and Frieren are different shows, serving different audiences in different ways that they're hard to compare without reaching too far down slippery slopes. They just so happened to air concurrently and are well-written as base stories that it doesn't take a lot to bring that quality to the forefront, so even casuals can enjoy it guilt-free. But comparing both misses the point of both adaptations -- it's not worth arguing which is better because the two do things that make for tougher sensible comparisons to be made.
Agreed, it's mostly stupid to compare them -- two things can be great at the same time. I was dreading the Frieren versus Dungeon Meshi comparisons, but in retrospect I should have guessed Frieren versus AD would be the goto comparison.
Frieren starts off better than Dungeon Meshi, but the worldbuilding and plot in Dungeon Meshi are starting to really pop off now. I still don't think it'll ever be as CONSISTENT as Frieren, but it might have some higher high points, and some people will definitely find themselves ending up preferring Dungeon Meshi because of the weirder worldbuilding.
Which is fine, what sucks is when people start to use phrasing like THIS is the better X, thinking that if they lower a popular and already beloved series they would somehow raise the one they are trying to promote? Problem with that sort of phrasing is you are doing the series you are trying to promote a HUGE disservice. You are not helping your case, you are hurting it.
You'd hope we left the pointless us versus them fanboy shit in the past decade, but unfortunately that shit never seems to go away.
In a season that was as good as this one with bangers like Frieren and Apothecary Diaries, Sign of Affection somehow managed to be my #1 and is probably my favorite romance anime now
I finished 7th loop today and my god I loved it. First time i watched something like this. Can anyone recommand me more wholesome well written shows like 7th loop? Really liked the vibe of it.
I’m so grateful I got to watch Apothecary Diaries. I’ve never got in so deep so fast!
Also, 7th loop was way better than I imagined. And Frieren got boring in the middle(sorry it's just me) but got interesting again in the last few episodes.
Such a hollow feeling without these. Now what should we watch??
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u/Equivalent-Weather59 Mar 31 '24 edited Mar 31 '24
Congrats and goodbye to Frieren and MaoMao!
Credit where credit is due, A-1 cooked with the animation in Solo Leveling this and last week.
Surprised that Dungeon Meshi didn't do better given the content of episode 13, but I saw a lot of people thinking the series had concluded last week, so it makes sense.
Edit: Just remembered DunMeshi got blocked by its own cour 2 announcement and the article about the word isekai.