I watched Record of Lodoss war back in the early 2010s, and I remembered that anime from seeing Frieren on Netflix and thinking “Oh, so this is like if Deedlit carried on after her own journey” and gave it a shot.
I watched a few episodes here and there, but decided over the summer to watch an episode a day, and I can intellectually understand the premise. From my perspective, the show is not really high fantasy but is set there; it is based around a person who has reached a milestone in their lives, like someone graduating a high school/college/grad school or just leaving their town, and is now limerent or regretful of missed connections.
Intellectual engagement and cognitive function is based on interacting with other people, even from a thousand-year being like an elf, and as such requries a level of human engagement and empathy to understand them. Reading social cues, engaging in hygiene, doing chores, and all the mundane tasks that comes with the grandeur of life.
It was difficult of me to really buy into the notion that she is emotionally isolate from humanity and her own emotional center. I can see that Himmel’s death really shook her but this concept and appreciation of mortality and fleeting ties is bizarre given that she has known the death of other loved ones in her life.
Deedlit’s emotional journey was forged in real time with her attachment to Parn (analogue to Himmel in Frieren) demonstrating a human quality that hardship and triumph over evil makes one appreciate life all the more. The hero’s journey is what forges an emotional foundation; the emotinal foundation is Frieren still being nacent after Journey’s End here is bizarre. Even if 10 years is 10 days to her, people still form tight emotional connections in that time. She didn’t treat her comrades as aquiantances from a classroom before going to the funeral.
On a meta level, I understand that the anime is as stated earlier, about reclaiming lost time, youth, connections, and emotional catharsis based on a life of leisure and slow-pace comfort. All of which, presented in this cultural zeitgeist, is a breath of fresh air from the hustle culture and intellectual hijacking/dopamine bombardment of the internet that permeates modern life.
Yes, it wasn’t for me. Not everything is for everyone, etc - I just was flabbergasted at the stale and flat nature of the character Frieren and wanted to know if anyone thought similar. I don’t get the appeal since there are things Gen Z/Alpha can do that can replicate or substitute the vicarious emotional fulfillment they feel from this anime.
I started watching Moribito.
Literally the entire point is that she withdraws from emotional intimacy because she doesn’t want to get hurt, she doesnt see the point of caring because humans lives are so fleeting in her perspective. She did the adventure with her friends and didn’t come back to see them until they were very old and she didn’t realise that she actually wanted to spend more time with them until after they died.
The entire anime is about handling grief maximising the moments with the people that you love and her friends knew this about her which is why Heiter left her with an apprentice to push her into making an emotional connection and enjoying life the way humans do.
Its a distilled version of handling loss in real life. Wishing you had spent more time with that person/pet/tamagochi and how shutting yourself off from the world is not a meaningful approach because a life avoiding hurt isnt a life at all. Its why we see the events of her life that have meaning and the ones where she disappears for 10 years to go pick mushrooms or whatever disappear in the blink of an eye.
Anyway dungeon meshi is the goat
ate the goat
“do not hikikomori-maxx” seems to be the message.
I understood it on an intellectual level, I just didn’t really appreciate it on an emotional level and the premise that someone can seal their heart off for centuries feels estranged to me since the mere fact of existence is that of interdependence on other people and other species. Even if her friends were not people, she would have made friends with animals, plants, and an appreciation of nature that she would take a chance on people rather than remaining sealed off emotionally. I can believe hermeticism as her characteristic, but even hermits weren’t so emotionally muted until overwhelmed by grief - especially since the journey should have been the process to open up her heart to that extent where the grief over Himmel’s death felt unnecessary. (That’s just a gripe and I addressed not everything is for everyone/its okay for me not to like it/etc)
I think I am ruminating on it because it presents a kind of thematic interpretation of its audience who would appreciate that lesson or feel a resonance with that message. Frieren acts as a Rorschach test on how well incorporated you have learned that lesson as you presented, and an appreciation to “touch grass” or “stop and smell the flowers” because life is fleeting and precious.
This lesson is something that I feel resonates with Gen Z or Alpha though; older generations have learned this lesson already and we have learned to synthesize responsibiltiies, emotional connection and well-being, and leisure even as the latter is squeezed more and more.
This comment made me check it out, the first couple episodes had me sobbing somehow
ty for the writeup