A Frieren Video: Magic and Mundanity

stark you forgot to pick up this crown
I think I probably go a little too hard on the last little bit about the interviews at the end of the anime. Not all of the interviews are as criminally hollow or boring as I make them sound. As long as the interview had some level of detail to it, then they were okay at a bare minimum. I specifically called out Land's and Denken's because I think these ones do the best job of "earning" the achievement out of all the interviews. Fern's is good too but still a cut below those two IMO. If all of the interviews were on this level of depth then I'd have no issue, but they just aren't, and the abridged interviews weigh down the last exam a lot for me. I still really don't understand why that last lady's interview is the way that it is, though.

[@feral5]

I love seeing all these small channels popping up with great essays about Frieren:
1. It's great for the anime/Frieren community to have this level of engagement from everyone
2. It's a great way to build a community around your channel because this style of content is so good at propagating discourse.
3. It's good content that isn't straight up brain rot. We need more people watching long-form content nowadays.
Great video, you've earned a sub!

[@DatChoi]

Aura, file my taxes.

[@bilgil_]

Great video

[@Nieblham]

I do agree with how important the mundane is in the story, but greatly disagree with your view on the 2nd exam.
The 2nd exam fills many roles perfectly.
1.) A reward for watcher. We have seen/been told about dungeon crawling but never had any episode dedicated to clearing dungeons. The end of the season being a dungeon crawl is a good design choice to reward loyal audience members.
2.) Important worldbuilding scenes, especially for how magic works. This exam really drives home how important imagination is. We get the line "mage fights are like Rock-Paper-Scissors." And Ubel vs Sense shows that a person with strong imagination skills is key to being a skillful mage. Ubel's imagination is not affected by what she sees (layers of defensive magic imbued in Sense's hair) nor what others say/act (basically everyone treats the Sense clone as an impossible barrier).
3.) Highlights Fern's growth. While Fern has not yet reached the "height of magic" (e.g. she'd lose a 1 v 1 against Frieren) it was her idea and her skills that defeated the Frieren clone. She knew about Frieren's weakness and how her skills of concealment took advantage of said weakness.
Frieren as a story does a wonderful job with subtlety, mundane, and character development. But it also makes the best of important scenes to make the most of the development that occurred during the mundane. Take away either and the story would not be as good.

[@moony4983]

I really appreciate comments like these because it puts opinions from the other side in a well-articulated manner. Reading these kinds of comments have changed my PoV on certain things in the long run before. While I can't say that my perspective is swayed at this moment, it's still always interesting to read about how people found meaning/value in places I didn't.
Thanks for taking the time to both watch the video and write the comment 👍

[@bobislav85]

Also it provides backstory of Frieren, Flame and Serie. It gives also different PoV on magic - Frieren/Flame's and Serie. In addition it gives us contrast between the emotional development levels of Frieren and Serie. Frieren is far more advanced in becoming a complete person by wanting to learn humans, while Serie is at the beginning of this journey. Also Frieren is put against her shadow (quite Jungian) displaying what she could have been if she was not going into her internal emotional adventure and not been so open to learn and adapt to the new world. I can write on and on about this ark.