Frieren's Storytelling 

For those who write, I recommend taking a look at the special novel released by Kanehito Yamada for the release of the anime. Original: frieren-anime.jp/special/novel/ Translated by Potato Translations: ultra-violet-heart.tumblr.com/post/735655945065152512/fanfare-for-frieren-a-fan-translation I wanted to put an analysis of this in the video, but it was about time to continue writing my own thing. And I'm too afraid to edit the description because the chapters are really finicky.

in ep 23 fern tells sense that frieren's smile while exploring dungeons spread to her, which is why she continues searching for magic. so ig the "payoff" in the anime original scene of ep 24 was to show fern's genuine joy and excitement in discovering such a historical scene. frieren smiles at the sight of Fern being happy and they leave the room. it kinda mirrors episode 4 sunrise scene

Wait a minute we were told many times her party would run dungeons. We see time and time again her expertise in finding traps as well so her realizing there is a hidden room there isnt so unfounded. If you play dungeon crawlers long enough you too will find yourself predicting things you would not before, such as hidden rooms, what is more fun? secret rooms! it made it fun

Hey there. I wanted to say I think you need to find some better puzzle solvers. The statue puzzle Frieren solves is involves her seeing 4 statues in the hall. In the scenes outside the dungeon were the same statues... except there are 5 of them. The same four in the hall with the 5th King statue standing in the center. Frieren simply assumed there should be a something related to the King between the other statues. Once you nee it it becomes head slapping obvious. Then, when inside the chamber, which Frieren was sure was going to have a quality grimoire, there is only a mural. Frieren was initially disappointed but when she say Fern was smiling she smiled as well. Making the scene mirror of the conversation with Sense about why Fern travels with Frieren. They make each other smile. Also a call back to ep:4 Now, I will not tell you these two tidbits make the scene worth the 3 minutes spent on it, but I thought you should know there was some narrative value in the scene after all.

I love the self-awareness you bring to this analysis. Really good video, man.

I think the fact that the only thing people have issues with being a 2 minute segment, not even a tenth of your video, despite the low hanging fruit of your microphone really shows how actually informational this is. Too many people on youtube do shallow analysis which doesn't really benefit anyone in the end. Here however I was like "wow there's a lot of interesting stuff here" even just like 5 minutes into the video I tend to agree with your opinion on the scene. While I don't think it's pointless, due to things others have said, I agree that if the whole show was like that it would not be good

All of this is incredible information, I don’t think I’ve seen expressed so cleanly before.

Thanks for your work on this video man. I just subscribed and hope to see more.

18:55 - Interesting analysis regarding Frieren's discovery of the secret room. I agree that the setup could have been teased sooner. That said, I think the significance of the scene was Fern's deepened appreciation of discovering preserved relics.

I don't think you are being overly critical of the secret room scene, I think you're just failing to see the point entirely and it's causing you to be critical of a perceived lack of purpose, especially since your reasoning and breakdown of the earlier arcs are sound. I'm going to use some of the reasoning you lay out prior in the video to explain why the secret room does have a purpose and how it does change things. First, let's address your gripe with the scene, which is how the method by which Frieren finds it seemingly comes out of nowhere. This may seem at odds with how the show usually has Frieren display some new skill/ability in the past by accompanying it with a flashback for context (your idea of promise and payoff), but the reasoning for her being able to find this secret room is the same reasoning provided for her being able to avoid the traps (floor trap, gargoyles) they encountered prior on earlier floors: she's just that good at clearing dungeons because she cleared so many of them with Himmel. You complained about how there's no contextualization for her being able to find this room, but she's kinda just maxed out on dungeon map knowledge. More importantly, this is the part where your idea of action vs method comes into play. Now that we have sufficient context for how she did it, I'm sure you'd agree that the action of being good at clearing dungeons isn't narratively satisfying and doesn't actually matter; it's the method by which she got good that's important, and that was elaborated on in the flashback with Himmel. Himmel teaches Frieren his style of dungeoning and endears her to it - by exploring every nook and cranny and hallway, clearing every room to discover as much as there is to discover, he can look back and laugh and be content with the fact that he experienced everything there was to experience with the people he wanted to experience it with when this grand adventure is over. Frieren says as much, that by Himmel's love for dungeons was contagious and by watching him enjoy it, she learned to enjoy it too. This is obviously an allegory for life as well. Himmel was more or less adhering to his own philosophy of living a full life and I believe he behaved in a way that stayed true and consistent to that until his death. His style of dungeon clearing is an extension of his style of living and it's this very philosophy that he imparts to Frieren that lies at the heart of the show: she's just beginning to learn how to cherish the small things and forge bonds with loved ones because of her regret with Himmel. Okay so now that we've established that clearing a dungeon is a microcosmic allegory for the journey of one's life and it's something that Himmel taught Frieren, we can extrapolate it to the secret room scene in the current timeline. Fern and Sense have a conversation about why Fern is following Frieren (while she's rubbing a crystal ball on her face) and Fern recalls a moment in another dungeon of how she smiled when she saw Frieren enjoying the loot. Fern learned to enjoy dungeons because of Frieren in the same contagious way Himmel did for Frieren, but the crucial difference is that Fern says something along the lines of "when I saw Frieren smiling, I smiled too, so I think I'll follow her my whole life to see her smile" - I take this to mean that Fern's love for dungeons is derived from Frieren's love for dungeons. The crucial distinction here is that Fern herself doesn't love dungeons intrinsically - it's only Frieren's smile that makes her smile. Remember that dungeons are an allegory for life. The goal is to get to the bottom yes, but as they say, it's about the journey and not the destination. Cue the secret room scene. They walk in and it's a grand, ancient space with a regal air. Fern walks in with wonder and awe upon seeing this giant mural that nobody has laid eyes on for hundreds of years and she can't help but smile, a smile that came from within, not from seeing Frieren's smile. This is Fern's moment of change and is the purpose/impact of the scene. Like Frieren used to only love dungeons because Himmel did before she found things to love about dungeons on her own, Fern used to only love dungeons because of Frieren did before she found something to love about dungeons on her own. It's like a two-stage process and she reached the second stage. It's why Frieren is looking at Fern instead of the mural with an expression of pride, satisfaction, and understanding. It's a moment of transformation and Frieren is proud of being responsible for it and she recognizes her old self in Fern and Himmel in her current self. Fern found something to like about dungeons for herself and remember, the dungeon is an allegory for life. How you clear it and how you enjoy it reflects how you move through and how you enjoy life. It's a small scene so it's a small transformation but it is a transformation nonetheless. There is action, method, context, promise, and payoff. I don't think there's anything that's missing in its narrative structure and I don't think it's a departure from the precedent of quality of writing scene we're used to from the rest of the show. I actually have way more issues with Sein's entire character (and I'm glad he got written out) but that's a whole other giant can of worms. I'm an anime only so I have no idea if he's coming back but if he does, I hope he takes his sweet time.

The reason Lugner can track them with blood is because his magic is based wholly around manipulating his own blood. You can tell it wasn’t an afterthought because you see Lugners blood splatter and get on their clothes when they injure him.

Good video, well structured. I can't believe this is your second one on this channel. Did you post on any other channel before?

Enjoyed your analysis, have liked & subbed

21:24 the way your ending commentary line up with the aura uncalled for smug moment in the background 😂

Subscriber number 68 I wanna remember that when you have a million

Id love to hear you talk about Girls' Last Tour

GLT and Flan wants to die mentioned. This makes me happy.

great vid

My only gripes with Frieren is that I started getting annoyed with how characters would plop into flashbacks and exposition in the most strange places and situations when I actually thought about it. I think it's fine usually, but the magic exam arc had one too many times where people would just yap exposition or their life story constantly back to back. It started to annoy me. The placement is my only issue though. The contents are enjoyable for me, because it usually doesn't take too long or too much away from the story for me. And they're new characters, so I am curious for some of them at least. Unlike Monster, which when it veered off into another direction we would sit on it would sit on their lives for loooong stretches. Usually right after they just ended another cat and mouse chase with Johan that led to him getting away for the nth time.

Sweet!

Cannot agree on the dungeon scene. It clearly serves a purpose. One - it reinforces the statement on Frieren being an extremely experienced "dungeoneer". Two - it adds towards Sense's conflicting outlook on the party she chosen to follow and better frames the Frieren and pile of treasure scene, and mimic jokes. Three, it balances out pacing. In manga this arc is overfilled with action and it gets tiring (Eldorado arc down the line :cough:). Finally, I suspect it is a setup for further partd of the story where huge historical twists came out of nowhere because they were probsbly added on the spot to spice up the setting

Obviously you just don't get the point of the secret room in episode 24. It is to further exhibit Frieren's expertise in exploring dungeons, that this is exactly the thing that many RPG players find in the course of a D&D session or some similar game. It might be a bit of fan service for those types of viewers but I imagine that would be a significant portion of the fan base. One would think you never had even heard of such a game from your comments. If that is true then that would explain your understanding. Other than that misunderstanding you had a very good presentation. Fret not, no one gets it totally right.

tbh pacing is sort of an illusion. it's metaphorical "bone", if I may borrow your term a bit. As long as your audience thinks the focus they give for your story is being repaid in the right way, then it's all good. (which is the issue for some writer, tbh. since there are fields where the readers "don't want to read" or "pretend they want to read or think they are reading, when they don't.")

The reason the Frieren anime is great is because it sticks so close to the manga. Imagine how much worse the Fireren filler scene would be if the anime people did try to attach deeper meaning to the finding of the room. They'd wreck the characters with out of character interactions, create new and potentially conflicting canon, and in general make the scene stand out like a sore thumb from the tone of everything else. By making the scene entirely pointless and inconsequential, they filled their timeslot with a forgettable scene that was bland and pointless without harming the narrative.

Haha. When it comes to Demons, More Humiliation = More Better from Frieren's PoV. :D

Sorry, have to disagree on the bad scenes regarding the hidden chamber. In the beginning of the dungeon, Frieren told Fern to start recording the map of the dungeon showing that once they fully explored the dungeon, they would be able to know where is the section missing based on the map and prior experience. Furthermore, once entered the secret chamber, Fern is pretty interested in the lost history and the carving of the king while Frieren looked at her face and smiled. I believe this is a similar portrait but opposite of Fern seeing Frieren collecting magical junks. Therefore, in the secrect chamber, we came to a full circle that Fern is happy with Frieren collecting magical junk and Frieren is happy with Fern interested in lost history.

Your content is compelling, your mic is atrocious. Your speech is okay and it's probably your software and equipment that needs improvement. Looking forward to more content if you can fix the sound of your videos!

He fou d one weak story line and went hard at it in the end calling it pointless. The point is. Its what Himel whould have done in the dungeon.

I disagree with your notion of calling that scene bad: It's connection to previous scenes is nothing extraordinary, but it still shows, that Frieren is very experienced with dungeons, and I don't think a complementary scene with Himmel was needed. While viewers couldn't predict, that there was a secret room, we very much do know ho Frieren came up with that idea. When the scene starts, she asks to see Fern's map. When she and us look at the Map, we see, that there's a large space with no tunnels or rooms, surrounded by a lot of rooms. This means, either there's a hidden room there, or theres just a large, completely unused space in the middle of this dungeon. As for character moments: When Frieren starts inspecting the wall, she hopes, that there's a magic tome in there, so she's slightly displeased with the mural they find inside. But as Sense explains its Significance, Frieren see how much Fern enjoys this and smiles because of it. This loops back to how Fern told Sense, she enjoys Magic and Dungeons, because she gets to see an excited Frieren. I actually really liked this scene, especially with this context. But for you I guess it drowned in the slew of great scenes that is Frieren. But I hope, these musings change your mind on that.

Nice, clarity while speaking or recording would be improve the points you make, i noticed a hiccups like at - 4:33

pleeease invest in a mic