I’ve posted a few weeks ago about Frieren being the first anime I properly watched start to finish as I would watch another seriously TV show. I actually found it from a video comparing the character development of “Frieren” to that of “Rings of Power”. Which goes as expected.
Anyway, after rewatching it 4 times now (eng dub, eng dub + eng sub, jap + eng subs and again just the eng dub (I’ts good)) and reading the manga up the the anime timeline and watching like 30 youtube videos analysing the show just to make sure I didn’t miss anything … I think there is one point that no one has brought up yet (I expect to be corrected).
It’s an MMORPG. And you (Frieren) is the hardcore gamer that played since beta and never quit. You had your old parties (guilds or clans) which whom you played when you were young but lost all connection but your own memory to.
I’m not a writer so these a basically just random thoughts delivered very poorly structured. But the show makes so many video game refenrences. The general need for having a “warrior” as a tank, a priest as a healer … and well mostly mages as damage dealers. But I guess Himmel was kind of an Quest oriented offsensive warrior, while Eisen was their tank.
But in the later seasons they references to literal “dungeon raids” and finding loot, exploring every level (and side quest) along the way …
It’s a fundamentally a MMORPG video game story. Obviously it goes much deeper than that and has all the great aspects off a great show beyond this point.
But am I crazy for thinking that? Or is it maybe one of the reason this show resonates so well with people?
A great example is Friens obession with very rare but useless loot.
A lot of the framing of modern Japanese fantasy derives from Dragon Quest. There is some MMO-specific stuff mixed in at times, like the raiding terms, but the tropes mostly shake out from a time well before the Internet was a thing.
The bit about old clans and such is especially not an MMO-specific thing, it’s just life. It’s something everyone experiences, and the exploration of those themes in varied ways account for a large part of why the show is so universally praised.
That said, if the MMO framing helps you to get a deeper understanding of the show you go for it. Part of appreciating art is finding your own ways to engage and relate with it.
I can totally see how all the points I made pre-date video games. Guess I got overexicted about something that is general knowledge.
Like I was so happy when I reliseed all the names/places in Frieren were German words. But everyone knows that already :(
Hey, nothing wrong with being excited about discovering new things about a show you love! Even the German word bit, it’s super prevalent in fantasy (especially Japanese fantasy), so most people have had that exact realization at some point with some show, so now it just feels obvious haha.
The same could be said about a very old and decorated DnD character.
I haven’t watched Frieren, and everytime I tell myself to watch it I end up getting distracted by something else, but I will say that the large supermajority of anime and manga set in the fantasy genre is heavily inspired by video game or tabletop RPGs set in fantasy worlds. It is rare to find something that doesn’t have that influence. Heck, Record of Lodoss War was literally the authors’ TTRPG recorded as a story and then refined into LN/anime form. And I mean, why not? TTRPGs are basically just collective storytelling but with rules, who says you can’t publish those as fantasy stories?
Yeah. I realise now that had a very backwards reasoning. I even know the basicas about TTRPGs. Just didn’t connect the dots.
It’s a fundamentally a MMORPG video game story. Obviously it goes much deeper than that and has all the great aspects off a great show beyond this point.
But am I crazy for thinking that? Or is it maybe one of the reason this show resonates so well with people?
You’re not crazy, but I personally don’t agree with you. Not once did I think this had anything to do with video games aside from maybe dungeons, but may as well have been inspired by TTRPGs like DnD (and originally, likely was). These types of fantasy worlds and ‘classes’ aren’t unique to MMORPGs and within anime also not to Frieren. Look at basically every fantasy anime. What makes Frieren unique is what it does with it. Instead of traveling the world to defeat the demon lord, she travels to reflect and more or less find herself. She’s near immortal. She will outlive almost everyone she meets. That made her cold and disconnected from others, both emotionally and empathetically. Now, after realising that her party mattered more to her than she thought, she opens up a bit and tries to move past it. She still doesn’t understand much, but is actively trying with the help of Fern and Stark.
I see it as a very strong anime in the fantasy genre. It’s not unlikely that it has some video game inspiration for the world (but not strictly MMORPGs), but storywise I think it has nothing to do with that.
Of course, to each their own interpretation, and yours is totally valid, but that’s what I think.
It’s really just a minor point, It took me a couple of rewatches to even get the video game references, because the character stories just draw you in. I’m well aware of all the aspects that makes Frieren a brilliant show.
The video game aspect was just something I noticed that apprently no one else talks about. But I failed to understand how deeply rooted the TTRPG aspects are to the genre as a whole. It was just new to me.
The only show I watched before that felt like a video game was “The Mandalorian” and that really turned to shit in S03 …
