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The demons in Frieren really bother me. It’s just such a strange choice in this otherwise incredible show to have the villains just be pure evil, cold, calculating, no emotions, mustache twirlers. In a lesser show I probably wouldn’t even notice, it’s pretty standard shonen stuff, but this was so much better, it just sticks out like a sore thumb.
No you’re not the only one.
I wouldn’t have minded if they were just purely ontologically evil- “They’re from hell, they’re antithetical to life” kinda deal like the curses in Jujutsu Kaisen. Make them explicitly supernatural and just roll with it because the story needs an uncomplicated villain- yeah ok, understandable.
It’s all the in-universe evo psych nonsense given as “world-building” that gives me the heebie-jeebies, especially in the way in which those justifications knowingly or unknowingly mirror real-life bigotries. Having a sapient fantasy race that cannot change their inherent nature due to biology, just so that the protagonists have a narrative excuse to blast them really doesn’t sit right with me at all.
Which is a shame because yeah, otherwise the show is actually pretty good, especially at exploring the breadth of human experience. So to have this weird blind-spot is baffling.
Yeah, exactly! There’s no reason to put some weird borderline eugenics level understanding of evolution in there, especially in a show set in a magical fantasy world, they can just be magical monsters and it’s fine.
Yeah this is why I couldn’t stick with watching it.
Hitler particles are the background radiation of the Western world.
The demons are white people.
So demons are like capitalists?
No, they aren’t evil because they choose to be, they’re evil because they literally evolved to be evil hunters of humanity. If it was them being raised to be that way I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but in a show all about the human experience, having inherently evil villains who cannot ever change their nature just feels very tonally dissonant.
They might be able to, at some point – but the story has yet to be completed.
Would be a little awkward to have the main character kill like a million demons then reveal they’re people
“Frieren is basically Ender Wiggin” is a twist that might actually make me want to watch that show
wow lol this… actually kinda tracks
You know what, you’re right. I wanna see this scene reenacted
I agree lol
Most magical beings in Frieren (those that disappear into nothing when slain) kill humans just because, no need to feed on them or to absorb their souls.
If they worked like animals, some generations of selective breeding would make them tolerate humans. I’m sure later, some psycho in a farm would gentrically engineer succubi but that’s another point entirely.
For a more “grounded” experience, dungeon meshi tries creating an ecosystem around the fantastical creatures.
Dungeon Meshi is one of my favourite animes, but you’re giving an in-universe explanation for a problem I have with the writing of the show. The demons are the way they are because they were written that way, not because of any in-universe lore.
Any in-universe lore is what it is because it was written that way though? I don’t quite see your point there.
Anyway, I actually like the way the demons are written, the first thought that popped into my mind when Frieren explained that they are “evolved from creatures who cry help in the dark” (or something along those lines, I don’t remember the exact quote) was of creatures from my own country’s folklore, creatures who would lure you into the forest at night to drown you in ponds, others that would lure you deep into the mountains and trap you in them forever, stories like that that we grew up with as kids. So I suppose because of my own cultural context I like the idea of exploring how those kinds of beings might evolve?
The thing is usually folklore spirits behave that way because of something. It can be because they have unfinished business or they feed on fear or souls to become stronger. This gives them a pressure to evolve and become better at luring victims but I don’t remember an explanation of what makes demons in Frieren kill humans apart from territorial disputes.
In my country’s folklore they just do that shit because that’s what they’re here to do. The only thing you can do to save yourself is to outsmart them, they’re not going to change no matter how much of an epic debatelord you are.
And I don’t see why that is inherently “problematic”, it’s like a pack of wolves killing a deer. There’s no human idea of “morality” or whatever involved in them doing so, it’s just what they do.
The Thermian Argument is a favorite of people who don’t want to confront the fact that a work of fiction they enjoy radiates hazardous levels of Hitler particles
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The problem with vampires is that they are immortal, so in a capitalist society, the vampires and necromancers would eventually own all the property.
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In a few scenes explaining the nature of demons, a direct one to one comparison is made between human concepts of wealth/hierarchy and how demons organize themselves using mana instead of wealth
Unfortunately all of that is ignored by some online leftists who are more interested in the most tortured and delirious interpretation of the setting, to the point where some are convinced the demons are an allusion to marginalized people in the west, despite the fact they’re literally coded as genocidal German aristocrats
Literal
vibesto the point where some are convinced the demons are an allusion to marginalized people in the west
One of the work’s most famous narrative arcs is about how the demons’ evil is racially inherited and independent of material circumstances, and even their children are dangerous monsters that can only be exterminated. Is it really so surprising that someone would see that and think of Rassenkampf and “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” instead of the political project that reformed Puyi?
There’s also this line, which… well, let me put it this way: if I were to read this as an pertaining to any real-world political movement, it definitely wouldn’t be the bourgeoisie.
E: If anything, the logic of Frieren reminds me of the logic of “populist” anti-capitalism, which accurately identifies and rails against the evils of capitalism but externalizes them onto an ontologically evil (generally racial, usually Jews) outsider group.
E2: Come to think of it, the genocide victim protagonist being a blonde-haired, blue-eyed young woman with a German-sounding name is eyebrow-raising as well.
Why am I supposed to see in that the logic of the political project that reformed Puyi
I don’t say this usually, but shit really ain’t that deep bro, despite the whole amoral species thing, the allegory and subtext about the demons is pretty well intact; German aristocrats doing genocide and colonialism, that’s their theme, yeah “it’s in their blood”, sure call that problematic, big whoop
Come back to me when their presentation is orientalized or is harking to racial caricatures from the west, otherwise your argument is standing on sand
Also there’s this, which could have come straight from a white nationalist manifesto.
Aside from the fact the context of the arc blows your accusation out of the water, Frieren isn’t berating Macht for having the audacity to desire coexistence, she’s pointing out his idea of “coexistence” seems to be nothing more than treating others around him as “playthings” and “curiosities” that are thrown away at the slightest inconvenience
So a creature with the goofiest German name, dressed like a noble from a Czarist court, treating those he deems lesser than himself with a colonial mindset, I wonder what the subtext could possibly be
shit really ain’t that deep bro
Every element of a fictional work is placed with intent. The baby demon subplot invites one to ask what that intent is, and that question invites a certain answer, as evidenced by the fact that a large number of people from across the political spectrum all independently arrived at that answer.
German aristocrats doing genocide and colonialism, that’s their theme
Which gets muddled by the fact that their POV victim is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman with a German-sounding name. Who is it that always shouts about such people being victims of genocide by an ontologically evil outside race that superficially appears to share its culture but is only pretending to assimilate so it can destroy them?
The baby demon subplot invites an examination on the theme of “appreances can be deceiving” of mythologies surrounding creatures like changelings or the nature of cuckoo birds
If there’s a real world racial allusion being made in that subplot, then you need to actually demonstrate it, instead of just endlessly implying that it’s there
Which gets muddled by the fact that their POV victim is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman with a German-sounding name
Except the fact all the characters are a variation of German runs against the grain of your argument, if the on-screen presentation made real world allusions to different ethinc groups, then the class allegory would be buried under the on-screen struggle between fantasy Germans vs fantasy some-other-ethinc group
It’s the fact that separation can’t be made that has already soured the series for many online chuds, who ironically (considering your argument) identify with the Demons more then they do with the Mrs. Freiren lmao, who according to you is an “Aryan princess”
Then we take into account the fact that memes like the one above are the most common interpretation among normies who seem pretty happy cracking jokes about how the Demons are “white people” or the millions strong Frieren TikToks where the most popular take is that the Demons are an allegory for capitalism
Funny how nobody (including the racists themselves) can’t seem to detect this racism that is apparently oozing off the screen
If there’s a real world racial allusion being made in that subplot
That was never my argument. I don’t make assumptions about the creator’s intent. My argument was that people’s readings of stuff like the baby demon subplot are going to be informed by the real-world context in which they live. You can tell people all you want that they shouldn’t use real-world cultural context to inform their readings of fiction, but you might as well command the tide to stop coming in for all the good it’ll do you. I have already talked about the real-world context behind “these things look like you but they think only of destroying your race, even the children, kill them all,” so I won’t relitigate that.
It’s the fact that separation can’t be made that has already soured the series for many online chuds, who ironically (considering your argument) identify with the Demons more then they do with the Mrs. Freiren lmao
Then why in [CW: Nazi shit] the linked thread are the chuds posting pics of Frieren with captions like “the reason I look this cute is because I’m white” and editing the comic to replace the KKK member with bigoted caricatures of Jews, black people, and trans people?
EDIT:
the theme of “appreances can be deceiving” of mythologies surrounding creatures like changelings
Unfun fact: the general consensus among anthropologists is that the changeling myth arose as a way for peasants to excuse killing their disabled and neurodiverse children.
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I don’t say this usually, but shit really ain’t that deep bro, despite the whole amoral species thing, the allegory and subtext about the demons is pretty well intact; German aristocrats doing genocide and colonialism, that’s their theme, yeah “it’s in their blood”, sure call that problematic, big whoop
Fascists fucking love this “curtains are just blue bro, don’t look into it, authors don’t actually think about stuff bro, they’re just story machines, don’t look at the themes bro, don’t think about anything and just passively absorb everything” bullshit. Media literacy is important, and it saddens me to see you think like this.
As a professional writer myself, every single theme and idea put into something is put there with intent, unconscious or not. If the show has a literal “nits make lice” scene about a child of the evil enemy it’s because the author wanted to make a point about that exact idea, and in the show, it explicitly shows that the only correct and moral choice is to exterminate them all, because they are literally born evil, and are incapable of changing their nature, despite being intelligent and sapient like people and perfectly capable of descision making and personal choice(but they only ever make choices to deceive and destroy people). Can you not see how this is an extremely problematic theme in a show that is supposed to be about human connection?
Frankly I think it’s ironic you’re accusing me of “Curtians are just blue” type shit when that’s precisely what I think you and all the other “Frieren is racist” leftists are doing, obsessing over in-lore aesthetics and tortured interpretations of presentation while completely missing the subtext and allegorical themes of what the Demons are supposed to represent, which sure as shit isn’t black people, Jews or whatever you all seem to be implying
The allegory of uncaring aristocrats bound by blood to commit genocide and colonialism, may contain problematic elements, but it doesn’t prove your accusation that the series is attempting to normalize racism
Do you know actually know what I’m talking about? Did you actually read what I wrote or are you just looking to get mad because I’m criticising a show you like? If you want to accuse me of overanalysing, fine, but don’t also claim I’m refusing to analyse at the same time, that’s just incoherent.
I’m not saying you can’t like the show, I’m saying it has some problematic elements that actively harm the storytelling. And those some problematic elements have attracted a lot of fascists to the show’s fanbase, because the way the demons are talked about in the show is the exact same way they want people to think about minorities. Is the show itself being racist? No, the demons aren’t a direct stand in for any real world group, but the way they are talked about in the show is exactly how hate groups talk about minorities.
The show literally has a scene that shows us what happens when a demon child is raised by people: The demon will just kill them, because it is their nature to destroy people. They look like humans, but only to fool people into letting their guard down. Not because of some magical mumbo jumbo, but because they literally evolved to be destructive monsters whose only goal is to wipe out humanity. Can you not see how this is literally how actual real world groups like nazis talk about their enemies? Can you not see why fascists would love a show that says “some creatures look human, but aren’t really, they just evolved to look human in order to trick people. Our only solution is to exterminate them all, it’s us or them.”
They aren’t aristocrats, they aren’t in charge of this society, they are apart from it and seeking to destroy it from the outside. If they were in charge and actively trying to destroy or control everyone below them, then yeah, they’d be a pretty clear stand in for a parasitic aristocracy, but the show doesn’t treat them like that, it treats them like vermin. It doesn’t treat them as a stand in for real world oppression, they’re just evil because they are born that way.
You look at their fancy clothes and German names (in a setting where everyone dresses like that and has German names) and that’s where your analysis ends? Can you not see how the exact same rhetoric used by the characters in the show about the villains is literally the exact same rhetoric real world hate groups use to justify their violence?
I suppose Ukraine can’t be full of Nazis, because they have a Jewish president, and the US can’t be racist because they elected Obama, right? After all, we should only ever look at surface level stuff, and if they are literally wearing aristocratic clothing, that means they must be aristocrats and represent them and only them and nothing else, and the fascist part of this show’s fanbase just loves the show for no reason, and it totally isn’t a useful tool for them to normalise toxic ideas about real people, even if that wasn’t the original intent.
Frankly I think it’s ironic you’re accusing me of “Curtians are just blue” type shit when that’s precisely what I think you and all the other “Frieren is racist” leftists are doing
The “blue curtains” reading would be “the demons don’t represent anything, it’s just a story.” We’re not doing that. We’re describing how certain elements in the story facilitate a symbolic interpretation that differs from yours.
what the Demons are supposed to represent
Death of the author, what they’re “supposed” to represent is irrelevant, we’re judging the work by what is present within it and the cultural and historical context within which it exists.
I think I’ve half-jokingly said something like this in an earlier Frieren thread, but I’ll say it again, and 100% seriously this time:
Some people on here seem to actively want any manga or anime ever made to have fascist undertones, just so they can justify their belief that all Japanese people are born fascist. Like it’s genetic or some shit. And the fact that this is very clearly a form of racism in itself completely escapes them.
This whole thing is extremely USA coded, let me just remind you that there is an entire world outside your borders.
Or my family lived under Japanese occupation and we had people die in the Bataan Death March, so I’m cautious whenever Japanese media has racist undertones. There hasn’t been an honest effort on Japan’s part to even acknowledge what they did while their government is trying to recreate the same genocidal projects. It’s very similar to how Black or Native American people have problems with settler-colonialist themes featured in westerns and post-apocalyptic media. Capitalist media is going to have capitalist brainworms unless it is explicitly anticapitalist. This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy something. It’s pointing out the problems as they exist.
But sure. I’m the real racist for pointing out racism in your cartoon slop. Fuck off with this crakkker shit.
Instead of engaging with the discussion about how a fantasy race that is ontologically evil is problematic (something that exists outside of the fantasy genre within Japan) you instead made up the idea that people on hexbear want to use animanga as a way to essentailize Japanese people as fascists? Even though the entire discission is about how essentialization is harmful?
This whole thing is extremely USA coded
“Reading animanga more deeply than I’m personally comfortable with is actually the real racism”
let me just remind you that there is an entire world outside your [USA] borders.
Yes, and tragically you have failed to reckon with that here.
I hope after reading @Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 's response you’ve had a chance to reflect upon that. The only constructive critique I have to add is that “do not assume everyone on Hexbear is a white USAn” was an oft-requested suggestion from the PoC bloc on this site (inasmuch as we are a bloc) during the recent Code of Conduct struggle sessions.
Buddy if you think this is about me hating Japan, how do you reconcile that with me complaining about racial alignments in Dungeons and Dragons a week ago. I like Dungeons and Dragons but I freely admit that some aspects of it unfortunately radiate Hitler particles.
In any case “You think Japanese people are born fascist” is a gross strawman of the hopefully uncontroversial statement that Japan is a US puppet regime, and being a satellite of the Fourth Reich is liable to influence its culture in not-so-good directions
In any case “You think Japanese people are born fascist” is a gross strawman of the hopefully uncontroversial statement that Japan is a US puppet regime, and being a satellite of the Fourth Reich is liable to influence its culture in not-so-good directions
There were already a lot of not-so-good cultural and political currents in Japan long before the US got anywhere near it too, which it also isn’t immune from criticism for even if sometimes people use it as an excuse to be racist.
I think that, ironically, the idea that anyone who might take issue with racism in Japanese media is a racist Amerikkkan (as the user you’re replying to implied) is actually very “USA coded” one. There are around 2 billion people who have living social and cultural memory of being victims of Japanese genocides and atrocities, which the Japanese state (and vast majority of Japanese society) not only don’t even pretend to apologize for but generally don’t even acknowledge happened (unless they’re praising those responsible or trying to rearm themselves so they can do it again). Almost none of these 2 billion people are American citizens.
Americans don’t have a monopoly on being genocidal colonizers, but there’s a particular type of (counterintuitive) American exceptionalism that manifests as the idea that they do.
I never got the point of friendren. I was expecting something like " to your eternity" where the world changed around her. supporting characters las for 4 episodes tops.
Instead we got some elf who recruits s few kids into her death squad.
The series is about the people around her changing Frieren herself and making her value the smaller things in life more, and it uses loss and melancholy as powerful devices to do so, with her going on this journey of (self)discovery because because she realised that humans are short lived and yet she never tried to learn more about her friends that she defeated the big bad evil guy with who she spent a decade or so with.
It’s different to To Your Eternity which is also partially about its nigh immortal protagonist’s - Inno’s - growth as a person, but while frieren is growing from someone who just goes through the motions to someone who values human experiences, Inno is a blank slate learning to adult.
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I just wanted to comment it’s cool how the artist watermarked this
spoiler
by leaving their name in the magic crest
This is a comment section for sure. Cw:Racism,ableism
They’re also simply making racist edits of this so I guess that’ll make the rounds now.
Wow I can’t believe that racists are latching onto the anime whose premise is “every single member of this race is inexorably evil and they must all be exterminated, yes, even the children, and anyone who shows sympathy for them is a sentimental fool”
To be fair, the show’s main theme seems to be about forming connections with others and enjoying the time you spend together, even if it is very short.
Which is why the demon stuff bothers me so much, it just makes no sense in a show like this and actively goes against the core theme of the show. It’s a baffling writing choice.
I’m not ready for another frieren thread
I’ve heard very mixed things about this show, and then the discourse out of this bit on twitter seemed to be fascists saying “see my favorite show has always been fascist” and then non-fascists saying “noooo, this isn’t fascism its definitely not” and I don’t care enough about anime to look into it.
The main character, a victim of an elf genocide goes around for about a third of the narrative bonking demons on the head, demons that happen to be one of fiction’s most obvious allegories for ‘uncaring genocidal aristocrats’ (all of them German coded)
In a particularly tiresome extension of the culture war, both online fascists and some overreactive online leftists simultaneously hallucinated said demons of the setting to instead be an allegory for marginalized people, hence one of anime’s lamest discourses was born
That’s exactly what it looked like from the outside. Thank you
i’ve watched an enormous amount of anime, you’re not missing anything. imo the best theme of ‘frieren’ was better explored in the series ‘violet evergarden’
It’s a generally chill, neurodivergent-coded magical girl anime.
I like the show and I don’t think the demons are problematic
I think people are huge nerds for going “this is a fascism” out of someone making a literal demon actually evil in a setting with dragons, elves and demons and shit
I also keep thinking about how, yeah, chainsawman has better politics overall (death to america), but is it really so much better to have a depiction of a species that’s 99.999% evil instead of 100% evil? not really, but I’ve never heard anybody ever saw Chainsawman is doing a fascism by having inherently evil devils doing evil devil shit
it’s very tiring
I think it makes sense that “demons are inherently evil” becomes a loaded idea when you look at who tends to wield the “demon” accusation against whom. A hegemonic Christianity overwhelmingly accuses marginalized groups such as LGBT people, neurodiverse people, feminists, members of minority religions, and communists of being demons or possessed by demons or aligned with demons. That creates a basis for even something as seemingly tautological as “demons are always evil” to be read as right wing-coded.
I think people are huge nerds
Yeah, guilty
The demons are fascists
The only good fascist is a dead fascist
How does that in any way address the comment it’s replying to?
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Chainsaw Man and JJK are examples of what the writer of Frieren was trying to subvert. i.e. they have demons that are trying to change or it shows change is possible. Frieren wanted to play against the trend by going “Nope! Our demons are just classically evil.”
Unfortunately the writer didn’t think about the implications or why other stories were trying to move away from the trope to begin with. I don’t think they actively sat down and were all “Hehehehehe I’m gonna do a racism!” or are even racist to begin with. They just unintentionally created something racist because they live in a racist world with racist history that’s impossible to ignore.
The story would be fine if racism wasn’t real, but that’s not the world we live in.
Oh so you think making them 99.9999% evil instead of 100.00% evil is a meaningful story distinction huh i see lesson learned you can avoid nerd criticism for having your literally evil evils be evil as long as there’s 1 or two of “the good ones,” racism defeated
I already find “race essentialism in fantasy media is a 1:1 with real life racism” to be tedious nerd shit when people are talking about orcs and goblins and shit but it’s even more tedious when we’re talking about devils and demons and things which are conceptually linked with evil and the moment they’re not they stop being ‘demons’ or ‘devils’
I already find “race essentialism in fantasy media is a 1:1 with real life racism” to be tedious nerd shit when people are talking about orcs and goblins and shit
That’s nice, I find fantasies of being able to righteously commit genocide tedious.
devils and demons and things which are conceptually linked with evil and the moment they’re not they stop being ‘demons’ or ‘devils’
Is communism evil?
[CW: Homophobia] Is homosexuality evil?
[CW: Misogyny] Is feminism evil?
It seems to me that a lot of demonic things are, in fact, objectively cool and good
Chainsaw man doesnt do a fascism because the framing of 99.99% evil is not true to the story at all. The premise is that devils are formed from human fears so things like a “coffee devil” wouldn’t be as strong as a “spider” one.
The main cast of part 1 includes devil/devil adjacent characters and the main character also has a devil companion within him who saves his life after being treated kindly and with love by the protagonist as a child.
part 1 chainsaw man spoilers
The underlying conflict of part 1 is not that devils will wipe out humanity so we have to genocide them because it’s revealed that devils reincarnate even after being killed. You can’t kill them you have to either change society to not fear them or use devils like the chainsaw devil to completely eliminate them and the concept they represent from existence. The show asks you to question the devil hunting squads and whether what they’re doing is actually helping society or just perpetuating the same trauma that gives rise to more powerful and out of control devils.
The main antagonist of part 1 is makima who is the control devil shaped by Japanese ruling class’ desire for militarization and complete submission of its society. She is the one that manipulates denji into working for her so she can use the chainsaw devil power to completely eliminate other devils. Its also revealed that the most powerful nations in the world are also keeping gun devil parts for themselves which act as a stand in for nuclear weapons, driving up fear of the gun devil to increase its power. Also from that note, the devils in CSM disobey any sort of human metaphysical logic. They don’t follow the “rules of nature” at all (unlike the demons in frieren who share the mana system). Devils can go from being a giant tomato to bending the fabric of reality itself.
The driving conflict of CSM is from its distinctly human characters and human society. There is no “demon army” or demon race whose only deserving response is to be killed and exterminated like pests lest you make the mistake of emapthy.
What are the dots above the eyebrows
those are the eyebrows, the lines below them are meant to be structure of the eyesocket peeking through.
Interesting design
they’re modeled after a heien period beauty standard noblewomen did called ‘hikimayu’ (shaving the brows and painting on your own). I’m anime these brows are often put on characters to confer royalty or a haughty demeanor
That and the black teeth are some weird shit
