Not really, she really is just an old elf lady who looks like a young adult human. There’s nothing sexualised about her, and she’s not childlike. For example here she is next to a human child who becomes her apprentice:
And here she is talking to a human priest she was adventuring with 50 years ago, he’s grown old, she hasn’t changed:
And here she is head patting him, to give him reassurance that he did well after he confides that he never felt like he figured out how to be “a grown up” and just kept faking it while growing old:
The human child is Fern, and the old Priest Heiter picked her up after she was orphaned by a demon attack. Heiter asks Frieren to keep taking care of Fern after his death, and mentor her in magic.
It’s a really nice relationship driven story with an interesting storyline and magic system.
As everyone else has said, she’s not a child-but-actually-ancient. The show is not about sex. It’s about mortality. I started watching it, and I want to continue, but it’s really depressing. I wasn’t in the right mood to keep going.
As far as I’m aware, there are absolutely no sexual undertones in the show. It’s sometimes funny, but it’s also pretty serious.
That trope bothers me too, but basically any anime female is going to look the same anywhere from 12 to 40 due to the way the features are stylized. So, looking for context clues is how you find the age of a character if it’s not explicitly said. Frieren is absolutely treated like, dresses like, and acts like an adult. She’s smaller than a human man, larger than a dwarf or human child, and while she’s infantalized a little by Fern it’s very much in the “how are you this old and still not taking responsibility for x” way.
As much as I fuckin love Frieren they totally sexualize Fern when she’s under 18, though tbh it does feel less gross than usual considering how clothed she is & the weird relationship she has with her master
Frieren is suuuuuper jealous of Fern once she starts developing (with the show repeatedly using camera angles to show it) and Fern’s 18th birthday is in the later half of the first season. It was funny and rather realistic having been around girls that behaved like that, but as an adult man it was obvious the camera had a serious liking of staring at Fern’s chest whenever it could
I don’t remember Fern being sexualized or the camera lingering weirdly… Only that they give Frieren the typical chest envy, and have Fern fill out quite well in contrast, but that’s played as a joke I’d say.
But it could also be that I’m desensitized, having seen so much actual straight up fan service by now.
Frieren is very violent. Amazing show, but definitely not for kids.
Bocchi has exactly one fanservice gag I can recall, but it’s a fairly tame one. Probably fine, the whole rest of the show has nothing else inappropriate I can think of. It is sub-only though, so I guess it really depends on whether she’s fine with reading subtitles?
Delicious in Dungeon, some violence but nothing gory, compared to Frieren I don’t think it’s too much.
I haven’t seen the other one that was mentioned so I can’t speak for it.
Honestly I’d say it depends on your daughter and what you think she can handle. I’m not a parent, so it’s hard for me to judge. Maybe screen a few episodes for yourself and decide what you think is appropriate?
Edit: Though just to add one more nomination for you, Little Witch Academia immediately comes to mind as a show I think would be absolutely perfect for that age.
For those unititiated, this anime movie includes a woman who is literally toxic to sleep with. Her body poisons any of her partner and they die shortly after.
This is confirmed with a scene where someone sleeps with her against her will. It is very not appropriate for a 12 year old.
It was absolutely not appropriate. Add to that the HORRIFICALLY gratuitous dismemberment, decapitation, and other gruesome acts of torture… the fucking honestly was the LEAST of the issue.
My little brain was like “whoaaaa… anime is bad ass!”
Then I moved on to stuff like Azumanga, Excel Saga, and Cat Soup. Yknow, the hardcore stuff.
If she has creative passions, she might love Hands Off My Eizouken. It’s a show about 3 high school girls who start their own anime club, and work on making a short animation for their first project. The girls are all just girls, weird fun gremlins, whacky passionate kids who want to make something cool together. I can’t remember anything problematic, they even managed to avoid sexualizing a bath episode, but you should screen it first obviously.
Bocchi would be great for any kid who has had or does have trouble fitting in due to being quirky or different, and has a similar premise of girls getting together to be creative but a different (but also good) vibe.
Agreeing with the other posters that Frieren wouldn’t be a good choice yet. Delicious in Dungeon might be, but that would be kid dependent and another you would want to screen first to see how you think she’d take it. The tone is mostly light and goofy but there are definitely some scary moments in there.
Missingno mentioned Little Witch Academia and I would absolutely second that, it’s cute and wholesome and definitely appropriate for kids
I mentioned it above, but i think you should check out “campfire cooking in a strange world with my unique skill.” There’s some monster violence but no people get hurt, for what that’s worth. Overall, thematically, it’s very light and comedic. There might be a few curse words but nothing crazy i don’t think…
i wasn’t watching it with the lens of how it would be for children so your mileage may vary, but it was very light-hearted and silly.
As an enjoyer of non-fanservice Animé, but knowing how different people around the world have different attitudes to appropriateness, I’m going to say that you’re going to have to carefully filter any list yourself.
For example, all of Girls Under Panzer is free from fan service / sexualization, (apart from the short OVAs which are nothing but that stuff) … but some people don’t like it’s playful attitude to WW2 history.
SuperCub is another series that features zero sexualisation, but contains themes around depression, isolation, and struggling with interpersonal relationships.
Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, again no sexualization but features fighting against patriarchal systems and a love story of lesbanins.
It’s possible that none of these are appropriate for your daughter, when I was 11 I would have devoured them and come back for more.
Then there’s stuff like Born in Abyss which looks like a cutesy kids adventure but then descends into multiple layers of horror … so, tread carefully.
It’s so good! It’s one of my absolute favorites too. The highschool girls are just all believable and grounded characters with real personalities and quirks. The whole thing is really well done.
It’s a great show but Winry does wear unnecessarily revealing clothes. I guess a big deal isn’t made out of it. The one that’s a major omission is Spy X Family actually
She was specifically drawn that way, it’s not like it was an accident. I acknowledge in her case it’s subjective though because I can’t remember any gratuitous angles and they don’t really focus on it.
You … DO realize that kind of judgement is merely a slightly more benign version of the same misogyny as the, “look what she was wearing! She was asking for it” type of thinking, right…? You realize at least some women choose to look pretty without wanting to be oggled or abused, right?
Women with large breasts and slim frames just exist as human beings in reality, but when it’s drawn in anime it’s a choice. Having the “camera” focus on upskirt shots or side boob is a choice. Animating boob bounce is a choice. So a 15 year old depicted in micro skirts and a bandeau, that has a bath scene and a scene where she takes her top off is a choice. This is in the context of a thread talking about anime sexualizing minors. If Winry was a living, breathing girl, she could make those choices herself, in the privacy of her own life, but this is an anime character where she was specifically drawn that way in an industry that is overwhelmingly male dominated. FMA:B IS a very good show, and Winry is a real character with actual traits and a personality, but pretending that all of these design and story decisions weren’t made on purpose by people who almost certainly were adult men is naive.
It also depicts racial minorities often kinda poorly, at least artistically. It’s been a while though. I don’t remember it treating them badly plotwise, just made some of them look like caricatures.
All the classics like the Ghibli stuff. Lots of more serious stuff doesnt have those issues either like Vinland Saga or Attack on Titan. Also cute stuff like Yuru Camp.
It’s not that short, you just need to pick a genre different from shounen if you don’t like fanservice. Also many older shounen are good, think about the Digimon, Pokémon and Gundam franchises to name a few famous ones.
Yes, and that is exactly the moral dilemma Tolkien had. He believed that killing orcs are wrong unless there is a very good reason, so he would have thought it was wrong to kill demons unless there is a very good reason.
I don’t think he does. The whole point of Sauron trying to enslave Middle Earth is exactly the justification you need for the mass slaughter of the “enemy”. If the orcs were spending the days idly farming and smoking hobbit pipes, you would have a whole other argument against genocide.
Creatures with free will and intelligence who evolved those capabilities (and speech) with the sole purpose of being better at hunting humans.
Creatures with free will and intelligence who eat humans. Not because they need to eat humans, mind, they’re perfectly fine eating other things, but because they genetically like to kill and eat humans.
Creatures with free will and intelligence who are biologically incapable of feeling emotions like empathy, sympathy, guilt, or remorse. Seriously, some have spent centuries trying to learn how to feel them, and have failed.
Creatures with free will and intelligence who’ll be the first to admit that they’re better described as savage deceitful beasts, and that it’d be foolish and suicidal to trust them as far as you can throw them.
And, that said, Frieren the character advocates (with extremely good evidence backed reason) for their genocide, but the book and the authors don’t seem to do the same thing.
There’s plenty of characters that try to get along with demons, or trust them (and often pay dearly for it), and plenty of chapters where we see the demons’ point of view and can’t fail but to somewhat empathize with them, even if they’d be unable to reciprocate.
At no point do the book or the authors try to make the readers hate demons. They make us fear them, sure, but mostly they make us feel empathy and pity for them.
Hell, the fourth fan favourite character is a demon (and what a fantastic character it is).
The first four episodes were released at once and it’s recommended to watch them in one sitting.
While season 1 has some great demon characters (and a lot of great non-demon ones), that fourth fan favourite one won’t show up until season 2, which is currently in production and is expected to come out in January 2026.
Why is that sad? The depiction of demons as creatures that are incapable of empathy and exploit human compassion as an evolutionary strategy is interesting and makes for good drama and moral conflicts in the show. I’m honestly tired of the standard plot about demons just being misunderstood poor little babies that humans bully for seemingly no reason. I understand why that is a popular theme - it resonates with most of our own history after all, but it’s been done to absolute death.
They are shown to have morality and free will, so there are some who can follow and believe our morality. Every time Frieren fires first she is in the wrong.
I would also enjoy that kind of story, but then the author wanted to make demons interesting and gave them free will and morality. This is what ruins the show for me.
They do have free will but where have you seen any depiction of morality as humans understand it? You also need to understand that a characters thoughts and actions are up to your own interpretation and do not necessarily reflect the authors opinions. Even if I were to disagree with Frieren the character as strongly as you seem to, then it still wouldn’t detract from my enjoyment of the show. I don’t need my entertainment to regurgitate my own morals to me.
The morality I speak of is the one of hierarchy and magical power. The fact that they have both a moral system and free will means that they can chose to adopt another moral system. Frieren can’t know if every demon follows the same system.
That’s not a moral system, that’s mere survival instinct.
A (Frieren’s world) demon will always do what best serves their own interests; if a more powerful demon tells them to do something they’ll do it out of pure self preservation, and bide their time until they can be the one on top, or at least get away and carry on on their own.
No morality is involved, because morality as a concept (as we humans understand it) is so alien to them as colours to someone born blind.
Frieren has known many demons, including Macht. She has studied them for a thousand years. She can and does know.
By definition, if a demon learned how to feel empathy, or compassion, or anything like that, it would no longer be a demon.
But the point is moot, because it’s been demonstrated that they biologically can’t feel those emotions, even if they wanted to.
Other people have already provides detailed examples, while you have not, in this thread AND one 2 weeks ago. I don’t see any point in arguing with you because you’ve clearly decided you don’t like the show and that’s ok, but going on every thread where frieren comes up and insisting it’s glorifying actual human genocide is ridiculous and exhausting.
Sorry to say this, but this a genuine belief I have that makes me unable to enjoy Frieren :(
I hope that the writer solves this conundrum by either making it clear that demons don’t have free will, or make it so that Frieren doesn’t want to commit a genocide.
Frieren’s emotions on the matter are addressed in episode 7.
Episode 7 and 8
The demons acted as peace envoys.
Its turns out that was a lie to get the humans to turn off the magic force field so they could attack with their demon armies.
Frieren’s indifference to killing demons is shown to be a necessity for survival.
It can be a bit hard to wrap our heads around. Humans don’t really face natural predators anymore, so it can be tough for many of us to imagine the kill or get eaten life style.
Imagine if man-eating spiders started to talk to us, transformed to look like us and became our friends only so we’d let our guard down and open the door to the their spider army.
Humans squash bugs indifferently all the time. To Frieren, demons are man-eating bugs that need squashing.
As for free will, the demons we see do seem have free will, which they use to kill humans, again its a kill or be killed world. It’s about survival, not a senseless eradication of a group of people.
Qual from ep2 seemed like a nice guy, until you remember he invited the killing spell is being executed for the mass-muder of humans, 80 years in the past.
If Frieren doesn’t kill the demons, the demons will kill them.
The difference between child Hitler and a demon, is that Frieren knows what the demon will do in the future, just like we know what happens when you release a hungry lion in a room full of antalope.
Frieren might be shooting first in the battle, but the demons shot first in the war.
The demons use human sympathy to gain trust and it works. You feel for them, you want to protect them, may even be attracted to them, and give them a chance and that’s their whole stick. They’re just hungry lions that transformed to look like their prey.
Hitler, and the Nazis, had believed that certain groups of people were inferior and a that only a superior race should exist.
So what did the rest of the world do? Those that could fight, fought back to survive and protect those that couldn’t.
If we’re going to compare roles;
Demon king is Hitler, demons are the Nazi forces, Frieren and her party are the allied forces. In the show Frieren is defeating the remnants of an active terrorist cell following in the footsteps of the demon king/Hitler.
If you try to put Frieren in the Hitler role, it doesnt make sense. She doesn’t go from town to town murdering anything that’s not an elf. She’s not gaining followers to take over the kingdoms.
You could call Frieren racist towards demons; but if a group murdered your entire village, and you watch them do it to countless others over a thousand years, never meeting a “nice” demon, you’d provably learn to shoot first too.
I don’t want to campare her with the nazis, just that she personally wants a genocide (the extermination of all demons regardless if they are evil or not).
Macht abstained from killing humans for decades, so it’s not like this is a biological need, it’s something they choos. So by this logic there can be demons who doesn’t want to kill at all. If Frieren encountered such a demon she would not hesitate to murder them, even if they are more innocent than herself.
Yes, it is a war. Almost all demons they meet (and kill) are soldiers. But Frieren’s philosophy is one of total annihilation. She wants to kill all demons, no matter if they’ve killed or not.
The problem is that the author seems to want to make this philosophy the morally just one in universe while at the same time giving demons the ability to chose if they want to kill or not. I’m more irritated at the author for not thinking things through.
Watch season 2 when it comes out. Probably the second half. The Macht flashbacks.
Somewhat spoily details.
You’ll get the point of view of a demon trying his best to become something that can coexist with humans without one of the two having to go extinct. And failing, because such is the nature of demons in Frieren’s world.
Frieren reminds me of my readings about the 19th century Texas Rangers (see Cult of Glory (2020) by Doug J. Swanson) and how Native Americans were literally seen as vermin to be exterminated, even if they assisted in exterminating other indigenous. In real life, a lack of communication and 15th century epidemics divided indigenous peoples who could have otherwise defended their sovereignty; once indigenous children learned the conquering host people’s language (English) and affirmative action applied to close egregious wealth gaps, indigenous people have proved to be ordinary people with another skin color (evidence: me, a member of the Navajo Nation). Frieren, in contrast, portrays a demon child as being irredeemably evil even though they learn the host language and are given second chances and extra attention (by the Himmel); the author implies there is some cognitive divide due to demons being solitary creatures who raise and teach themselves from a very early age (presumably much earlier than the failed experiment Himmel performed); however, that subtlety isn’t emphasized and demons are more akin to starfish aliens than people.
Overall, I think provoking controversy and discussion around this point is valuable because it invites people to debate the nature of Otherness. In which ways can a person be different enough before they stop being people? What exactly are the differences between “person” and “beast”? Is focusing on those differences the root cause of genocide? Do we hesitate to relax the requirements to be considered a person because we dislike the economic consequences? (e.g. the horror of teaching factory farmed animals to speak)
I personally consider demons in Frieren analogous to indigenous before colonizing powers, albeit sustained by their long life spans and tendency to independently discover powerful technology (magic). I doubt the author is thinking very hard along these lines, and so fear they will fall back on tried and true story patterns in which animalistic heathens are purged to make way for civilization. But I hope to be surprised.
Thank you, that’s a very nice writeup. I agree with you that the author probably isn’t thinking as hard as, for example Tolkien did with his orcs. However, I wouldn’t compare the demons in Frieren to indigenous people in america. It’s clear that many demons are really violent, however, even if a lot, or even a majority, of demons are evil, we can’t condem their entire race.
We’ve seen the point of view of demons. They’re not human, or human analogues, in any way, shape, or form.
They just look and act like humans, as a form of predatory camouflage.
They’re a perfect example of blue and orange morality (warning, TV Tropes link, abandon all hope ye who enters here).
We’ve seen (in the manga) a demon spend centuries doing his best to learn how to experience empathy, sympathy, or guilt, so he and other demons can become something that can coexist with humans without one or both of them inevitably ending up extinct.
He failed.
There’s no possible long term future in Frieren’s world where both humans and demons exist, unless demons change so fundamentally that they stop being demons (which would be a paradox of sorts, as real demons would then be extinct).
Demons have one choice: remain true to their nature and eat or exterminate all humans, or cease to be.
Humans have one choice: let themselves be exterminated, or exterminate all demons.
No side is committing genocide, they’re just fighting for their own survival, in a world that gives them no other option.
The entire plot revolves around Guts’ unhealthy relationship with Griffith. And there are 2 underage looking characters that want to steal Guts from him.
I enjoyed Attack on Titan, but halfway through I realized I could literally not root for any of its characters. And by the end, I hated almost all of them.
It was basically “where the hell are they going with that story” more than anything. But it was worth it.
I don’t even know what’s on that one page
Delicious in Dungeon, Frieren, Hands off my Eizouken, and Bocchi the Rock probably
Edited to add Spy x Family, and I suppose Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood depending on if one feels Winry is sexualized.
Don’t worry, the number of people saying Frieren is a child is astounding
Oh, that old chestnut.
Not really, she really is just an old elf lady who looks like a young adult human. There’s nothing sexualised about her, and she’s not childlike. For example here she is next to a human child who becomes her apprentice:
And here she is talking to a human priest she was adventuring with 50 years ago, he’s grown old, she hasn’t changed:
And here she is head patting him, to give him reassurance that he did well after he confides that he never felt like he figured out how to be “a grown up” and just kept faking it while growing old:
The human child is Fern, and the old Priest Heiter picked her up after she was orphaned by a demon attack. Heiter asks Frieren to keep taking care of Fern after his death, and mentor her in magic.
It’s a really nice relationship driven story with an interesting storyline and magic system.
That’s a nice change of pace.
It’s not the 1000-year-old-who-looks-8 trope, it’s the 1000-year-old-who-looks-25 trope. She’s never portrayed as anything close to childlike.
As everyone else has said, she’s not a child-but-actually-ancient. The show is not about sex. It’s about mortality. I started watching it, and I want to continue, but it’s really depressing. I wasn’t in the right mood to keep going.
As far as I’m aware, there are absolutely no sexual undertones in the show. It’s sometimes funny, but it’s also pretty serious.
That trope bothers me too, but basically any anime female is going to look the same anywhere from 12 to 40 due to the way the features are stylized. So, looking for context clues is how you find the age of a character if it’s not explicitly said. Frieren is absolutely treated like, dresses like, and acts like an adult. She’s smaller than a human man, larger than a dwarf or human child, and while she’s infantalized a little by Fern it’s very much in the “how are you this old and still not taking responsibility for x” way.
Medalist
By the grace of gods
Non non biyori
Laid back camp
The ancient magus bride
New game
Himouto Umaru chan
In the land of Leadale
I’ve been killing slimes for 300 years
Kuma kuma kuma bear
Log horizon
Ranking of kings
Shadows house
Spy x family
Spice and Wolf
Ascendance of a bookworm
Girls und panzer
Girls Under Panzer put all the fan service into a separate series of short (under 5 mins) OVAs, so it’s avoidable but does exist …
Prince of tennis I think is clean
I feel like campfire cooking would fall into this as well
As much as I fuckin love Frieren they totally sexualize Fern when she’s under 18, though tbh it does feel less gross than usual considering how clothed she is & the weird relationship she has with her master
Frieren is suuuuuper jealous of Fern once she starts developing (with the show repeatedly using camera angles to show it) and Fern’s 18th birthday is in the later half of the first season. It was funny and rather realistic having been around girls that behaved like that, but as an adult man it was obvious the camera had a serious liking of staring at Fern’s chest whenever it could
I don’t remember Fern being sexualized or the camera lingering weirdly… Only that they give Frieren the typical chest envy, and have Fern fill out quite well in contrast, but that’s played as a joke I’d say.
But it could also be that I’m desensitized, having seen so much actual straight up fan service by now.
Hmm, I don’t remember that, so maybe I should rewatch it. I did name 4 when the illustration showed 3 haha.
My daughter (11) wants to watch more anime than what’s on Netflix. Are these good for girls that age, you’d guess?
Frieren is very violent. Amazing show, but definitely not for kids.
Bocchi has exactly one fanservice gag I can recall, but it’s a fairly tame one. Probably fine, the whole rest of the show has nothing else inappropriate I can think of. It is sub-only though, so I guess it really depends on whether she’s fine with reading subtitles?
Delicious in Dungeon, some violence but nothing gory, compared to Frieren I don’t think it’s too much.
I haven’t seen the other one that was mentioned so I can’t speak for it.
Honestly I’d say it depends on your daughter and what you think she can handle. I’m not a parent, so it’s hard for me to judge. Maybe screen a few episodes for yourself and decide what you think is appropriate?
Edit: Though just to add one more nomination for you, Little Witch Academia immediately comes to mind as a show I think would be absolutely perfect for that age.
Delicious has a bunch of fanservice but it’s all a joke and entirely focused on the dwarf character who is an old man.
Ooo yes Little Witch Academia is perfect
My dad let me rent an anime when I was 11 or 12. He was like “eh get whatever, it’s cartoons.”
I chose Ninja Scroll.
I turned out fine hahaha
For those unititiated, this anime movie includes a woman who is literally toxic to sleep with. Her body poisons any of her partner and they die shortly after.
This is confirmed with a scene where someone sleeps with her against her will. It is very not appropriate for a 12 year old.
It was absolutely not appropriate. Add to that the HORRIFICALLY gratuitous dismemberment, decapitation, and other gruesome acts of torture… the fucking honestly was the LEAST of the issue.
My little brain was like “whoaaaa… anime is bad ass!”
Then I moved on to stuff like Azumanga, Excel Saga, and Cat Soup. Yknow, the hardcore stuff.
My 11 year old sister’s recommendation for 11 year old girls: Sk8 the Infinity
It’s a campy sports anime about an underground skateboarding gang where people skate “to the death” (nobody dies).
It’s on Crunchyroll or wherever you get your anime ;)
If she has creative passions, she might love Hands Off My Eizouken. It’s a show about 3 high school girls who start their own anime club, and work on making a short animation for their first project. The girls are all just girls, weird fun gremlins, whacky passionate kids who want to make something cool together. I can’t remember anything problematic, they even managed to avoid sexualizing a bath episode, but you should screen it first obviously.
Bocchi would be great for any kid who has had or does have trouble fitting in due to being quirky or different, and has a similar premise of girls getting together to be creative but a different (but also good) vibe.
Agreeing with the other posters that Frieren wouldn’t be a good choice yet. Delicious in Dungeon might be, but that would be kid dependent and another you would want to screen first to see how you think she’d take it. The tone is mostly light and goofy but there are definitely some scary moments in there.
Missingno mentioned Little Witch Academia and I would absolutely second that, it’s cute and wholesome and definitely appropriate for kids
I mentioned it above, but i think you should check out “campfire cooking in a strange world with my unique skill.” There’s some monster violence but no people get hurt, for what that’s worth. Overall, thematically, it’s very light and comedic. There might be a few curse words but nothing crazy i don’t think…
i wasn’t watching it with the lens of how it would be for children so your mileage may vary, but it was very light-hearted and silly.
As an enjoyer of non-fanservice Animé, but knowing how different people around the world have different attitudes to appropriateness, I’m going to say that you’re going to have to carefully filter any list yourself.
For example, all of Girls Under Panzer is free from fan service / sexualization, (apart from the short OVAs which are nothing but that stuff) … but some people don’t like it’s playful attitude to WW2 history.
SuperCub is another series that features zero sexualisation, but contains themes around depression, isolation, and struggling with interpersonal relationships.
Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, again no sexualization but features fighting against patriarchal systems and a love story of lesbanins.
It’s possible that none of these are appropriate for your daughter, when I was 11 I would have devoured them and come back for more.
Then there’s stuff like Born in Abyss which looks like a cutesy kids adventure but then descends into multiple layers of horror … so, tread carefully.
Eizouken, absolutely
Maybe Saihate No Paladin, Nichijou, and Azumanga Daioh as well.
I love Azumanga, but Nichijou might be one of my favorites of all time. It’s got Azumanga vibes but cranks everything up to 100.
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This is the first time I see someone other than me mention Eizouken. One of my favorite anime
It’s so good! It’s one of my absolute favorites too. The highschool girls are just all believable and grounded characters with real personalities and quirks. The whole thing is really well done.
How you gonna leave out Full Metal Alchemist?
It’s a great show but Winry does wear unnecessarily revealing clothes. I guess a big deal isn’t made out of it. The one that’s a major omission is Spy X Family actually
She’s not sexualized but she wears a crop top thing. “Oh, the audacity”
She was specifically drawn that way, it’s not like it was an accident. I acknowledge in her case it’s subjective though because I can’t remember any gratuitous angles and they don’t really focus on it.
You … DO realize that kind of judgement is merely a slightly more benign version of the same misogyny as the, “look what she was wearing! She was asking for it” type of thinking, right…? You realize at least some women choose to look pretty without wanting to be oggled or abused, right?
Women with large breasts and slim frames just exist as human beings in reality, but when it’s drawn in anime it’s a choice. Having the “camera” focus on upskirt shots or side boob is a choice. Animating boob bounce is a choice. So a 15 year old depicted in micro skirts and a bandeau, that has a bath scene and a scene where she takes her top off is a choice. This is in the context of a thread talking about anime sexualizing minors. If Winry was a living, breathing girl, she could make those choices herself, in the privacy of her own life, but this is an anime character where she was specifically drawn that way in an industry that is overwhelmingly male dominated. FMA:B IS a very good show, and Winry is a real character with actual traits and a personality, but pretending that all of these design and story decisions weren’t made on purpose by people who almost certainly were adult men is naive.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aAOegc0ezGk&pp=ygUQd2lucnkgYmF0aCBzY2VuZdIHCQmNCQGHKiGM7w%3D%3D
Skullface Bookseller Honda-san is very respectable, though completely bonkers.
Oh no, im almost out of good anime :c
Full Metal Alchemist brotherhood, maybe.
Yup it’s only one I can think of in the good animes that doesn’t glorify unhealthy relationships.
Them learning to let go of their mom was good. Very rare.
Winry is kinda sexualised, but only mildly, and not often
Just the one weird bathtub scene.
Well, and that time she almost accidentally flashes Ed, but they’re practically dating by that point, they just haven’t come to terms with it yet.
How you got this many replies without a single mention of Cowboy Bebop is beyond me.
I love Cowboy Bebop but that series is one giant unhealthy relationship.
I don’t think it glorifies unhealthy relationships but it definitely features them
It also depicts racial minorities often kinda poorly, at least artistically. It’s been a while though. I don’t remember it treating them badly plotwise, just made some of them look like caricatures.
madoka is great too but same problem lmao
Just go with Trigun.
Vash & Knives have an unhealthy relationship, because of Rem.
Eh, they exist. You’ve got classics like Death Note and more recent stuff like Frieren. It’s definitely a short list though.
All the classics like the Ghibli stuff. Lots of more serious stuff doesnt have those issues either like Vinland Saga or Attack on Titan. Also cute stuff like Yuru Camp.
It’s not that short, you just need to pick a genre different from shounen if you don’t like fanservice. Also many older shounen are good, think about the Digimon, Pokémon and Gundam franchises to name a few famous ones.
Sadly, Frieren justifies genocide against creatures with free will and intelligence.
And so does Lord of the Rings. It’s fantasy, having obviously good people and obviously bad people you kill without remorse is part of the genre.
Yes, and that is exactly the moral dilemma Tolkien had. He believed that killing orcs are wrong unless there is a very good reason, so he would have thought it was wrong to kill demons unless there is a very good reason.
I think the orcs/demons being hell-bent on killing humans is a sufficiently good reason.
Tolkien disagrees with you.
I don’t think he does. The whole point of Sauron trying to enslave Middle Earth is exactly the justification you need for the mass slaughter of the “enemy”. If the orcs were spending the days idly farming and smoking hobbit pipes, you would have a whole other argument against genocide.
Did you read the wiki page I sent? Fighting an army isn’t the same as committing a genocide.
Creatures with free will and intelligence who evolved those capabilities (and speech) with the sole purpose of being better at hunting humans.
Creatures with free will and intelligence who eat humans. Not because they need to eat humans, mind, they’re perfectly fine eating other things, but because they genetically like to kill and eat humans.
Creatures with free will and intelligence who are biologically incapable of feeling emotions like empathy, sympathy, guilt, or remorse. Seriously, some have spent centuries trying to learn how to feel them, and have failed.
Creatures with free will and intelligence who’ll be the first to admit that they’re better described as savage deceitful beasts, and that it’d be foolish and suicidal to trust them as far as you can throw them.
And, that said, Frieren the character advocates (with extremely good evidence backed reason) for their genocide, but the book and the authors don’t seem to do the same thing.
There’s plenty of characters that try to get along with demons, or trust them (and often pay dearly for it), and plenty of chapters where we see the demons’ point of view and can’t fail but to somewhat empathize with them, even if they’d be unable to reciprocate.
At no point do the book or the authors try to make the readers hate demons. They make us fear them, sure, but mostly they make us feel empathy and pity for them.
Hell, the fourth fan favourite character is a demon (and what a fantastic character it is).
(Granted, the third are the mimics, but still.)
I had never heard of this show before today but what you just described makes it sound cool as fuck, I’m gonna check it out now
Couple tidbits before you get to it:
Why is that sad? The depiction of demons as creatures that are incapable of empathy and exploit human compassion as an evolutionary strategy is interesting and makes for good drama and moral conflicts in the show. I’m honestly tired of the standard plot about demons just being misunderstood poor little babies that humans bully for seemingly no reason. I understand why that is a popular theme - it resonates with most of our own history after all, but it’s been done to absolute death.
They are shown to have morality and free will, so there are some who can follow and believe our morality. Every time Frieren fires first she is in the wrong.
I would also enjoy that kind of story, but then the author wanted to make demons interesting and gave them free will and morality. This is what ruins the show for me.
They do have free will but where have you seen any depiction of morality as humans understand it? You also need to understand that a characters thoughts and actions are up to your own interpretation and do not necessarily reflect the authors opinions. Even if I were to disagree with Frieren the character as strongly as you seem to, then it still wouldn’t detract from my enjoyment of the show. I don’t need my entertainment to regurgitate my own morals to me.
The morality I speak of is the one of hierarchy and magical power. The fact that they have both a moral system and free will means that they can chose to adopt another moral system. Frieren can’t know if every demon follows the same system.
That’s not a moral system, that’s mere survival instinct.
A (Frieren’s world) demon will always do what best serves their own interests; if a more powerful demon tells them to do something they’ll do it out of pure self preservation, and bide their time until they can be the one on top, or at least get away and carry on on their own.
No morality is involved, because morality as a concept (as we humans understand it) is so alien to them as colours to someone born blind.
Frieren has known many demons, including Macht. She has studied them for a thousand years. She can and does know.
By definition, if a demon learned how to feel empathy, or compassion, or anything like that, it would no longer be a demon.
But the point is moot, because it’s been demonstrated that they biologically can’t feel those emotions, even if they wanted to.
You either haven’t watched or are making up headcanon to justify your opinion.
What disagreement do you have with what I’ve said? I’ve watched the anime and even read through the manga, up to when they defeat the golden demon.
Other people have already provides detailed examples, while you have not, in this thread AND one 2 weeks ago. I don’t see any point in arguing with you because you’ve clearly decided you don’t like the show and that’s ok, but going on every thread where frieren comes up and insisting it’s glorifying actual human genocide is ridiculous and exhausting.
I just want the author to think before he makes a character who unambiguously wants a genocide.
you dropped this, /s
Sorry to say this, but this a genuine belief I have that makes me unable to enjoy Frieren :(
I hope that the writer solves this conundrum by either making it clear that demons don’t have free will, or make it so that Frieren doesn’t want to commit a genocide.
Frieren’s emotions on the matter are addressed in episode 7.
Episode 7 and 8
The demons acted as peace envoys.
Its turns out that was a lie to get the humans to turn off the magic force field so they could attack with their demon armies.
Frieren’s indifference to killing demons is shown to be a necessity for survival.
It can be a bit hard to wrap our heads around. Humans don’t really face natural predators anymore, so it can be tough for many of us to imagine the kill or get eaten life style.
Imagine if man-eating spiders started to talk to us, transformed to look like us and became our friends only so we’d let our guard down and open the door to the their spider army. Humans squash bugs indifferently all the time. To Frieren, demons are man-eating bugs that need squashing.
As for free will, the demons we see do seem have free will, which they use to kill humans, again its a kill or be killed world. It’s about survival, not a senseless eradication of a group of people.
Qual from ep2 seemed like a nice guy, until you remember he invited the killing spell is being executed for the mass-muder of humans, 80 years in the past.
If I, a known child killer, fails to kill a child, and that child grows up to become Hitler. I am then not justified in the murder I attempted.
As long as the demons have free will Frieren will always be in the wrong for shooting first.
If Frieren doesn’t kill the demons, the demons will kill them. The difference between child Hitler and a demon, is that Frieren knows what the demon will do in the future, just like we know what happens when you release a hungry lion in a room full of antalope.
Frieren might be shooting first in the battle, but the demons shot first in the war.
The demons use human sympathy to gain trust and it works. You feel for them, you want to protect them, may even be attracted to them, and give them a chance and that’s their whole stick. They’re just hungry lions that transformed to look like their prey.
Hitler, and the Nazis, had believed that certain groups of people were inferior and a that only a superior race should exist. So what did the rest of the world do? Those that could fight, fought back to survive and protect those that couldn’t.
If we’re going to compare roles; Demon king is Hitler, demons are the Nazi forces, Frieren and her party are the allied forces. In the show Frieren is defeating the remnants of an active terrorist cell following in the footsteps of the demon king/Hitler.
If you try to put Frieren in the Hitler role, it doesnt make sense. She doesn’t go from town to town murdering anything that’s not an elf. She’s not gaining followers to take over the kingdoms.
You could call Frieren racist towards demons; but if a group murdered your entire village, and you watch them do it to countless others over a thousand years, never meeting a “nice” demon, you’d provably learn to shoot first too.
I don’t want to campare her with the nazis, just that she personally wants a genocide (the extermination of all demons regardless if they are evil or not).
Macht abstained from killing humans for decades, so it’s not like this is a biological need, it’s something they choos. So by this logic there can be demons who doesn’t want to kill at all. If Frieren encountered such a demon she would not hesitate to murder them, even if they are more innocent than herself.
As someone who hasn’t watched frieren, this seems more like a war than a genocide
Yes, it is a war. Almost all demons they meet (and kill) are soldiers. But Frieren’s philosophy is one of total annihilation. She wants to kill all demons, no matter if they’ve killed or not.
The problem is that the author seems to want to make this philosophy the morally just one in universe while at the same time giving demons the ability to chose if they want to kill or not. I’m more irritated at the author for not thinking things through.
Watch season 2 when it comes out. Probably the second half. The Macht flashbacks.
Somewhat spoily details.
You’ll get the point of view of a demon trying his best to become something that can coexist with humans without one of the two having to go extinct. And failing, because such is the nature of demons in Frieren’s world.
Frieren reminds me of my readings about the 19th century Texas Rangers (see Cult of Glory (2020) by Doug J. Swanson) and how Native Americans were literally seen as vermin to be exterminated, even if they assisted in exterminating other indigenous. In real life, a lack of communication and 15th century epidemics divided indigenous peoples who could have otherwise defended their sovereignty; once indigenous children learned the conquering host people’s language (English) and affirmative action applied to close egregious wealth gaps, indigenous people have proved to be ordinary people with another skin color (evidence: me, a member of the Navajo Nation). Frieren, in contrast, portrays a demon child as being irredeemably evil even though they learn the host language and are given second chances and extra attention (by the Himmel); the author implies there is some cognitive divide due to demons being solitary creatures who raise and teach themselves from a very early age (presumably much earlier than the failed experiment Himmel performed); however, that subtlety isn’t emphasized and demons are more akin to starfish aliens than people.
Overall, I think provoking controversy and discussion around this point is valuable because it invites people to debate the nature of Otherness. In which ways can a person be different enough before they stop being people? What exactly are the differences between “person” and “beast”? Is focusing on those differences the root cause of genocide? Do we hesitate to relax the requirements to be considered a person because we dislike the economic consequences? (e.g. the horror of teaching factory farmed animals to speak)
I personally consider demons in Frieren analogous to indigenous before colonizing powers, albeit sustained by their long life spans and tendency to independently discover powerful technology (magic). I doubt the author is thinking very hard along these lines, and so fear they will fall back on tried and true story patterns in which animalistic heathens are purged to make way for civilization. But I hope to be surprised.
Thank you, that’s a very nice writeup. I agree with you that the author probably isn’t thinking as hard as, for example Tolkien did with his orcs. However, I wouldn’t compare the demons in Frieren to indigenous people in america. It’s clear that many demons are really violent, however, even if a lot, or even a majority, of demons are evil, we can’t condem their entire race.
We’ve seen the point of view of demons. They’re not human, or human analogues, in any way, shape, or form.
They just look and act like humans, as a form of predatory camouflage.
They’re a perfect example of blue and orange morality (warning, TV Tropes link, abandon all hope ye who enters here).
We’ve seen (in the manga) a demon spend centuries doing his best to learn how to experience empathy, sympathy, or guilt, so he and other demons can become something that can coexist with humans without one or both of them inevitably ending up extinct.
He failed.
There’s no possible long term future in Frieren’s world where both humans and demons exist, unless demons change so fundamentally that they stop being demons (which would be a paradox of sorts, as real demons would then be extinct).
Demons have one choice: remain true to their nature and eat or exterminate all humans, or cease to be.
Humans have one choice: let themselves be exterminated, or exterminate all demons.
No side is committing genocide, they’re just fighting for their own survival, in a world that gives them no other option.
I do think there are valuable conversations to be had about the concept of a creature that is considered ontologically evil and wholly irredeemable.
But I also think reducing that conversation to “Frieren bad” sucks.
You’ve never seen Spice and Wolf? Chihayafuru? Hibike! Euphonium? Mushishi? Samurai Champloo? Death Note? Inferno Cop?
Okay but Death Note is nothing but unhealthy relationships
I’m going to take a potato chip… AND EAT IT!!1!
Dunno, sounds about right to me.
Full metal Alchemist is my bet.
Otherwise I know a lot of good animes but they tend to glorify unhealthy relationships looks at the space cowboy murdering people.
Monster.
Cory in the House?
Greatest anime ever
Berserk
The entire plot revolves around Guts’ unhealthy relationship with Griffith. And there are 2 underage looking characters that want to steal Guts from him.
I love Berserk but uh Schierke having a weird crush on Guts definitely treads on the sexualizing-young-characters trope
Jojo?
Just gonna forget about the rape ape are we?
The one enemy that appears briefly before getting beaten up into oblivion?
I agree that a lot of dark stuff happens in Jojo (heck, the protagonist of the 5th saga is a mafia boss), maybe it’s best for mature audiences.
I think I blocked that out of my mind. Why did you have to remind me?
Monster was pretty good. 🤷♀️
EDIT Shit someone already did that one.
Uh.
Uh!
Shigurui didn’t have any weird relationship shit I don’t think??
Attack on Titan doesn’t have any of the like underage stuff, though basically the whole show is based around a toxic relationship
I enjoyed Attack on Titan, but halfway through I realized I could literally not root for any of its characters. And by the end, I hated almost all of them.
It was basically “where the hell are they going with that story” more than anything. But it was worth it.
Yeah who by the end you can actually root for? Jean and conney?
Those would be the two I’d choose if I had to, probably.
Silent voice, your name, weathering with you and everything from studio ghibli (I personally love porco rosso)
Eden of the East I think fits. There’s definitely unhealthy relationships, but they’re not glorified by any means, quite the opposite in fact.
One of my favs personally, short enough to jump in and finish easily as well for new viewers.