Frieren Anime and Frieren Luminasta and Fern Game Prize Figures

I think this is my favourite anime and manga right now from the last two years, beating out Kaiju No. 8 and Witch From Mercury, but not Lycoris Recoil. Frieren is a good blend of slower storytelling in a relaxed style with intense action sequences. There is a fair bit of death in this show whenever humans meet demons, but it isn't excessive in Frieren's personal narrative as the death happens out of her perview, which is something I appreciate. While I like Reincarnated as a Slime and parts of Overlord, these series have too much mass death to be "fun" sometimes. Overlord is just dark humour and Slime is charming, but how Rimuru becomes a Demonlord is kind of dark. Lycoris Recoil glosses over a lot of the potential fatalities with rubber bullets so it is more like a more serious Girls und Panzer. Who knew tank battles could end up with bruises only (I like Girls und Panzer as fun fantasy BTW)!

Frieren has a great high fantasy feel to it and does enough world building to make it feel complete. While not comprehensive, there is plenty of lore in the manga where it drops hints about the history between demons and humans, how magic works, and clues about the layout of the land. Even now, 11 volumes into the manga I really don't have a good feel for the geography of the place other than the fact that Frieren's second party is still heading north. Some anime/manga such as Delicious in Dungeon definitely has more lore even though it is focused on a single dungeon (aka world).  

Frieren Luminasta figure outdoors.  Looks like she could be casting!

Despite what I have just said, I admire Frieren's world building as it provides enough backdrop to the story so that the focus is really on the characters and their current situation. I'm a speculative fiction writer myself, so I know this takes skill to do just the right amount of world building, and the fact that the flashbacks work well in the manga. I don't think they work quite as well in the anime as the flashbacks slow down the current action - but anime tends to drag out many events anyhow. Flashbacks are not the preferred way of bringing in character history, but anime/manga do this quite a bit.

The artwork for the manga is nice and crisp and very well done. For the anime, the adaptation held closely to the story and art style too. I also love the soundtrack composed for it by Evan Call. It brings just the right amount of medieval/celtic and action music for the series. Who doesn't like the Zoltrak music?  I'm always waiting for the next installment of the manga which is well ahead of the anime. The anime also has some really awesome spell casting scenes, much like the fight scenes from Demonslayer.

Frieren is my favourite elf wizard of all time who only desires to search for magic spells on her own. Despite wanting to be alone, she is good natured at her core and is correctly merciless towards demons. She also has come to value her shorter-lived human and dwarven friends over her long life span to cherise them, and experiences the loss of loved ones. Frieren has an original take on the hero's party kills the demonlord trope and I want to see more of her journey with a second hero's party with her leading this time.  Fern is an awesome apprentice too who loves her teacher, despite her rough edges in dealing with other people.

My Frieren prize catcher figures from Japan.

Closeup of the fronts of the Sega prize boxes for Fern and Frieren.

These are approximately 1/8 scale.  They capture both Frieren and Fern in a walking pose.  It looks like something caught their eye as they walked when you put them together.

These are simple figures without shading and depend mainly on the colour of the plastic.  Details are molded and painted over in trims.  The faces are well done though, capturing some content, slightly quizzical expressions.

I kind of wish the figures had their staves, so I ended up looking on Amazon.ca and found a version for Frieren as a Luminasta figure.  Luminastas are budget figures that are a cut above your typical UFO prize catcher in detail and quality.  There wasn't a version for Fern though.

Frieren Luminasta box.

Front of Frieren Luminasta box.

Closeup of Frieren Luminasta with staff.  Her face and hair are nicely done.

Another view of the front of Frieren.  It's a pretty nice figure for $35 Canadian.

I put Frieren and Fern together from both sets her.  They look pretty good together except for the mismatched bases.

That's it for my Frieren figures and commentary on the anime/manga for now.

Other Anime Related Articles

Other Japanese Pop Culture Articles
Follow me on Twitter or Instagram at @Tostzilla or my feedburner.