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The Fall 2023 Anime Preview Guide

From what I understand of the show in question, it may be grooming and is clearly portraying a significant age-gap relationship, but I don't think I'd call it pedophilia, no. I mentioned pedophilia because your line of reasoning is identical to the kind that is used (and has recently been used) to defend shows that unambiguously portray pedophilic content as well (in fact, this show came up as an example in the recent Mushoku Tensei thread), and I was listing off the general things that kind of defense is commonly deployed in defense of. I don't know how else to have this conversation; if you don't address the ways that argument is commonly used, then it isn't even clear what it is you're asking the reviewers to 'account for' as if it were a mere cultural difference.

Anyway, I dunno -- I guess you can hope, obviously. On the opposite side, I hope ANN's reviewers maintain their ethical integrity and largely avoid using 'cultural difference' as a way of excusing gross portrayals of traumatic or damaging actions. I'll leave it at that, since this isn't really the purpose of this thread, and this kind of disturbingly common conversation easily spirals out of control.

I don’t get why you guys are always so edgy about these “morally wrong” Japanese anime. It’s part of another culture where people are fine with it i guess, it’s not like the 15 year old girl is a real human being forced into a real relationship against her will or something. It’s all just another anime story. If it’s not your cup of tea, i totally get it, it’s not mine either, but what’s the purpose of these harsh reviews every time? It’s not even made for a western audience in the first place.

nl_TvdL wrote:

I don’t get why you guys are always so edgy about these “morally wrong” Japanese anime. It’s part of another culture where people are fine with it i guess, it’s not like the 15 year old girl is a real human being forced into a real relationship against her will or something. It’s all just another anime story. If it’s not your cup of tea, i totally get it, it’s not mine either, but what’s the purpose of these harsh reviews every time? It’s not even made for a western audience in the first place.

Do you actually have an opinion on the show and how it handles the topic, or are you just interested in policing what the writers can or cannot find uncomfortable? If you like the show, I'd be happy to hear what you find interesting about it! If you're only here to complain that the writers are not desensitized to this particular story trope, I invite you to find something better to do with your time instead.

I'm very curious about why we don't see or hear about any other elves besides the title character. Is this something that the series will eventually address? (And yes, kudos to the series for having both one of the year's best debuts and one of its best OPs.)

Since I know we have people following this who have read the source material for Frieren, I'm very curious about why we don't see or hear about any other elves besides the title character. Is this something that the series will eventually address?

Key wrote:

I'm very curious about why we don't see or hear about any other elves besides the title character. Is this something that the series will eventually address? (And yes, kudos to the series for having both one of the year's best debuts and one of its best OPs.)

Yes, this is mentioned, though there's a couple other characters with long ears in the OP animation. spoiler[Essentially, Elves are nearly extinct, so rare that Frieren hasn't seen another one in over 300 years. Far as we're told the ones remaining don't seem particularly perturbed by this or interested in having children.]

Key wrote:

I'm very curious about why we don't see or hear about any other elves besides the title character. Is this something that the series will eventually address? (And yes, kudos to the series for having both one of the year's best debuts and one of its best OPs.)

Yes, this is mentioned, though there's a couple other characters with long ears in the OP animation. spoiler[Essentially, Elves are nearly extinct, so rare that Frieren hasn't seen another one in over 300 years. Far as we're told the ones remaining don't seem particularly perturbed by this or interested in having children.]

I'm certainly on the Free Range Mage hype train and I think most viewers will be too, except for contrarians who need to prove their imperviousness to popular media. I loved pretty much everything about it.