i think the main difference betwin the magic and the science(or technology if you want), is that magic souce is the mage, while scieence made by equipment same as technology. magic is similar to superpowers or ESP in that regard, the person is the source.
@@Circle9ruScientifically. Magic can be considered as an energy that affects the environment around us which con be produced and/or manipulated by a human (sentient) being Science≠Technology btw, science creates technology but technology isn't science.
@@Circle9ru what about like, magic artifacts that are just devices that can perform a specific function? are smartphones any less magical than Sauron's Palantir? why so?
I love the idea of a magic system evolving over time, with the Zoltrac being once so powerful, then becoming commonplace and basic once it was countered by defensive magic. There's also the later explaination of why most modern mages use a particular physical element.
Yeah and it just makes sense because if magic were to exist in real life, it would absolutely be studied like a science and evolve over time. We humans have such a strong desire to analyze, innovate, and advance things in any kind of subject.
Iirc the one who invented it, the demon who was sealed away, might have also been able to adapt and bypass defenses/improve given time - but he didn’t have the short window to bypass the shield
@@CalmClamFameh with the existence of magic, its scientific like method would be very late to came since magic is only available to VERY specific group of peaplo(the one that can be mages) and so to make it more exclusive and less spread magic scrolls/grimoire/knowledge or science would he scarce and only be available to peaplo that have mages in their lineage(the one that can be mages would be paid by kings/be kings, for power or money) so the only way it magic could be science like is if everyone can do magic like in black clover or like chakra in Naruto, you understand me ?
@@CalmClamFamyeah science is similar in that regard(before and during the enlightenment era, science can only be studied and accessed by educated peaplo which are usually from rich/stable(at the time) families) but magic is harder than science as beacuse well its magic it is SUPERnatural, the science of it could/would be harder to grasp than natural science
doing a bachelors and masters in physics and astrophysics makes me appreciate the magic system in frieren even more. One of the first things that stood out to me was the explanation for how zoltraak became a basic offensive move in about 80 years because it is so similar to how much science advances in such a short amount of time through study and collaboration. For example, einsten predicted the existence of gravitational waves (things that cause the fabric of spacetime to ripple because its so highly energetic) but never thought it would ever be possible to be detected from earth. In 2015( less than 100 years since einstein predicted it) we detected the first gravitational wave with these huge ass machines. and now currently theres about 90 confirmed detections. its actually crazy how far weve come. but yeah i love magic with a touch of realism and logic. its so so good. its also why i love the magic rune system in witch hat atelier. they really treat their system as a study that even to the readers make so much sense. like fans are able to draw their own runes that other fans can understand what it does. i reccommend WHA so much haha hopefully it gets an anime soon
ayyy I also have a BSc in Physics and doing a MSc in Astronomy/Astrophysics and couldn't agree more. Another fun example is the fast pace that the exoplanet field exploded since having no data beyond the solar system to confirming the first exoplanet and now we are at like 5500+ and counting!
I DM for D&D and Frieren has been as inspiration for me to help create a magic system rooted in it's study, with that 'soft but hard" feel to it. Literally learning about Quantum Physics on my free time to do it lol and I'm definitely going to Witch Hat Atelier after reading this comment! I'm trying to implement runes into the world, as well
For me magic is either science that need to understand or trick to deceive people. MAGIC IS A Technology that is unknown from someone who does not understand.
I too love the vastness of space and the many mysteries it holds (and anime like frieren ofc :D ). As a high schooler, im looking into pursuing astrophysics.. Is there anything I should do now? Programs to join? Specific classes to do? Anything that can make me look better for colleges (also college reccomendations)? What do astrophysicists even do on a day to day basis? Tell me as much as you can. And thanks in advance
What I love about frieren's magic system is the emphasis they put on imagination. Essentially, if a caster can imagine their spell working, the spell will work regardless of the opponent. We see this with Ubel, who solely goes off of the 'scissor analogy' to essentially demolish any of her opponents. It does mean that crazy people are crazy powerful but if the system rewards those who can imagine well then it's fair in a sense.
Yeah and the fact that Ubel can’t “imagine” her spell penetrating the basic defensive spell or naturally durable materials gives this seemingly overpowered spell weaknesses. I love how the series’ magic system has its checks and balances. It’s like rock, paper, scissors.
Also, I like to imagine magic tomes are just tid bits of autobiographies mixed with magic theory that serves the purpose of putting the reader in a similar mindset as the one who created that magic. Because to learn a spell is literally to think that you can do something the same way that person did. And that also ties to how Ubel is able to copy magic with just empathy. She basically goes to the source and skip the theory, she "reads" the "magic tome" that the person didn't write!
@PeyTalksAnime their are no primary pillars or categories but rather elements of what makes-up thaumaturgy and different world has own expressions, is why their overlap in the magic system I beside minecraft magic theory video
Such a small but fantastic inversion to have Himmell tell Frieren to shoot him. The expected playout of the scene is such a standard cliche across many forms of entertainment but it was turned into a much deeper scene both showing how good Himmell was and also making it much more effective emotionally because it doesnt fall into the expected trope. The show has a real knack for telling a lot with very little.
@@archimedeisconsidering the manga plot hinting at a further crisis looming, there may be room for the hero sword to be pulled yet. But since it would take like a month or two to walk back there I kinda doubt it.
@@archimedeis I’m not sure, we haven’t seen the reason all the sages and the foresight guy were actually rallying with the demon king (someone who wanted equality with humans) in the first place. The ability to bring someone back from the dead seems like it would fly in the face of the story’s themes, but if there’s an enormous cost to it (somewhat overused trope) then I guess it could fly.
One interesting tidbit is that the "3 elements of magic" scene from Episode 2 is actually anime original. In the manga, the line about 3 elements comes at the end of the previous scene (where Fern fails to hit the rock), and then it moves on to the training montage without telling the reader what those elements are or which ones Fern needs to train. I think it's a really good addition. I'm guessing this was one of the things they were able to add to the anime with the benefit of being able to read 2 seasons ahead in the manga. Obviously they added this callout of Fern's control over her mana here to foreshadow the multiple big reveals on that topic that they knew were coming later in the season.
@@xitheris1758 terribly overpriced piece of glass that you can't hope to recreate yourself in a lifetime. Ngl, our magic is low-tier, cause amount of grind, time and resources it takes to make a single artifact will force all korean MMO's die out of shame. And the only viable way to use it is "pay to win"
@@Монс-й1ь phones overpriced because companies that makes this tools just know that people will buy this scrap for 5X price. And we have things, that magicians can't dream (we can arm every human with gun, that can kill bear or lion, we can colonise our Moon (but we not do this because this not worth it), we can reverse planet into 4 billion years ago just for clicking 3 buttons, and we can make AI, that can draw photorealistic arts for seconds, ohh, and yes, we can do this without regenerate mana every minute)
I love the through line of Fern interacting with animals and hiding her presence which isn’t fully explained until the first test in the first class mage exam. Additionally I never realized the Stille bird was in the first opening until I rewatched the show.
I love the role that science-based magic plays in worldbuilding for animes like these. Another great example of a hard magic system based on science is in A Certain Scientific Railgun where every supernatural instance can be explained with science
I also like how science based or modeled on the scientific method usually boils down to a simple rules that are built upon each other to create infinite combinations
The main series (To Aru Majutsu no Index) also has some extremelly fun concepts of mixed magic (and in the main series case half the powers are actually magic). Things like Aqua's Sword that is made with modern techniques based on "what are the proportions of sword for it to actually decaptate a dragon like in the legends", or Aleister Illusions that he accounts for basically every single molecule of the thing he made up so not even specialists can dismiss it.
I have also have a suggestion where magic is solely based on science its called "Throne of the magical arcana" made by cuttlefish that love diving who also wrote Lord of the mysteries but both them are just in novel form
honestly, i found the origin and nature of demons in the show amazingly written too; evolving from monsters that mimic human speech to lure and manipulate their prey, and little moments where they acknowledge this themselves
When you look at how Christianity depicts demons, this isn't far off. They're able to be very manipulative and sound very reasonable. They know how to use just the right words to trick people, like the demon claiming to have a Father to use Empathy as a Weapon. It's honestly something you almost never see. Normally they're not very manipulative and just beings of force with some tricky. Rarely do you see this level of High Manipulation like an Evil Politician or CEO.
The evolution of magic, and Zoltraak becoming obsolete, actually feed into the series' main motif of the passage of time. The whole story starts with an elf incorrectly estimating the lifespan of humans, or the value of 10 years. Zoltrac demonstrates that life is not the only thing that comes and goes. Just like technology in our world, magic skills also have a "lifespan". We later revisit this with magic licenses (and the offices that issue them) also have a lifespan. Even the end of the animated series, as briefly mentioned at 5:11, is driven by the "time moves on, you can't stop progress" motif.
6:14 The subtle music in the background with a instrument bumping in my right ear and way your voice just flows...wow that's some nice... editing? Storytelling? Idk it was just amazing
One thing I love about Frieren's magic system is that it feels like a hard magic system built on top of the foundations of a soft magic system. The very basis of it is visualization and the possibilities are endless, but to able to use it humanity built heaps and heaps of theory on top of it.... But then comes someone like Übel and shows the viewer that the rules of magic aren't set in stone and excessive rationalization might actually hinder a mage.
outside of the hard magic part Frieren's system, we also have a level of soft magic system, with our main candidate being Ubel, as a caster's visualization of a spell is able to overwrite or ignore other spells adds in another layer of complexity and depth for characters.
The Magic in Frieren is excellent because it serves it's all perfectly as being the incomprehensibly wonderful. It's an oxymoronic paradox. A distilled science AND an arbitrary fluid art. Law AND Chaos all in one. The rules presented are merely guesses and guidelines. Humanity has a system that works, and one with its own advantages, but in attempting to comprehend the complexity of magic, it opens itself up to becoming weak to itself. Übel is an amazing character because she illustrates the strengths and flaws in humanity's current distillation of magic, how much they're "overthinking" it. In becoming so focused on understanding the abstract you missed the material and obvious. You can put 50 billion unique defense enchantments on a piece of cloth to keep it protected from any spell imaginable. Any angle of attack feasible, but you will always fail against someone who understands the basic principle that cloth exists to be cut. To a person like that, your charms are arbitrary, as are your rules. Merely suggestions. And yet Übel's own refusal to think about magic on a deeper level like scholars do also brings its own weaknesses. Yes she can perform feats that others would no longer be able to visualize, but she becomes incapable of growing past the obvious. Cloth is meant to be cut, and so is hair, but a steel pipe isn't, nor is defensive magic, so she can't cut through those, and will, never be able to how much she puts more effort into studying, which in doing so, would compromise her simplistic ideas in the process. Fern for example would be able to disintegrate a steel pipe with no effort. A truly paradoxical system like this is such a brilliant way to bring the wonder back into Magic. Just stop it from being "just science" while retaining the strengths of a hard magic system.
I found you through the Frieren retrospective analysis, immediately subbed and have been following these series of videos, and before i knew It had become my most anticipated event of the week, your analysis are in depth, accurate and relevant on the subjects portrayed in the show, as someone who has watched the entire show over 12 times by myself and with people, it’s a valuable thing to see a artist such as yourself value and analyze this show.
there was a scene when flamme meets frieren where she asks her name and knowing anime in and out i was expecting her to say her name but the subtle things in frieren's writing subverted my expectations as they skipped over her telling flamme her name since we already know it. I absolutely love this damn show and it's not just recency bias
The shield magic training also subtely conveys just how much mana Fern has since besides her and Frieren, no one uses as many shields in as many layers and as many times
One of the things I thought was interesting was how the magic system in universe has movement and momentum in its science. I feel the most important thing about it is it feels as though people are interacting with it fundimentally, over time. Many systems in fiction, both magic and science, ends up feeling like a rigid, never changing thing, unless it directly effects the party. To me another sort of theme I felt from the show was that the world is changing, and that, though things are lost, there is still more to look forward to. I mean, this is a show where the immortal elf is excited to see whats next, rather than being entirely stuck in the past, even if still pursuing it.
I’m really looking forward to the Macht arc. The idea of curses becoming magic as they’re understood was introduced in the chapter with Sein, but it really hits home with Macht. Frieren calls it the “age of humans”, though it seems like she’s helping plenty with her own contributions. I believe it was implied she was involved in the reverse engineering of Zoltraak, having been one of the few who fought Qual and survived, plus she’s pretty good with reverse engineering magics in the first place.
"Age of Humans" was getting closer and had more connotation in the imperial arc. One of the heads in the Empire actually defeated a great mage (an elf) and the details to that fight was still unknown to Serie.
I think another show that properly conveys magic as an established part of its world is Fullmetal Alchemist. Alchemy isn't magic, never do any of the characters call it that, and I think that's part of what sold me on it. It's a very clearly defined science with rigid rules, and throughout the story they reference actual studies and research that was done on alchemy.
Loving this. One nitpick. Regarding soft or hard magic systems, its a spectrum rather than a hard category. This is not really important to your video, but I wanted to mention it because its a common pitfall for new writers. I see a lot of new writers try to build really “hard” magic systems because most people agree that harder is better. This tends to cause them to overfocus on creating really strict rules, which can be exhausting, generally not a great use of theory time. Most good magic systems are somewhere between “hard” and “soft” because a system only needs to be “hard” enough for it to be used in the story. When Sanderson talks about hard vs soft magic he is mostly talking about how to use magic in the setting- setting up limitations, adequately foreshadowing things so it doesnt feel like an asspull, etc. Its about what to explain and when rather than whether they fit a category. Soft magic being unexplained magic, which is useful for creating a sense of wonder or disrupting a character’s plans. Hard magic being explained magic that follows some rule. Harder magic allows the reader to understand why something happens and predict figure events or potential threats, problems and solutions. Note that magic becoming harder as the characters and audience learn about it is a common trope. That allows the system to benefit from its “softness” and from its “hardness”. Almost all magic fits somewhere between those two vague concepts and thats generally a good thing
It's absolutely a spectrum and others have pointed out, frieren is far from just a hard magic system. I also love sanderson's opinions on magic systems. thanks for the comment
One of the things I love about Frieren magic system is that it is presented as a science (with its explained basic mechanism, theory, research and development), but still gives off the traditional "mystical" and "inexplicable" feeling often associated with magic. The disruption of Serie's barrier is the perfect example. They talk about Frieren analyzing the barrier, as if it were some sort of mathematical or technological object, but then Ganau tells its shuttering would be impossible even "if the world was going to turn upside down" and after the event Serie talks about "subverting the natural order of things". This leaves the audience feeling like something unexplainable and supernatural just happened. Talking about subverting the natural order of things, magic working through imagination falls into this category. Yes, they are actuallly explaining how magic works but how thoughts and feelings can actually influence reality structure and matter composition makes it feel less like a science and more like magic.
i wouldnt consider frieren’s magic system as science… there isnt any rule that the magic is strictly confined by. however, FMA and frieren are the few shows that treat magic as science within their shows. but to the audience, i cannot put frieren’s magic system into reality. its too ‘uncaged’. whereas FMA can be applied to reality. you know the concept and the limits of alchemy -properly ‘caged’.
@@stego- You could argue that Frieren's golden rule is visualization, as it *always* needs to happen in order to succeed in casting a spell. But you could also argue that it's not exactly confining, as the logic that leads to said visualization may vary greatly to each mage; we see Ubel cutting through an otherwise impenetrable, first class enchanted cloak like cloth using an "ordinary" physical spell, and then we watch as that same spell fails to bypass ordinary defensive barriers.
I quite like how it was touched upon in GATE (the manga at least), where a big medieval magic system suddenly had modern science introduced to it, and a mage then studied this modern research to vastly improve her own magic by now directly understanding various physical and chemical interactions
As per usual from you, great and in depth video that covers the little things, that make this show probably the greatest thing the modern media has to offer.
The Zoltrac scene was probably what got me really hooked to the anime, cause unlike other shows where "X characters magic is unbeatable, so I guess were fucked" the people in this anime go "X characters magic is unbeatable, why is that? how can we replicate it? how can we counter it?" while still acknowledging that the person who created that magic was strong during that time.
I'm also fascinated with Ubel's way of approaching magic. How if she can imagine it, she can cast it. The anime adaptation is still in the works but I believe the Magic System in Witch Hat Atelier might also be interesting. It is in fact a huge plot point for the story and characters. There is science in it as you can combine different spells, variations in strength, and again, if you can imagine it, you can cast it.
Got recommended this from a Gigguk vid explaining Witch Hat Atelier (I think thats how its spelt) being the next big fantasy anime by detailing its magic system. Very similar themes to this vid and one of my favorite concepts in Frieren. From this, I have binged through your series and love how each part is vastly different while chronologically going through the story with a holistic perspective. You probably won't come back to see this but please continue highlighting unique aspects of this masterpiece!
Non-Newtonian magic system? It's soft in that for the most part, you don't really know how the magic system works, but it's hard in that there are mechanisms and principles that are explained.
The irregular magic high school has the best magic system i think. You can feels it's not only magic logic in there but it's more like 'advanced' science that have very in depth explanation that make sense.
Gonna disagree here and will suggest you trying out "a certain magical Index", well the Light Novel at least, oh and also "A certain scientific railgun" for the science side. The magic system is not one op the top, but THE TOP magic system in all of fiction. Where else would you find a piece of fiction that build it's power system using real life mythology lore and such as a reference and did it so well that you wouldn't find a single plot hole in the system but instead foreshadowings? And each of those Magical abilities can be explained in a way that you could clearly understand how the power works despite it being magic (if you're a mythology fan, it would be even clearer). And in that astronomically large magic system exists yet ANOTHER power system called "esper power", where the powers can be explained with science and the lore also goes really deep? And despite the magic system being complicated, as I said, the abilities are always explained in such a simple way that you could understand what the ability does without understand how it actually works deeply. The magic in here is like science of Magic, it's not just simply "oh it's magic so it just works", but it makes you feel like this Magic is what Humanity REALLY studied, put effort into and actually found the logic in the system to then use it, and because of that, each time you understand how an ability really works and connect it to the lore, you will feel rewarded. The answer? No where, even if you could find one, it would be a halfassed attempt to achieve similar feat as Kamachi did with Index, after all it's 60 volumes and 20 years worth of material.
@@harrybudgeiv349 Watched? Then that explained, after all, JC Staff really F*cked up the adaptation of Index, while Railgun was alright because it IS INDEED ALRIGHT, Railgun never reached the level that Index managed to reach. So my response? Just read the Light Novel, Bro, if the Index anime is gold, the Index Light Novel is reality itself.
I am not convinced frieren has a hard magic system. On one side, you are correct, you usually have hard magic, if you want it to play a central role in the story. But on the other hand, the rules aren't as hard and universal as in other systems (e.g. mistborn has a small number of very strict rules, on which the entire system build upon), I think the anglerfish would be an example of soft magic: The author wants to tell a certain kind of story for an episodes, thus he invents a piece of magic to fit that episode with some extra rules that only apply to that one situation. In this episode it's fine, because the resolution of the conflict of that episode happens on a character-level. The random grimoires would be another example of soft magic. I like the idea, that frieren is like LotR, in that it has hard rules, but just doesn't tell the viewer about it.
I think frieren has the perfect system that is generally very hard, but still has enough wiggle room in them, that also transitions into a proper soft part. This gives it still wonderous and wild and unpredictable, something a lot of hard magic lacks (as much as i love them still). To quote the oldest, most powerful mage we know of, serie: "This is why i cant quit magic. In the world of magic, sometimes heaven and earth are turned upside down."
There’s a moment in the manga (not gonna spoil what) where Frieren talks about curses and how curses are just magic that isn’t understood yet. I love that idea behind magic is that it is a force that is actively being studied and understood because that is 100% what would happen if we had magic.
Whether you should do hard or soft magic systems should depend on how you want the READER to perceive it. If it should be integral and well understood, do hard magic. If it should be mysterious and strange, do soft magic. One of THE BEST examples of this is Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind. His series literally does both, and contrasts them. The conventional magic of the world is Hard Magic well described by the main character/narrator. The second, Name Magic, is almost a fairy tale in the story, and very few believe it's even possible. But even once you understand it, it's vague and soft magic even by the system of how it works.
Frieren’s magic system literally influenced my thesis. So in Frieren, one cannot cast magic if one cannot imagine it to happen. Using this concept, I was able to get into lucid dream by “imagine I can do magic”. And now I’m using this concept as a main idea to write my thesis about dream and lucid dream itself. Wish me luck guys!
Magic in Frieren is essentially a field of science. Most other fantasy works treat Magic as a natural force that can be called upon by practically anyone with enough intelligence and mental prowess but Magic in Frieren was studied and experimented by humans as a tool against demons and it took the same method of study and practical demonstration as Mathematics in ancient history to get it to to what is shown during the series. People like Ubel who can figure the fundamentals of a spell and use them just by looking at it are one of a kind and are probably more alike the demons who got hunted by Himmel and Co.
@@albertonishiyama1980 nope, everything we consider "science" now was used in the past to do what people of the time called "magic" it's the same thing, we just don't keep as much of it secret anymore
(Disclaimer: basing my knowledge on what I learned about Matter in middle school science) I like how you bring up Frerein's magic being akin to science. Besides the experimental method and evolution of new theories, there was a scene during the first or second mage trial of Season 1 that intrigued me. A mage explained that it is much easier to use and break down physical objects rather than create objects out of thin air. This almost sounds like the Rule of Conservation of Mass: that Matter can be changed through physical or chemical means (usually in the form of energy) but it cannot be created nor destroyed and that the same amount of matter that goes in comes out. In Frieren: if a mage casts a defense spell to break up the earth and shield themselves, the dirt eventually crumbles but remains as earth still. It's a bit different for spells like Zoltrak, creating a defensive barrier of magic out of nothing (or at least out of existing energy, that being Mana) is much harder to do b/c it uses more mana (depending on how it's used) and dissipates upon being destroyed. Where that mana goes or how it gets recharged, I assume "magic" follows its own system of recycling energy. In that sense, I guess that's what makes magic in Frieren magic.
My favourite magic system is from Fullmetal alchemist. Literally perfect, it seems simple at first, but as the story goes on many core facts about it uncover, and in the end the mc gives it up at all. What a masterpiece innit
Oo didint even know there was a way to categorize them. Hard magic is always the go to read for me. Edit: regarding the qual scene. It shows how knowledge/information is important. It allows you to deal with alot of things. Fireren showcases alot of how time can change alot of things, and how and why the unknown is feard. Just like domeone mentioned from a certain video that ancient magic is hard to fight with as it is "forgotten and unknown".
I love Frieren's magic system because while it does draw inspiration from the scientific method. It still remembers that its magic, I hate it when writers put power levels and numbers into their magic system. It feel watered down and too technical to be any fun. Magic is magic, if you can imagine it then you can do it. You are your only limitation and I think Frieren does magic very well in this regard.
I love how Frieren implements it's magic system. Magic schools/association/research centers do serve a purpose within the story and not only as a backdrop for the plot. Although for me, peak magic systems will always come from Brandon Sanderson, specially the magic system from the Stormlight Archive. I love how they implement their magic system in all aspects of their life, it basically is engineering for them, they are studying and putting to work the forces of nature of their world in a very realistic maner.
What I love about the magic system is that it follows the basic principle of visualisation being key for a mage. It's a great simple concept that allows them to basically allow a mage to do anything like hyper specific things like a spell that catches birds, malleable like manipulate the earth is a variety of ways or even make their own spells like create flower into metal shards. It also shows that mindset is really important in a fight as Richter lost to a weaker mage due to being unable to visualise victory and why Ubel is a genius being able to so greatly believe and empathise with people so much that she can copy their spells and also completely ignore logic just with her pure belief of victory. This allows a lot of freedom and options for the magic to do whatever you want it to almost like alchemy or nen in FMA or HxH respectively, which also have one broad principle that allow different aspects of the magic to work.
The interesting about Frieren's magic system is that it is BOTH a hard and soft magic system. The people in this world have developed magic into a science. Understanding it's nuances and capabilities at the micro level. However, magic is a manifestation of visual imagination. How you perceive magic defines how it behaves. So someone like Ubel who has a very instinct based understanding of magic that cannot comprehend the more advanced specifics magic at the micro level is a much stronger magician at the macro level. She cannot imagine infinite microscopic defensive barriers enforcing a cloak, she can only imagine cloth being cut. After all, that is what cloth is made for, to be cut. It is a very natural assumption to make about the world. So she can cut through the magic enforced cloak whereas all of the other applicants could not. Because they, unlike her, could imagine infinite microscopic barriers and more importantly could NOT imagine themselves piercing through them. Therefore, the greater understanding you have of the quantum specifics of magic, the more limited your potential becomes because the more limited your imagination becomes. You actually become a LESS powerful mage by understanding magic better. It is both a hard magic system treated as a science, and a soft magic system in that an individual's potential is entirely guided by their imagination.
7:46 Adding to that metaphor, we've learned recently that cells themselves, and how they interact and communicate as their growing and forming decides most of how an individual turns out.
Whether certain magic in fiction works for me also depends on type of feel the show is leaning towards. Like I love whimsical magic in certain stories, where a character clicks their fingers and something fun happens or a certain passage opens to reveal a cool creature for the characters. I also love the harder mythical story where you have downsides to magical aspects and it explores why swords are in still in use like LOTR. Magic is there in LOTR but it's clearly not as all powerful or as understood or accessible to many so when it's in use you're OMG that's so cool. I also love that magic in LOTR is also singing because well singing is magical when certain people do it or ya know utterly terrifying like when your mum or dad is heading for the karaoke mic. I don't dislike what we think of as generic magic systems aka DND style but it has huge pitfalls where you sometimes ask yourself why the hell is not everyone using magic. You know when it's too powerful, easy and so on and it raises that question, your story is going to start to struggle with me. There's got to be a healthy balance and I think Frieren does that perfectly. You see Warriors have an advantage in Frieren at certain things like Stark versus the Dragon or Himmell one shooting that Dungeon boss. A warrior getting to close range is just deadly for mages in Frieren's world. It also divides magic into certain realms so certain magic is actual MAGIC like mages aren't the same as priests. Priests use godly magic that require a gospel or book. That is fun and interesting.
@@ElusiveEel If I had guess it's a specialised form of magic that strengthens and augments the body aka faster reflexes and so on. It might be in a similar vein to the priests but rather than need a holy book, they have to worship, respect and train their own body to an extreme degree.
I just love this series. Just the fact that an elf learned things from a mere human and then sets out to see him one last time because he mattered so much to her, she herself hasn't realised it yet. On top of that I like that it's not this cut and dry love story, not for Frieren and Himmel, not for Stark and Fern. Frieren and Himmel are not really all that romantically involved, yet they cared about each other. Stark and Fern are learning what it means what they feel towerd each other. Nothing feels rushed, it feels natural and it just works so well
Tiny note, a very interesting piece of foreshadowing built into this that also establishes Frierens sheer capability is when she teaches Fern to not defend omnidirectionally because it is a drastic drain on her mana. Much later in the First Class Exam when fighting Denken she does exactly what she told Fern not to do, defending omnidirectionally and through that shocking Denken with her sheer overwhelming strength. The set up almost 18 episodes later pays off yet again and shows why the author is so good at worldbuilding.
Another aspect that I really like about Frieren is that fights are almost always uncertain. No one is always on top and favorable stylistic match ups can overcome gaps in skill. It’s far more realistic than in some other anime’s where the power system goes through the roof in 2 seasons.
A bit unrelated but one of my favourite things about Frieren is how it answered one of my biggest question about the fantasy genre: why do elves and other species live so long? And in Frieren, whether intentionally or not they answered this for me by explaining that elves have very low sex drives and are often loners, which then makes sense. If a species doesnt have much drive to reproduce, it makes sense that it will evolve a long life span in order to increase the chances of finding another of its species to reproduce with, and this cycle perpetuates itself, because of their low sex drive, there are less elves, so elves rarely find another of their species, so they rarely settle down and reproduce. I also can’t remember if they mention this is Frieren, but my headcanon about why dwarves live so long is that the way their genes code, it’s much more likely for them to give birth to males than females so they evolved a long life span because it takes longer for them to find a mate due to there being very few female dwarves.
There is a novel/manhwa named Infinite mage in which mage is treated as any other science. It's magical the way magic is presented, and most of the main problems of magic investigation are the same as the ones that happen in scientific I+D
Around 8:00 also reference a Puca, a fey creature that would hunt in the same way which considering how deep angler fish tend to be might have preceded it in the cultural osmosis.
I wonder how far you can push exploration of magic and still make it interesting. A one page explanation about how a spell works from it's concept to breaking it down to the most basic components like mana control. There would have to be axioms of magic. The most basic building blocks of a spell that are discovered through experimentation. Those most basic operations would have to be strung together into sentences, and in the end It would be just like an algorithm or computer program. But instead of running on a PC, it's running on reality itself.
0:11 Lightsabers aren't magic, the force is. Lightsabers are powered by a crystal that creates a light beam so dense that it becomes physical in contrast to being purely visual. Basically it's slightly altered laws of physics, not magic. The force is 100% magic though.
Actually, the blade of the lightsaber is plasma emitted by an energy cell within the hilt. This plasma then passes through the kyber crystal to imbue it with the Force and make it solid, hence why it’s a definite blade and not just a giant plasma torch (even if, technically, it kind of is LOL)
Just wanted to mention that 6:57 in episode 21 shows a type 11 pentagonal tiling discovered by amateur mathematician Marjorie Rice who only had a high school education.
it's a bit slow at times, but as long as the emotional moments land for you I think you'll have a blast. Be a bit wary of the hype, nothing can ever live up to peoples expectations. I love it though and think you'll enjoy it :)
Very interesting video I will say as a general recommendation if you’re interested in looking more into the idea of hard magic systems is Brandon Sanderson. He is one of the most popular modern fantasy writers today but he is know for his magic systems specifically in the fact that they are very hard magic systems and in general he has thought up of rules he follows called Sanderson laws of magic. I think it is a very well thought out look into magic systems in general and what makes hard magic systems so interesting.
One thing that I like a lot from the "ghost" episode: Frieren said in first episode: "I didn't knew him". But here she is. With his memories and no one would have doughted that the real one would have said "utté" in this situation. She new him. She just didn't grasp it.
I've been planning to adopt this into my D&D setting for my next campaign. When you think about the magic missile spell, 1d4+1 x 3 isn't a mindblowing amount of damage for an adventurer or anything, but for the average soldier? Town guard? Let alone villager? most of them only have like 4 HP. There's a 50% chance a *single* dart from magic missile kills a 4hp commoner, and if two out of the three darts fired hit one, they are dead no matter what. There's not even a chance to dodge it or anything along those lines. Sure fireball is equally, if not deadlier in a massive radius, but you can have not even a properly trained wizard, but simply a mage's apprentice (or human with the "magic initiate" feat) be able to cast that spell once per day. Conscript 100 villagers with a little bit of training and you've basically introduced Oda Nobunaga's matchlock formations to a medieval fantasy setting *where the guns are impossible to miss with.* And yeah, the thing that counters them easily, effectively, with 100% guarantee is the shield spell. But what if the shield spell didn't exist? What if Magic Missile was created before Shield? How much of a massacre happened in war before people invented the shield spell? Suddenly every soldier also needs to be given an equal amount of training for the 1/day casting of Shield to deal with the 1/day casting of Magic Missile. Eventually these two spells become commonplace enough that the effort spent training all those villagers to use it isn't really worth it when all the enemy villagers are going through the same training to use Shield. Years later, Magic Missile and Shield are basically seen as basic, entry-level spells that are pretty useful but in no way the mass tools of destruction they once were. They're just kind of commonplace, but some older veterans still remember the absolute slaughter the most basic offensive spell caused, and how the most basic defensive spell completely invalidated people's perception of how powerful it was.
I think science is a strong word. Its rather that the magic system here is actively evolving in previously unrecognized forms. I think a famous quote describes well what science is supposed to look like: "Difference between wondering and science is writing it down". I fail to observe any character encountering some kind of new magical phenomena, systematically studying it, and writing down the conclusions. What is more science like is actually the SCP universe. Weird magic happens, it is observed, contained, and written down. Similar can be done in anime, but I wonder how quickly the basic recipe would become boring.
In time travel arc, the demon uses teleportation magic and Frieren states that it's existence was never confirmed in humanity's magic showing that there still so much to be discovered.
I have been really enjoying your series and I had something I wanted to mention in case it caught your interest. I've had a bit of a theory brewing in my brain and I thought you may like it, or at least find it intriguing. Annnnddddd if you feel like looking into it, I would have zero complaints. (Also spoiler warning for literally the entire season to anyone else reading the rest of my comment) I'm of the opinion that when we see Frieren reveal her "true" mana in the fight against Aura, she's still suppressing her full power. It's just enough to clearly overpower Aura, but I think Frieren's actual mana pool is even larger. The way that characters in the series can tell someone is suppressing their mana is by being able to notice fluctuations in the mana output, that become harder and harder to notice the more practiced someone is. We see Serie's mana displayed to us, and she herself comments that her student can't notice the fluctuations in *her* mana. Meaning SHE is suppressing it. But there's something eerily familiar about how Serie's mana is represented, it looks like Frieren's when she reveals it. EXCEPT Freiren's looks immensely less stable, especially when you look between other people with vast wells of mana and their output is much more stable. Of course you can always argue that perhaps a vast amount of mana like that is always less stable, but we've seen how vast Freiren's powers are and Aura is acknowledged as having a vast well of mana. Her output is stable. Also, I think the biggest show of ability isn't even the clone fight. It's her most dangerous sure, but there's something else. Hear me out, I think her most outrageous display of power happens within the first three episodes. In episode 2 we see this flashback of ruins as far as the eye can see, and Frieren turns ALL OF IT into a field of flowers. I can't express to you how hard I've tried to find where the flowers end in the most tiny, detailed, distance reaches of the animation. It doesn't end. Those flowers stretch on further than you can see. It's absolutely mind-blowing to me, and in my opinion makes her power far scarier than any other scene ever could. And if I am right, it's something done without saying a single word about it. It's just quietly acknowledged that no one *really* knows how powerful Frieren is. I'd love to hear whatcha think, I could be totally off but who knows! And to anyone who's maybe up to date on the manga, if you know one way or the other please don't say anything
As a physicist in the past, I can tell you one cool thing about Friren's magic system is that it's *well closed* . Many times when I imagine a powerful spell, I see a contradiction with known facts about this system. It is impossible to "cheat" here in this system. Right now, I'm thinking about the possibility of making a virus spell that can take over a mage's mind and use their magical power, but sneak around and spy on the infected person. As well as spreading to others in the vicinity. But again, that's almost impossible in this system. Imagine a viral spell that could infect an entity, get the entity type - demon and start wasting his mana over time without letting him control it. Wow, we've found a way to completely solve the problem of demonic expansion!
Magic: doing stuff without explanation of "how?" Science: methodically studying the phenomena to understand them Science in Magic: studying the magic system to make it more efficient :D I like that kind of view. It is the same in Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei (The Irregular at Magic High School), where magic became of public knowledge and by the end of the 21st century it is used and studied as science
All anime reviewer channel talks about only how beautiful and calm is anime but no one talked about how Frierren anime tell about how magic works i am impressed and i was always thinking why no one is taking about how magic works in Frierren
This video is helping inspire me, I have the idea for a series where it’s modern times, with a medical style magics system, fireball, wands, dragons and mimics, all the sort. But I have a character in mind, doesn’t have a name and isn’t fully complete however in this world of magic where cars and phones disregard a major part of their complicated design for a magical solution, he’s a scientist, and an inventor. Despite having easy access to his own magic he wants to make things with his actual hands. In the setting for idea despite magic being the heart of almost everything modernly, there was a time where humanity built inventions by hand to solve other problems. In a world with magic allowing you to skip the hundreds of thousands of years of human science and just cast a spell exists, vital inventions to the course of history are replaced and never found since you can just use magic. An entire type of knowledge is erased. And a major piece of his character is that he doesn’t hate magic because of what it replaces, he simply believes it another type of science, a field held back by the it’s convenient nature, let’s take a creation magic, you can’t create a gun properly is the major functions of a gun are done by harnessing magic, then you’d simply have to cast another spell to make the gun work, but if a gun can be invented without magic, you can make a working gun in a single spell. To meld science and magic is to further both.
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Any magic system with consistent rules, given enough time, will be explored and treated like science by those operating it.
That's the definition of science in the first place.
i think the main difference betwin the magic and the science(or technology if you want), is that magic souce is the mage, while scieence made by equipment same as technology. magic is similar to superpowers or ESP in that regard, the person is the source.
@@Circle9ruScientifically. Magic can be considered as an energy that affects the environment around us which con be produced and/or manipulated by a human (sentient) being
Science≠Technology btw, science creates technology but technology isn't science.
@@Circle9ru what about like, magic artifacts that are just devices that can perform a specific function? are smartphones any less magical than Sauron's Palantir? why so?
@@janthranless likely to be overtly mind fucked by a smartphone
I love the idea of a magic system evolving over time, with the Zoltrac being once so powerful, then becoming commonplace and basic once it was countered by defensive magic. There's also the later explaination of why most modern mages use a particular physical element.
Yeah and it just makes sense because if magic were to exist in real life, it would absolutely be studied like a science and evolve over time. We humans have such a strong desire to analyze, innovate, and advance things in any kind of subject.
Iirc the one who invented it, the demon who was sealed away, might have also been able to adapt and bypass defenses/improve given time - but he didn’t have the short window to bypass the shield
@@CalmClamFameh with the existence of magic, its scientific like method would be very late to came since magic is only available to VERY specific group of peaplo(the one that can be mages) and so to make it more exclusive and less spread magic scrolls/grimoire/knowledge or science would he scarce and only be available to peaplo that have mages in their lineage(the one that can be mages would be paid by kings/be kings, for power or money) so the only way it magic could be science like is if everyone can do magic like in black clover or like chakra in Naruto, you understand me ?
@@CalmClamFamyeah science is similar in that regard(before and during the enlightenment era, science can only be studied and accessed by educated peaplo which are usually from rich/stable(at the time) families) but magic is harder than science as beacuse well its magic it is SUPERnatural, the science of it could/would be harder to grasp than natural science
@@CalmClamFamthe magic from nasuverse is prob the most realistic "what if magic is real, and is like/similar to science"
doing a bachelors and masters in physics and astrophysics makes me appreciate the magic system in frieren even more. One of the first things that stood out to me was the explanation for how zoltraak became a basic offensive move in about 80 years because it is so similar to how much science advances in such a short amount of time through study and collaboration.
For example, einsten predicted the existence of gravitational waves (things that cause the fabric of spacetime to ripple because its so highly energetic) but never thought it would ever be possible to be detected from earth. In 2015( less than 100 years since einstein predicted it) we detected the first gravitational wave with these huge ass machines. and now currently theres about 90 confirmed detections. its actually crazy how far weve come.
but yeah i love magic with a touch of realism and logic. its so so good. its also why i love the magic rune system in witch hat atelier. they really treat their system as a study that even to the readers make so much sense. like fans are able to draw their own runes that other fans can understand what it does. i reccommend WHA so much haha hopefully it gets an anime soon
Love the perspective. I think I'll check out witch hat atelier. A couple other people have suggested it
ayyy I also have a BSc in Physics and doing a MSc in Astronomy/Astrophysics and couldn't agree more. Another fun example is the fast pace that the exoplanet field exploded since having no data beyond the solar system to confirming the first exoplanet and now we are at like 5500+ and counting!
I DM for D&D and Frieren has been as inspiration for me to help create a magic system rooted in it's study, with that 'soft but hard" feel to it. Literally learning about Quantum Physics on my free time to do it lol and I'm definitely going to Witch Hat Atelier after reading this comment! I'm trying to implement runes into the world, as well
For me magic is either science that need to understand or trick to deceive people. MAGIC IS A Technology that is unknown from someone who does not understand.
I too love the vastness of space and the many mysteries it holds (and anime like frieren ofc :D ). As a high schooler, im looking into pursuing astrophysics.. Is there anything I should do now? Programs to join? Specific classes to do? Anything that can make me look better for colleges (also college reccomendations)? What do astrophysicists even do on a day to day basis? Tell me as much as you can. And thanks in advance
What I love about frieren's magic system is the emphasis they put on imagination. Essentially, if a caster can imagine their spell working, the spell will work regardless of the opponent. We see this with Ubel, who solely goes off of the 'scissor analogy' to essentially demolish any of her opponents. It does mean that crazy people are crazy powerful but if the system rewards those who can imagine well then it's fair in a sense.
I wonder how well people with aphantasia would be able to do magic in a magic system like that
Yeah and the fact that Ubel can’t “imagine” her spell penetrating the basic defensive spell or naturally durable materials gives this seemingly overpowered spell weaknesses. I love how the series’ magic system has its checks and balances. It’s like rock, paper, scissors.
now imagine if she had someone making realistic cake for her to cut with scissors… now she can imagine anything lmao
@@CalmClamFam Yup, people keep saying Ubel can cut anything, but no, scissors cant cut a rock. That's how literal her mind works.
Also, I like to imagine magic tomes are just tid bits of autobiographies mixed with magic theory that serves the purpose of putting the reader in a similar mindset as the one who created that magic. Because to learn a spell is literally to think that you can do something the same way that person did.
And that also ties to how Ubel is able to copy magic with just empathy. She basically goes to the source and skip the theory, she "reads" the "magic tome" that the person didn't write!
I literally cant get enough of this series.
yeah damn it's so good
Ikr ❤🔥💪🏾
Thanks y'all :)
@PeyTalksAnime, all magic items are simply comprised made of weaker forms of magic
@PeyTalksAnime their are no primary pillars or categories but rather elements of what makes-up thaumaturgy and different world has own expressions, is why their overlap in the magic system I beside minecraft magic theory video
Such a small but fantastic inversion to have Himmell tell Frieren to shoot him. The expected playout of the scene is such a standard cliche across many forms of entertainment but it was turned into a much deeper scene both showing how good Himmell was and also making it much more effective emotionally because it doesnt fall into the expected trope. The show has a real knack for telling a lot with very little.
I also loved the subversion of him not being able the pull the sword and not being the chosen one
@@archimedeisconsidering the manga plot hinting at a further crisis looming, there may be room for the hero sword to be pulled yet. But since it would take like a month or two to walk back there I kinda doubt it.
@@Scrogan I think it's that there might be a revival of the demon king.
@@archimedeis I’m not sure, we haven’t seen the reason all the sages and the foresight guy were actually rallying with the demon king (someone who wanted equality with humans) in the first place. The ability to bring someone back from the dead seems like it would fly in the face of the story’s themes, but if there’s an enormous cost to it (somewhat overused trope) then I guess it could fly.
@@archimedeis you don't have to be the CHOSEN one to be the One who saves the world. sometimes nobody chooses that.
One interesting tidbit is that the "3 elements of magic" scene from Episode 2 is actually anime original. In the manga, the line about 3 elements comes at the end of the previous scene (where Fern fails to hit the rock), and then it moves on to the training montage without telling the reader what those elements are or which ones Fern needs to train. I think it's a really good addition. I'm guessing this was one of the things they were able to add to the anime with the benefit of being able to read 2 seasons ahead in the manga. Obviously they added this callout of Fern's control over her mana here to foreshadow the multiple big reveals on that topic that they knew were coming later in the season.
They say magic doesn't exist, but I regularly speak with foreigners thru a piece of glass that works by channeling lightning thru crystals. So....
Lmfao same
well science if advance enough is no different from magic after all
@@user-unknown1705 "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clarke
@@xitheris1758 terribly overpriced piece of glass that you can't hope to recreate yourself in a lifetime. Ngl, our magic is low-tier, cause amount of grind, time and resources it takes to make a single artifact will force all korean MMO's die out of shame. And the only viable way to use it is "pay to win"
@@Монс-й1ь phones overpriced because companies that makes this tools just know that people will buy this scrap for 5X price. And we have things, that magicians can't dream (we can arm every human with gun, that can kill bear or lion, we can colonise our Moon (but we not do this because this not worth it), we can reverse planet into 4 billion years ago just for clicking 3 buttons, and we can make AI, that can draw photorealistic arts for seconds, ohh, and yes, we can do this without regenerate mana every minute)
I love the through line of Fern interacting with animals and hiding her presence which isn’t fully explained until the first test in the first class mage exam. Additionally I never realized the Stille bird was in the first opening until I rewatched the show.
It’s been 2 weeks
@@fancyfeesh8560 It's been 4 days.
The stille bird can solo the demon king
@@Jimmykings25 Like performing the Holdo maneuver.
@@Jimmykings25I genuinely wonder how much damage that bird could do if it just slammed into someone
I love the role that science-based magic plays in worldbuilding for animes like these. Another great example of a hard magic system based on science is in A Certain Scientific Railgun where every supernatural instance can be explained with science
I also like how science based or modeled on the scientific method usually boils down to a simple rules that are built upon each other to create infinite combinations
The main series (To Aru Majutsu no Index) also has some extremelly fun concepts of mixed magic (and in the main series case half the powers are actually magic).
Things like Aqua's Sword that is made with modern techniques based on "what are the proportions of sword for it to actually decaptate a dragon like in the legends", or Aleister Illusions that he accounts for basically every single molecule of the thing he made up so not even specialists can dismiss it.
Interesting, sounds well-researched then because I've also heard that Toaru includes many concepts from occultism
I have also have a suggestion where magic is solely based on science its called "Throne of the magical arcana" made by cuttlefish that love diving who also wrote Lord of the mysteries but both them are just in novel form
honestly, i found the origin and nature of demons in the show amazingly written too; evolving from monsters that mimic human speech to lure and manipulate their prey, and little moments where they acknowledge this themselves
When you look at how Christianity depicts demons, this isn't far off. They're able to be very manipulative and sound very reasonable. They know how to use just the right words to trick people, like the demon claiming to have a Father to use Empathy as a Weapon.
It's honestly something you almost never see. Normally they're not very manipulative and just beings of force with some tricky. Rarely do you see this level of High Manipulation like an Evil Politician or CEO.
The evolution of magic, and Zoltraak becoming obsolete, actually feed into the series' main motif of the passage of time. The whole story starts with an elf incorrectly estimating the lifespan of humans, or the value of 10 years. Zoltrac demonstrates that life is not the only thing that comes and goes. Just like technology in our world, magic skills also have a "lifespan". We later revisit this with magic licenses (and the offices that issue them) also have a lifespan. Even the end of the animated series, as briefly mentioned at 5:11, is driven by the "time moves on, you can't stop progress" motif.
6:14 The subtle music in the background with a instrument bumping in my right ear and way your voice just flows...wow that's some nice... editing? Storytelling? Idk it was just amazing
One thing I love about Frieren's magic system is that it feels like a hard magic system built on top of the foundations of a soft magic system. The very basis of it is visualization and the possibilities are endless, but to able to use it humanity built heaps and heaps of theory on top of it.... But then comes someone like Übel and shows the viewer that the rules of magic aren't set in stone and excessive rationalization might actually hinder a mage.
outside of the hard magic part Frieren's system, we also have a level of soft magic system, with our main candidate being Ubel, as a caster's visualization of a spell is able to overwrite or ignore other spells adds in another layer of complexity and depth for characters.
Ubel is more like a sorcerer. Just pure natural talent and intuition.
Well you want SOME soft magic. SOME Mystery. Otherwise it's not really magic and can lose its charm
The Magic in Frieren is excellent because it serves it's all perfectly as being the incomprehensibly wonderful. It's an oxymoronic paradox. A distilled science AND an arbitrary fluid art. Law AND Chaos all in one. The rules presented are merely guesses and guidelines. Humanity has a system that works, and one with its own advantages, but in attempting to comprehend the complexity of magic, it opens itself up to becoming weak to itself.
Übel is an amazing character because she illustrates the strengths and flaws in humanity's current distillation of magic, how much they're "overthinking" it. In becoming so focused on understanding the abstract you missed the material and obvious. You can put 50 billion unique defense enchantments on a piece of cloth to keep it protected from any spell imaginable. Any angle of attack feasible, but you will always fail against someone who understands the basic principle that cloth exists to be cut. To a person like that, your charms are arbitrary, as are your rules. Merely suggestions.
And yet Übel's own refusal to think about magic on a deeper level like scholars do also brings its own weaknesses. Yes she can perform feats that others would no longer be able to visualize, but she becomes incapable of growing past the obvious. Cloth is meant to be cut, and so is hair, but a steel pipe isn't, nor is defensive magic, so she can't cut through those, and will, never be able to how much she puts more effort into studying, which in doing so, would compromise her simplistic ideas in the process. Fern for example would be able to disintegrate a steel pipe with no effort.
A truly paradoxical system like this is such a brilliant way to bring the wonder back into Magic. Just stop it from being "just science" while retaining the strengths of a hard magic system.
I found you through the Frieren retrospective analysis, immediately subbed and have been following these series of videos, and before i knew It had become my most anticipated event of the week, your analysis are in depth, accurate and relevant on the subjects portrayed in the show, as someone who has watched the entire show over 12 times by myself and with people, it’s a valuable thing to see a artist such as yourself value and analyze this show.
there was a scene when flamme meets frieren where she asks her name
and knowing anime in and out i was expecting her to say her name
but the subtle things in frieren's writing subverted my expectations as they skipped over her telling flamme her name since we already know it.
I absolutely love this damn show and it's not just recency bias
I love how the magic also serves in such a mundane manner too
The shield magic training also subtely conveys just how much mana Fern has since besides her and Frieren, no one uses as many shields in as many layers and as many times
5:38, "dragging your feet or ignoring a task bcuz the importance doesn't quite resonate"
i resonate with that sentiment
One of the things I thought was interesting was how the magic system in universe has movement and momentum in its science. I feel the most important thing about it is it feels as though people are interacting with it fundimentally, over time. Many systems in fiction, both magic and science, ends up feeling like a rigid, never changing thing, unless it directly effects the party.
To me another sort of theme I felt from the show was that the world is changing, and that, though things are lost, there is still more to look forward to. I mean, this is a show where the immortal elf is excited to see whats next, rather than being entirely stuck in the past, even if still pursuing it.
I’m really looking forward to the Macht arc. The idea of curses becoming magic as they’re understood was introduced in the chapter with Sein, but it really hits home with Macht. Frieren calls it the “age of humans”, though it seems like she’s helping plenty with her own contributions. I believe it was implied she was involved in the reverse engineering of Zoltraak, having been one of the few who fought Qual and survived, plus she’s pretty good with reverse engineering magics in the first place.
"Age of Humans" was getting closer and had more connotation in the imperial arc. One of the heads in the Empire actually defeated a great mage (an elf) and the details to that fight was still unknown to Serie.
I think another show that properly conveys magic as an established part of its world is Fullmetal Alchemist. Alchemy isn't magic, never do any of the characters call it that, and I think that's part of what sold me on it. It's a very clearly defined science with rigid rules, and throughout the story they reference actual studies and research that was done on alchemy.
Loving this. One nitpick.
Regarding soft or hard magic systems, its a spectrum rather than a hard category.
This is not really important to your video, but I wanted to mention it because its a common pitfall for new writers.
I see a lot of new writers try to build really “hard” magic systems because most people agree that harder is better.
This tends to cause them to overfocus on creating really strict rules, which can be exhausting, generally not a great use of theory time.
Most good magic systems are somewhere between “hard” and “soft” because a system only needs to be “hard” enough for it to be used in the story.
When Sanderson talks about hard vs soft magic he is mostly talking about how to use magic in the setting- setting up limitations, adequately foreshadowing things so it doesnt feel like an asspull, etc.
Its about what to explain and when rather than whether they fit a category.
Soft magic being unexplained magic, which is useful for creating a sense of wonder or disrupting a character’s plans.
Hard magic being explained magic that follows some rule. Harder magic allows the reader to understand why something happens and predict figure events or potential threats, problems and solutions.
Note that magic becoming harder as the characters and audience learn about it is a common trope. That allows the system to benefit from its “softness” and from its “hardness”.
Almost all magic fits somewhere between those two vague concepts and thats generally a good thing
It's absolutely a spectrum and others have pointed out, frieren is far from just a hard magic system. I also love sanderson's opinions on magic systems. thanks for the comment
3:25 this is very true, because the opposite of that is that scene in Avatar TLA movie where six dudes do all these elaborate moves and float a rock.
Only person I've ever heard correctly describe LotR's magic system. Instantly subscribed.
One of the things I love about Frieren magic system is that it is presented as a science (with its explained basic mechanism, theory, research and development), but still gives off the traditional "mystical" and "inexplicable" feeling often associated with magic.
The disruption of Serie's barrier is the perfect example. They talk about Frieren analyzing the barrier, as if it were some sort of mathematical or technological object, but then Ganau tells its shuttering would be impossible even "if the world was going to turn upside down" and after the event Serie talks about "subverting the natural order of things". This leaves the audience feeling like something unexplainable and supernatural just happened.
Talking about subverting the natural order of things, magic working through imagination falls into this category. Yes, they are actuallly explaining how magic works but how thoughts and feelings can actually influence reality structure and matter composition makes it feel less like a science and more like magic.
Frieren and FMA Hard magic system is the only one I have considered as a science.
i wouldnt consider frieren’s magic system as science…
there isnt any rule that the magic is strictly confined by.
however, FMA and frieren are the few shows that treat magic as science within their shows.
but to the audience, i cannot put frieren’s magic system into reality. its too ‘uncaged’. whereas FMA can be applied to reality. you know the concept and the limits of alchemy -properly ‘caged’.
Peep some Cosmere by brandon sanderson
@@stego- You could argue that Frieren's golden rule is visualization, as it *always* needs to happen in order to succeed in casting a spell. But you could also argue that it's not exactly confining, as the logic that leads to said visualization may vary greatly to each mage; we see Ubel cutting through an otherwise impenetrable, first class enchanted cloak like cloth using an "ordinary" physical spell, and then we watch as that same spell fails to bypass ordinary defensive barriers.
@@centor111 You beat me to it.
How ? How can it be scientific when it's "if you can imagine it, it will work"
I quite like how it was touched upon in GATE (the manga at least), where a big medieval magic system suddenly had modern science introduced to it, and a mage then studied this modern research to vastly improve her own magic by now directly understanding various physical and chemical interactions
Finely someone said it
I love it when a series has a good solid magic system
As per usual from you, great and in depth video that covers the little things, that make this show probably the greatest thing the modern media has to offer.
The Zoltrac scene was probably what got me really hooked to the anime, cause unlike other shows where "X characters magic is unbeatable, so I guess were fucked" the people in this anime go "X characters magic is unbeatable, why is that? how can we replicate it? how can we counter it?" while still acknowledging that the person who created that magic was strong during that time.
I'm also fascinated with Ubel's way of approaching magic. How if she can imagine it, she can cast it.
The anime adaptation is still in the works but I believe the Magic System in Witch Hat Atelier might also be interesting. It is in fact a huge plot point for the story and characters. There is science in it as you can combine different spells, variations in strength, and again, if you can imagine it, you can cast it.
Got recommended this from a Gigguk vid explaining Witch Hat Atelier (I think thats how its spelt) being the next big fantasy anime by detailing its magic system. Very similar themes to this vid and one of my favorite concepts in Frieren. From this, I have binged through your series and love how each part is vastly different while chronologically going through the story with a holistic perspective. You probably won't come back to see this but please continue highlighting unique aspects of this masterpiece!
thanks for the kind comment! Love gigguk's videos, glad you hear you found me through his!
Keep up the good work, love the series on Frieren
pey carrying frieren tube rn
i feel the same
Absolutely
Thanks for the series! This is great!
You've GOTTA analyze the song in Episode 11 and why it's so powerful! It gives me chills every time
Irregular at magic highschool has one of the best magic systems in anime they combine science and magic perfectly
Non-Newtonian magic system? It's soft in that for the most part, you don't really know how the magic system works, but it's hard in that there are mechanisms and principles that are explained.
The irregular magic high school has the best magic system i think. You can feels it's not only magic logic in there but it's more like 'advanced' science that have very in depth explanation that make sense.
Been awhile since I watched that one. The sibling relationship was odd, but the magic was very interesting
Gonna disagree here and will suggest you trying out "a certain magical Index", well the Light Novel at least, oh and also "A certain scientific railgun" for the science side. The magic system is not one op the top, but THE TOP magic system in all of fiction.
Where else would you find a piece of fiction that build it's power system using real life mythology lore and such as a reference and did it so well that you wouldn't find a single plot hole in the system but instead foreshadowings? And each of those Magical abilities can be explained in a way that you could clearly understand how the power works despite it being magic (if you're a mythology fan, it would be even clearer).
And in that astronomically large magic system exists yet ANOTHER power system called "esper power", where the powers can be explained with science and the lore also goes really deep?
And despite the magic system being complicated, as I said, the abilities are always explained in such a simple way that you could understand what the ability does without understand how it actually works deeply.
The magic in here is like science of Magic, it's not just simply "oh it's magic so it just works", but it makes you feel like this Magic is what Humanity REALLY studied, put effort into and actually found the logic in the system to then use it, and because of that, each time you understand how an ability really works and connect it to the lore, you will feel rewarded.
The answer? No where, even if you could find one, it would be a halfassed attempt to achieve similar feat as Kamachi did with Index, after all it's 60 volumes and 20 years worth of material.
@user-om3pk8ts4j I think you're over selling them. I watched both series, and they were alright.
@@harrybudgeiv349 Watched? Then that explained, after all, JC Staff really F*cked up the adaptation of Index, while Railgun was alright because it IS INDEED ALRIGHT, Railgun never reached the level that Index managed to reach.
So my response? Just read the Light Novel, Bro, if the Index anime is gold, the Index Light Novel is reality itself.
@user-om3pk8ts4j okay I'll look into it
I am not convinced frieren has a hard magic system. On one side, you are correct, you usually have hard magic, if you want it to play a central role in the story. But on the other hand, the rules aren't as hard and universal as in other systems (e.g. mistborn has a small number of very strict rules, on which the entire system build upon),
I think the anglerfish would be an example of soft magic: The author wants to tell a certain kind of story for an episodes, thus he invents a piece of magic to fit that episode with some extra rules that only apply to that one situation. In this episode it's fine, because the resolution of the conflict of that episode happens on a character-level. The random grimoires would be another example of soft magic.
I like the idea, that frieren is like LotR, in that it has hard rules, but just doesn't tell the viewer about it.
I think frieren has the perfect system that is generally very hard, but still has enough wiggle room in them, that also transitions into a proper soft part.
This gives it still wonderous and wild and unpredictable, something a lot of hard magic lacks (as much as i love them still).
To quote the oldest, most powerful mage we know of, serie:
"This is why i cant quit magic. In the world of magic, sometimes heaven and earth are turned upside down."
There’s a moment in the manga (not gonna spoil what) where Frieren talks about curses and how curses are just magic that isn’t understood yet. I love that idea behind magic is that it is a force that is actively being studied and understood because that is 100% what would happen if we had magic.
Whether you should do hard or soft magic systems should depend on how you want the READER to perceive it. If it should be integral and well understood, do hard magic. If it should be mysterious and strange, do soft magic. One of THE BEST examples of this is Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind. His series literally does both, and contrasts them. The conventional magic of the world is Hard Magic well described by the main character/narrator. The second, Name Magic, is almost a fairy tale in the story, and very few believe it's even possible. But even once you understand it, it's vague and soft magic even by the system of how it works.
Frieren’s magic system literally influenced my thesis. So in Frieren, one cannot cast magic if one cannot imagine it to happen. Using this concept, I was able to get into lucid dream by “imagine I can do magic”. And now I’m using this concept as a main idea to write my thesis about dream and lucid dream itself.
Wish me luck guys!
Magic in Frieren is essentially a field of science. Most other fantasy works treat Magic as a natural force that can be called upon by practically anyone with enough intelligence and mental prowess but Magic in Frieren was studied and experimented by humans as a tool against demons and it took the same method of study and practical demonstration as Mathematics in ancient history to get it to to what is shown during the series. People like Ubel who can figure the fundamentals of a spell and use them just by looking at it are one of a kind and are probably more alike the demons who got hunted by Himmel and Co.
'magic is just science that we don't understand' -thor, 2011
In this case is more "an science field that doesnt exist on our reality", but yeah...
@@albertonishiyama1980 nope, everything we consider "science" now was used in the past to do what people of the time called "magic"
it's the same thing, we just don't keep as much of it secret anymore
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
Bro quoting Thor
(Disclaimer: basing my knowledge on what I learned about Matter in middle school science)
I like how you bring up Frerein's magic being akin to science. Besides the experimental method and evolution of new theories, there was a scene during the first or second mage trial of Season 1 that intrigued me. A mage explained that it is much easier to use and break down physical objects rather than create objects out of thin air. This almost sounds like the Rule of Conservation of Mass: that Matter can be changed through physical or chemical means (usually in the form of energy) but it cannot be created nor destroyed and that the same amount of matter that goes in comes out.
In Frieren: if a mage casts a defense spell to break up the earth and shield themselves, the dirt eventually crumbles but remains as earth still. It's a bit different for spells like Zoltrak, creating a defensive barrier of magic out of nothing (or at least out of existing energy, that being Mana) is much harder to do b/c it uses more mana (depending on how it's used) and dissipates upon being destroyed. Where that mana goes or how it gets recharged, I assume "magic" follows its own system of recycling energy. In that sense, I guess that's what makes magic in Frieren magic.
My favourite magic system is from Fullmetal alchemist. Literally perfect, it seems simple at first, but as the story goes on many core facts about it uncover, and in the end the mc gives it up at all. What a masterpiece innit
Oo didint even know there was a way to categorize them. Hard magic is always the go to read for me.
Edit: regarding the qual scene. It shows how knowledge/information is important. It allows you to deal with alot of things. Fireren showcases alot of how time can change alot of things, and how and why the unknown is feard. Just like domeone mentioned from a certain video that ancient magic is hard to fight with as it is "forgotten and unknown".
I just realized this frame foreshadows the defeat of the dungeon monster during the first mage exam 2:55
Have been watching all of these. Amazing work, can't wait for next week
Never expected to find you outside of music, great video!
I love Frieren's magic system because while it does draw inspiration from the scientific method. It still remembers that its magic, I hate it when writers put power levels and numbers into their magic system. It feel watered down and too technical to be any fun. Magic is magic, if you can imagine it then you can do it. You are your only limitation and I think Frieren does magic very well in this regard.
I love how Frieren implements it's magic system. Magic schools/association/research centers do serve a purpose within the story and not only as a backdrop for the plot.
Although for me, peak magic systems will always come from Brandon Sanderson, specially the magic system from the Stormlight Archive. I love how they implement their magic system in all aspects of their life, it basically is engineering for them, they are studying and putting to work the forces of nature of their world in a very realistic maner.
spectacular vid, I've thought often about the major points made in this video since i started watching anime with power systems.
What I love about the magic system is that it follows the basic principle of visualisation being key for a mage. It's a great simple concept that allows them to basically allow a mage to do anything like hyper specific things like a spell that catches birds, malleable like manipulate the earth is a variety of ways or even make their own spells like create flower into metal shards. It also shows that mindset is really important in a fight as Richter lost to a weaker mage due to being unable to visualise victory and why Ubel is a genius being able to so greatly believe and empathise with people so much that she can copy their spells and also completely ignore logic just with her pure belief of victory.
This allows a lot of freedom and options for the magic to do whatever you want it to almost like alchemy or nen in FMA or HxH respectively, which also have one broad principle that allow different aspects of the magic to work.
The interesting about Frieren's magic system is that it is BOTH a hard and soft magic system. The people in this world have developed magic into a science. Understanding it's nuances and capabilities at the micro level. However, magic is a manifestation of visual imagination. How you perceive magic defines how it behaves. So someone like Ubel who has a very instinct based understanding of magic that cannot comprehend the more advanced specifics magic at the micro level is a much stronger magician at the macro level. She cannot imagine infinite microscopic defensive barriers enforcing a cloak, she can only imagine cloth being cut. After all, that is what cloth is made for, to be cut. It is a very natural assumption to make about the world. So she can cut through the magic enforced cloak whereas all of the other applicants could not. Because they, unlike her, could imagine infinite microscopic barriers and more importantly could NOT imagine themselves piercing through them. Therefore, the greater understanding you have of the quantum specifics of magic, the more limited your potential becomes because the more limited your imagination becomes. You actually become a LESS powerful mage by understanding magic better. It is both a hard magic system treated as a science, and a soft magic system in that an individual's potential is entirely guided by their imagination.
i felt so bad for the monster that had to take frieren and portray himmel KEKW. like wtf why do i gotta ask to die
7:46 Adding to that metaphor, we've learned recently that cells themselves, and how they interact and communicate as their growing and forming decides most of how an individual turns out.
Yeah, magic can be used to move the plot, or build character, but i think the most important thing is...
Its cool af
Whether certain magic in fiction works for me also depends on type of feel the show is leaning towards. Like I love whimsical magic in certain stories, where a character clicks their fingers and something fun happens or a certain passage opens to reveal a cool creature for the characters. I also love the harder mythical story where you have downsides to magical aspects and it explores why swords are in still in use like LOTR. Magic is there in LOTR but it's clearly not as all powerful or as understood or accessible to many so when it's in use you're OMG that's so cool. I also love that magic in LOTR is also singing because well singing is magical when certain people do it or ya know utterly terrifying like when your mum or dad is heading for the karaoke mic. I don't dislike what we think of as generic magic systems aka DND style but it has huge pitfalls where you sometimes ask yourself why the hell is not everyone using magic. You know when it's too powerful, easy and so on and it raises that question, your story is going to start to struggle with me. There's got to be a healthy balance and I think Frieren does that perfectly. You see Warriors have an advantage in Frieren at certain things like Stark versus the Dragon or Himmell one shooting that Dungeon boss. A warrior getting to close range is just deadly for mages in Frieren's world. It also divides magic into certain realms so certain magic is actual MAGIC like mages aren't the same as priests. Priests use godly magic that require a gospel or book. That is fun and interesting.
Frieren (anime) didn't answer where warriors came from, I was wondering that all season and still don't know if they use magic or something else.
@@ElusiveEel If I had guess it's a specialised form of magic that strengthens and augments the body aka faster reflexes and so on. It might be in a similar vein to the priests but rather than need a holy book, they have to worship, respect and train their own body to an extreme degree.
I love this idea of magic being parallel to science
I just love this series.
Just the fact that an elf learned things from a mere human and then sets out to see him one last time because he mattered so much to her, she herself hasn't realised it yet.
On top of that I like that it's not this cut and dry love story, not for Frieren and Himmel, not for Stark and Fern. Frieren and Himmel are not really all that romantically involved, yet they cared about each other. Stark and Fern are learning what it means what they feel towerd each other. Nothing feels rushed, it feels natural and it just works so well
Tiny note, a very interesting piece of foreshadowing built into this that also establishes Frierens sheer capability is when she teaches Fern to not defend omnidirectionally because it is a drastic drain on her mana.
Much later in the First Class Exam when fighting Denken she does exactly what she told Fern not to do, defending omnidirectionally and through that shocking Denken with her sheer overwhelming strength. The set up almost 18 episodes later pays off yet again and shows why the author is so good at worldbuilding.
0:50 Ah, the D&D paradigm that artificially divides between those things
Another aspect that I really like about Frieren is that fights are almost always uncertain. No one is always on top and favorable stylistic match ups can overcome gaps in skill. It’s far more realistic than in some other anime’s where the power system goes through the roof in 2 seasons.
A bit unrelated but one of my favourite things about Frieren is how it answered one of my biggest question about the fantasy genre: why do elves and other species live so long? And in Frieren, whether intentionally or not they answered this for me by explaining that elves have very low sex drives and are often loners, which then makes sense. If a species doesnt have much drive to reproduce, it makes sense that it will evolve a long life span in order to increase the chances of finding another of its species to reproduce with, and this cycle perpetuates itself, because of their low sex drive, there are less elves, so elves rarely find another of their species, so they rarely settle down and reproduce.
I also can’t remember if they mention this is Frieren, but my headcanon about why dwarves live so long is that the way their genes code, it’s much more likely for them to give birth to males than females so they evolved a long life span because it takes longer for them to find a mate due to there being very few female dwarves.
There is a novel/manhwa named Infinite mage in which mage is treated as any other science. It's magical the way magic is presented, and most of the main problems of magic investigation are the same as the ones that happen in scientific I+D
Around 8:00 also reference a Puca, a fey creature that would hunt in the same way which considering how deep angler fish tend to be might have preceded it in the cultural osmosis.
Thank you for the video about episode 4, I realized I had inadvertedly skipped it on my first watchthrough
Zoltraak arc was my favourite. Best part of the manga
I wonder how far you can push exploration of magic and still make it interesting.
A one page explanation about how a spell works from it's concept to breaking it down to the most basic components like mana control. There would have to be axioms of magic. The most basic building blocks of a spell that are discovered through experimentation. Those most basic operations would have to be strung together into sentences, and in the end It would be just like an algorithm or computer program. But instead of running on a PC, it's running on reality itself.
Glenn, is that you?
@@QruisS Glenn?
0:11 Lightsabers aren't magic, the force is. Lightsabers are powered by a crystal that creates a light beam so dense that it becomes physical in contrast to being purely visual. Basically it's slightly altered laws of physics, not magic. The force is 100% magic though.
Actually, the blade of the lightsaber is plasma emitted by an energy cell within the hilt. This plasma then passes through the kyber crystal to imbue it with the Force and make it solid, hence why it’s a definite blade and not just a giant plasma torch (even if, technically, it kind of is LOL)
Okay, im in love with your Chanel
The concept of magic being science consumes me 🫤
Just wanted to mention that 6:57 in episode 21 shows a type 11 pentagonal tiling discovered by amateur mathematician Marjorie Rice who only had a high school education.
This is the one for some reason this video’s title convinced me to see where I can stream turns out I don’t even need to pay crunchyroll to watch it
it's a bit slow at times, but as long as the emotional moments land for you I think you'll have a blast. Be a bit wary of the hype, nothing can ever live up to peoples expectations. I love it though and think you'll enjoy it :)
Very interesting video I will say as a general recommendation if you’re interested in looking more into the idea of hard magic systems is Brandon Sanderson. He is one of the most popular modern fantasy writers today but he is know for his magic systems specifically in the fact that they are very hard magic systems and in general he has thought up of rules he follows called Sanderson laws of magic. I think it is a very well thought out look into magic systems in general and what makes hard magic systems so interesting.
One thing that I like a lot from the "ghost" episode:
Frieren said in first episode: "I didn't knew him".
But here she is. With his memories and no one would have doughted that the real one would have said "utté" in this situation. She new him. She just didn't grasp it.
I've been planning to adopt this into my D&D setting for my next campaign. When you think about the magic missile spell, 1d4+1 x 3 isn't a mindblowing amount of damage for an adventurer or anything, but for the average soldier? Town guard? Let alone villager? most of them only have like 4 HP. There's a 50% chance a *single* dart from magic missile kills a 4hp commoner, and if two out of the three darts fired hit one, they are dead no matter what. There's not even a chance to dodge it or anything along those lines. Sure fireball is equally, if not deadlier in a massive radius, but you can have not even a properly trained wizard, but simply a mage's apprentice (or human with the "magic initiate" feat) be able to cast that spell once per day. Conscript 100 villagers with a little bit of training and you've basically introduced Oda Nobunaga's matchlock formations to a medieval fantasy setting *where the guns are impossible to miss with.*
And yeah, the thing that counters them easily, effectively, with 100% guarantee is the shield spell. But what if the shield spell didn't exist? What if Magic Missile was created before Shield? How much of a massacre happened in war before people invented the shield spell? Suddenly every soldier also needs to be given an equal amount of training for the 1/day casting of Shield to deal with the 1/day casting of Magic Missile. Eventually these two spells become commonplace enough that the effort spent training all those villagers to use it isn't really worth it when all the enemy villagers are going through the same training to use Shield. Years later, Magic Missile and Shield are basically seen as basic, entry-level spells that are pretty useful but in no way the mass tools of destruction they once were. They're just kind of commonplace, but some older veterans still remember the absolute slaughter the most basic offensive spell caused, and how the most basic defensive spell completely invalidated people's perception of how powerful it was.
"That's what Himmel would do."
PEAK
I love your voice and its pitch, tone like it's good to hear....Thank you😇
I think out of shows and movies Freirens magic system is my favorite however I have yet to find a better magic system than the kingkiller chronicle
B-. Good premise, builds a good foundation. Features a couple of supporting details but ultimately fails to bring them home to support the thesis.
Magic progress is something you don't see often enough. It's usually "strong magic = black magic, and it's evil!"
I think science is a strong word. Its rather that the magic system here is actively evolving in previously unrecognized forms. I think a famous quote describes well what science is supposed to look like: "Difference between wondering and science is writing it down". I fail to observe any character encountering some kind of new magical phenomena, systematically studying it, and writing down the conclusions. What is more science like is actually the SCP universe. Weird magic happens, it is observed, contained, and written down. Similar can be done in anime, but I wonder how quickly the basic recipe would become boring.
Finally, someone who recognized that magic and science are not that different because science is a study of nature and magic is nature.
Your magic talk activated the sub button.
In time travel arc, the demon uses teleportation magic and Frieren states that it's existence was never confirmed in humanity's magic showing that there still so much to be discovered.
I have been really enjoying your series and I had something I wanted to mention in case it caught your interest. I've had a bit of a theory brewing in my brain and I thought you may like it, or at least find it intriguing. Annnnddddd if you feel like looking into it, I would have zero complaints.
(Also spoiler warning for literally the entire season to anyone else reading the rest of my comment)
I'm of the opinion that when we see Frieren reveal her "true" mana in the fight against Aura, she's still suppressing her full power. It's just enough to clearly overpower Aura, but I think Frieren's actual mana pool is even larger.
The way that characters in the series can tell someone is suppressing their mana is by being able to notice fluctuations in the mana output, that become harder and harder to notice the more practiced someone is.
We see Serie's mana displayed to us, and she herself comments that her student can't notice the fluctuations in *her* mana. Meaning SHE is suppressing it.
But there's something eerily familiar about how Serie's mana is represented, it looks like Frieren's when she reveals it.
EXCEPT Freiren's looks immensely less stable, especially when you look between other people with vast wells of mana and their output is much more stable.
Of course you can always argue that perhaps a vast amount of mana like that is always less stable, but we've seen how vast Freiren's powers are and Aura is acknowledged as having a vast well of mana. Her output is stable.
Also, I think the biggest show of ability isn't even the clone fight. It's her most dangerous sure, but there's something else.
Hear me out, I think her most outrageous display of power happens within the first three episodes.
In episode 2 we see this flashback of ruins as far as the eye can see, and Frieren turns ALL OF IT into a field of flowers. I can't express to you how hard I've tried to find where the flowers end in the most tiny, detailed, distance reaches of the animation. It doesn't end. Those flowers stretch on further than you can see.
It's absolutely mind-blowing to me, and in my opinion makes her power far scarier than any other scene ever could. And if I am right, it's something done without saying a single word about it. It's just quietly acknowledged that no one *really* knows how powerful Frieren is. I'd love to hear whatcha think, I could be totally off but who knows!
And to anyone who's maybe up to date on the manga, if you know one way or the other please don't say anything
Another great video, keep them coming
This has been a fun series to watch.
As a physicist in the past, I can tell you one cool thing about Friren's magic system is that it's *well closed* . Many times when I imagine a powerful spell, I see a contradiction with known facts about this system. It is impossible to "cheat" here in this system. Right now, I'm thinking about the possibility of making a virus spell that can take over a mage's mind and use their magical power, but sneak around and spy on the infected person. As well as spreading to others in the vicinity.
But again, that's almost impossible in this system. Imagine a viral spell that could infect an entity, get the entity type - demon and start wasting his mana over time without letting him control it. Wow, we've found a way to completely solve the problem of demonic expansion!
The Irregular at Magic High School also touches the topic about having magic as another form of technology
Frieren:
"basic offensive magic is Zoltraak"
Reality:
"common cold is the Spanish Flu"
Magic: doing stuff without explanation of "how?"
Science: methodically studying the phenomena to understand them
Science in Magic: studying the magic system to make it more efficient :D
I like that kind of view. It is the same in Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei (The Irregular at Magic High School), where magic became of public knowledge and by the end of the 21st century it is used and studied as science
I like the monster names in frieren, like the "einsam" being a Swedish "lonely" just a bit misspelled.
A magic system that I have always thought as very cool is in the rivers of London series, as it is basically science, but in a fun way
All anime reviewer channel talks about only how beautiful and calm is anime but no one talked about how Frierren anime tell about how magic works i am impressed and i was always thinking why no one is taking about how magic works in Frierren
This video is helping inspire me, I have the idea for a series where it’s modern times, with a medical style magics system, fireball, wands, dragons and mimics, all the sort. But I have a character in mind, doesn’t have a name and isn’t fully complete however in this world of magic where cars and phones disregard a major part of their complicated design for a magical solution, he’s a scientist, and an inventor. Despite having easy access to his own magic he wants to make things with his actual hands. In the setting for idea despite magic being the heart of almost everything modernly, there was a time where humanity built inventions by hand to solve other problems. In a world with magic allowing you to skip the hundreds of thousands of years of human science and just cast a spell exists, vital inventions to the course of history are replaced and never found since you can just use magic. An entire type of knowledge is erased. And a major piece of his character is that he doesn’t hate magic because of what it replaces, he simply believes it another type of science, a field held back by the it’s convenient nature, let’s take a creation magic, you can’t create a gun properly is the major functions of a gun are done by harnessing magic, then you’d simply have to cast another spell to make the gun work, but if a gun can be invented without magic, you can make a working gun in a single spell. To meld science and magic is to further both.