(Average) Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Series in one sentence:
Fairy walks around the place slowly and does things slowly.

Series in more sentences:
Frieren was once a hero who saved the world from doom, but because of her species, knows she'll be the only one to remember this and her fellow heroes for many generations to come.

With two of them already dead, she begins to realize how she took everything for granted and retraces her fondest memories of them with her new companions, whilst traveling towards a land that's claimed to house the spirits of the dead, hoping to settle some open ends.

 

A great idea with a boring execution. Characters just show up, relationships are cheaply established with the help of silent montages, and whenever they do talk to each other, it's almost always with this monotone, soft voice. I think that makes sense for Frieren, but why is everyone else in this show equally unexcitable?
The flashback scenes featuring the other heroes were nice, especially Himmel inserted some life in these otherwise slow episodes, but, you know, the guy is dead, so he doesn't exactly get that many appearances. It's still Frieren's story. If not that of her equally dead-faced student, Fern.

Alot of episodes have this "story of the week" feel you know from Saturday morning cartoons; which introduces a character with some kind of plight that the heroes briefly get involved with, again making it hard to feel emotionally invested.
Then the series takes a turn to this magic school story arc, and damn me, just the announcement of them going there bored me endlessly. I thought you were going to meet Himmel inside that afterlife domain, Frieren, what is this? Seeing Himmel was the only exciting end goal the show introduced here, why waste time with all this other crap?

Cannot relate to the people who deem this their favourite anime of 2023/2024, and I've heard quite alot of Youtubers utter that opinion. It's the whole reason I checked this anime out, but little to nothing happens in terms of action, and the philosophical side of it also isn't expressed well -if only because I'm not feeling any genuine love amongst these characters. It's not convincing when time keeps skipping and casual, natural conversations are few.
To suddenly introduce a character's funny habit or mention an interest they had definitely isn't convincing me. Fern likes to have her hand held whenever she's sick and in pain? Then why have you not shown Frieren doing that when she was young, Beyond Journey's End? Her period as a caretaker is completely glanced over and only afterwards does Frieren barf out a few comments about that time and how she feels about seeing Fern having grown up.

I failed to pick up on the brilliance other viewers witnessed when watching this show. This was truly boring. Truly. The demons at the start inserted much needed action, but they fuck off the moment they appear and aren't mentioned again.
Since I can't imagine myself ever putting on this anime again, I have to give it an "Average".

(Average) Barakamon

Series in one sentence:
Man with boring job, that brings less value to the world than a garbage collector, gets his house constantly broken into by people he should've called the cops on weeks ago.

Series in more sentences:
Handa prides himself in his work as a calligrapher, but when a snooty critic has no good word to say about his art, he loses his cool and punches the man, affecting his reputation.

His father suggests he moves to the countryside to get away from it all and Handa wishes to use the opportunity to improve and reinvent himself, but is constantly disturbed by the locals, one of them an overly optimistic little girl.

After watching Handa-kun, I said to check out the series it was based off of.
I'll admit: I've seen Barakamon's cover art and accompanying synopsis pass me by at Crunchyroll multiple times, long before finding Handa-kun, but never clicked on it, because it sounded intensely boring.

And I was right.

I love Handa-kun. Ignoring the first half of the first episode, it's well-paced and clearly made by people who wanted to have fun with it. Barakamon is none of those things. The pacing is bad, none of the jokes are funny, I cared for none of the characters, including Handa himself, and the whole plot is just one big nothing.

It's already hard to get me or most (Western?) people excited for the art of, well, writing letters using a big ol' ink brush, so to make Handa's whole story arc revolve around Japanese calligraphy is a peculiar choice. It's a boring profession, so why should I care if he fails or succeeds at fine-tuning his talents? I'm not even able to discern whether Handa is a good calligrapher; everything he does looks like a bunch of muddy, aggressive swipes on a piece of paper. That shit he drew on the boat in episode 4 was absolutely hideous.
I suppose you need to be Japanese to possibly understand the beauty of it all, but really, do most modern Japanese people care about calligraphy in any serious degree? Does anyone who likes Barakamon like it because it features Japanese calligraphy?

It's hard to feel invested in Handa's supposed growing connection with the locals, as not only are the children either bland or annoying and do they keep breaking into his house, there's no time spent on showing them grow accustomed to each other. Handa moves in in episode 1, and in episode 2 it's already established he gets free food from some local every day, and the little stalker girl is familiar with his work habits. Days to weeks have supposedly passed.

Handa in Barakamon is presented as overly obsessed with his profession and a fairly aggressive person at times, who's apparently never experienced a moment of happiness or tasted friendship in his life. How else can he be so affected by these countryside people, their habits, and countryside kindness? None of it makes sense if Handa-kun is even a little bit canon, since he was very timid in that one and loved by everyone, though he needed time to realize that.
It'd be more fair to say is that it's the Handa-kun series that doesn't make sense, since it's Barakamon's spin-off and all, but it stays the superior show to me. Handa is a more interesting character in that one, the humor is better, the side-characters are better, and the underlying story that is Handa's loneliness and craving to connect with people is more relatable.

Also, that "sea slug is an orgasming dick"-joke is really inappropriate to do with two 6 year old girls and I've become a worse person having seen it.

(Good) Handa-kun

Series in one sentence:
X=12

Series in more sentences:
After his jealous best friend lies a popular girl has been spreading nasty rumors about him, Handa is convinced everyone hates him and takes every compliment he gets as a sarcastic attack or angry criticism. Meanwhile, he's the most adored student at school and his nervous, stand-offish behaviour is seen as cool and mysterious.

Finally, some good food.

The first half of episode 1 worried me, it was close to unbearable to sit through, nearly contemplated turning off the series, but the moment the actual series began, it was a joy all way through.
Handa's predicament is tragic, if only because he's so miserably lonely and in need of company. It's a show where every relationship is built on misunderstandings, fairly clever ones as well at times, that's never not funny.

Handa's social awkwardness is pretty endearing and I wish there were more episodes. That it only got 12 and the last one aired 10 years ago, while there're worse animes out there that get 5+ seasons, is sad.

I've come to understand this is a spin-off series of the anime, Barakamon, and if that one is just as good, I might check it out. Regardless, what's definitely worth checking out is Handa-kun.