I stopped reading the manga after the erectile dysfunction at magic high school arc dragged on for months and ended with a relationship that still puts me off when I think about it. It’s like the author just can’t stop reminding the reader of what an unlikeable turd the MC can be. It is a very good story aside from those aspects, but that’s not enough for me to agree with your bold statement. I much prefer Iruma-kun, Overlord, Konosuba or Tsukimichi.

You’re probably right, but that doesn’t seem like much of an indicator for anything regarding the quality of the final product. Production was handled by Trigger and we don’t know if Netflix had any kind of supervision. Dungeon Meshi aired on all the usual TV channels in Japan as well, so Netflix isn’t the only licensee.

That “Netflix-produced” label seems very vague. Beyond being licensed by Netflix outside of Japan I don’t know of any way that they influenced the production of Dungeon Meshi.

I felt the exact same way. I think that the manga definitely improved after the initial classroom isekai setup story was over.

I prefer the manga, simply because it’s easier to gloss over the parts that I’m less interested in. The anime adaptation is quite good though and the animation in the comedic scenes is well paced and high quality.

The biggest age gap is between the MC, aged 16 and his 89 year old girlfriend, who is the grandmother of his other girlfriend. As you can see, this series takes itself very seriously.

I’ve never heard about this and I can’t find anything on the internet either.

It looks exactly like I expect a GoHands show to look like: poopy textures and confusing camera movement falling way short of their ambitions. Can’t wait for the obligatory stock green screen vfx and overly shiny reflective objects in the final release.

The new Bartender anime was pretty good.

It’s going to be interesting to see how much of the manga will be adopted. It’s not just insane, but also insanely gory.

https://anilist.co/forum/thread/75217

Those are separate matters as far as I am concerned. Gainax has been effectively defunct for years now and on the decline for more than a decade.

S3 has some of the best animation of the series and is among the best work that studio bones has produced in recent times imo, if that means anything to you.

It’s a bold claim that they would become more interesting by making them more human.

Why is it that human characters that have threatened killing, or have killed in the past—Ubel, for example, happily tests out her destructive spells on people—are given complexity and understanding, while demons have not? Did we not also evolve from beasts?

The author seems very eager to leave the context of the fantasy world and draw comparisons to the real world, as if all fantasy has to be social commentary at the same time. The demons in this world are effectively aliens, tailormade in every possible way to be enemies of the other intelligent races. Why do they need complexity or present a nuanced moral dilemma? We’ve had that same exact setup just as many times as the “plainly evil enemy”. It’s a weird claim to me, that Frieren would be improved in any way by turning the demons into yet another plot twist about how all of this was really just the fault of humans or a grand conspiracy or whatever. The point about this being used to make a convenient punching bag in game-like settings to level up the heroes, doesn’t apply to Frieren either. Almost every confrontation against demons starts out humanizing them in some way, only to show how that is a misinterpretation of their outward appearance and empty words. It really hammers home the point that humans are incredibly susceptible to empathizing with anything that looks like one, which is exactly what makes them so dangerous and skilled at exterminating them.

Despite inviting us to empathize with strange and threatening mages—and inviting us into the headspace of an ancient elf who experiences life fundamentally differently from us mortal humans—the story doesn’t extend the same grace to demons.

The audience is constantly invited to empathize with demons, even if it doesn’t yield the expected result of a troubled, complex, but ultimately human character that the author is looking for. In my opinion.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End plays with the always evil race trope but doesn’t fully escape it.

Frieren plays with the “bad guy actually turns out to be relatable, maybe we can all just get along :)” trope very successfully.

I’m beyond excited for this. Hopefully they can nail the feel of the manga, but the PVs looked promising.