Oh, how you'll love the next big arc. You'll absolutely adore El Dorado.

There's a manga arc which follows very briefly after the end of the anime material which involves the Demon Macht. It's really an opportunity for Kanehito Yamada to go further in depth with the nature of demons, as the arc is primarily about Macht spending years sincerely attempting to understand humanity through pointed conversations and observation while walking among them pretending to have been made harmless by magic. It really conveys how alien the mindset the demon's is to a human - and vice versa - while displaying the interiority of a demon who isn't actively seeking power or conquest.

This is very interesting to me, because I had the complete opposite reaction of that the demons were finally just evil, they weren’t humans that just had horns and acted bad with strong powers or something. They were actually different and evil. There is no peace treaty to bargain with. I feel like in other media, demons are just what I explained earlier. Different humans. Bad people that just need to be understood to be able to have peace with. I’m not saying I hate that, I’m just tired of seeing it so much and Frieren demons were such a breath of fresh air for me.

The reason I love demons in Frieren is because the author explicitly made Demons as close to human as possible. I think that the minute differences made between humans and demons help speak to what it means to be human and why I think the overall thesis of Frieren is about learning to be human. The contrasts the author puts against humans is so loud when you think about how close they are to actually being human. Frieren isn't about the long lives or mortality that makes someone human. Its about connection and someone who lives on the border of human and demon.

I see demons in Frieren as a metaphor for psychopaths. Like psychopaths, demons lack of empathy and guilt, and use the language for the purpose of lying and manipulating humans. So to consider if demons are evil, we should ask ourselves if we consider psychopaths as evil.

Something to say as I am half way through the video and you mentioned this twice. Demons DO NOT need to eat humans to live. This is specifically stated. And yet they do. I feel like this is heavily important in a discussion on weather these demons are evil and what evil is.

Demons in Frieren are kind of like mosquitos, it's not true maliciousness, but yeah I don't want those things near me.

Alot of seemingly shallow critiques of Lolita make alot more sense when you look at the author's other works and see that sexualising minors is a running theme

Your whole theory is based on the idea that demons kill to eat and survive therefore they are under the "VS nature" category. I disagree. Qual invaded the human lands and killed them for the sake of killing, using disintegrating magic which destroyed the body (food) anyway. Aura killed people to increase her army, not to eat them. Darht wanted to kill Frieren to gain the favor of the Graf Granat. Linie wanted to kill Stark because she was ordered. None of those actions came from a creature driven by its nature. Those are calculated, opportunistic actions to satisfy an artificial goal, way beyond what you could call natural instinct. They are evil monsters with their own evil desires beyond the need to eat

My personal take with the demons is that they are a lot like frieren. Yes they fight to sustain be the deamons also don’t know what to do with their infinite time a lot like frieren. They both don’t show emotion, both under estimate newer opponents, and critically don’t understand humans. I think these deamons are a reflection of what frieren would have been like without her party and her teacher.

Look there’s like 3 ways that I think I commonly see in fiction

As a Japanese person I wanted to give insight to Mushoku Tensei title. The actual full title in Japanese is ” Mushoku Tensei: I will seriously try in another world”. I feel like this title is important because it essentially says the entire theme of the story in the title. “TRY” is the big factor that this story always emphasizes.

I didn't expect this series to get better and expand to comparing other shows artfully,

And there is a whole arc that will likely be shown in season 2 that explores this beautifully

6:15

Frieren herself has similar traits to the demons. She toys with them, deceives them... But it looks like these traits were taught to her by Flamme.

Humans: What drives you to such cruelty and wickedness?

arguably, the demons can represent nature *itself*. you can see the hero party as analogous to the advancement in technology, human knowledge and the collective wisdom of society, like in frieren being a thousand years old, representative of the culmination of knowledge, and the defeat of the demon lord being the ultimate triumph of society against nature.

I think you make a good argument, but I also think there are some scenes that undercut what you're saying. If you look at Lugner versus Fern, you see that while the outcomes of the two ambushes are similar, Fern was trying to kill Lugner and missed while Lugner had the same opportunity and, if I'm remembering the scene correctly, intentionally went for the option that caused Fern more pain. That, I would argue, is not the behavior of a predator trying to take out a threat. That is the behavior of someone who is being cruel because he wants to. That is what I think most people would argue is an evil act.

i am so sorry man, i really like your channel, your style of speech and your insights about deeper meanings in anime BUT i can't watch your videos anymore because i HAVE TO FORGET as much frieren as i can so that in a few months i'll be enjoying it more when i rewatch the show. Keep up the great work