Sousou no Frieren

[JoshuaDMarti]

it's so funny that despite the hate that Sousou no Fireren is getting lately it still managed from being 9.38 to 9.41 in like 1 day since last chapter's release. I think its just people creating extra accounts to mass vote the manga, in the best case it's actually new people reading and giving their score, but that would be too optimistic tbh

 

[FckingWeeb]

Nearly cried from chapter 2-10
it was ok from chapter 11-23 but not enough to keep me reading. Great start, gets weak after that.
8/10

even though i dropped it simply because of this damn good start which made me nearly cry as soon as chapter 2 despite not really knowing the characters.

 

[suica]

I just realized that this manga's quiet air of sadness reminds me of the anime Grimgar. It's also about people living in a fantasy world and it also manages to feel bittersweet even when the characters are fighting desperately for their lives. The biggest difference between the two, of course, is that this manga doesn't have fanservice shoehorned in, which Grimgar does to its detriment. So this manga in that way is better than Grimgar. But other than that, the tone is similar between the two works.

Anyway, the second this manga gets an official translation I'm going to reread everything again, though I think I've done it like 4-5 times already with just the existing chapters so far.

 

[Schaden_Freude]

@JoshuaDMarti what hate?

 

[BakedBanana]

oh

 

[Wind1]

If you're here and you haven't read this yet, go and read it.

Truly a great piece of work.

 

[qtblader]

I hAve To sTay hOMe eVERyDAy to CarE for My sICK MOtheR, So i paSs tHe tImE traNSlatING FOr fUN. USUAlly oNLY 1-2 people dONaTe PEr CHApTer aT beST, SO iF YoU eNjOYED thIs CHAPteR, Please kINDLY CoNsIdEr DoNATing or SuBbINg tO mY pATrEon aT IAmAfrAUD.cOM. aLL pRocEEdS aRE USEd TO OFFsET heR MeDICaL fEes AND evEry BiT counts. ThaNK You vErY muCH ^^

 

[ImDanGrow]

Its a good manga, but i dont think it really deserves 9.4/10. This for me is an 8.5, maybe 8.7 at most

 

[almi-hande]

Did magazine take a break this week too?

 

[zStella]

@almi-hande
Yep, unfortunately 😶

 

[almi-hande]

@zStella Thanks for quick answer.
I aso though that since the magazine was double issued last week. But there are also some page leaks from chapter 32, so I was very confused 😅 Thanks for clarification

 

[goronyanpai]

I agree with suica have said. And Grimgar also one of my faves. Both not surprisingly great but it's solid from all aspects.

 

[almi-hande]

I am so curious about the story behind of this color page

Spoiler

 

[Syanindita]

Despite getting a high ranking here, the volume sales actually just a so so... folks u better buy the original too to avoid getting a premature ending hahaha

 

[MAWAK]

I like this, was uplifting too.
This style of writing is less common to the ever expanding homogeneous marketing blob that pervades media, so it avoids feeling generic, predictable, artificial, and manipulative.

I feel, without an evident justification, that its a rather East Asian style writing, so it is not as character driven as the newer, more heavily western influenced media. Its not as optimized towards appealing to audiences wallets, so the style seems to be in decline.
it has a more realistic pacing, rather than everything being in place.

10/10. Impale the unfaithful.

 

[sardonic]

@Syanindita This isn't the first time I've seen someone say this and it bugs me to no end.

The reality is that for a series running in Weekly Shounen Sunday, Frieren actually does very well, especially considering it's coming from a relatively new author + artist with no real name recognition. It's easily one of the magazine's biggest instant hits in years and why they push it so hard with a lot of colour pages and whatnot. People who look at its volume sales and say it's in danger of cancellation because they're comparing its numbers to the behemoths in the market are insane. They're also placing ridiculous expectations on the series. The fact is that Frieren isn't getting cancelled any time soon because it's quite easily one of the more commercially successful series in Sunday's current lineup.

 

[CronaDarklight]

@sardonic
Nah he's partly right. Most popular new series have 40-80k week 1 sales and some rising stars like Kaiju 8 this month did sell 100k on volume 1 release. Frieren had 20-25k week 1 and 50k in a month for 3 volumes in a row. Measuring it by Shonen Sunday lineup is weird as the magazine is very lenient and survives mostly on detective conan+spinoffs and komi san is also doing good.

Considering the amount of promotion it got from shonen sunday i would have expected it to do alot better though. Did overall a bit worse than Shonen Sundays Tonikaku Cawaii when it came out like 2 years ago i think and i wouldn't call that 1 popular either lol.

The author of Sosou also isn't new and had 2 series that ran for a while and got axed i think. When you see the clownwar🤡about ratings this series has with blue period its a bit funny.

TLDR: Will it be axed? Unlikely. Is it popular? I wouldn't call it that for now. Is it doing amazing in sales? Doing ok for now.

 

[Yunyo]

Finally caught up. Also bought all the books on Amazon JP.

This series deserves its rating and then some. The writing and pacing is magnificent.

 

[sardonic]

Delete, made a mistake.

 

[sardonic]

@CronaDarklight I responded to a comment implying Frieren was in danger of getting axed. I wasn't talking about its general popularity (especially on a wider scale) at all. A series from outside the magazine on a larger and more popular platform doesn't really have anything to do with Frieren's future within its own magazine. I even suggested that comparing Frieren's success within Sunday's standards to the titans in the market is outright ludicrous. The point was that the series is doing well for Sunday so it would make little sense to axe it, especially when they seem to want to push it even more.

Yes, Sunday is held together by its pillars of Conan, Conan spinoffs, and Komi (maybe the Major sequel too). Anyway, Frieren v1 did fine for a new Sunday series. I did say "relatively" new, not like this was the author's first work, but neither of his previous works were big successes commercially or critically, one of them also being extremely short-lived. Tonikaku Cawaii's first volume did perform better on its initial release than Frieren's (at least in the first five weeks; I have no idea about now with all the backlog sales), but that's pretty normal all things considered. That said, Frieren v2 did outsell ToniCawa v2 in their respective first five weeks (it beat it in three, I believe).

The jury's still out on v3, but for what it's worth, Frieren v3 debuted higher in shoseki than ToniCawa v14 this time which it wasn't able to do with its v1 and v2 against ToniCawa's v12 and v13 (their respective last three volumes shared release dates). Could just be the recognition of it winning 2nd place in Kono Manga ga Sugoi! pushing Frieren's sales up this time, but we'll just have to wait for v4 and see if that boost holds. The important thing for Frieren is maintaining growth from volume to volume - which it seems to be doing so far in its first three volumes - but it's still a bit too early to tell if this is where it plateaus or if it can reach another gear. It has the potential to grow some more by riding its current wave of momentum and critical success but who really knows if it can cash in on it properly. Or things could go south for all we know though that's unlikely. I never really know what to expect with Sunday series.

Agreed that ratings wars are dumb as hell though.