this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

I'm waiting for the canonical reason why the female elves look like children while the one male elf we've met is drawn like a grown man. And I really hope it's not that their brain outpaces their body because then we're in the "5000 year old witch in a child's body" trope.

If this is addressed in the manga, no spoilers plz beyond a simple "Yes, it is."

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

One reason might be that the male elf is a physical fighter who is literally shown doing strength exercises, there isn't really a good way to make him look like a minor (or rather, like a link/legolas-type male elf or generic anime hot guy character) without making him look a lot weaker. Meanwhile the female elves are both wizards, so their physical shape doesn't impact their combat ability at all.

And IMO, the main character doesn't look like a child, she's just an adult woman who is kind of short and not that curvy.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I’d assume it’s because the only male elf is older? Idk this feels like looking for inappropriate intentions because you want there to be one.

[–] secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yeah I was about to say this he was way older than friren

[–] diffaldo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Serie looks like a child too and he is not older than serie tho.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 days ago

I mean, we have a sample size of 3 (in the anime anyway), and don’t actually know for certain how old any of them are. The only thing we really know is that Frieren is likely the youngest.

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I'm sorry if my critical exploration of anime I enjoy makes you feel defensive but I literally just explained why I think that would be the worst reason. Don't worry no one's canceling Freiren, we're just having a chat.

"Adult elf bodies reflect their own self-image" would be pretty cool. Especially for the monk.

[–] LettyWhiterock@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

The issue is we've encountered so few elves that it's impossible to say really anything about them as a whole. Maybe that is just how female elves look, maybe frieren and serie are just weird, or something else. But either way, we're basically just going on what little we've been shown which could change later.

Personally though, I don't actually mind the 1000 years old but looks like a child trope if it's not using it as an excuse to sexualuzed the character. Which they really aren't doing here.

And on the other hand, I also don't think Frieren looks like a kid. This is pretty common, I'll see people point out a character who's a bit short and sometimes flat (though that's not always the case even) and say that they look like a kid while I don't see it. So I don't know if it's me or what. Serie does look more like a kid to me though.

But we get back to the fact that she's not being sexualuzed anyway, so again, I don't personally take issue with it.