Late getting this out, nearly Spring already! Been busy with things recently that hard to catch every show I wanted to see so hopefully others can fill in the blanks. Further Adou:
Actually I read the Manga
Noble Reincarnation: Born blessed so I'll obtain ultimate power: now first something that can confuse people, the MC is NOT a person Reincarnated from OUR world but someone from that world of a lower class. This is more focused on the royal and noble courts, the duties of being nobility and effectively gaininv status in the court. His power is gained through LOYAL followers which means he not only gains power but can see loyalty so if you enjoy political intrigue, this'll be for you.
Easy going territory defence by the optimistic Lord: This one is more on the 'MC cast out because viewed to have a useless skill but turns out op' type not to say it's not fun. I didn't enjoy how they underplayed his ability as around episode 8-****9 he should've had mobile balista tanks than a small squad with repeating crossbows but they did remove censorship of two massive amounts of plot so can forgive them. If you want something similar but more off the wall, recommend the Manga The amazing Village creator: Slow living with the Village building cheat skill as it has the world's most terrifying Granny..
There was a cute girl in the Hero's party, so I tried confessing to her: MC is Reincarnated into a demon of the demon lords army, like the boss before the demon lord (even though he's stronger) and the hero's party is defeated easily by him but he always returns them safetly to a nearby human Village after. After many times of this, he gives them the choice to pass if they have their cleric stay with him, thry accept and rather than it be anything sinister, he confesses he finds her cute, that was once human and decides after they defeat the demon lord, live among humans to get close to the cleric. Light hearted series.
Heavy hitters
Frieren S2: Our favourite Elf is back showing us the merits of justified racism. Only character that I think could match her is if we get an anime of The knight king who returned with a God
Sentenced to be a Hero: not seen it all but liking it so far, a world where being a hero who can be resurrected is given to the most serious of criminals to be used as disposable assets in a war against demons.
preference choices
Hell's Paradise S2: seems to have not been as mentioned as much but still got the great art, world and characters.
Trigun Stargaze: now I know, CGI, that will be a red line for a lot of people but so far this studio uses it effectively and early into the second season but seems good.
That's it fir now, add any I missed as I wanted to watch Kaya-chan isn't scary but didn't get round to it and Oshi no Ko S3 as heard season is good but I know how the author had a tantrum and ruined the ending as a result so on the fence on getting invested.
I was pretty disappointed by the first half of Frieren season 2. They've really doubled down on most of the elements I find meh or even offputting - muh contemplative monologuing, muh travelling struggles - while the fighting action and demon lore were either truncated or wholly absent.
In particular, I don't know why the show continues to pretend that these godlike mages would ever struggle to survive on the road. I don't care how "windy" it is, these fuckers can literally fly. They have spells to create and accomplish almost anything, so why are they constantly "in need". I think the writers want us to empathize with the characters and their "difficult journey", but it doesn't add up and the incongruity is distracting.
Also, the animation quality has already declined significantly. It's not a OPM season 3 situation, but you can see it in the margins everywhere. These studios just can't help themselves to "cost savings" after season one.
You're offput by the literal bread and butter of the anime?
I'm not sure what anime you've watched but they're not godlike. There wasn't a single scene where a mage just created food or water out of thin air. And there were plenty of scenes where any of them could've easily died if they'd been alone.
I get it. It's not because those elements are bad are on their own. It's that it feels like incoherent world building. You can handwave some of it with Frieren feeling no time pressure and just going with the flow, but her character is also to take the easy way out.
Going with the "windy" example. If a bridge works, we've seen earth spells that could have created a "bridge" trivially. I do like the show's atmosphere, but to make it consistent you either have to just accept sometimes magic is only there for fight scenes OR figure that Frieren is going out of her way to teach the kids even if that's in opposition to what we're told her character is.
It's mostly movement spells making the "slow journey" roadblocks feel artificial. Locking flight magic to demons would have gone a long way, but made the big fights less dynamic.
Can't recall seeing any creation magic in the anime.
Flying uses up mana. Like every other magic spell. And humans can only fly themselves. They can't use it on objects or on others so they would have to carry Stark around the entire time. Meaning they would fly all day, run out of mana and be a sitting duck until they recover. In other words it's quite impractical. It's as much of a 'plothole' as the eagles in LotR.
Go back to the mage exam arc. If Richter (a second-class mage) can create a massive plateau and huge earthen spikes, spanning a narrow chasm with a rock bridge seems very straight forward.
But even ignoring transportation, go back a few eps this season. She uses magic to detect a silver vein, paying off her debt and solving the entire Norm Company's issues. She literally has precious-metal-detection-magic. Pretty close to printing money to offer that kind of prospecting service. But nope. We'll never hear it mentioned again. Even if they're just walking, they should never be broke.
I appreciate that it would wreck the vibe of the journey to magic their way out of everything, but I wish they'd be a little more careful with the writing.
They've used levitation on Stark to stop him from falling several times. I imagine the range is quite limited as they're always close by.
For longer flights they do have to carry him though.
Frieren has always had about a 4:1 ratio of "Frieren does a basic fetch quest to get a grimoire for a pointless spell and we learn a little bit about friendship along the way" episodes to "Frieren uses incredible world-shattering spells to destroy a demon" episodes.