How ‘Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ and ‘The Apothecary Diaries’ Navigate the Beauty of Eccentric Female Characters
- Female characters had little room for growth in the past.
- Eccentric characters were reduced to being maniacal.
- Maomao and Frieren represent a new era of female protagonists with unique personalities.
Female characters have, time and time again, been misrepresented in not only books but also other forms of media. Be it historical figures or female leads, their sole purpose to exist was to either help the male protagonist to thrive or be a villainess.
Plus, if a female was different from the others, that difference was not celebrated but pointed out in shame. They were made an example of how not to behave in society or else you can be ostracized.
Thankfully, times have changed, and tides are shifting towards betterment, where we see a rise in female characters who are defying the norm. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End and The Apothecary Diaries are great examples that showcase that females are also humans with personalities that cannot be categorized as they are their own persons.
We hardly get good portrayals of women
In portrayals of the past, female eccentricity was never something that was a good thing. It was mostly linked with manic episodes and bipolarity that showcased females in a negative light. One example of this is Ophelia from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, whose descent into madness became the blueprint for the trope of the manic pixie dream girl.
This trope characterizes a woman whose entire role is to have a quirky personality that her man would find interesting. She is ‘not like other girls’ and, thus, becomes the perfect romantic partner for the mostly introverted and brooding male lead. Here, Eru Chitanda from Hyouka is a fitting example. And though Chitanda is a very beloved character in the anime community, we can not deny her one-dimensional characteristics.
However, now we have eccentricities that do not fall under a label and are unique to that particular character, making them more human than ever. Maomao and Frieren both prove how females can be portrayed as unique individuals with personalities that do not necessarily match someone else.
Maomao and Frieren are new-gen heroines
Gone are the days when a person with a different outlook would be labeled as mad. Both Maomao and Frieren prove that unconventional is attractive, and it is very much a welcome change from what we usually see all the time.
Maomao from The Apothecary Diaries is a female character who barely gives attention to the male lead and drinks poison, not just for medical knowledge but sometimes because she likes it. She gives the unhinged mad scientist vibes that are so unlike a heroine that now she has become one of the most favored female leads in anime.
Just like her, Frieren from Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End has a tamed yet peculiar personality that is unique and refreshing. She has never been interested in humans because of her long life span and has only finally started to open up after witnessing personal losses. Frieren is also an exceptionally strong but detached adventurer who occasionally wants to buy weird things just out of impulse. But we also see her emotional growth when she remembers Fern’s birthday and gifts her a hair clip.
It is great to see two very distinctive female characters getting introduced almost at the same time, hinting towards a positive evolution in the narrative. Hopefully, we will get more characters like this who will etch their names in our memories with their personalities and not because of how they made their male counterparts look.
Watch all the episodes of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End and The Apothecary Diaries on Crunchyroll.
