Übel, this beautiful sorceress that we met in the last anime arc of Sousou no Frieren (Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End) made a big impact not only with her beauty, but also with her somewhat eccentric personality. She became quite a popular character and has caused diverse opinions within the Sousou no Frieren community. This time the debate originated due to a comment from a user on social networks who questioned if Übel was the female character of Sousou no Frieren that “bored teenage girls” most admired and would want to imitate.
Is Übel of Sousou no Frieren the character most admired by girls?
It all started when user @NHDMMMMMMM posted on his Twitter/X profile a tweet that read, “Probably the number one character that bored teenage girls would look up to and imitate.” This comment caused a lot of buzz on the social network, as it not only had a reach of 3.9 million people, but clearly generated all kinds of opinions about it. Many people agreed with this thought, expressing it through responses such as “It seems like this will affect a lot of children, so it’s a bit painful”, “Teenage girls should imitate Fern and eat a lot of food instead of imitating Übel“, among other similar opinions.
On the other hand, some netizens seemed to disagree with this questioning, sharing things like, “I like this girl, but if this kind of post spreads, people might say things like, Oh, you like this guy means he’s a chuunibyou ha ha ha?”. Chuunibyou, is a colloquial term used to describe teenagers with airs and graces who seek to stand out, so they convince themselves so they have hidden knowledge or powers. There are also those who pointed out that in the same way there are young men whose character resembles Landen’s, so they look for girls like Übel.
Reflecting on this, we can say that one of the positive points of Sousou no Frieren is that its characters are not black and white, there are many shades in them. However, the problem with Übel is that even within her own universe she is classified as a problematic girl, but even with this it would be necessary to stop for a minute to analyze her and consider if she is really a bad influence or if there is more to her character that we are not noticing at first glance. As well as being cold-blooded in combat, she also seeks to sympathize with others, in addition to being a woman with great dexterity.
Other positive points to highlight about this sorceress of Sousou no Frieren, are that according to characters like Sense, she is a genius magician, since she has the ability to perform spells that could be considered impossible to perform. This is because she, instead of using magic linked to intelligence and reasoning, uses emotions, so this enables her to copy the magic of other wizards without the need to know exactly the logic behind her technique. And although this is not directly linked to a situation that could arise in real life, his capacity for analysis and aptitude for planning show that not everything in Übel is negative.
Even though, Übel is a character that can be taken as conflicted in Sousou no Frieren, there are many layers that make her up and we could not reduce her only to that. One thing that is important to mention is that in the anime there is a huge variety of characters with different personalities and who are very popular, even though they are the villains or anti-heroes of their stories, they are the audience’s favorites. Even though fans like a certain character, it does not mean that they will seek to imitate their actions or personality in real life.
© 山田鐘人・アベツカサ／小学館／「葬送のフリーレン」製作委員会.