Anime layer#

> FREAK's signature feature set. Four pieces of it compile in V3; the rest is specified but unimplemented.

The bible's Section 5 describes a large narrative-flavoured layer: foreshadowing debts, route types, honour-gated unsafe blocks, death-flag analysis, and deus_ex_machina miracles. V3 implements a small slice of it.

What compiles#

Everything else in Section 5 fails at the parser.

training arc#

The one anime construct that is genuinely useful and genuinely implemented. It is a loop with a mandatory session cap, so it cannot spin forever.

-- `training arc` is a loop with a mandatory session cap.
-- It stops when the condition becomes true OR when the cap is hit,
-- so it cannot spin forever.
task main() -> void {
    pilot mut power: int = 0

    training arc until power >= 100 max 8 sessions {
        power += 20
    }
    say word_from_int(power)

    -- The cap wins when the condition is never reachable.
    pilot mut stuck: int = 0
    training arc until stuck > 1000 max 4 sessions {
        stuck += 1
    }
    say word_from_int(stuck)
}

100
4

Full details in Control flow.

eventually#

-- `eventually { ... }` marks a cleanup block.
--
-- IMPORTANT V3 caveat: V3 emits the block INLINE at the point it is
-- written. It is not deferred to the end of scope and it does not run
-- on `give back`, `break` or `panic`. Place it where you want it to run.
task main() -> void {
    say "engaging"

    eventually {
        say "cleanup"
    }

    say "disengaged"
}

engaging
cleanup
disengaged

eventually if cond { } does not parse: expected '{', found 'if'.

Annotations#

V3's parser recognises @ followed by one identifier, discards it, and carries on. No annotation has any semantic effect.

-- V3 parses a bare `@name` annotation and then ignores it.
-- It carries no semantics, and it must NOT take arguments:
-- `@rival(meiya)` does not parse as an annotation in V3.
@protagonist
task hero() -> word {
    give back "Shirogane Takeru"
}

@deprecated
task legacy() -> word {
    give back "old path"
}

@season_finale
task main() -> void {
    say hero()
    say legacy()
}

Shirogane Takeru
old path

Three hard limits:

• No arguments. @rival(meiya) breaks — the parser consumes @rival, then tries to parse (meiya) as the next statement and reports unknown binding 'meiya'. The same applies to @experiment("..."), @classified("...") and @i_know_what_im_doing("...").
• One per statement. Stacking two annotations fails with unexpected '@'.
• No validation. Any identifier is accepted; unknown names are not warned about, and @season_finale is not checked for uniqueness.

So @protagonist grants no power level, @nakige requires no caller prefix, @deprecated produces no warning, and @classified redacts nothing.

The anime operators#

Four operators work, with V3-specific meanings.

-- The anime operators that V3 actually implements.
-- The three unary forms are PREFIX and accept `int` only.
task main() -> void {
    pilot base: int = 6

    say word_from_int(FINAL FORM base)    -- base * base
    say word_from_int(PLUS ULTRA base)    -- base * 2
    say word_from_int(TSUNDERE base)      -- 0 - base

    -- NAKAMA is infix, at the same precedence as + and -.
    say word_from_int(3 NAKAMA 4)
}

36
12
-6
8

The specification puts all three unary forms in postfix position, allows num and bool, and defines emotional scaling formulas. V3 does none of that — see Operators.

What does not parse#

Each of these lexes as a keyword and then fails in the parser with "this token cannot start an expression":

The audit commands#

The audit subcommands still exist and still work, because they are text scanners running outside the compiler:

freak audit-science      # every `for science,` call site
freak audit-trust        # every `trust me` block and its honor level
freak audit-miracles     # every `deus_ex_machina` block
freak foreshadow-audit   # unpaid `foreshadow` bindings

They shell out to python -m freakc, so they need the Python bootstrap package and the repository's audit inputs. They scan source text — which means they can report on constructs the native V3 compiler cannot compile. A file full of foreshadow declarations will audit cleanly and fail to build.

Writing anime-flavoured V3 today#

The layer you can actually use is narrow, but it is not nothing:

@protagonist
task engage(power: int) -> word {
    pilot mut charge: int = power

    training arc until charge >= 9000 max 12 sessions {
        charge = PLUS ULTRA charge
    }

    eventually {
        say "systems nominal"
    }

    if charge >= 9000 { give back "over nine thousand" }
    give back "insufficient"
}

Bounded loops, prefix power scaling, a cleanup section and decorative annotations. Everything else is V4.