Sousou no Frieren

Style-
Frieren doesn't have its own unique style in any way. It just feels like every other Fantasy/Isekai ever. and I know it's not an Isekai, but it certainly feels like it in a lot of ways. The characters are very uninteresting and forgettable, the ost is one of the most generic things I've ever heard, the directing is very basic and boring, and the world is also uninteresting and forgettable. It's ironic how the only intriguing location is one we never see on screen through the whole anime (The North). Besides that there isn't a single location that sticks out. So in terms of ... style this anime offers nothing that anybody who has seen more than 20 anime likely hasn't already seen before. It's not ambitious in any way and just feels soulless. I will say that for an anime to be good it doesn't have to be avant garde, or have insane directing that blows your mind, but there is nothing this anime offers that even makes up for its lack of identity (boring soulless characters and world).

World Building-
I've seen so many people praising the "amazing world building" this anime has, but I don't understand where they are getting this from.
The actual locations they go to feel like they have little to no importance in the actual world. They just feel like random kingdoms and villages, but why are these kingdoms actually important in the world? We are never really told, so it kind of just feels like they are just there to give the characters a place to go. it makes the world feel less alive and less dynamic. The world isn't changing around our characters, but rather they are changing around the world. It makes watching them journey around random areas feel meaningless. I never once during this anime thought to myself about where the characters would go next, nor did any area feel distinct from each other. There was nothing differentiating the different areas culturally and it just made the anime really boring and feel not alive. There was never a single character we met in one of these areas that wasn't also forgettable.
The world we are in is also so incredibly stereotypical. The fantasy elements aren't creative in any way and they just feel like copies of the same blueprint that fantasy stories have been using for a long time. Even Konosuba was parodying these stereotypes over 10 years ago but yet we are seeing them even more now for some reason. Regardless, Frieren does nothing interesting with these elements. The magic system is generic, the Demons are just bad guys who want to kill people, the kingdoms and villages are all generic, and I can go on and on. It just felt like this anime had a checklist of fantasy setting elements to include, but didn't bother to do anything interesting with any of them. The magic system is poorly implemented as well. Why doesn't pretty much everyone in the world use magic? It's such an advanced tool that I feel like everyone even people doing basic jobs should use it to make their jobs more efficient. It isn't a very well thought out concept and it goes back to what I was saying earlier about how they just included it because that's the norm for fantasy stories.

Animation/Art/Directing/Soundtrack
This is the strongest part of the whole anime. The animation was insane sometimes and there were lots of pretty colors that I actually liked looking at. Animation is such a non factor though this barely added anything to the experience for me. This is probably the least important category when it comes to making a good anime. As far as the art goes, I thought the background scenery was overly generic a lot of the time. Once again, it felt like I couldn't separate it from anything else. It didn't feel very atmospherically alive, but if it did I think I would've liked it a lot more. If this anime was more like Mushishi for example where each scene is just breathing life, I would've appreciated it so much more. In Mushishi there is always so much going on in the background and environmentally, even when nothing is happening it creates such a nice watching environment, that I am just completely entranced. It feels like this is what this anime wanted to be, but failed miserably. The lack of an interesting soundtrack also plays a heavy role in this. There were times where it actually felt like the soundtrack was AI generated.
The directing was very boring and there were a lot of annoying flashbacks that happened in the middle of a fight. Sometimes I literally forgot the fight was even happening because of how long the flashbacks were, which is where the problem lies for me. There is nothing wrong with the flashbacks inherently, but they were just very annoying and uninterestingly implemented. There were some scenes where a monster or demon would die, and for some reason they would randomly dissolve as if it was a video game or something. And there is also an annoying amount of explosions in this anime. To the point where explosions pretty much mean nothing since there is one every 3 minutes on average. Even when nothing happens to cause an explosion, one will just randomly happen anyways.
There were a lot of questionable sound design choices surrounding the comedy scenes that took me out of whatever immersion I possibly had left. They would use silly sound effects that didn't fit in the actual world and it felt really off putting. However, as for my first positive in this whole review, I actually really love the crystally sound effect they use whenever a character uses magic. It actually sounded really cool and it was probably my favorite part of the whole anime.

Comedy-
This anime does a poor job at mixing in its comedy with seriousness. There is one episode where Stark is bitten by a venomous snake and he was on the edge of potentially dying. Yet, the characters were being very unserious about it, as if it didn't even matter. There were many instances of this during the anime and it just got unwatchable. How am I supposed to take this anime seriously when even the people making it aren't taking it seriously.
Besides that a lot of the comedy feels like it was written by a 13 year old. The jokes just felt very forced in, and it often repeats jokes a lot as if us hearing about the drunk priest again for the 50th time was gonna be any more funny than the 49th time. A lot of the characters are purely used as comedy sticks and don't even feel like their own person. Pretty much the entire cast of Frierens old group are 1 dimensional comedy characters that got carried by Frieren to defeating the demon king. The priest is drunk every time we see him in a flashback, himmel is always acting like an idiot which is supposed to be funny because he's actually supposed to be like a hero or something, but he actually is just a goofball (its funny and stark is totally not the same character), and the beard guy never talks and is pretty much just afk. Oh and if one drunk priest wasn't enough, we get a second one midway through the anime.


Characters-
None of the characters feel like humans. They are constantly expressionless, especially during fights, and it just makes them very unrelatable. The way they talk is robotic as well. It's annoying that our main 2 characters are the most expressionless in the whole anime, and of course they get the most screen time. I already talked about the other characters from Frierens flashbacks, and that applies here too. Most of the characters are either expressionless robots, or purely comedy characters. There are very few actually serious characters and when I say very few I mean only 2. There is no character development, and everyone stays the same as they were before. After Stark defeats the dragon on his own early on, he doesn't grow as a character, he just stays as an annoying whiny brat. Fern is always mad at stark, even when their relationship progresses, it always goes back to square 1 and nothing ever happens to progress anything really.

Plot-
Boring, nothing happens between episodes 10-18. There isn't really much to talk about because there isn't really much plot to begin with. Frieren is kind of just looking after Fern because the drunk priest wanted to and they just wander around together. That's pretty much it. I guess they have an objective to go up to the north so they spend 18 episodes doing nothing, and then doing an exam so that they can try becoming tier 1 mages to go up north. It's very boring and nothing happened this entire season. This anime is more about its themes than its plot but I think the themes aren't explored very well. I did resonate with them a lot early on, but the same themes of nostalgia and time perception got really repetitive and they never really went anywhere.

In conclusion, this anime is not good in any way and honestly I gave it the most positive rating I could've possibly given it. I was bored from start to finish, and there was very little redeeming qualities in this anime. The only reason I didn't rate this anime lower is because I think there are much worse anime out there and in comparison to those, I guess this one isn't the worst thing ever, but it probably deserves a 2 or a 3 in reality. This anime is full of plot conveniences and nonsense. If you would like to see more of what I thought about this anime, feel free to check out the youtube channel in my bio. I uploaded a full length review on this anime where I talk about a lot of the things I wrote here, as well as a lot of other things I didn't go into depth about.

TL;DR: 5/10, I don't recommend this for anyone that has standards and enjoys a fantasy world that tells you from the very beginning at least SOME of its rules, a good or at least somewhat decent power system, not made on the spot spells for whenever the author needs them, well-explored themes, complex characters or intriguing dialogue.

This anime can easily be described by saying that it is mediocre and generic and it has no reason to be as popular and praised as it is. The reason why I believe this is the case is because of the kind of interesting premise of the show which ... makes people think that this story and characters are actually mature, complex, or even philosophical (which it isn't, only at a surface level), the waifu bait mc, the episodic Slice of Life (SoL) elements and the presence of the well loved fantasy genre which is so popular these days in the anime community, giving huge generic isekai/fantasy anime vibes (especially the world and characters). While I have no problem with people that simply enjoy something for what it is, going from that to giving this anime only 9's and 10's and calling it anything close to "deep" or "philosophical" is an insult to any piece of writing that actually are this things. If you want something philosophical or deep, I can easily recommend anime such as Kino no Tabi (old version), Serial Experiments Lane and Casshern Sins.

World Building/Power system
Almost non-existent, the author makes things up as he goes along the way. No one explains the different classes which apparently exist, the races and the relationships between them, since there are quite a few of them (apparently they are all friendly with each other, except the demons, who are supposed to be the bad guys cuz that's what all the generic fantasy anime/manga/ln's also do) and kind of explain (on a surface level of course) the presence of magic. You have no history or sense of the world and how every species lives the way they do and no well-established fighting system, which makes this world seem extremely uncooked and was just an afterthought for the author cuz he knew all too well that classic fantasy worlds easily sell and everyone understands them, so he had no reason to think about it. While the demons are made up to be a threat, although to a lower extent, they barely appeared and got mentioned throughout the anime, they were probably put in just to have an occasional fighting sequence and to build anticipation of living threats (which they aren't, cuz Frieren's power is completely broken, so there is no tension or urgency for the party).
To add to the power system argument, the fact that Frieren's main hobby is collecting spells makes the anime even worse, since we are led to believe there are spells for pretty much everything since she collects a huge amount of books regularly on her journies, even before the story starts. Too add to that, how she has so many spells and the most important and even basic ones for battles or problematic situations for some reason don't exist or she doesn't have them is beyond me, especially since she has all kinds of spells for daily chores and needs, but not spells such as one that makes you lack the need for sleep, keep you warm in the cold or makes you see what is an illusion and what is real. But of course, we need some fake tension or to show some struggle with the characters because the existence of magic is used as the author sees fit and whenever it leads to the outcome that the author wishes for and it can easily be excused by saying that "she has so many spells, we don't know which she has or which she doesn't" or "she has so many spells, she can't remember all of them".

Story
The protagonist goes on the journey to the demon king castle to relieve the moments she had with her old party members. This is the kind of show where you should simply enjoy the journey, characters and the SoL elements without putting much thought into it. Too bad that, while I will talk later about why the characters are bad, pretty much every episode Frieren and her gang go to different towns, helping people for a few days, then moving on to another town doing fetch quests and sometimes beating an average bad guy (monsters). Fans of these show will likely tell you that all these moments are to build the characters and their relationships and while that may be true to some extent between 2 of them, Frieren not only doesn't do that, but she doesn't even try to learn more about the humans about which she wants oh so much to learn about, this being one of the main reasons (beside reminiscing about the old party) for why she goes on this journey. You would think that when someone wants to learn about other people or races, they would actually spend a significant amount of time with and questioning them at every chance they get. Not Frieren though, she has never even tried to question humans about their short life spans (compared to hers), how they see themselves compared to other species, or the value of their lives, to name just a few potential questions. Instead, she spends a few days in a town, does some chores for a few townsmen and moves on, constantly thinking about the old party she had which she didn't even try to get to know better even after she had realised that she wants to learn more about them.

Art style
As generic as it can get, you have the average fantasy world with pretty, vibrant colors, cute and moe female character design, and soy boyish male characters (not all but quite many of them, as it is the current trend).

Sound
While I usually don't notice the music and sound effects in anime's, there a few exception when I do so, but not in this anime, the OST is your typical medieval fantasy soundtrack.

Characters
Pretty much all of them can be defined by a simple character trait or stereotype, such as kuudere, another kuudere (the mc and the purple haired girl), the energetic crybaby that gets serious when it counts, for the main party, and drunk priest (get it?it's funny cuz that's a contradiction), serious dwarf and energetic crybaby (again), for the old party of Frieren. They all are the typical good guys with not much else going for them. In fact, for some reason, every single person that they meet on their journey just so happens to be good, except the demons, which are bad, as we all know. the old cast and the frequent flashbacks are used to make you feel bad about Frieren (a bit of emotional manipulation since you don't know any of them in the first few episodes when they appear the most so it's better and easier to make Frieren cry after them instead of building up for at least a few episodes the characters and that crying scene), and to make Frieren realise that she actually knew plenty of things about them and actually had a connection to them. This is considered an important plot point in the story because the anime tries to hammer almost every episode (if not every ep) how much she is starting to remember and care about them, but the story keeps going with the flashbacks even though both the watcher and Frieren understand this after just a few episodes and it still doesn't matter cuz Frieren doesn't change in the least after the first few episodes since she has this revelation and starts her new journey to know more about humans (which she doesn't even try to do, as i pointed out earlier). The least I can give it is that the old party isn't, at least, simply forgotten but a reminder for why Frieren goes on her journey, even though this can be simply canceled due to what I just mentioned.
Focusing on Frieren, the main protagonist, shows just how flawed the execution of its supposed themes in this show is. The fact that she is +1000 years old is one of the selling points and main reasons why this anime is usually praised, since it's something "new" and "original" (and as we all know, new and original=quality, doesn't matter how bad the execution is), but too bad that the aforementioned execution shows that it doesn't even matter if she is +1000 years or 20 years old since you can explore the same themes that this show pretends to explore in the exact same way and you wouldn't feel a difference. Actually, it would be even better like this, since she acts like a 5 year old that constantly needs to be spoon fed, woken up and dressed by her kuudere companion, despite her age. She was also a social outcast for hundreds of years , but good thing she ain't a +20 year old shut-in male who collects figurines and posters and suddenly tries to become more social, but a +1000 years cute woman elf that collects spells and only knows how to live like this, despite the years of experience, self reflection and time that she had to change over this period of time, because it would be quite clear who would be more appreciated and liked by the watchers. It is literally impossible to suspend your disbelief that she can still act like a child and have no maturity whatsoever after all this time if you have basic human knowledge and know that change can happen, even just by getting older (not to mention the life experience that she more or less has, even by simply existing) (and since there is no explanation, as far as I know, about the difference in development of human and elves, it's easier to go by human logic since they are extremely similar, except their pointy ears and long life span, which doesn't excuse the almost non-existent development from her childlike state). Neither her behavior, nor her thoughts show anything that could make me point to her and say she is actually a deep or complex characters used to explore themes such as the importance of bonds, of life, the inevitability of death, and the fact that the author just slaps over all her childish elements "+1000" years doesn't change anything about her shallowness, she is just a moe waifu bait who is liked only because she is a cute female, seing a +1000 year old male acting and being treated by others like she is creating quite the different perception of how a person should be at that age.
While I have nothing to say about the rest of the cast except that they are generic characters that are easily replaceable (which would be preferable since it would create more interesting dynamics than the ones in here), I at least enjoyed some of the interactions between purple hair girl and red hair boy, despite the fact that they don't add anything to the anime, not in term of themes, nor of story, especially the purple haired, since this anime shows you just how bland a cast of characters can be if you have more than 1 kuudere, red hair boy being used to liven the atmosphere a little (though it doesn't change much since the show is still boring and bland and mediocre due to the many reasons I presented here).

Conclusion
So yea, this show has nothing going for it except it's empty premise which the anime fails to build upon or execute even in a relatively competent way, being one of the most generic anime i have the (dis)pleasure to watch, but I am quite curious to see if it will even try to do anything better than it currently does, or it will remain an empty premise which the author isn't capable in the least to do something with.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is unethical because it has no qualms about portraying demons as inherently flawed despite the fact that they showcase intellect and empathy that is on par with humans on numerous occasions. Nevertheless, elves, who are implied to be unable to empathize, are given preferential treatment simply because they pose no threat to humans, which in itself is a contradiction. The above-mentioned seems to indicate that Frieren is not actually about time and change, but rather seeks to promote anthropocentrism and communism. It is anthropocentric in the sense that humans are at the center of everything in Frieren, despite being substantially inferior ... to both demons and elves. To further illustrate the point that is being made, in every single scene that involves demons or elves, humans are invariably brought up. It is as if the lives of every demon and elf revolve around human beings.

This show is fervently against the exertion of power, except when it benefits humans. This is most notably seen when frieren states directly to Serie, the personification of power, that her favourite spell is one that creates a field of flowers. In spite of that, Frieren does not have any second thoughts about massacring demons despite having seemingly no motive to do so. After all, it has already been established that elves feel no attachment towards their species as a whole and lack self-preservation instincts, which excludes the possibility that she is avenging their deaths. On top of that, Frieren's obsession with killing demons predates her meeting Himmel and Flamme, which could otherwise have served as a catalyst. The only explanation is that it benefits humans. This is another case of narrow-minded anthropocentrism in which the writer is unable to imagine a world that does not revolve around human sentiments.

As for the atmosphere, it is degraded by the constant barrage of flashbacks and jokes that are more often than not inserted into serious moments, which lessens the impact. Frieren was great when it was simply a story about an elf who wanders around aimlessly with her companion, collecting spells that she happens to come across along the way. The writer, blinded by her communistic viewpoints and subconscious craving for violence, changed the course of the story to better reflect her ideal world scenario, a scenario in which wealth and power is distributed among the people (humans), as opposed to the unfeeling aristocrats (demons). To achieve this objective, she posits that a powerful state (elves) needs to intervene and redistribute the power. This is alluded to when Flamme (influenced by Serie) successfully persuaded the Emperor of the continent's largest unified empire to endorse nationwide research into magic; magic is power. Prior to that point, every type of magic was viewed as demonic practice, and prohibited as a result. Furthermore, the goddess of creation is depicted with the long ears of an elf, which is in line with the establishment of the elves as the symbol of the state.

The previously mentioned flaws detract from the immersion of the reader, while also reinforcing the belief that Frieren is not a proper fantasy. Fantasy relies on the improbable, but to be effective, it must maintain a level of believability; truth is stranger than fiction. For instance, The existence of a species (referring to elves) that does not conform to the biological imperative (drive to reproduce, will to power, etc) is fantastic in nature, but the audience is nevertheless owed an explanation as to how that can be, and Frieren fails miserably in that regard. With that said, it does not come as a surprise that a sizeable portion of the Frieren fandom have correctly surmised that it is in fact a "native isekai", rather than a regular fantasy.

Episode starts and Frieren interacts with an insignificant and uncatchy episodic character, it cuts into a flashback of the perfect human being Himmel with his unquestionable act of truth on a similar situation Frieren is experiencing. Maybe They add an alcoholic priest joke which is so funny so why don't we do it for a hundredth time. Anyway eventually the flashback ends and Frieren smiles, how heartwarming. Meanwhile Fern pouts on either Frieren or Stark but cheers up in the end and Stark just feels sorry the whole episode as always. What am I talking about? Oh it is just the every episode of the ... Sousou no Frieren. Yes, each episode is repetitive in base of writing. Oh, I am sorry, the Chunin Exam arc is different, my bad! Series enter an unnecessarily long arc just when we started to focus personal and relationship developments of the characters other than Frieren.

In a world, what happens after the defeat of the Demon Lord? Or what will the heroes do after that? Well I don't know, because story doesn't telling it neither. It doesn't ever ask the question, we defeated the demon lord so what. Time flows and story only focuses on one character and it is of course Frieren. The other characters are just stair steps to make her shine, help our introvert and unemotional old little elf to realize the meaning of time, and quality of human life. Others only mean to make her feel like a human, they don't have any other purpose and their characters aren't important at all, hack, they don't have any personality neither: We have an always righteous all seeing knight, drunk priest(s) (Twice the fun), dwarf being dwarf, pouting robot girl, sorry feeling dude and such. Only thing changing and developing is Frieren.

Well After criticizing like this, I would like to point out that the visuals and animations are fine, credit where credit is due, but sound tracks are unnoticeable and forgettable. Its world is far from calling it identical. It is yet another mediocre fantasy / isekai world with similar atmosphere, rules and order. Its fanbase is saying it is peak but the only deep talk I see they are making is how lovely their loli elf or murderer waifus.

Don't get me wrong. Frieren is an average series to watch in my opinion, it is watchable but I don't recommend it in general. When the hype is too high about the series, you enter to it with high expectations. Eventually it becomes more disappointing to watch a series like this and it seems Frieren is praised hard as if it is the best anime of all times and I just don't buy it.

I really have no idea how this anime got such a high rating and is now considered a masterpiece, unique, legendary, etc. The only legendary and unique thing about this series is that it's so overrated, topping the list as the best anime of all time. The anime itself isn't bad, and the art is actually pretty good, but it's definitely not a masterpiece:

- There are so many repeated themes in the story with lots of elements that other fantasy anime handled better.
- The anime lacks originality and doesn't really bring anything fresh to the table.
- The plot feels a bit empty and relies too ... much on flashbacks.
- The character development centers around nostalgia, repeating the same idea over and over again.
- It's like the anime as a whole feels more like a bunch of filler episodes or OVAs.

With that being said, I think it deserves a 6 or 7 out of 10 at most.

If you don't understand the complex characters that elves are, then don't write a story about an elf protagonist.

People,
There's a reason why elves are portrayed as cold creatures devoid of emotions and empathy, it's because they've been around for hundreds to thousands of years. So while humans are slaves to their emotions which often compromises their decision making, elves on the other hand have lived for so long and have so much experience that they are able to see the bigger picture and remain objective no matter how seemingly cruel the situation requires them to be. Think of Avallac'h in the Witcher 3 for instance.

Frieren ... is a THOUSAND YEAR OLD ELF (estimates have her at around 1400-1500 years). Just to put things into perspective that's the equivalent of 14 full human lives at the very least. Think about how much you managed to do in the past 10 years of your life, now multiply that by 100 and maybe you start comprehending the scale we're talking about here. She's not a teenage girl who has just left her parents' house and is starting to discover the world around her for the first time. And yet that's precisely what the author wants you to believe. It's as though Frieren's time with Flamme, her decade-long adventure with the hero's party as well as the thousand years in between were all absolutely insignificant. During that time she gained no wisdom, learned nothing about humans, felt no emotions and didn't care about anyone or anything except for learning about magic. But when the anime starts, she does in the space of A FEW MONTHS what she failed to do throughout all her life! Can people really not see how utterly absurd this is?

Himmel on the other hand is a teenager but somehow he's wiser than the wisest elf. He knows exactly what to say especially to Frieren, he can do no wrong and does exactly what he's supposed to do every...single...time. Of course Frieren never noticed any of that during the decade they spent together, nor the fifty years afterwards, that would've made too much sense. Instead she noticed only after he died because that's when the anime begins of course, and set out on a journey to revisit all the places the party visited during their quest to defeat the Demon king. Hence the title.

The premise looked very promising at first, and the first few episodes were enjoyable. Sadly, what followed was a repetition of the same formula over and over again AD NAUSEAM: we visit a location, flashback to when the hero's party visited that same location, Himmel displays his all-knowing wisdom, Heiter is drunk, Fern pouts, Stark tries to cheer her up, and Frieren discovers something so basic about life that we wonder what she was doing the first 1500 years of her life.

Visuals are pretty good, animations are fine, and the sound track is forgettable. But if you think that such an anime is anywhere near worthy of being hailed as the best anime of all time then I have lost faith in this community. I can overlook the plot holes and the inconsistencies which I haven't even bothered addressing because, well, there's a much more serious issue at hand. The author doesn't understand basic concepts on which their whole story was based, and instead of being reprimanded they have been rewarded.

Do better guys, much better.

Sousou no Frieren," an anime with tremendous potential, ends up suffering the same fate as a run of the mill anime. Frieren had something special, and that was its premise: an immortal elf grappling with the impermanence of human life after the death of her companions. However, the potential was destroyed, but how? Very slowly anime with a story lacking direction and constantly introducing unplanned events that made the viewer much more confused and forgot the purpose of the journey because not even our characters were discussing it anymore
The biggest problem with this anime is its pacing; episodes feel like a race between snails and ... dedicate too much screen time to scenes that are non-essential and do not contribute anything to the story. For example, "Frieren walks around the city and talks to a random character from whom she learns nothing, and that character will not even reappear.
As for the story, what can I say? It largely relies on flashbacks to the adventures our elf has gone through, but initially, they are interesting, and then they become repetitive and boring. We see the same moments unfolding again and again. Some flashbacks feel like they only exist to fill up time in the episode rather than being used for something more useful (like character development).
The entire series tries to drown you in emotions... Bombs of "sentimental" moments are thrown in without reason. I can't understand what the author exactly wanted to do; they try to create many dramatic moments with the "adventurers," but at the same time, we barely learn anything about them, and in the end, we know just as much as we did in the first episode about the elf's past comrades.
It started nicely, with a fascinating premise, but it fails to deliver even 50% of what it promises. The pacing is sluggish, the story repetitive, and the characters underdeveloped, ruining everything and turning it into a dissatisfying series by the end of the journey. This could have helped the viewer to question life, and the weight of time, but instead, the slow pace and awkward melancholy make the viewer lose interest in such matters. I cannot recommend this anime; I struggled with it... if I didn't watch it weekly, I probably would have been knocked out after watching 3 episodes on the same day.

Underwhelming. The fantasy setting is about as generic as it gets, nothing about it feels fresh or interesting, and as an emotional journey story it feels like reading a YA book and being delivered conclusions that aren't particularly complex or nuanced to you, as an adult. Which, I get this is a shounen series aimed at teenagers and I'm not exactly the target audience, but that being said, I feel like Adventure Time deals with complex emotional issues better than Frieren does and that show is aimed at children. So Frieren doesn't get a total pass on that.

I gave it a 5 out of ten ... because by fantasy anime standards it's perfectly average, not particularly bad or anything (and the quality of the animation is good, no complaints there - Madhouse did it and it looks great), but like... when you leave that realm it really doesn't hold up. This show seems like it's trying to tell a different perspective to classic trope-y fantasy anime like Lodoss, which could excuse the generic fantasy setting (assuming it's doing that to hearken back to specific fantasy anime tropes) if it felt like what Frieren had to say had any real depth or complexity, had anything new to bring to the "immortal" trope, or had interesting things to say about the tropes of the fantasy genre. It's not saying anything other fantasy manga authors and fantasy works outside of the manga/anime realm haven't already said. Now that would be fine if the writing of Freiren were stronger - you don't need to be re-inventing the wheel - a compelling, well-written story can stand on its own regardless if the message has been said before. Manga-wise To You My Immortal feels like it tells a much more emotionally compelling story about the struggles of immortality than this show does (that manga has its own flaws don't get me wrong, but I don't think its depiction of the struggles of immortality is one of them - imo it also does a much better job of getting you to relate to and feel emotionally invested in its main character. Obviously these two stories have plenty of narrative differences but I feel like the depiction of immortality comparison is valid).

There was no point in this story where I was moved emotionally - the characters are cookie-cutter and their emotional conflicts are handled in a basic "wikihow therapy" way. This entire show (at least the 12 episodes I watched, but even if it turns around for the better later on that doesn't excuse 12 mediocre episodes) feels very "safe" in the emotional places it's willing to go to, which combined with the uninteresting setting made it pretty boring to follow along with. And then of course the character designs are also very generic and forgettable. Idk, it all feels like the most milquetoast, mass-marketable way to tell this story. I have no problem with "slower" more thoughtful anime if either the visual artistry on display is compelling (angel's egg), the setting itself is very interesting (serial experiments lain) or the story trusts the intelligence of their audience and therefore creates more nuanced, messy, realistic character interactions (house of five leaves). Obviously this is all my own opinion (as with any critical review anyone has for any piece of media), but in my experience this was unfortunately as underwhelming a show as its half-assed cliche character designs made it seem like it would be.

TLDR: I think if you lower your expectations significantly (this anime has been seriously overhyped) or are just used to YA/light novel levels of quality (not to say that every YA/light novel lacks narrative complexity and/or emotional depth, just that they often do by the nature of their target market combined with a push towards what is expected to sell the easiest), you'll enjoy the show fine. But if you want something with more depth, nuance, and a little less hand-holding then pass on this. The show didn't improve on me at any point after episode 1 so if you watch episode 1 you'll probably know if this is for you or not.

<This review was edited to be in compliance with the review guidelines>

I'm confident that the rarity of some event and the significance of that event are correlated. Take a meteor shower for example, if it happened every night it would stop being exciting. And just like seasons die one after another, every year at least several shows get the status of being a "modern classic". However, it stopped being about the quality because it always happens when the show is still airing and it gets overshadowed by yet another show afterwards. And this time it's Frieren beyond journey's end, which doesn't deserve the community's love ... given terribly misleading title. For Frieren the journey is nothing but endless, and the title would perfectly fit for a side character spin-off. On a serious note, the story has some serious issues I can't get past past.

The anime is set in a fantasy world, however, there is no wars or politics it usually expected given the genre. The story begins after all of that took place and is mostly episodic, where arcs' lengths range from 10 minutes to several episodes. It's not a bad thing per se it's just about keeping your expectations in check instead of anticipating the best plot ever written. On the other hand, the focus is the characters; even the side characters who appear for a single episode have their backstories and personalities. And the main cast feels so natural in the way they communicate and behave. But the centerpiece of the story is Frieren, whose whole personality is so distinct from other characters because her life span exceeds generations and her character arc is about finding happiness in small and transient things. I know it's nothing original and Spice and Wold did that over a decade ago but this show is new, shiny, and has better animation, so I understand why it got so popular. The story in the second cour changes the direction and now fights is the highlight of the plot. In summary, the anime is focused on characters, has character development and contains both slice of life episodes and amazing fights, this is a good story by the book. It's more likely that it won't appeal to you rather than make you hate it, so what is there to dislike about the show?

It's said that water comprises 60% of the human body and in the same way 60% of the story here is flashbacks. Just like a rabid dog it constantly jumps between different flashbacks, which is probably the reason I have always felt so detached. The flashbacks are nuts and bolts of the story: no matter how small and trivial an arc is it always has to have a bloody flashback in it. They're always shown in randomized order with time skips ranging between 10 minutes and several hundred years, and they never form a cohesive storyline like it was done in Made in Abyss S2. On top of that, there are infamous flashbacks inside flashbacks and flashbacks from the previous episodes like the target demographic is children or tiktok users with a negative attention span. Of course flashbacks somewhat also benefit the show: keeping records of how many flashbacks a single episode can contain or how long it takes for an episode to insert a flashback was the only thing that kept me from falling asleep. The latter is kind of boring though, because some episodes start with a flashback.

A lot of people have noted that Frieren beyond endless flashbacks actually tries to create a unique fantasy world without relying on rpg mechanics. And I even agree with them I just don't think those attempts are successful. In this world demons are the most dangerous creatures, they were commanded by a king and after people had wielded the magic that king was slayed by a party of heroes which Frierent was a member of. The problem is I didn't omit any details, that's all about the world building. The demons had been pillaging villages and killing people for hundreds years, yet aside from Frieren and her companions no one had ever tried to kill the Demon King. And neither had the four heroes. In the flashbacks they're doing some stuff and wasting time doing... Why are you picking flowers? Is this the way you kill the Demon King? It's just strange that the tone of the story in the present is no different from the past where people were supposedly waging war against demons. I wouldn't mind the complete lack of world building if the events of the past weren't constantly brought up through... yeah, flashbacks.

The ost is the weakest part of the adaptation, it is a standard fantasy-themed soundtrack and I can't think of any scene, where the ost played a huge role. In contrast the animation and the direction are probably the main reason of the popularity because they're stellar. The visuals in the EDs and the OPs are also of high quality.

In conclusion, the show looks really good, but man I would be lying if I said I would still remember it after a year.

"Episode 28 - It would be embarrassing when we met again."
I doubt we ever will tho.

Get this garbage out of #1. It is embarrassing for us as a community. This medium contains the highest of possible art, the deepest and most meaningful of story; yet this show is not amongst that. This is a sloppy collection of annoying characters and intentionally mundane meaningless plot lines. The vibes are not cozy, the moments are not wholesome, and the show is not good.
I will not be holding back at all with this review and I will be holding this show to the highest possible standard. If it Is truly the best show it should hold up against the highest level of ... criticism.

I will start with the positives. Freeren is number one amongst all anime in one aspect. The first outro of Freeren is the greatest anime outro I have ever seen. It is absolutely gorgeous and compliments the show perfectly. For a show that is supposed to focus on the stuff in between the action, the action is pretty much the only enjoyable part, and a lot of it is quite good. There are two arcs of the story that I found generally quite enjoyable. These are between episode 7 and 10, and between episode 18 and 21. This series contains one episode that I would consider to be really good, that being episode 9. This episode features two very high quality fights that have multiple points where I found myself rewinding to rewatch sections of the animation because they were so well done, which is something I do not do very often. I do not mind the characters Fern and Shtark. I enjoyed many of the moments that these characters shared, And will admit that some of these moments could even be considered mildly wholesome, although I do not take back my previous statement. I also didn't mind a couple of the Mages they added during the Mage exam. Many of the monsters and demons have great designs, and many of the landscapes and settings looked quite nice. There are a few high quality moments of small intricate dingdongmenship relating to ideas such as memories and flowers.

Now onto the negatives. If something is to be considered the greatest show, I would say a reasonable minimum requirement is that it doesn't contain any mistakes. This is not a standard that Freeren meets, There are many objective writing errors in the show. This is not my opinion, this is A fact about the show. None of them that I was easily able to catch were that significant or seriously affected the show, yet they are still there.
For example I will break one down in detail so you can understand what I am saying. In episode 15 there is a quick flashback where Freeren Is caught by a mimic right in front of Fern. Although it is not directly shown, This scene logically requires that one of the two following options has happened. Option one is that Fern gets Freeren out of the mimic, requiring that Fern learns how you get someone out of a mimic. Option two is that Freeren gets out of the mimic herself, Requiring that Fern learns What happens to Freeren’s hair when she gets herself out of a mimic. By episode 15, Fern is required to have learned a minimum of one of those two pieces of information. In episode 23 there is another scene, in the present, of Freeren getting caught in a mimic, In this scene Fern reveals that she does not know how to get someone out of a mimic, as she has to be told by Freeren how to do it. Fern then immediately reveals that she also does not know what happens to Freeren’s hair when she gets herself out of a mimic, as Fern has the aha moment of “So that's why sometimes you show up with a completely different hairstyle.” It is impossible for Fern to be learning both of those pieces of information at that point in the story, yet this is what the scene is. If one was to intake extreme quantities of copium, A scenario could technically be invented where During the events of the original flashback Fern was separated from Freeren while she was still in the mimic, and then Freeren Gets out of the mimic by herself, and they remain separated for long enough for Freeren’s hair to go back to normal. Yet this scenario of course requires a pretty extreme assumption, along with the assumption that on their previous Journeys Freeren was only caught by a mimic that one time in front of Fern, as well as this Behavior requiring a pretty significant bad-girlesk break of Character for Fern. Thus this is an objective writing error. Again this small little detail does not really affect the story in any meaningful way, but in my opinion something that is considered the best should not contain errors like this.

Two more examples of Inconsistencies. Once they enter the northern lands it is the beginning of winter, and it begins to snow, and thus they find a cabin to stay in, they then stay in this cabin for 6 months to wait out the winter. At the end of this sixth month period, at the beginning of Summer, it is still snowy all around them. The next scene, presumably happening in the middle of summer, is them getting caught in another blizzard and having to find shelter again. (Freeren during this time also reveals that she does not know any spell that produces any type of heat, fire spells do exist yet she does not know a single one.) They could have justified this scene by simply saying something along the lines of, they're traveling through the mountains now, so the weather is like this even in the middle of summer, and if it was winter then it would be 20 ft of snow or something. But they don't do this, it doesn't explain, it just gives us the characters stuck in a blizzard in the middle of summer and expects us to figure out why. It feels like they were so obsessed with having time pass that they forgot to have time actually pass.
Early on in the show there is a section where Freeren and Fern decide to clean a massive beach for a fake book. We are then treated to a couple of scenes where Freeren, the most powerful Mage in the world, is picking up 10 little pieces of wood at a time. It then clarifies that Freeren and Fern stay here and are cleaning this beach for 3 months, meaning that both of these Mages have spent a minimum of 3 months exclusively training their floating magic ability. Later on in the show it attempts to justify why Freeren was only capable of picking up small quantities of wood at a time, by saying that no one other than demons and monsters had the ability to fly or float until very recently. (And although spells being made recently is an advantage for things such as zoltrock derived spells it's not for floating Magic.) And even though we know they spent months exclusively training this ability they are barely able to actually use it when they need to. And at the end we see an elf using floating Magic 1,000 years before the events of the story, which from my understanding is not a monster or a demon. It's just sloppy, weird little inconsistencies like this shouldn't exist in the best show ever.

Now onto the character of Freeren. I do not like this character. First of all this character is an elf, and elves live a long time. She is very proud of this aspect of her existence, and she will bring up how old she is and brag about it every chance that she gets. Yet at the same time if anyone else brings up how old she is she gets insecure about it. She is extremely selfish and narcissistic most of the time, but then sometimes decides to be absurdly generous. At the funeral for her friend, She begins to cry, and she clarifies that the reason she is crying is not for them, but because she feels bad for herself because she didn't get to know him as well as she would have liked. This is the same friend that she had spent the last 50 years ignoring for no reason other than she was too distracted in pursuit of her own personal Joy. If time is truly that abundant for her it would have been no issue for her to send a couple of letters back and forth, at the absolute minimum at least once every couple years but she couldn't even manage that. It only takes 10 years to make it across the planet, so she was likely in his vicinity a couple of times assuming that she was just wandering around the southern lands. This strange feeling of guilt is the thing that inspires this whole story, Yet she is fully responsible for how she feels. If she had just acted like a normal person She wouldn't have this issue in the first place. She has had hundreds of years to learn how to act mature and she still doesn't. It also doesn't make sense why she is having these feelings in the first place, As there is only one person that she has ever known better than Himll, this being her master. Meaning that in comparison to pretty much everyone she has ever known she knew him very well. And she is making the judgement that she didn't know him very well based off of a singular slightly deeper relationship that she had 1,000 years earlier. It is impossible to have any sympathy for Freeren, in her 1,000 years on that planet she should have learned how to have/be a friend, And it never gives any reason as to why she is so closed off to everyone. Just the fact that she is old and from some perspectives it doesn't matter as much, Doesn't work to explain it very well. I think that the character is pretty annoying as well, I usually like characters that are annoying, but not like this. The way that she acts around grimoires is so contradictory to the way she acts around everything else that it feels like she is breaking character and doesn't feel like some natural quirk. It feels like an excuse that is employed to get this character to do anything, as without it the character wouldn't be willing to do anything. Any good character is flawed, as this is how a character develops, they have a flaw at the beginning and have character development by changing. Yet, at the end of this series there's a scene where an old lady drops her basket of goods onto the ground right in front of Freeren, It would take Freeren essentially no effort at all to help out this old lady, The show clarifies that in this moment the thought to help this old lady crosses her mind, and it shows her actively making the decision to not help. In the final episode of this series it clarifies that Freeren Has not had any meaningful character development, and is just as selfish as ever. Yes, she now has a regret, but she is still acting the same way that caused her to gain that regret in the first place. I would assume that eventually in this story she probably learns to have a heart in some way, to act with a little bit of humanity, but that didn't happen in this series, so this is my interpretation of the character.

I believe there is a place and time for Slice of Life anime. But that place is not number one, and that time is not all time. I am clearly not whoever this show is meant for. Slice of Life is not really the type of story that appeals to me, I view it as a valid part of what anime has to offer, yet I do not believe it is where anime truly shines. I went into this story knowing that it was very unlikely I would view it as a masterpiece, I only expected a high quality fantasy story. And I still feel disappointed, it did not even deliver on that. There are so many more criticisms I could give But I feel that I have already said enough. I know somehow I am in the minority here, there is some sort of fundamental difference between what I enjoy and most people on this website enjoy, as was clearly indicated by how much respect people give to things such as Steins Gate. And even acknowledging all of this, I still believe that this show is not very good, The story is not well written, it is full of objective errors, The characters are annoying and not relatable, The ideas are not fun or interesting, And I genuinely do not recommend watching this show.

I saw a lot of people speaking highly of this anime and praising it as if it were a masterpiece. I went to watch it and what a disappointment. In terms of the script, it was one of the worst I've seen this year.

Slow dynamics, it's even sleepy. The protagonist and her apprentice have NO charisma whatsoever, even a door is more charismatic than they are. Spending 90% of the anime like this: 😐 - Apart from the robotic voice, with no intonation whatsoever, it sounds like Ayanokoji from The Elite's Classroom, the difference being that both Frieren and Fern are like this.

If you ... like good plots, a dynamic anime full of conflicts, you can abandon the idea of watching this anime. Because good plots are what this anime lacks. If you want to watch something more "goodvibe" to pass the time (or if you suffer from insomnia problems) maybe this anime is a good one.

At least the animation is good.

This review contains spoilers.

The utter lack of identity this show exhibits is absolutely bewildering and perhaps I was expecting this to improve within the second half, but I was wrong; there is a severe lack of any substance whatsoever in every single pore of this anime and it is completely forgettable. Sousou no Frieren played a safe formula and won the jackpot. They are still the exact same fucking person after 25 episodes, you can literally define each character with a single sentence. Something can be simple yet still be distinctive, yet Frieren is basic and it doesn't have any soul or substance; there is ... nothing to grasp in this anime that evokes even a semblance of interest. This show doesn't take into account just how complicated humanity can be especially in a fantasy world like this, all of the people Frieren meets throughout her path have one-dimensional motivations and are always up to help Frieren and her group, which is just absolutely ridiculous and unrealistic; except demons, who are big bad evil guys of course. Demons are such bland antagonists for which genocide is the only counter of course; the author really went out of their way to lazily write such boring characters, they are DND evil-personified royalty scumbags who trick other species and then BETRAY them! So fun and thought provoking.

This last arc a la Hunter Exam is completely unnecessary and only serves a purpose for the people who, understandably enough, were bored of the absolute slog this series is; why Frieren doesn't just go through the lock, considering she defeated the fucking Demon King with her group and is one of the, if not THE strongest, mage in the entire planet? She could just blast absolutely everyone that crossed her path like she had always done, there's absolutely no need to do this battle tournament bullshit if she just talked about it, or if any of her allies mentioned it, or if there was a minimal amount of valuable communication, which Frieren, as a whole and to be honest, completely lacks. Dialogue in Frieren is sloggy and useless, oftentimes it will feel like you're listening to two brick walls talking to each other; it lacks any insight or interest that might come with good and valuable communication.

If there isn't a strong-enough emotional basis in Frieren to grow sympathy and become a slow-burner, dramatic character development show, what is the identity of this anime? The combat isn't as frantic or notable so it cannot be a battle shounen either, Sousou no Frieren does not exhibit an interesting-enough fantasy world full of mysteries, so it cannot exactly be an exploration show about the value of a long journey; Frieren doesn't have witty dialogue or particularly great humour—beyond repeating the same gag a thousand times without any variation—so it can't be an effective comedy show. The romance between Frieren and Himmel is bland as fuck and I absolutely despise that he essentially works as an emotional prop or messiah and Frieren is essentially the damsel in distress that needs emotional points throughout this entire thing, so it doesn't work as romance either. So with this said: What is Sousou no Frieren's identity? What does this anime want?

I do not know, I really don't; this is one of the biggest problems with it: SnF doesn't know what it wants. It goes from being a WoW secondary mission simulator to a cheap copy of the Hunter Exam arc, meanwhile no valuable progress is done for the characters' identity. Funnily enough, the show who lacks uniqueness isn't able to develop an unique identity for their own character cast. Can ANY of these characters express any emotion beyond a boring emotionless face? Can ANY of them express any emotion on their dialogue? Or say anything that I can minimally care about? It tastes so much like air. This show is completely inoffensive and riskless, completely devoid of any identity and inherently soulless. It can't be an emotional journey where we watch Frieren learn, as Frieren's progress feels artificial when it is purely fed by flashbacks, cliché quotes and plot conveniences.

The last arc of this show suffers from a dragged on pace, they have to explain E V E R Y S I N G L E T H I N G—even irrelevant details—before actually doing it, they have to E X P L A I N C A R E F U L L Y irrelevant shit such as history of magic in the middle of an intense moment such as a battle; oftentimes in the form of a flashback, of course. We have to see these random ass dudes running for their lifes in the middle of an important scene where they are strategizing, why?? I literally do not care about them. I already know Frieren is smiling because this whole thing reminds her of the skirmishes she did with her group on a dungeon, you don't need to slap a flashback and completely break the scene, this exposition dump in the form of a memory is absolutely uncalled for. Exposition and the use of flashbacks can work in complex topics or when cleverly-used, but here it completely ruins the pace and feels out of place; let ME deduce why Frieren is smiling based on my experience on watching the show. This is a constant pattern that is repeated throughout all of Sousou no Frieren:

> Frieren sees an old person
> Boring ass dialogue ensues
> flashback!!! this actually relates in some way to her original party group!!!
> 2sad4me melodrama

> Frieren sees something, anything
> Boring ass dialogue ensues (that is constant within this show)
> She relates it back to her party
> Mr. Gary "Himmel" Stu tells her everything she needs to hear and everything that is perfect for that specific situation!! He is really wise and definitely isnt just an emotional Macguffin for Frieren to grow in cheap emotion points.
> Himmel dicksuckery shenanigans ensues. he's the worst character on the entire show by far btw

> A cross-eyed Frieren is lying on the ground, drooling and having an epileptic attack; her eyes haphazardly inspecting the sky
> "Is Frieren alright?" asked Sein, worried that his companion could've been going through a tough time
> "Yeah, she's on Himmel's flashback, she'll be back in a minute." assured Fern, she was already used to this.

Do you like comedy? I do, sometimes; comedy is subjective, thus it might be funny to some but holy shit I believe the author doesn't know anything beyond the same comedy-gag ad nauseam. There isn't anything witty, to deduce or interesting about this show's humour; it is "haha shes in the mimic again lulz" for ten-thousand times or Fern throwing a pouting tantrum and punching our shounen boi. I guess it gets slapped in for fanservice motives or to accelerate the pace of this absolute snail of an anime to acceptable amounts; same with the action, I feel like the author assimilated that this was absolutely horrific and decided to put some action in the last arc, which I honestly appreciate, I don't know if I could stand 12 more episodes about World of Warcraft secondary quests and nothingburger characters peppered with melodrama. I bet that if you write "Create boring-ass plain World of Warcraft secondary quest" in ChatGPT it would bring a plot point fit to Sousou no Frieren's standards. Perhaps if it were 12 episodes it'd be less obnoxious and bland, because watching these bland archetypes talk with nobodies constantly was drawn out to absurdity. It truly becomes a nothing-fiesta when every dialogue sounds like it was AI-generated.

There is no different way to approach each character, dialogue, action, expression; there's no nuance, nothing. Frieren meeting kid Himmel for the first time is so absurdly convenient its cheesy; of ALL the forests in the fucking world, in THIS specific moment, in THIS specific night AND day of the year was where Frieren met Himmel for the first time. The relationship between Frieren and Himmel annoys me to my core, it is a prophet and damsel in distress relationship where Frieren cannot realize anything without having it spoonfed by Himmel thru endless memories; guess what, there's many times in life where you have to do shit by yourself and there will not be anyone to tell you what you need to do; there will be inmense doubt, conflicts and sometimes suffering. Their connection is rotten to the core and consists on a flashbacks-based savior complex from Himmel, he MUST be the one who teaches Frieren emotion, he MUST be Frieren's love interest; it feels so wrong and forced, the rest of the group are just spectators of this degenerate link between a savior and a broken or lost one.

I still haven't talked enough shit about the character cast, which oftentimes turns into one-dimensional archetypes, devoid of any charisma and very lackluster identities, which is a huge problem in a show such as Frieren. Twenty-eight episodes yet Fern is still absolutely insufferable, Stark has no personality traits beyond being a shounen boy & Fern's love interest and boxing-bag, Sein appears to have been absolutely thanos'd from reality, Übel is your crazy bitch archetype—who is the only one that thankfully puts some spice in this slog—and Himmel... oh, fuck Himmel. I really cannot describe just how much I dislike him honestly; he's the core on my main disdain towards this show. He's a Gary Stu who's entire personality traits are being Frieren's would-be love interest and a hero. Yeah thats about it, he's a blue-haired Ken with no interesting traits whatsoever; the worst thing by far is his discount-ass motivational phrases which do nothing but artificially inflate Frieren's emotional points, oftentimes through flashbacks ad nauseam, something that feels cheap, frequently pace-breaking and bland; he's essentially an emotional deus ex machina, whenever you feel like Frieren is having a hard emotive situation Himmel will be there to spit some motivational stock phrases so Frieren has a huge epiphany and the show will be like "See? They were truly one for the other!" It feels so forced and disgusting when he plays this messiah superman-esque role.

Heiter is "haha le drunk guy XD" comedy relief in the heroes' group who occasionally pukes motivational slop a la Himmel. Eisen is strong dwarf who teaches shounen boy and theres not much more about him. Who in the fuck is Methode? Oh, that one girl in the exam; okay I don't care, who even cares? Who are all these people? Why are they so completely plain? Fern is still absolutely insufferable, a complete brat and a Frieren copy—and being cared for under Frieren's bosom isn't a good excuse—having both Frieren and Fern talk to each other is like clashing two rocks with each other. It is STILL the same shit after 25 episodes and hasnt changed a thing. The main trio is lazily conformed and their thoughts are vaguely explored; without a semblance of interesting dynamics or substantial thoughts. Relationships tend to be notoriously complex, depending on endless layers of emotions, interests and more; Sousou no Frieren simplifies this in a lazy way and the author only dares to make straightforward, boring interactions and links between characters.

Finding any interesting traits in these characters feels like trying to find a penny in the atlantic ocean. Frieren is an elf femcel who gets punched ad nauseam by emotional planitudes and nothingburger motivational phrases. Have you ever read these classic happy-go-lucky phrases like a la "Living is good! Keep living!"? That's what Himmel constantly slaps in your face in every scene he appears in. This show is oftentimes praised by its emotionality yet the characters are barely human, 90% of times the characters' expressions look like Moai statues without any emotionality whatsoever (with no offense to moai statues, they are pretty rad in comparison to this blandfest). Many excuse Fern's absolute nothingburger identity through being cared by Frieren's teachings; however, this is no excuse, I still fail to comprehend why shes completely devoid of any notable traits. You can be teached by someone your entire life and STILL derail from their ideas, morality, teachings, etcetera; hearing Frieren and Fern talk might as well be two Frierens talking to each other, just lame as fuck. There's also the vague and plain worldbuilding which doesn't get better:

> Welcome to village numba 1 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM
> Welcome to village numba 2 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM
> Welcome to village numba 3 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM
ad nauseam

> Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you.
> Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you.
> Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you.
ad nauseam

> Welcome to magic city. As you can see it is full of magic; betcha you didn't expect that. Is there anything beyond this? Nope, it's magic city, why in the fuck would you expect something more?

But I guess shounen fans just can't understand this immaculate piece of peak fiction and the symbolism behind Frieren's feet, they want skibidi brainrot lobotomykaisen fast paced spoonfed everything, they have a low attention span and can't stand HEAVY and SLOW shows like Frieren... nevermind the fact that I do enjoy slow-paced media and still found Sousou no Frieren to be a complete slog and a restaurant of nothing meals, despite what the Frieren fanbase might tell you, not everyone who dislikes Frieren are skibidi ipad kids. In a show like this character development is deemed to be a very important aspect yet there's virtually no advancements towards anything resembling development, and if it happens, it is completely irrelevant.

The arc a la Hunter Exam doesn't work when every battle is fought by pokerfaced nobodies with not even an inch of personality, they fail completely at even evoking a semblance of emotion in me when it just looks like they dont wanna be in this anime. Watching Frieren characters fight between each other looks like when you were going to do a class presentation in a topic you absolutely didn't care about; that's Frieren battles in a nutshell. How can I care if they don't seem to care? Where's the emotion in these expresionless androids? Where's the emotion in their ChatGPT dialogue and fights? Where's the emotion that is so praised about this anime? Wait, before delivering flashbacks, BOOM LAZER, MAGICAL BULLSHIT; now, let's haphazardly introduce the flashback.

After all they are supposed to be humans, of complicated thoughts and intricate morality yet they seem to lack anything of sorts, instead looking like a reptilian trying to replicate superficial philosophy, feeliings and humanity; it's tough when a show that's supposed to feel human and emotional instead feels like E.T trying to make a personal story. Frieren and Fern vs Frieren clone in the last arc is supposed to be a huge climax yet it feels like nothing, there are no stakes I already know they are going to wreck the shit out of it; especially if you slap a fucking flashback on me where it essentially praises humanity and their advancement towards dominating magic, soon to be equal or even surpass elves—of course, it refers to Fern—just like that stakes are completely gone. As a whole package, Sousou no Frieren might be the most ambitionless anime I've seen in a long time, only carried by the talents in Madhouse, who I applaud for improving this blandfest and jack of all trades turned into a devoid master of none.

An anime that promised to be a unique look at life after completing the heroes' epic mission. However, despite the interesting concept, it failed to meet expectations.

The first and most obvious omission of "Soukou no Frieren" is its slow tempo. The plot develops too slowly, focusing on the little things that do not always add depth to the story or character development. Instead of a lively and dynamic story about the consequences of heroic deeds, we get something monotonous and protracted. This is a huge problem for me, I think that long runs are bad and I appreciate finished concise works. Maybe this is one ... of those chill titles for relaxation? oh no, it's a stupid emotional tearjerker. it would work if there was an interesting fantasy setting, but there isn't

One of the main disappointments is the anime setting. It feels like a boring and banal world in the style of Dungeons & Dragons, which brings almost nothing new to the genre. The viewer does not see any unique races, exciting locations, or interesting magic systems. Everything seems to be formulaic and predictable. As a result, the world of Soukou no Frieren is perceived not as alive and breathing, but as a boring backdrop for events that do not stand out in anything special.

The main character, Frieren, a representative of the elven race who lives for a long time, could become an intriguing character. However, her cold and distant behavior is sometimes repulsive and does not arouse the viewer's sympathy. Her development as a character seems shallow and unnatural, which makes it difficult to emotionally engage in her story.

The supporting characters also don't leave a significant impression. Instead of building complex and multifaceted characters, anime often resorts to stereotypes and patterns. This makes most interactions predictable and boring. Moreover, almost all the characters seem to be emotionless and to some extent on the autistic spectrum. Their social interaction and emotional reactions are very limited, which makes them less accessible and interesting to the viewer.

It is also worth noting the superficial and stereotypical depiction of demons in "Soukou no Frieren". Instead of providing them with layered and human characteristics that would allow the viewer to feel empathy for them, the anime portrays them as standard villains without much motivation. This is a missed opportunity to uncover deeper topics and create emotional tension. Against the background of the main characters, who do not experience serious problems and have excessive strength, demons seem to be more interesting and multifaceted characters.

In addition, the concept of the immortality of the main character makes the goal of the heroes meaningless. The whole point of adventures and victories over evil is lost when an immortal character can just wait out all the difficulties. This makes any bets negligible, and the viewer cannot truly empathize with the characters and their missions.

Visually, the anime is also not impressive. The setting of a default Asian second-rate fantasy. Despite the beautiful scenery and animation, it's just long and boring and not memorable

The musical accompaniment seems insignificant and forgettable. Instead of enhancing emotions and atmosphere, music often stays in the background without leaving a strong impression.

In addition, the concept of the immortality of the main character makes the goal of the heroes meaningless. The whole point of adventures and victories over evil is lost when an immortal character can just wait out all the difficulties. This makes any bets negligible, and the viewer cannot truly empathize with the characters and their missions.

In addition to all this, "Soukou no Frieren" failed to find a balance between drama and comedy. Moments intended to dilute the seriousness of the plot often seem forced and inappropriate, disrupting the harmony of the narrative.

If someone says that this anime is overrated, then I really agree with that word, this is a boring show from an anime with a high score, Even the score cannot be a benchmark for this anime.

For the first episode, the storyline goes straight to the end, when they have defeated the Demon King, I'm trying to hold this in and hope this is just a preview at the end of the episode, but apparently not, this is the original story, there is no adventure at all, no introduction to how they met and fought the Demon King.
Moreover, almost all of them are filled with ... useless things, such as silence, or only filled with background sound without chat.

In the second episode I expected something better than the first episode, but there was absolutely no progress, when you meet someone, flashbacks of that character's past will appear again.
By the way here shows various deaths which are not at all sad.

Episodes three and four are really boring, I'm too lazy to talk about them.

The point is, this anime is very boring, the most annoying thing is the lack of expression from all the characters, If one or two characters have flat faces, maybe it's understandable to vary them, but unfortunately not here, everything is Emotionless, even from the way they talk like someone who has just woken up, or someone who is lazy to talk by only slightly opening their mouth and speaking like a lazy person.

This is why I hesitate to watch anime with high scores, because most of these anime are exaggerated, this reminds me of anime that was popular at that time, which uses breathing techniques, I don't know what the title, is I difficulty remembering the title "Nantoka Slayer"

Frieren is overrated but you already knew that. I'll keep it short.

Lets start with the positives. The early episodes are charming. After Frieren's new crew expands, the anime turns into decent enjoyable slop... just good enough to pass the time. The artstyle and coloring is nice. However, the animation can dip in quality at times. Voice acting is good. OST is forgettable, OP and ED are a skip as always.

Now, the negatives. A million flashbacks, unnecessary info-dumps, cringy and uncharismatic characters hogging up screentime. The writer thinks that you're an idiot who needs to be spoonfed every single detail.

Just stop watching after episode 17 if ... you value your time, everything bad about the show gets amped up to 100.
Frieren should've been/stayed a SoL.

(Originally uploaded March 31st, 2024)

To spare you the time, Frieren is far from what so many others are saying it is. While most see a masterclass in character writing and worldbuilding, I see a hollow and generic fantasy anime that is filled to the brim with tropes. Let’s break down how Frieren falls into almost every single cliche that every other fantasy anime falls into.

What was most apparent and annoying to me about Frieren was how its world did not feel organic whatsoever. Frieren’s world, like most fantasy anime’s of the modern age, feels like a video game world. There are dungeons that need to ... be explored, mana levels depending on how long you have trained, and monsters evaporate into smoke when defeated. Frieren and her party of heroes happen to always stumble upon the right people who know exactly what they’re looking for. There’s a level of luck that fictional characters can have due to the nature of storytelling and needing a story to progress, but Frieren does it too much too often. There’s also a trend where Frieren happens to run into a lot of people or locations she came across in her past. This only makes the world of Frieren seem smaller, not larger. The locations they come across aren’t interesting either, with a majority of locations being either forests or the small looking medieval styled towns you see in every fantasy anime.

As for the magic system in the show, while not terrible, it isn’t anything to write home about. It doesn’t help that the leads of the show use the most generic magic in their world simply because it is more effective. We never get to see more than a bunch of streaky white lines being shot around until much later into the show, when much more interesting magic is able to be used by other characters. I do find it interesting how the show establishes a history of magic and we learn how it has changed over time and understand how it works in the period the show takes place. Of course the leads of Frieren and Fern never once stop using the most generic attacks and so we are forced to watch the same boring magic fights over and over again.

On the topic of Frieren and Fern, why don’t we talk about our two main characters. While I can say Frieren and Fern are well defined characters, I cannot say they are interesting ones. You can definitely attribute a wide variety of character traits to both of them, but they don’t make for interesting leads. Frieren and Fern don’t show emotion much, and while this is likely intentional narratively as Frieren was uninterested in human emotion for most of her life and her mannerisms likely rubbed off on Fern, the dialogue between the two is very stiff and lifeless. Scenes where Frieren and Fern are talking always consist of the most blank expressions and the coldest most lifeless voices you can imagine. The characters are presented in such an uninteresting way as to become tiresome after a while. The facial features of the characters are much smaller compared to other anime, which makes it even harder to depict emotions on their facesI was glad by the time Stark joined them, considering he gave some life to the cold and mundane dialogue between Frieren and Fern.

This isn’t getting into the fact that Frieren and Fern are also pretty much the most powerful mages in their world. Frieren was part of the party who defeated the Demon King, something we know right from episode one. Once we know this, there is absolutely no sense of danger that we as an audience can feel for her as she has already defeated the most powerful creature in existence. This remains true for the entire show, where the only time Frieren gets damaged whatsoever is when she is cut in THE FINAL EPISODE, and she doesn’t even react to it. Frieren is an overpowered protagonist, just like a majority of fantasy anime protagonists. Any danger we would be able to feel for the side characters is completely undermined by healing magic as well. In fact, in the entire show, not a single named character is killed, other than the villains.

The side characters aren’t much better than our leads, with them either having a single trait that completely defines the character, or having no traits and being the most bland and forgettable person ever. Stark is probably the most interesting out of them considering he gets the most screen time, however he still doesn’t get nearly enough characterization. His childish scuffles with Fern also make it very apparent that this show is in fact a shounen geared towards younger teens. The plot, worldbuilding, character motivations are all explained to you by the characters of the show, leaving no room for nuance. There’s nothing to interpret when everything is so hamfisted and shoved down your throat. In Stark’s case, he is often the one asking questions to Frieren and Fern about what is happening in the plot, so his screen time is mostly utilized to start exposition dumps from other characters.

I won’t go into detail about the other characters in the show, mostly because there are too many to go over. Another trend you see with modern anime is having huge rosters of characters in the hope that the viewer will be able to latch onto even a single one in order to get them to continue watching. Having such a huge roster of characters means that each one has less time to be characterized. I am struggling to remember most of the side characters outside of the last arc of the show despite having started it less than a week ago because they simply left no impression on me.

As for the storytelling on display in Frieren, it’s pretty bad. Most episodes have a set cycle to them, with it starting with the party coming across a new town. They then meet a character from Frieren’s past or someone new who says something that reminds Frieren about her past. We get a boring flashback scene during every one of these situations and Frieren comes to a realization about her past with her old friends. Despite this, Frieren as a character remains stagnant throughout the entire show, not changing whatsoever from the first episode. This is mostly the same for Fern and Stark aside from before they join up with Frieren at the beginning of the show. Any development they get after that point however is always told through flashbacks. The same goes with side characters. Development of the characters can only happen through flashbacks apparently.

Once you know about the cycle the show goes through each episode, the anime gets extremely boring, with only the visuals helping to not make you fall asleep. Studio Madhouse animated the show and did a great job, with even boring dialogue scenes getting plenty of attention. The direction of the visuals are less than stellar, however. I already talked about how the main characters are always lifeless and how the settings always look the same. With good direction even these could have been remedied. We never get many interesting looking visuals outside of the action sequences, and even those are few and far between.

Perhaps the most unbearable part of Frieren (and most anime in that manner) is the humor. If you have seen 5 anime then you already know the punchlines to every joke in Frieren. I do not understand how people find anything here funny. Frieren getting stuck in a fake chest is not funny, and is especially not funny after the 10th time you see it. I have also seen people comment on how there’s no fanservice in the show, and while that is true, there are still jokes about characters' boobs in the show, how mature.

To end this all off, I would like to mention how Frieren has similarities to Violet Evergarden and Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song. In all three of these shows, we have a female lead who is deadpan and is unable to show any emotion. All three of these leads go on a journey to finally understand human emotion, or at least I’d like to say that because Frieren remains stagnant throughout the entire show. At least Violet Evergarden and Vivy have interesting worlds that were created for them. As to why Frieren is much more critically acclaimed than these already critically acclaimed anime that are similar, I have no idea.

Quite simply, Frieren is one of the most overrated anime in my eyes. While many see it as a masterclass of storytelling and animation, I see it as a hollow shell of an anime relying solely on its visual presentation to carry its middling story and characters. Despite some great animation, Frieren was a slog to get through.

First three episodes. The felt truly magical, especially compared to what the industry has been putting out lately. The OST, animation, and style are wonderful, and they complement the solemn beginning of the story very well.

Next two episodes. The first impression magic slowly wanes, and you get accustomed to the quality of the show's technical sides. Now you redirect your attention to the main characters and the story. Well, the former are flat, and the latter is kinda too much reminiscing and aimless wandering. But it's just started, surely it will get better. It's probably just a precursor to something grander.

Episodes 6 and 7. The ... characters are still shallow and begin to get on your nerves. The story is still in its early stages - they've just picked up their latest party member - something interesting will happen lately, it must. You also begin to notice that the humor just doesn't work most of the time, because the characters' personalities and reactions do not allow it to. Oh, and they also meet the first real villains, wonder how that will unfold.

Episodes 8 and 9. The girls effortlessly defeat their opponents, the boy struggles a bit but pulls through, because he has a very timely understanding that HIS SIDES ARE ABLE TO WITHSTAND A FULL SWING GIANT AXE ATTACK DESPITE NOT BEING APT IN MAGIC. AND THE PURPLE-HAIRED GIRL WINS AGAINST A MAJOR DEMON BECAUSE SHE'S CASTING FASTER. And he's like "Oh, I excel in every single way, but she pew-pews fast so I'll die I guess bye". WHAT THE FUCK? HOW IS THAT PROPER WRITING?

I dropped after this, it's just unreal. I hate the party, I simply loathe it. This show tries not to adhere to any overused tropes and do things differently but everything just falls to pieces.

There's no philosophy, unlike bite-sized pieces you would get from each of Kino's adventures. Frieren is a walking regret: "Blue-haired hero this, blue-haired hero that, I wish I knew him better". The other girl is even more emotionless, that the elf. The boy is just a comedic relief for those girls half the time. I understand that they all have inner problems, and it would take time for them to surface, and that somewhere in there lies the philosophy everyone's talking about, but goddamn it's boring. By the time they get to fixing the characters, you'll hate them too much to even bother.

I've seen some comparison's to Kino, so I'll add one more thing. What made Kino special was the fact that she wasn't in the spotlight, despite being the protagonist. She did influence some cities, but ultimately she was an observer, so her own character wasn't fleshed out that much (watched too long ago to be 100% sure but I think I'm right). I can only suppose that Frieren follows the same pattern of going to different places, but everything remained the same during my 9 episodes - go to village/town, one-two-shot monster, go to the next settlement, rinse/repeat. And the spotlight mainly shone on the boring party.

There's also no action, since the party's overpowered. I get that Frieren lived for more that a thousand years, she has to be OP in some sense, but the other girl has no business doing what she did to that demon completely poker-faced, despite having her shoulder pierced. There were like 30 seconds of good fight between the boy and the demon girl (I'm sorry, I can't even be bothered to remember their names), but the abrupt ending marred it.

There's no comedy, as double straight man act doesn't work. The entry of the ginger guy didn't change anything, since the straights' ripostes are too weak. The humor is too dry to be called such.

There's no drama, cause it's all about people that had already passed, some of them offscreen.

There's just... nothing.

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Fall 2023 and Winter 2024 turning into an empty anime time for me, still, I manage to watch some in in BATCH, which I not really prefer for now days anime. I watched Tate no Yuusha and Goblin Slayer with a low expectation but it turn out quite great(a reverse to their previous season). And this anime trailer show up, people go on like crazy about it, like "The first after-journey blah blah blah thing" and I be like "Oh, another will be overhype anime huh..." and I close my interest to watch this and only lock You-Zitsu and Tomozaki in my plan to watch. ... I spent those waiting time rewatching some old anime, and boom..., this series show up as 1st place top anime, I am be like "Is this a work of overhype new comer watcher again? or is it really that good?" and my brother manage to persuade me to watch it. So we jump to current time where I just finish this series a couple minutes or hours ago, and tell you all my what my heart feel about this series which I quite doubt its "Greatness".

The story kinda mid, or is it? Its like it doesn't even know where it belong to. What I mean is whatever they want it to be a complex story or just laid-back one. It started by taking us with after war thing world, it told us how the character feel about those days, how the people live currently, and suddenly, the remnant from the war still exist and start telling about how the magic battle work. I expect a chill story while holding a bowl of warm noodle here and you want me to suddenly get focus to how the magic work? oh, it just SEED Gundam type of battle, a magic-missile spam. oh, the bad guy is about to finish in this last attack..., boom, a flashback. so, by what I mean here is, this series is not sure about how its story wanna be like.

For the animation, what a bless, I had no complaint.

The characters are your typical RPG role up, they had their own flaws and strength(but again, is this really necessary in a what people called a chill anime?), which I quite fond up. Except our MC..., yeah, she is OP. But here come what disturb me. excluding the battle at the last part of the series, where is everyone? there is a big missile spam happen in a peaceful world happen, no one want to check out? even the "police" there? and the one who fought, all of them quite calm even though they all in a battle to death situation. oh, is this what people called chill anime? even some mecha anime had emotion inserted in the battle. It is like all the characters were robot that had no emotion, but installed with a slight comedy stuff on them?

To summary anything I said above, this is a series which only there to be watched, you don't need to get linked to it by anyway you can think of and can be forgotten in a couple of season later. It is still overhype, but you can still watch it, hear me? I not saying you can enjoy it. I not gonna recommend this to anyone in the future, and if anyone tell me about this again later, I will be like "Oh, there is that show huh?"

Firstly, I don't want to stir up controversy, Sou Sou no Frieren is an okay-ish anime with “many” good points. However, there are many other anime that are significantly better than Sou Sou no Frieren, and here are the reasons why.

1. Boring Characters

Frieren is an intriguing elf with a long lifespan who doesn’t really value her time, as you can see in some episodes. Eventually, after people she knows start to pass away, she begins to rethink her life. However, she doesn’t reveal much about herself, and so on throughout the story, this becomes quite boring. The other characters in the anime aren’t much better. ... They are totally forgettable and nor do they change or develop, making it hard to get invested in them. It feels like they are just there, not adding much to the overall experience.

Stark & Fern

Tbh, I don’t really understand why Stark and Fern are so popular. They feel like filler characters who make the story dull. All they do is fight over the stupidest things, which eventually becomes annoying.

2. Non-existent plot and story
The story moves as fast as watching grass grow. The journey starts after the hero’s party defeats the demon king and parts ways, which is at first interesting since a lot of anime take the opposite approach. Instead It’s filled with dull, repetitive stuff, as you keep watching and hoping for something "interesting" to happen (Spoiler Alert it doesn't). No surprises, no excitement, no nothing. Personally I think that Sou Sou no frieren lacks the WOW factor like any other anime. From the beginning to the end, around 20 eps-ish that make me feel like I'm watching an high rated anime but still it does not compare to other great anime.

3. The Pacing
As I mentioned before, the pacing is all over the place. Some parts drag on endlessly (like spending 2-3 eps just to find a flower to put on an old statue), while others are rushed through without giving any time to understand the characters (for example, the background of Frieren and her friends like I still don't really know 'til this point). This inconsistency makes it difficult to enjoy or feel profoundly engaged with the story.

In summary, Sou Sou no Frieren is a huge disappointment and a waste of time. My BIGGEST ADVICE is to save your time and invest it in something that actually delivers on its promise.

Great start and even greater left down.

After rather long break from anime, I came back to this series and was pleasantly surprised.
Initial premise, mood, design, feel of the series was good, despite mediocre opening and very bad ending songs, which became premonition of what this series would become.

While story was still fresh, and little details were present about titular character - Freien, a thousand or so, years old elf who is lazy but talented as a magician - story was good. It kept bouncing between collage of memories and current events.
Despite indifferent, almost unpleasant or passive-aggressive nature of Freiern, the more of her backstory ... was unveiled, the more this character became somewhat close.
And then it started going downhill.

Cliche, tired tropes, and eventually, more and more younger-lo0oking girls started to pop-up.
Frieren turned out to be god-like magician with One-punch man level of unrecognition, by most, of hers true powers.
Events began dragging worse than most uninspired side-quests in ancient RPG game.
Basically, series got boring.

Side characters are the same - purple mage girl is cold, antisocial idiot who can't read relationship or human face-to-face ques, besides polite, passive aggressive formalities. And redhead boy, who has no spine whatsoever, is also un-killable, godlike warrior trained by Freieren's former party member (just like purple girl btw).

So instead of slow paced, slice of life series, this cartoon drifted into action-comedy with scenic, long, dragging scenery and landscape shots, some action, some memories, some boring background characters, some more old memories of events which would become deus-ex machina to push forward very formulaic format of the episodes.

Maybe my fault was expecting it to be something closer to Aria or YKK, while focusing on the overall concept of how "eternal" character like Tolkien-like, long living elves are lonely because of their lack of concept of time and mortality of other races.
Or might it be that this adaptation just lied about being something else in the hook, first 3-4 episodes and then drifting into mediocre fantasy adventure animation lacking adventure?

Well, that said, I feel lied to.
Last time I've seen this level of "accidental" trolling was when I believed one weird guy and watched Haruhi Suzumiya season 2.

Anyways - I have my guesses about elf loli and "hero" after-death relationships, I'm tired of people shipping purple and red teens together, or even worse - Freieren and monk elf... Uh.

My opinion is a hot take because you people can't handle the truth. If a series is just a bit, initially, better than average product, you fall into trap of judging it highly.
Funeral March of Freiren is not bad, but the longer it goes, the weaker it gets. It lies, and have horrible openings and endings, and those, obviously, are the most important aspect of every cartoon (that's a joke).

First 4 episodes are 9/10
Later you can remove 0.25 point per 10 minutes of the show - I gave it 4/10 because it's not bad and had just a little amount of cheaper and quality moments. But story, despite initial quirk, is house of cards build without said cards. It's an illusion.

Final score: overhyped/10