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. …

I feel so catered to. It feels like an eternity since I've been given such a phenomenal anime with a well thought out plot, great art and animation to accompany it, emotional thought provoking moments... more than that, it feels so mature in that it doesn't baby me with your typical anime tropes. No obnoxiously screaming kid protags, no overly ecchi scenes meant purely for fanservice, no moments where I have to groan and just deal with whatever stupidity is put before me-- Just a fun and emotional journey that is pure story and human feelings. I'm not going to go into too incredible detail, but if you're a fan of fantasy and pure story elements, this is the anime for you. It focuses on the after story of Frieren, who has already well and finished her main quest to defeat the demon lord that plagued their lands. We join her at the end, celebrating the accomplishments of her and the party she traveled with. Time passing ever so swiftly as her party aged while she does not as an elf. She's always known that she will easily outage everyone surrounding her and did not think twice of how she spent her time in those many years till next they met. And then she had to come to face with reality-- The hero she'd traveled with would die. Her compatriots would surely soon follow. Uncaring as she was before, she now realizes just how much she should have bothered to care. Thus does she go on a journey to find herself and to meet up with the others in their older ages. Thus does she take on an apprentice and decide to try and reunite with the hero waiting where they last felled the demon king. What anyone may appreciate most will go into just how well these characters are written. Especially the women! Rarely have I seen a well written woman character that I could fall in love with... and I had just about given up hope in such a male protagonist dominated field. You'll come to appreciate that they're their own characters, with their own thoughts and emotions, with varying personalities and things that get to them in a very human way. Sometimes our emotions don't make sense and occasionally you'll see these characters on their bad days, acting out of sorts and it's interesting to see. Everything from the art, to animation, to music, to details... all of it is wonderful on the eyes and ears. When the going gets tough and the fights begin, the battle choreography is just so gorgeous to watch. So much detail and weight goes into everyone's movement. I think my only possible gripe could be that sometimes the characters can come off as a little stiff, their faces of emotion not as exaggerated when it comes to anime standards. Maybe that's a good thing and we're too accustomed to over the top facial expressions after all this time-- but occasionally, one wonders if it's not just a little too lifeless at times. Other than that nitpick though, I can't help but recommend this anime to all of my friends and share in all its glory! My group of friends were particularly entranced and just so pleased to have a more adult show that felt appropriate for our older age. Just don't go into this expecting it to be fast and getting into this for that quick hit of awesome epic moments. This is a slow ride and an enjoyable one as it builds its world and relationships at a relaxing pace.

Someone recommended me to watch this title last year months before it began airing as a similar series to Mahoutsukai no Yome, and although it also has a mage and their disciple studying, training and traveling together, and the main characters share voice actress, I don’t see much resemblance beyond the premise. Concept wise, I find it to be more similar to Fumetsu no Anata E, since it is about a long-lived non-human protagonist learning about mortality and the short live span of humans while traveling around the world and getting some friends and new abilities. The issues with that title are that the protagonist didn’t have a personality initially, it was full of emotional manipulation to make you cry, the main character was becoming stronger by acquiring the abilities of his dead friends, thus coming off as feeding off of them, the secondary cast got a lot of focus on their mini arc and then disappeared from the story completely, essentially wasting time and screentime, and the protagonist changed completely after a time skip. That’s where I dropped that show but from what I understand afterwards the series mutates from a road movie type of drama to a fighting shounen which in turn drops tremendously in visual quality. Frieren doesn’t have those issues. To start off, the animation is pretty good for the most part, there are some weak moments in the artwork and backgrounds but they are usually consistent and very good, even if typical for a fantasy series. The lighting and shading as well as the rest of the special effects are very good, except for the offensive spell that some charracters use, I don’t know why but that looks very outdated. The character designs are very simple and even kind of childish, which are not bad but kind of unfitting at first with the melancholic feeling of the show. The motions are very good at every moment, even the most relaxing ones, each character even has their own distinct way of walking, the facial expressions are very varied and well done, and the action scenes tend to use dynamic movement, like Burn the Witch, Majo no Tabitabi, Akudama Drive and some others did in 2020, and Trigun: Stampede did last year. Overall it’s pretty good in that regard, even if it doesn’t compare with Shangri-la Frontier and Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, which were airing at the same time. The presentation is good, it’s just that the aesthetics are nothing special. Same thing applies to the audio department, the sound effects are really good and impactful and not too loud and not saturated, the voice acting is ok, nothing special. The soundtrack is really fitting, it’s just typical background music for a fantasy show but it’s very well done and at times even absorbing. The ending song and the insert song (to my understanding, used as an ending for an early screening), both by Milet fit the series really well and are quite beautiful on their own, and the lyrics go very well with the anime. The openings are not as good but the second one is better than the first, which although it had good lyrics for the story, it was strangely upbeat for this time of anime, and thus didn’t fit very well. The second one had a little more energy as well, but at least it felt more appropriate for the second half of the series. Characterization is not the strongest aspect of the anime, the main characters have a name with a specific meaning, and their whole characterization is based around that, in anime terms, the two female are basically kuuderes and the male is the typical kind hearted but misunderstood and poorly treated harem lead. No, I’m not saying nor implying this series is a harem, I’m just saying that the characters fit some of those archetypes, and although that makes them easy to remember because of that, they don’t have very elaborate nor complicating personalities for the same reason. What they do have, however, is backdrop stories good enough to flesh them out instead of just leaving them as dry archetypes, and they more or less serve to explain the way the characters are. More and more background information about them is revealed and they also come to learn more things about the previous important party, as it also does the audience that way. People really seem to like the possible romantic dynamic between two members of the party, I personally don’t give a shit about that, the boy is kind but treated poorly by the girl for no reason besides “comedy”. I’ve seen the same dynamic in anime from the 90s and 00s and got tired of it. At least she recognizes later on that she was acting like a brat and they become friendlier with one another afterwards, and for some people they seem to be “couple goals” or some shit like that, I don’t really care. What’s important is that even the basic main cast here is better than the rock turned wolf turned boy from Fumetsu, he couldn’t even talk, he had no personality nor backdrop, and he changed completely after a time skip, thus that doesn’t count as organic character development. This anime has time skips as well but they are nowhere near as big, they don’t skip the scenes of characters learning new things, especially for the main one Frieren, who comes to realize, she knew and was closer to her original party than she always thought and she gains a purpose in life by doing what they want her to do after they died at the beginning of the story, and it all happens on screen, not between time skips. It’s even related to the themes, despite being one of the most important heroes in history, Frieren never stood out and never truly cared for anyone else, she never had ambition and never understood how brief a human life could be for an elf like her, until she found out when trying to reunite with her old party, that’s when it clicked in and when she notices that she always took that time for granted and regrets not spending more time with them or getting to know them now that there is no going back. The rest of the series she dedicates to fulfill the last wishes of her old party and recall old times in their adventure, thus coming to realize she knew and cared more about them that she ever considered to, while also collecting some more magic here and there. That way, the series also has the chance to flesh out the older support cast that dies early on through flashbacks, and I also realized where the main appeal and value of the series might be, as a sort of company of sorts for people who have recently lost someone and regret not spending enough time with them. Sousou no Frieren is not a tearjerker however, the drama is presented more in a melancholic tone than anything else, which is something I appreciate about it, considering that there are so many shows out there filled with emotional manipulation. The other mains are fine on their own, they also get flashbacks and learn new things and like I said they become closer with each other, it’s just that the focus is clearly on the protagonist, so they come off as simpler and more inferior characters, especially the guy who gets completely sidelined in the second half. Also, compared to that other series, Sousou no Frieren is clear about what it is from the very beginning. There is some action here and there and is usually well animated, directed, choreographed and has some tactics here and there, but for the most part it’s a lighthearted road movie type of fantasy adventure where the character we follow through for the whole show is the strongest, thus the stakes are low. She might not be the most powerful in-series, but we only know that thanks to some throwaway lines, we never really get a sense of urgency or that Frieren might lose or struggle against someone. It’s a show meant to relax to and look back at some of your past relationships, with some magical beams thrown around from time to time for flavour. Some other things I want to praise the writing for is caring about some very specific things that add to characterization and world building desp…

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.

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 li…

Frieren isn't deep. It's just empty pretty wrapper. So I watched Frieren, and honestly... I just couldn’t keep the thoughts to myself. People are constantly praising it for being emotional, thoughtful, and “beautifully slow.” And yeah, I get where they’re coming from. But to me, it felt more like someone telling me to stare at a river because it’s relaxing. Like… sure, it flows, but that's really all. So what’s the goal and point ? There’s no real conflict, no antagonist that actually matters, no moral dilemma to chew on. The characters just kind of go through the motions without ever really being challenged. Even Frieren herself. Her "growth" feels way too safe and linear. She slowly becomes more emotional, but never hits any serious internal wall or has to make a tough decision. It’s all just kind of... flat. And here’s the thing: the big message Frieren tries to deliver is that time, friendship, and shared memories are important. That is a nice, but basic thought for like 4 episodes. So watching a whole show spoon-feed this felt more like reading a children’s book about emotions. If they condensed the story down, it might’ve worked better. But dragging one simple thought across an entire season just made it feel like a low-calorie meal dressed up as fine dining. Yeah, it looks pretty. The animation is fine. The music is nice. But all of that is surface-level. Underneath, there’s just not much there. Emotional depth isn’t about being quiet. It’s about delivering something that makes you think. Unfortunately, Frieren takes one broth of an idea, dumps a bucket of water on it, and calls it soup. While what you really get is 28 episodes of watered-down broth. Not every story needs to be action-packed, I totally get that. But if you’re gonna go slow, there better be something real waiting at the end. With Frieren, I kept waiting — and it never came.

This review contains spoilers. "Frieren: Here we are, two $1.50 hot dogs. Fern: Just a $1.50? How can Costco possibly make a profit off of that? Frieren: It's the same price as back then. Fern: Wouldn't inflation cause the price to chan- Frieren: I remember when Himmel the Hero bought a hot dog here for the same price. Costco is unchanged, even now... Back then, Himmel... [cut to flashback] Himmel: You know Frieren, a hot dog is like a metaphor for life--we ketchup with old friends and make new ones. When I'm gone, please never forget... that life's too short not to relish every moment..." (thanks to Letterboxd user SupremeLemon for this) 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 ultimately wrong; there is a severe lack of any substance whatsoever in every single pore of this anime and it is completely forgettable. 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—except demons, who are big bad evil guys of course. Demons are 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, "why are they evil" well duh its in their nature as a predator... ok. Now, I will NOT entertain the Sousou no Frieren "demons are ze joos!!!" or "frieren is le fascist propaganda!!!" discourse because it is futile and achieves nothing, its like beating a dead cow; as I do not think that the demons are an alt-right ideological prop, and obviously not the wet dream of a Twitter chud either, but rather the consequence of lazy writing based on classic tropes of "Good vs Evil" or "Ontologically Bad Species" (like how orcs used to be depicted) without much imagination at all. Sousou no Frieren was co-opted by rightoids not because it is a propaganda piece, but only because its a story that commits the sin of being too superficial, so much that it can be manipulated by people who operate on anti-intellectualism. Demons are evil burgeoisie who imitate humans to predate on them... "must be DA JOOS!!!" and demons are le bad... "its FASCIST PROPAGOONDA" like theres no sense to be made into these people. The storywriting and thematical direction are so superficial that Sousou no Frieren allows for dumbfuck rightoid chuds and mindless leftists to self-insert their fetishistic and idiotic politics and culture war into it. No, TradWifeLover88, Sousou no Frieren isnt based because le moeblob elf said "le demons are bad, they use words to deceive" nor is Himmel a "based gigachad" nor are the demons a deranged allegory for the group of people you hate. No, HasanPikerLover1312, Sousou no Frieren isnt the most lethal fascist propaganda from our current century, you both need to stop being a nuisance. Like seriously, this anime is so absurdly lazy and vacuous in its tackle of core themes that it allows itself to be grabbed and defiled by the dumbest people alive. Goodbye K-ON, your place in the throne for numba one chud anime has been replaced by Sousou no Frieren. The story is a bland tale where we see Frieren being "changed" by "da friends wuh made along da way!!" (like, actually) with happy-go-lucky messages and many apparitions of the all-mighty Himmel, the emotional messiah, who gives Frieren the convenient feedback in the convenient scene so she can advance to the next segment of the show; no proper efforts are done by Frieren, everything comes from a figure of authority who tells her how to feel, what to do, what to think, etc. There is no charisma in Sousou no Frieren, there is no intrigue to each character, dialogue, action, expression; there's no nuance, nothing, it is the vessel of nothingness. The relationship between Frieren and Himmel annoys me to my core, it is an idealized gallant prince and damsel in distress relationship where Frieren cannot realize anything without having it spoonfed by Himmel thru endless flashbacks and hacky storywriting. Their connection is rotten to the core and consists on a savior complex from Himmel, he MUST be the one who teaches Frieren emotion, he MUST be Frieren's love interest, he MUST be the one to streamline Frieren towards certain situations and actions; it feels so dumb and forced, the rest of the group are just spectators of this degenerate link between this dude and his therapy elfmoeblob patient. 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. Anyways. The secondary cast isnt interesting either, and usually is wasted away. Characters like Wirbel arent used properly and just brushed off quickly after a few flashbacks (surprise!) are delivered, or Ubel's character being wasted. But does this even matter? Seriously. NOBODY in this anime has an OUNCE of charm or charisma, Ubel comes close, but even her crazy ass is washed down by this anime's tendency to moai-ze everything, I am not asking Frieren to be a raved-up shonen protagonist in steroids, I'm just asking for... something. anything. just a bit of spice. The combat isn't frantic, bone-chilling or notable so it cannot be a battle shounen either, Sousou no Frieren does not exhibit an intriguing fantasy world full of mysteries, and instead it dabbles on tropes and fantasy clichés, so it cannot exactly be an exploration show about the value of a long journey and adventures, where the viewer learns about a world of wonders; Frieren doesn't have witty dialogue or particularly great humour—beyond repeating the same gag (Frieren in le chest!!! Fern le mad pout!!) 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 deus ex machina or emotional messiah and that Frieren is basically the receiver who needs emotional guidance throughout this entire show, so it doesn't work as romance or drama either. So with that being 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 Sousou no Frieren: it doesn't know what it wants, this anime has no identity. It goes from being a World of Warcraft secondary mission simulator to a cheap copy of the Hunter Exam arc to budget Violet Evergarden 2 to moeblob comedy; meanwhile, in this schizophrenic mixture of genres, no valuable progress is done for the characters' identity, Sousou no Frieren isnt driven by anything at all. Can ANY of these characters express any emotion beyond a boring emotionless face? Can ANY of them express any emotion or any SPICE on their dialogue? Or say anything that I can minimally care about? It tastes so much like air, like HOLY SHIT please. 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. This anime feels directionless, philosophically devoid and empty, so this show can't be an anime with profound messages either. This last arc a la Hunter Exam only serves a purpose for the people who, understandably enough, were bored of…

Frieren has got to be the most overrated anime of all time on MAL. I'd like to make it clear that I do not hate this anime by any means, but I just find it extremely boring to a point its almost unwatchable. Any adventure or fantasy story has any objectives to complete or to follow, for example hunter x hunter we see that gon is adventuring to find his dad, in FMAB we see that ed is trying to cure his brother. Although it's not a necessity, it's pretty clear that it gives a backbone to a thrilling adventure/fantasy story. Frieren starts from where most fantasy/isekais end which is the story after defeating the demon lord. But since it starts from an absurd point it lacks clear objectives to accomplish or achieve. Frieren the main character who is an elf is just shown to be adventuring while tutoring a student in magic. In hindsight, this is not the adventures of frieren but of her student who is also a relative of a human who was previously in the hero's party with frieren that defeated the demon lord. Since the demon lord has already been ended, its unclear as to why even fern (the student) wants to learn magic from the greatest mage of all time. Combining the lack of goals or objectives, this show also fails at recognising itself as what it is. Is it about the action considering the last few episodes which were full of it or the emotional slice of life appeal which is shown in bits and pieces, also which everyone talks about. It fails to stand as both. The action is little to none atleast in the first half of the show, which already makes it a bad action show if it is one. The last few eps which had the most action were considerably and arguably the worst arc to even exist. Let me explain to you this worst arc that I am talking about:-- (MINOR SPOILERS) So in this arc as frieren and her two friends fern and starc are adventuring, in desire of a somewhat GOAT title in magic, they are shown to be giving a test. This is beyond any logic or sense since how can a previous literal hero who has defeated the demon lord mind you be allowed to give such an exam and to fight to death with literal kids in an exam who are yet to even hit puberty? Well even forgetting this as we begin the test, we got literal bunch of screen time for side characters who only have existence for the sake of this arc. Literal episodes worth of screen time for the sake of nothingness. The fight scenes were them just fighting non sensically with each other for the so called title. Now, the latter which is the emotional slice of life appeal of this show, lets get to it. So, first of all it is really really important for us to note that Frieren is a literal elf. Elves lives for thousands of years and thus they do not form any kinds of emotional bonds with any person, even if they do it doesn't affect them. Now frieren while adventuring is shown to be remembering her time of when she was in the hero's party and how she regrets not enjoying those bits and moments with her party members. Now this to give you any kind of emotional appeal is just plain absurdity. You need to be extremely soft to even feel emotional with these scenes. Why do I say that? It's because we are only shown bits and pieces of the past in the present! The way I see it for it to be well done is actually giving a decent amount of screentime to the hero's party before the adventuring begins! If the audience is shown some good moments beforehand, instead of some nonsensical 30 seconds of despair maybe it would be easier for them to actually feel emotional. Frieren is actually also one of the most blandest written character of all time. She is arrogant as hell and does not give a fuck, which you would expect from an elf. So how do you think that she is able to feel more than 10 seconds of remorse for her long gone dead party members? It is a mystery just like the ratings of this show. I do think that Frieren being a female protag added some biasedness to the overall judgement of this show by the audience but at the end of the day, Frieren is an elf before being a female. And elves do not give a fuck, neither are they capable of giving it. This story would have been 100x more entertaining if frieren would have just called it a day after defeating the demon lord and decided to settle in the countryside just bing chilling. But oh well then this anime would have been named "Chilling in my 100s after resigning from the hero's party, I decided to open a circus". This show is being spoken as some masterpiece, when in essence and reality it's just some confused, muffled mumbo jumbo of the author which some recognised as "wise words have never been spoken" and it's now giving the domino effect.

<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.

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.

Sousou no Frieren is a series with a great premise, it starts after the demon king is defeated and it is focused in what comes after that, the passage of time is very important as we follow an immortal elf that sees the friends she fought alongside with getting older and dying and she feels that she should have known them better, so she decided to go on another journey retracing her steps. This could have worked wonderfully, if only the protagonist Frieren wasn’t a Mary Sue, Fern wasn’t Frieren 2 but with some more human concerns and Stark wasn’t Zenitsu but somewhat less annoying. Honestly, I had such high hopes for this series, when I saw it was animated by Madhouse and it was directed by Keichiirou Saitou (who people surely know for his directing work in Bocchi the Rock), the fact I’m disappointed despite all the big names on it is easily because of the writing. This series tries to be an introspective series about the passage of time and relationships, but it gets very inconsistent and half-assed with that, when half of your episodes are focused on action arcs then you have a problem here because, as fans of the series will tell you, this series isn’t about the battles and so having as many battles as this does just ruin the mood and sour the experience, despite not being a fan of multiple parts where a scene happens and basically the exact same thing happens again in a flashback, it at least feels like it tries to tell you something, that maybe Frieren knew her friends better than she thinks and it is only understanding that now, some episodes manage to be meaningful in this aspect, but others definitely don’t contribute this at all. The worst offense of the series is that sometimes it doesn’t know what it wants to be, it starts as a slice of life but sometimes it will turn into a battle shonen, and I think there’s nothing wrong with having some battles here and there nor that I have problems with battle shonen themselves, the problem is that the series isn’t supposed to be this, you don’t have to look further from the PVs, the synopsis and what everyone will tell you about the series to know this, it is supposed to be an introspective series, not an action show. Just take a look at the arc where they face Aura and her minions, this is clearly formatted this way, I was baffled when watching episode 9, not because of the incredible animation, but because I was confused why this series was turning this way. You get many problems here going from Stark’s battle against Linie, which is stupid when you think about it, really, Stark is getting completely defeated by Linie until he has a flashback about his master and realizes that apparently Linie’s attacks have no weigh to them, never mind he has a lot of blood in his body from said attacks, and then proceeds to one-shot her, this kind of asspull is literally out of a battle shonen, it made me feel like I was watching Kimetsu no Yaiba. Then you have Fern’s battle, somehow it managed to be both impressive and unimpressive at the same time, it is impressive because of the quality of the animation put in there, if you check the manga you will see that the anime improved the battle scene so much it’s unreal, but at the same time it’s unimpressive because watching it makes me feel nothing, I’m not excited to see this battle nor interested in it, the fact Fern’s face looks like she is having the most boring battle of her life doesn’t help either. And you will see that things that were talked about earlier don’t make sense either, when Stark and Fern are hiding, Fern is the one that says that if they face the demons alone they will die, this clearly isn’t true because her battle with Lugner was pathetic performance on his part, why would she lie to Stark about this? It’s not like the demons are hearing them or something, honestly that episode annoyed me and I thought it was the worst episode of the series until that moment. The worst part about this is that the next episode was even worse, I was already worried when I saw the next episode title the week before episode 10 aired, because I knew nothing good would come out of it, this episode is something that made me roll my eyes, because not only the episode is horribly paced, it is also terribly done. The episode has 15 minutes of flashbacks about Frieren and Flamme, where they talk about how hiding your mana is a great technique to trick demons even if it takes hundreds of years to do it, and Frieren asks Flamme if demons can hide their mana, she very clearly says that they can’t but shortly later mentions that they actually can suppress their mana and sometimes do for some stealth, then she says that there’s no benefit to them if they hide their mana, and then says that they can’t control their mana when it was clearly stated that they can just a couple of statements ago, can you see how contradictory these four statements are? It’s like there’s no consistency in what they wanted to say about it. So, apparently this special technique that Frieren would use to beat Aura was hiding her power level, no, really, just think about it for a second, oh yes, she has been training this ability that was never mentioned before for a thousand years and coincidentally works perfectly when put against the gimmick of this gimmicky enemy. Saying that the writing in the “battle” against Aura was stupid is saying too little, actually, I remember that the very season this ep came out an isekai anime called Watashi no Oshi wa Akuyaku Reijou was airing and a couple of weeks later than this episode in Frieren they mentioned a battle with scales, and I remember doing a remark that it will surely go the same as Frieren’s episode, and as it just so happens it was exactly that, honestly it was my most disliked part of that series because of how stupid it is and I can’t believe I predicted it perfectly using another series as an example, because in both cases it was stupid. Surprisingly, by making the pacing of the episode completely suffer by making such a long explanation of a basic ability, it makes me feel like this series doesn’t trust the audience’s intelligence to get it the first time it was mentioned, if I wanted a series that did the hiding your power level bit better and without so much redundant exposition I would go and watch Dragon Ball again. This moment was clearly used to make Frieren look cool by making the villain kill themselves in a completely humiliating way, sadly, it fails to do that because it only makes her look like a cringe kid on the internet saying to others that they should kill themselves. It doesn’t even have a relevant purpose, because if I wanted to know that there are demons still roaming around even after the demon king’s dead, we already had Qual to make this point and that battle actually had a connection to the series’ theme of the passage of time as it talked about how humans improved in the last 80 years because his magic was terrifying so they reverse engineered it and created a counter to it. Mind you, I’m not saying that Aura shouldn’t have died, I’m saying that the way she dies was terrible writing, I don’t think I was supposed to feel pity for her after the fact. I remember that I was watching the series with my brother because he was also interested in the premise and he dropped the series right after that episode and never watched anything about it again because it wasn’t what he what the synopsis had promised, and I can’t blame him, honestly, that’s my entire point here. Honestly the series would be so much better if it stayed like it promised it would be, a pretty comfy adventure that explores the world in the eyes of an immortal elf and how she sees her relationship with the people around her, and said theme actually returned in a way when Sein was introduced. In fact, I liked Sein, he was this jaded guy who was a drunkard and who had a friend that promised to meet him years ago but never returned to the town after he decided t…

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End* may look stunning and aim for emotional depth, but for many viewers, it falls flat. The story moves at an incredibly slow pace, often focusing more on quiet reflection than actual plot development. While some appreciate the calm, others find it dull and uneventful. Frieren herself is emotionally distant, which makes it hard to connect with her or care about her journey. The supporting cast lacks strong arcs, and the lack of real conflict or tension makes the world feel lifeless. Despite its philosophical tone, the show often comes across as repetitive and overly sentimental. In the end, *Frieren* is a beautifully made anime that, for some, feels more boring than meaningful.

This anime is incredibly bland I wondered how it was everywhere and how so many talked about it. I gave it so much time, chance, sleep just to see what was unique and captivating about it and I can finally say for certain that after sitting through the most insufferable 28 episodes of this show, I’d recommend it as a sleeping pill. Literally, if you’re battling with insomnia, just put this on and I guarantee you to fall asleep in a second. The dialogues are uninteresting, the story/plot is ordinary, not a single thing about this show is worth remembering, you might even forget what happened in the previous episode if you take more that 30 minutes to start the next episode that’s how boring it is. Overall I give it a 10 for hype, 4 for suspense, 4 for plot, 3 for characters, bringing total to 5. Might be your cup of tea though but I guarantee it’s not worth the hype and the traction it got there are so many other anime’s that are way better than this and didn’t get half of its hype.

Frieren is an anime that I’ve been meaning to review for months, but I wanted to wait just a little bit for the emotions and hype to settle down. There’s a LOT to discuss when it comes to Frieren, but not all of it directly has to do with the anime itself. Firstly, I’m reviewing this on MAL and that means by necessity that I must address the elephant in the room. Frieren accomplished the unthinkable in unseating Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood from its highly controversial 15-year reign. Why was it controversial? Vote brigading my friends. It was artificially kept at number 1 by a highly obsessive faction of MAL users and…it’s a long story. The first thing you need to know about MAL is that this site and its user base have always been incredibly image conscious to an obsessive and often downright comical degree. While MAL is Japanese owned, the early MAL userbase was overwhelmingly Americans and a lot of MAL’s culture was shaped by the perception of anime and anime fans in the United States in the 2000s. MAL users existed largely in isolation from the “offline anime community”. The people you meet at your local comic book shop buying battle shonen manga and monster girl ecchi or cosplaying at your local anime convention. In contrast, MAL has always aligned itself with the “Elitist” faction of the anime fandom who define themselves as the antithesis of the “weaboos” who formed the image of the Western anime fandom back in the 2000s. The weaboos were constantly getting dunked on back then and were widely perceived as pervy, horny, stupid, immature, manchildren. MAL users followed the lead of the European anime community on 4chan /a/ and desperately wished to be seen as well-cultured, sophisticated intellectuals who only appreciate a select few anime that have artistic value. With this kind of attitude and site culture being enforced, it was no surprise that Galactic Heroes rose to the top of early MAL. However, there was a problem. For there was another anime that began with a G. While the Americans and Europeans on early MAL would have been happy with Galactic Heroes staying on top, Japan and for some reason a huge chunk of the developing world happen to really, REALLY like a certain series called Gintama, which is famous for its irreverent, highly referential humor. The image obsessed elitists would be God Damned if they allowed “Japanese Family Guy” to become the highest rated anime on the site, so the first massive rating bombing and Great Fandom War began. This war threatened to tear MAL apart, but a new faction was forged in the fires of war: The Order of Brotherhood. A loosely organized group of MAL users decided in the forums that a 3rd anime should be deliberately upvoted to number 1 to keep both Galactic Heroes and Gintama from that spot. This anime should be a largely neutral, inoffensive work that presents a respectable face for the anime community but is still accessible and isn’t snobby enough to chase people away. The popular shonen Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood was chosen for this role. It would be like The Shawshank Redemption on old ass IMDB. It’s a peacekeeper title everyone basically at least likes. However, the Order of Brotherhood began to abuse their powers. Every single time a new anime briefly gained the number 1 spot, it was absolutely bombarded by 1 and 2 ratings until it was no longer a threat for the top spot. For 15 long years this happened. It got to be such a well-known meme that a youtuber asked his followers to get Interspecies Reviewers to number 1 just to mess with these guys and MAL had to completely change how it calculates ratings and how many anime you must watch before your opinion even counts. I think it’s at least 50 now. Throughout all this time, The Brotherhood firmly believed that they were keeping the peace and instilling order. Despite all their efforts, the downfall of the Brotherhood was inevitable simply because time doesn’t stop. While anime popularity in the US was in sharp decline in 2009, this is no longer the case in 2024. For most of the world, anime has never been more mainstream. Anime certainly still has a bit of a stigma in more rural parts of the US, but the image of the typical anime fan is no longer homogenous. A person’s first mental image of “anime fan” is just as likely to conjure up a famous athlete, rapper, or social media personality as it is the images in Filthy Frank’s “Weaboo Song”. If the anime fandom doesn’t have a huge image problem, there is no need for self-loathing, hyper self-conscious anime fans to gatekeep everything and bully others to try preventing the entire community from being bullied. Another factor is that the percentage of active MAL users who are American has dropped substantially over the last 15 years. The Brotherhood was and still is overwhelmingly composed of American users obsessed with image and “elitist vs weaboo” bullshit from a million years ago that doesn’t even apply to the anime experience and history of countries like India, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, China, Indonesia, etc. Random anime like Oshi no Ko were sneaking to number 1 more and more often and the effort it took to ratings nuke these newcomers back out of the top 50 kept increasing. Frieren just happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. So…is Frieren actually the best anime of all time? Personally, I would say no. Not even close. However, there is some substance behind the hype. There is a reason the Frieren was able to unite the terminally online with offline casuals, liberals with conservatives, male viewers and female viewers, and Japanese otaku with the rest of the world. Frieren has many aspects that it does remarkably well. Before we even talk about the characters and plot and all that stuff, let’s look at some of the technical aspects. Frieren is a GORGEOUS anime that represents a triumphant return for Studio Madhouse as the king of quality anime. A title which had been slipping from them over the last few years. Frieren is also the 2nd mega hit in a row for young director Keiichirou Saitoh following up on his incredibly well received debut: Bocchi the Rock. He is only 31 years old and is now one of the most in-demand directors in the entire anime industry! Every scene in Frieren is not only visually appealing and directed in a way that squeezes every bit of emotion it can get from the source material, but it also has the confidence to pace itself as if it’s going to run for 6 seasons. Even though that’s far from guaranteed in the anime industry. Fortunately for Frieren, its Japanese merchandise and figurine sales are quite strong and further seasons seem like a safe bet. It is always tragic when you get a Promised Neverland situation where the director poured their heart out and they either get cut off completely or given WAY too few episodes to wrap up the story all because Japanese consumers didn’t buy enough dakimakura and didn’t care as much as the gaijin so the studio fucks it over! Frieren’s soundtrack was outsourced to an American composer named Evan Call and it sounds much closer to a Hollywood mega film than a shonen anime. Have you ever actually bought an anime soundtrack? There’s the main theme, the battle theme, and a few main character themes that you can instantly recognize and are REALLY good compositions. Then you get to the comic relief scenes and it’s like listening to a cat walking on a synthesizer and farting up a storm. Kaoru Wada is especially guilty of this. The Inuyasha soundtrack for example has some BEAUTIFUL tracks and then some of the worst auditory vomit you’ve ever heard in your fucking life. The vast majority of anime soundtracks have always been like this. There are one in a million exceptions like Cowboy Bebop, but music was a major theme of that anime. You’re not going to get a seasonal fantasy anime where the OST sounds like the LOTR movies and every single track in every single scene is good. However, Frieren is actually able to…

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.

Wow No major spoilers, promise. But I need to rant. I don't know where to start. This is a story about the past, where they CONSTANTLY reference the past. It's not so bad, at first. But the past becomes so much of a regular it feels almost like I missed the main story and am watching the aftermath story. Which is ok, so if that's what the author went for, I applaud you. Frieren is probably my least favorite protagonist character ever. She has zero development over a hundred years she's exactly the same then as is she now. Which if that's so, and she lives so long, why am I watching this? Incredibly boring character with no agenda. The supporting characters are decent, but they don't do enough to make this worth anything. I just don't see the hype. It's definitely different, and if that's what you're seeking, this is right up your alley. But otherwise I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

Why is Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is so highly recognised? “In this review we will examine it under a magnifying glass, in the task of learning and uncover the mystery behind its remarkable success and to settle all query.” So don’t judge by a closed book just yet, let’s turn a leaf of what now is an ideal fantasy into actual reality. Usually, I don’t judge this seriously, although Frieren looks casual, it is far away from being usual. The methaporic themes and symbolism’s. The significance of existence. Is an important part of Frieren’s story and one major aspect behind its enchanting appeal. Why is it called the journeys end? Even though the humans she met along her journey was just a portion of her life. They stayed with her until the end of their life’s as for them she was their whole life. Regardless of whether their time amongst the living has come to an end, their journey of remembrance has never actually faded to stay with her. As long as there is someone who remembers us, our journey never really ends. As we structuring its premise by following a close to 2000 years old elf, Frieren. We slowly learn that time isn’t all that differs between humans and Elfs. Time is indeed precious, the important part of how we use it, what we spend it on and who we share it with. For an Elf, a human life is just months. Elves usually lives ten-times longer as humans do. Which also largely depends on their life conduct and breed. In Frieren case, she was born in a long-lived race which means they can live for close to eternity. What we set to learn from this little tale is to cherish life as much as we can. As Frieren slowly understands that humans from the reason of our short lifespan. We not just do things more quicker and more preplanned, but in the process we approach it with great empathy, giving the time to learn and understand the beauty of even the smallest things. Hereby forming bonds with them in this short period of time. Elves on the other hand are much more slower and their task has no deadline. Frieren learns these things beyond of her former companions journeys end. Reflecting that we only realize how valuable something is, when we can no longer have it. The Story The climax of Frieren isn't that extraordinary as many likes to believe. Even though it has 28 episodes, this story could be done in just 12 or else could have reached 600 episodes. As its story is basically just about walking, take a few months or years breaks collecting useless stuff in between. While spending a few episodes riddling on some deep life changing enlightenments on how you should appreciate the most obvious things like time and connections, then continue walking. For this reason it was quite difficult to catch up with this anime as it was airing. Even watching one episode in a month was abundant. It wasn’t the most boring anime, but I never really felt that it was made me want to see them walking again. There wasn’t really anything going around the main cast. Despite that they got into a few fights, just to make it more entertaining. It just made it more confusing, querying its purpose what this show wants to be and what it set to accomplish by forcefully mixing other themes. Frieren just do things that other titles did in a much more interesting and versatile format, but maybe more people would settle for less in (character personalities), (basic soundtracks), (simple lore), (basic magic), (incomplex plot). I have to agree that there are times when we need outbreeding and anime can be just simple and realistic. Yet, while it does being simple and realistic it can’t forget to be what an anime is all about. Being one. There are anime like Yuru Camp and Non Non Biyori. Which titles, without having excellent animation or epic fights are able to convey a lot of messages to the viewer. About life and about time. Frieren is confusing, because it cannot decide what it really wants to be other than it wants to be superior. You can make anything to be interesting, travelling can be interesting, like “Somali to Mori no Kamisama” or “Made in Abyss”. Characters interactions for 80% of the episodes, it can be interesting there are “The Monogatari Series” for example. For historical lore centered stories there is the “Fate Series”. The most interesting thing about this anime is that it made me think about an even more terrifying story concept. About a Maylfy. You can also do a story about a Mayfly which said to not live further than a single day. And it could potentially have the same amount of life experiences as an elf that lives thousands of years. Even before we could realise that we have gone loafer. Shortly after the sun left the horizon and when the first star started twinkle, that little fly, was long gone. This just shows us how mysterious and how beautiful this world truly is. Story part II Fantasy genre is probably the safest genre that you cannot go wrong with. In the same way that the current most popular games are fantasy and open world, makes it a very popular choice in anime nowadays by its nature of being Adventure and Fantasy. As based on the fact that this genre is quite rarely seen, a good example for the veterans would be "Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful Word", and for a fairly recent example to this is "Musho no Tensei" which was highly recognized, mainly due to be part of this unique and rare genre. In addition to the fact that Frieren isn’t an Isekai just makes it even more perfect as we know Isekai doesn’t really famous of their reputation. So why it is working so well? Could it be the reason that it wasn’t Isekai? Would be that simple? Or rather, it was the result of its captivating fantasy setting and its delightful adventures theme? Maybe it is given to its maturity and realistic expositions and sentimental messages? Things doesn’t have to be realistic or mature, an anime isn’t about that. For me, it is about to give something special. Just because it imitates a realistic and mature setting. It doesn’t implies superlative verdict nor provides incomparable entertainment. Similarly just because it’s manifesting sentimental themes and seemingly valuable messages it doesn’t mean it’s suddenly dealing with more nor providing innovative content. This series is just really smart. First let me mention one positive aspect that really impressed me and caught my attention. I am talking about the Demons nature and their way of thinking. It was quite surprising that the series treated this so earnestly and also involved the antagonists into its sentimental value of its main themes. That was quite unique and interesting. For us humans communication is key to the hart. As a Naruto fan, I know the power of talk no jutsu. Its effectiveness is quite impressive. In Freiern the Demons have used words to convey humans. Although they don’t understand the reason behind the power of communication; Why are Humans weakness is communication? Their weaknesses are not the words though, Humans weaknesses that they have associated words with emotions. That’s the difference between humans and Demons in Frieren which is a positive concept in its story. This gave a more mature look on the demons and also makes them more unique and matured perception. These things not used to get this amount of recognition due to the lack of their attention and connection to the main plot. It also provided a better understanding of their race and thus made the demons much more than just a stereotype antagonists. In Frieren this was well structured into its main story, which resulted to be noteworthy. The Story Verdict (5/10) Frieren on the outside looks nice, seems genuine and smart, acts like an original concept, but in the inside it is barley enjoyable and unoriginal. It’s repetitive and for any erudite individual that wasn’t living under a rock for the past 20 years, I genuinely don’t believe that this series can show or let alone teach something that they haven’t already knew…

(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 wo…

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?"