Sousou no Frieren 葬送のフリーレン

2023 fall | Episodes: 28 | Score: 9.3 (589891)

Updated every Fridays at 23:00 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Synopsis

During their decade-long quest to defeat the Demon King, the members of the hero's party—Himmel himself, the priest Heiter, the dwarf warrior Eisen, and the elven mage Frieren—forge bonds through adventures and battles, creating unforgettable precious memories for most of them. However, the time that Frieren spends with her comrades is equivalent to merely a fraction of her life, which has lasted over a thousand years. When the party disbands after their victory, Frieren casually returns to her "usual" routine of collecting spells across the continent. Due to her different sense of time, she seemingly holds no strong feelings toward the experiences she went through. As the years pass, Frieren gradually realizes how her days in the hero's party truly impacted her. Witnessing the deaths of two of her former companions, Frieren begins to regret having taken their presence for granted; she vows to better understand humans and create real personal connections. Although the story of that once memorable journey has long ended, a new tale is about to begin. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Voice Actors

Ichinose, Kana

Tanezaki, Atsumi

Kobayashi, Chiaki

Kiyoto, Arisa

News

Reviews

Rwurg
11/08/2024, 11:13 PM
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 livesso 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.
McLarrm
10/08/2024, 12:24 PM
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 whathappened 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.
BlackCrowGrows
08/26/2024, 11:07 AM
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 wheremost 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.
shantanuT
08/22/2024, 01:43 AM
Did not like. Felt like it was written by someone who has faked their way to top or only are there because they specialize in character design or something. Story was horrible. Each episode was mind bogglingly boring and bereft of meaning to the point I was questioning if this was written by a toddler. My time was utterly wasted. Other than some cute looking characters and animation, this show had nothing to offer. It was so empty and parody-like that I have no idea how it got the rating that it has. It is horrible in too many ways. Do not recommend. It willpiss you off if you're looking for any depth in stories. From someone who's enjoyed MHA quite a lot for its quality in creating compelling characters and a gripping plot line, I highly recommend you skip this one.
Zigizmund
08/02/2024, 07:53 PM
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 oneof 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.
Berm
07/25/2024, 04:11 PM
(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 tobe explored, mana levels depending on how long you have trained, and monsters evaporate into smoke when defeated. Frieren and her party of heroes happen to always stumble upon the right people who know exactly what they’re looking for. There’s a level of luck that fictional characters can have due to the nature of storytelling and needing a story to progress, but Frieren does it too much too often. There’s also a trend where Frieren happens to run into a lot of people or locations she came across in her past. This only makes the world of Frieren seem smaller, not larger. The locations they come across aren’t interesting either, with a majority of locations being either forests or the small looking medieval styled towns you see in every fantasy anime. As for the magic system in the show, while not terrible, it isn’t anything to write home about. It doesn’t help that the leads of the show use the most generic magic in their world simply because it is more effective. We never get to see more than a bunch of streaky white lines being shot around until much later into the show, when much more interesting magic is able to be used by other characters. I do find it interesting how the show establishes a history of magic and we learn how it has changed over time and understand how it works in the period the show takes place. Of course the leads of Frieren and Fern never once stop using the most generic attacks and so we are forced to watch the same boring magic fights over and over again. On the topic of Frieren and Fern, why don’t we talk about our two main characters. While I can say Frieren and Fern are well defined characters, I cannot say they are interesting ones. You can definitely attribute a wide variety of character traits to both of them, but they don’t make for interesting leads. Frieren and Fern don’t show emotion much, and while this is likely intentional narratively as Frieren was uninterested in human emotion for most of her life and her mannerisms likely rubbed off on Fern, the dialogue between the two is very stiff and lifeless. Scenes where Frieren and Fern are talking always consist of the most blank expressions and the coldest most lifeless voices you can imagine. The characters are presented in such an uninteresting way as to become tiresome after a while. The facial features of the characters are much smaller compared to other anime, which makes it even harder to depict emotions on their facesI was glad by the time Stark joined them, considering he gave some life to the cold and mundane dialogue between Frieren and Fern. This isn’t getting into the fact that Frieren and Fern are also pretty much the most powerful mages in their world. Frieren was part of the party who defeated the Demon King, something we know right from episode one. Once we know this, there is absolutely no sense of danger that we as an audience can feel for her as she has already defeated the most powerful creature in existence. This remains true for the entire show, where the only time Frieren gets damaged whatsoever is when she is cut in THE FINAL EPISODE, and she doesn’t even react to it. Frieren is an overpowered protagonist, just like a majority of fantasy anime protagonists. Any danger we would be able to feel for the side characters is completely undermined by healing magic as well. In fact, in the entire show, not a single named character is killed, other than the villains. The side characters aren’t much better than our leads, with them either having a single trait that completely defines the character, or having no traits and being the most bland and forgettable person ever. Stark is probably the most interesting out of them considering he gets the most screen time, however he still doesn’t get nearly enough characterization. His childish scuffles with Fern also make it very apparent that this show is in fact a shounen geared towards younger teens. The plot, worldbuilding, character motivations are all explained to you by the characters of the show, leaving no room for nuance. There’s nothing to interpret when everything is so hamfisted and shoved down your throat. In Stark’s case, he is often the one asking questions to Frieren and Fern about what is happening in the plot, so his screen time is mostly utilized to start exposition dumps from other characters. I won’t go into detail about the other characters in the show, mostly because there are too many to go over. Another trend you see with modern anime is having huge rosters of characters in the hope that the viewer will be able to latch onto even a single one in order to get them to continue watching. Having such a huge roster of characters means that each one has less time to be characterized. I am struggling to remember most of the side characters outside of the last arc of the show despite having started it less than a week ago because they simply left no impression on me. As for the storytelling on display in Frieren, it’s pretty bad. Most episodes have a set cycle to them, with it starting with the party coming across a new town. They then meet a character from Frieren’s past or someone new who says something that reminds Frieren about her past. We get a boring flashback scene during every one of these situations and Frieren comes to a realization about her past with her old friends. Despite this, Frieren as a character remains stagnant throughout the entire show, not changing whatsoever from the first episode. This is mostly the same for Fern and Stark aside from before they join up with Frieren at the beginning of the show. Any development they get after that point however is always told through flashbacks. The same goes with side characters. Development of the characters can only happen through flashbacks apparently. Once you know about the cycle the show goes through each episode, the anime gets extremely boring, with only the visuals helping to not make you fall asleep. Studio Madhouse animated the show and did a great job, with even boring dialogue scenes getting plenty of attention. The direction of the visuals are less than stellar, however. I already talked about how the main characters are always lifeless and how the settings always look the same. With good direction even these could have been remedied. We never get many interesting looking visuals outside of the action sequences, and even those are few and far between. Perhaps the most unbearable part of Frieren (and most anime in that manner) is the humor. If you have seen 5 anime then you already know the punchlines to every joke in Frieren. I do not understand how people find anything here funny. Frieren getting stuck in a fake chest is not funny, and is especially not funny after the 10th time you see it. I have also seen people comment on how there’s no fanservice in the show, and while that is true, there are still jokes about characters' boobs in the show, how mature. To end this all off, I would like to mention how Frieren has similarities to Violet Evergarden and Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song. In all three of these shows, we have a female lead who is deadpan and is unable to show any emotion. All three of these leads go on a journey to finally understand human emotion, or at least I’d like to say that because Frieren remains stagnant throughout the entire show. At least Violet Evergarden and Vivy have interesting worlds that were created for them. As to why Frieren is much more critically acclaimed than these already critically acclaimed anime that are similar, I have no idea. Quite simply, Frieren is one of the most overrated anime in my eyes. While many see it as a masterclass of storytelling and animation, I see it as a hollow shell of an anime relying solely on its visual presentation to carry its middling story and characters. Despite some great animation, Frieren was a slog to get through.
higisawig
07/02/2024, 05:51 PM
Frieren is overrated but you already knew that. I'll keep it short. Lets start with the positives. The early episodes are charming. After Frieren's new crew expands, the anime turns into decent enjoyable slop... just good enough to pass the time. The artstyle and coloring is nice. However, the animation can dip in quality at times. Voice acting is good. OST is forgettable, OP and ED are a skip as always. Now, the negatives. A million flashbacks, unnecessary info-dumps, cringy and uncharismatic characters hogging up screentime. The writer thinks that you're an idiot who needs to be spoonfed every single detail. Just stop watching after episode 17 ifyou value your time, everything bad about the show gets amped up to 100. Frieren should've been/stayed a SoL.
Cyrose
06/03/2024, 02:51 PM
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 calledthe 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 or seen. It ACTS original, because it is smart. It LOOKS good, compared to all the “trash” coming out nowadays. It tries its hardest to outsmart its audience by giving everyone what they want to see. It plays the role of a celestial being, above everything and everyone, like it has no weaknesses. The key to its success is to keep the audience in the belief that it is what it pretends to be and it “pretends” to be the greatest adventure sol-shounen. Every anime has weaknesses, and for the case of Frieren weaknesses, is simply my existence. In its actuality, regarding of the key behind its flawless performance, it lies in what its story symbolize; Time and life. These unheard and extraordinary themes are so egocentrically human-centered that we are mad hooked and enchanted about it. So much so, that I can also use the phrase that we are just mentally distracted from everything. As it is about us and not something or someone else. It’s neither complicated philosophy nor impartial mythology, but self-explanatory. From the reason that we are so selfish, we naturally grasps the “virtues” of these themes. It is really interesting that all these sentimental themes slowly converted into random epic fights. The mimic’s evolved into epic slay faces.. just to be more “enjoyable“. - Zzz Fights It really pulls out all the psychological cards that a starter watcher would likely fall into extrapolating it as a sleek move. Howbeit, for a veteran viewer it is known as a common trick. To make us think that the opponents are way stronger, the author consciously holds back the main cast full potential. To make the viewer believe that they have no chance coming out this situation alive. The author makes the antoganists act like they are unbeatable, and right before they could finish off the main characters, the main cast takes off their fake masks and pulls out their trump-cards for the late win. Then gave the enemies the chance to process their mistakes of underestimating their opponent’s abilities. To make it look more compelling, allowing them to die in a hard-fought battle. It seems more entertaining this way, but in reality it is just exaggerated and dull, especially when the anime plays it out three times in a single episode. The fight between Frieren vs Frieren is a great final fight for this anime, because it manifests how overweeningly self-satisfied with itself. They are gods compared to anything in their verse, so how would you make it even more satisfying to the viewer? Let the undefeatable face the undefeatable. Although the fights were animated quite well, it separated the whole anime into two fragments; Slow slice of life and fast paced action which was way too afar from each other. Resulting confusion on what this series genres exactly. The Animation (8/10) Giving credits where credits due, in spite of what Frieren’s animation first seemed nothing more than mid-range level, it ultimately established close to par-excellence in its quality. This wouldn’t surprise those who are familiar with its studio in charge of its production, as they should know that they were in for a treat. Madhouse is a warhorse studio as their production quality is well known to be consistent and well executed. Their art are colorful and vibrant along with their smooth and meticulous animation values. This studio has been producing gold after gold. Their work are extraordinary and much deserved to be recognized. For the early stages of this project, I was really impressed by the background art having a touch of oil-paint brush which wasn’t about being too detailed, but made it more elegant and unique in my eyes. When it comes to the fight scenes, they are also just as amazing, but people now started to compare it to fate animation which is quite embarrassing. It certainly looks good compared to all the trash that comes out nowadays, but anime ten years ago possessed just the same or not better animation qualities. Overall, its animation is pretty and faithfully represented the anime atmosphere and its historical themes. Characters (5/10) Characters personalities felt flat and uninspired. Although they were cute, they weren’t possessed the most vibrant personalities. Snobby personalities sometimes good and can be interesting if there is someone next to them that has the opposite personality traits. Although they had some random personality traits for the jokes, like frieren tends to trap inside chests and act sleepy, or the famous mimic face impressions. She sometimes even pull cat faces.. However, for the most part we have set with 90% of the same low-demanding-emotionless-boring dispositions. Fern and Frieren are like mirrors. Before someone says it’s obvious that Fern got her attitude and personality by growing up next to Frieren. She was always been like this, and not just her. That demon girl, or all the demons factually they all got this low interest look or full narcissistic personality. Which made the show quite repetitive pretty quickly. From this reason Stark character was a game changer and his appearance made this anime much more entertaining for me personally. As he wasn’t a loner and dull like the rest of the cast. If you would just take a look at the casting pictures , 90% of them are the same natural faces with no smile, no anger, no emotions. Moreover, the funny expressions and the characters funny sides were became cliche so early. Frieren wasn’t trapped in chests, but she was looking for to be trapped in all sort of things.. It felt forced rather than being natural. In addition this really showed how one dimensional and shallow the cast of this series actually are. Frieren cast being praised by their development and natural expressions is really strange. As I haven’t noticed any significant development on their characters. It was more of a clishe how they all were just a copy of their teachers. They had the exact same characteristics.. Soundtracks (5/10) Maybe it is little harsh to compare it to larger titles OST like for example Violet Evergarden that had opera house level of scores. I mean multiple albums that are just incredible. Frieren in its actuality is also hold a pretty decent albums and has some novelty notes that fits its historical themes. The opening and the ending is nice, but I always felt something mandatory about them. Nothing extraordinary or outstanding which is quite surprising considering the main score of this series. As in my opinion music is one major factor in emotional attraction to the story which in this series wasn’t able to make a profound impression. Enjoyment (4/10) Frieren is an easily likeable anime for those people who prefers a slow and simple anime. At the same time it can be found monotonous for people who prefers fast paced and more complex stories. However even if you belongs to this group, after epsiode 6 it gets slightly better. So that’s going to be the bare minimum recommended amount of episode to invest into it. The thing is that Frieren on its whole 28 course of episodes gave me the same feeling that other titles did in just one scene alone. I have watched it without a single reaction. It couldn’t made me smile or wow a single time. it wasn’t able to make me exited nor produced anything remarkable or unexpected. All these sentimental themes can be found in other titles that have handled them better without being this forcefully and fundamentally obsessed with them. Although there are things which made it look unique like how the demons were portrayed, but that alone wasn’t on par nor executed anything that I have already seen. We read books and watching anime, because this world is boring. Our reality doesn’t offer the level of exiting things than a fantasy story can. However, this isn’t true to Frieren. I feel that if I would have spent the same time outside or took a book from the shelf would have been much more worthwhile than watching this. A massage for the lost generation To answer the first question on why is Frieren so highly recognized. There was a interesting experiment which tells us what lies within this myth. In a vine sampling, three different kind of vines were sampled to a group of people. One glass of vine was labeled as 2£ another as 4£ and the third one labeled as 12£. After they’ve tasted each vine samples and gettered all the votes. 85% chose the third one labeled as 12£ as the most delicious vine. In reality, the most expensive vine was 2£ the middle priced was standard and the expensive 12£ vine was just a cheap store vine. People are like ants and only a few can act true to itself without being blindly manipulated by circumstances. We are afraid of doing against numbers because we are weak and simple. “Most people don’t really want the truth. They are just looking for answers that confirm their prejudices. “ - Jim Wilhelmsen “The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.” -Richard K Morgan “It's only because of their ignorance that they're able to be so sure of themselves.” - Franz Kafka Epitome There is no such a thing as flawless anime, even those that are considered masterpieces are not perfect in every inch. Which is completely fine as being perfect in everything isn’t what really makes an anime special. As the real good anime aren’t built to be special or perfect. They makes the viewer feel special and awakens something magical inside them. That conquers all boundaries, by fulfilling our soul with warmth satisfaction and as it merges with cold harrowing nerves recollections that riddles through bones. By the time this mixture of emotions reconciles and reaches our heart, an enlightened sense of peace possesses our mind. Only a few titles can reach this level of absolute exhilaration and pureness. “You cannot truly feel the enlightening warmth of the summer without living through the darkling coldness of winter’s.” Frieren: Beyond Journey's End didn’t even came close to this feeling. Which not surprising considering and truly comprehending its core values. As Frieren has took itself way too seriously and self-persuaded that it is above all things considered. While it is smart and cleverly written. It couldn’t possessed nor was able to show anything remarkable or refreshing that other titles haven’t already did without being so sentimentally intrigued nor had to included even a single fight scene. Neither had to show a millions of flashbacks just to make us feel something. While people acting like Frieren invented a whole new level of the Sol-Adventure. In reality, it just used the same old formula in a super safe and smartly manner. It presented itself as a superior etiquette while it basically just copied straight away from Violet Evergarden cover picture. Conclusion At the end, judging this anime without looking neither of its backgrounds nor its cover and strictly what it provides. I genuinely don’t see the appeal behind its generic and monotonous concept. Perhaps it can be enjoyed by a few individuals, but not for its characters and neither for its story. It’s impressive that this show was able to convinces the viewer that they’re watching something new, something unique while in reality they are just watched another cliched themes utilized smartly. Because Frieren is indeed cleverly written and executed. Proportionally contains slice of life, sentimental messages and action that visualize a flowing harmony on its surface. In my view however, I sense great confidence surrounding over it on the outside, overlaying the unfenced emptiness on its inside. Therefore in my eyes, Frieren is just as close to masterpiece as it is close to pathetic. Final Score 5/10 ⭐️ TLDR; Frieren is the most shallow, empty and simple anime ever to engross the number 1 spot and officially became the harbinger of an end to an era. The fact that this is going to be the face of the anime is just pure madness. Thank you for taking the time to read my review!
GentlePro
05/12/2024, 02:53 PM
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. Frierenis 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.
TheVistrian
05/03/2024, 07:06 PM
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 ofcriticism. I will start with the positives. Freeren is number one amongst all anime in one aspect. The first outro of Freeren is the greatest anime outro I have ever seen. It is absolutely gorgeous and compliments the show perfectly. For a show that is supposed to focus on the stuff in between the action, the action is pretty much the only enjoyable part, and a lot of it is quite good. There are two arcs of the story that I found generally quite enjoyable. These are between episode 7 and 10, and between episode 18 and 21. This series contains one episode that I would consider to be really good, that being episode 9. This episode features two very high quality fights that have multiple points where I found myself rewinding to rewatch sections of the animation because they were so well done, which is something I do not do very often. I do not mind the characters Fern and Shtark. I enjoyed many of the moments that these characters shared, And will admit that some of these moments could even be considered mildly wholesome, although I do not take back my previous statement. I also didn't mind a couple of the Mages they added during the Mage exam. Many of the monsters and demons have great designs, and many of the landscapes and settings looked quite nice. There are a few high quality moments of small intricate dingdongmenship relating to ideas such as memories and flowers. Now onto the negatives. If something is to be considered the greatest show, I would say a reasonable minimum requirement is that it doesn't contain any mistakes. This is not a standard that Freeren meets, There are many objective writing errors in the show. This is not my opinion, this is A fact about the show. None of them that I was easily able to catch were that significant or seriously affected the show, yet they are still there. For example I will break one down in detail so you can understand what I am saying. In episode 15 there is a quick flashback where Freeren Is caught by a mimic right in front of Fern. Although it is not directly shown, This scene logically requires that one of the two following options has happened. Option one is that Fern gets Freeren out of the mimic, requiring that Fern learns how you get someone out of a mimic. Option two is that Freeren gets out of the mimic herself, Requiring that Fern learns What happens to Freeren’s hair when she gets herself out of a mimic. By episode 15, Fern is required to have learned a minimum of one of those two pieces of information. In episode 23 there is another scene, in the present, of Freeren getting caught in a mimic, In this scene Fern reveals that she does not know how to get someone out of a mimic, as she has to be told by Freeren how to do it. Fern then immediately reveals that she also does not know what happens to Freeren’s hair when she gets herself out of a mimic, as Fern has the aha moment of “So that's why sometimes you show up with a completely different hairstyle.” It is impossible for Fern to be learning both of those pieces of information at that point in the story, yet this is what the scene is. If one was to intake extreme quantities of copium, A scenario could technically be invented where During the events of the original flashback Fern was separated from Freeren while she was still in the mimic, and then Freeren Gets out of the mimic by herself, and they remain separated for long enough for Freeren’s hair to go back to normal. Yet this scenario of course requires a pretty extreme assumption, along with the assumption that on their previous Journeys Freeren was only caught by a mimic that one time in front of Fern, as well as this Behavior requiring a pretty significant bad-girlesk break of Character for Fern. Thus this is an objective writing error. Again this small little detail does not really affect the story in any meaningful way, but in my opinion something that is considered the best should not contain errors like this. Two more examples of Inconsistencies. Once they enter the northern lands it is the beginning of winter, and it begins to snow, and thus they find a cabin to stay in, they then stay in this cabin for 6 months to wait out the winter. At the end of this sixth month period, at the beginning of Summer, it is still snowy all around them. The next scene, presumably happening in the middle of summer, is them getting caught in another blizzard and having to find shelter again. (Freeren during this time also reveals that she does not know any spell that produces any type of heat, fire spells do exist yet she does not know a single one.) They could have justified this scene by simply saying something along the lines of, they're traveling through the mountains now, so the weather is like this even in the middle of summer, and if it was winter then it would be 20 ft of snow or something. But they don't do this, it doesn't explain, it just gives us the characters stuck in a blizzard in the middle of summer and expects us to figure out why. It feels like they were so obsessed with having time pass that they forgot to have time actually pass. Early on in the show there is a section where Freeren and Fern decide to clean a massive beach for a fake book. We are then treated to a couple of scenes where Freeren, the most powerful Mage in the world, is picking up 10 little pieces of wood at a time. It then clarifies that Freeren and Fern stay here and are cleaning this beach for 3 months, meaning that both of these Mages have spent a minimum of 3 months exclusively training their floating magic ability. Later on in the show it attempts to justify why Freeren was only capable of picking up small quantities of wood at a time, by saying that no one other than demons and monsters had the ability to fly or float until very recently. (And although spells being made recently is an advantage for things such as zoltrock derived spells it's not for floating Magic.) And even though we know they spent months exclusively training this ability they are barely able to actually use it when they need to. And at the end we see an elf using floating Magic 1,000 years before the events of the story, which from my understanding is not a monster or a demon. It's just sloppy, weird little inconsistencies like this shouldn't exist in the best show ever. Now onto the character of Freeren. I do not like this character. First of all this character is an elf, and elves live a long time. She is very proud of this aspect of her existence, and she will bring up how old she is and brag about it every chance that she gets. Yet at the same time if anyone else brings up how old she is she gets insecure about it. She is extremely selfish and narcissistic most of the time, but then sometimes decides to be absurdly generous. At the funeral for her friend, She begins to cry, and she clarifies that the reason she is crying is not for them, but because she feels bad for herself because she didn't get to know him as well as she would have liked. This is the same friend that she had spent the last 50 years ignoring for no reason other than she was too distracted in pursuit of her own personal Joy. If time is truly that abundant for her it would have been no issue for her to send a couple of letters back and forth, at the absolute minimum at least once every couple years but she couldn't even manage that. It only takes 10 years to make it across the planet, so she was likely in his vicinity a couple of times assuming that she was just wandering around the southern lands. This strange feeling of guilt is the thing that inspires this whole story, Yet she is fully responsible for how she feels. If she had just acted like a normal person She wouldn't have this issue in the first place. She has had hundreds of years to learn how to act mature and she still doesn't. It also doesn't make sense why she is having these feelings in the first place, As there is only one person that she has ever known better than Himll, this being her master. Meaning that in comparison to pretty much everyone she has ever known she knew him very well. And she is making the judgement that she didn't know him very well based off of a singular slightly deeper relationship that she had 1,000 years earlier. It is impossible to have any sympathy for Freeren, in her 1,000 years on that planet she should have learned how to have/be a friend, And it never gives any reason as to why she is so closed off to everyone. Just the fact that she is old and from some perspectives it doesn't matter as much, Doesn't work to explain it very well. I think that the character is pretty annoying as well, I usually like characters that are annoying, but not like this. The way that she acts around grimoires is so contradictory to the way she acts around everything else that it feels like she is breaking character and doesn't feel like some natural quirk. It feels like an excuse that is employed to get this character to do anything, as without it the character wouldn't be willing to do anything. Any good character is flawed, as this is how a character develops, they have a flaw at the beginning and have character development by changing. Yet, at the end of this series there's a scene where an old lady drops her basket of goods onto the ground right in front of Freeren, It would take Freeren essentially no effort at all to help out this old lady, The show clarifies that in this moment the thought to help this old lady crosses her mind, and it shows her actively making the decision to not help. In the final episode of this series it clarifies that Freeren Has not had any meaningful character development, and is just as selfish as ever. Yes, she now has a regret, but she is still acting the same way that caused her to gain that regret in the first place. I would assume that eventually in this story she probably learns to have a heart in some way, to act with a little bit of humanity, but that didn't happen in this series, so this is my interpretation of the character. I believe there is a place and time for Slice of Life anime. But that place is not number one, and that time is not all time. I am clearly not whoever this show is meant for. Slice of Life is not really the type of story that appeals to me, I view it as a valid part of what anime has to offer, yet I do not believe it is where anime truly shines. I went into this story knowing that it was very unlikely I would view it as a masterpiece, I only expected a high quality fantasy story. And I still feel disappointed, it did not even deliver on that. There are so many more criticisms I could give But I feel that I have already said enough. I know somehow I am in the minority here, there is some sort of fundamental difference between what I enjoy and most people on this website enjoy, as was clearly indicated by how much respect people give to things such as Steins Gate. And even acknowledging all of this, I still believe that this show is not very good, The story is not well written, it is full of objective errors, The characters are annoying and not relatable, The ideas are not fun or interesting, And I genuinely do not recommend watching this show.
DrReverse
04/29/2024, 01:54 PM
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 youlike 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.
literaturenerd
04/14/2024, 08:52 PM
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 ahighly 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 accomplish just that! So Frieren is gorgeous, has an amazing OST, and is super well directed. So what? How is the world building? This is a shonen that deals with magic, so how is the magic system? This is once again an area where Frieren triumphs. Frieren is very happy to take a pause and explain minor aspects of its world and history but never in a way that bores the viewer. It gives enough details to keep us engaged but there is still a LOT that we want to learn. As for the battle system, some characters in Frieren have a higher base level of mana and can cast bigger and flashier spells, but it avoids the vertical power scaling pitfalls of previous shonen titles. Frieren is very strong, but she’s not invincible. Someone with a lower level of overall mana but the right spell at the right time could easily kill Frieren. This isn’t a series where strategy just goes out the window and it’s all about who has a bigger number. Frieren also manages to avoid one of the huge traps of bad fantasy writing where one spell is SO much better than anything else, that it ruins the magic system and makes everything else essentially irrelevant, so all battles end up looking the exact same. Stuff like fireball in the original D&D, Balefire in Wheel of Time or the Avada Kedavra in Harry Potter. Frieren actually pokes fun at this while adding to its own recurring theme about the passage of time. You have this super arrogant demon who has been frozen in stone for 50 years. He developed this killing curse that’s similar in essence to the Avada and he absolutely decimated the wizard population of 50 years ago so temporarily sealing him was the best they could do. He gets utterly humbled by an apprentice mage because his world beating spell became the new standard by which all offensive magic is judged and all defensive magic was developed against, so after 50 years it’s very average instead of remarkable. This tends to be how real-life weapon advances work and describes the relationship between armor and weapons development. In terms of characters, Frieren once again does a good job. The anime hops back and forth through time between the current day, Frieren’s adventure party from over 50 years ago, and Frieren’s time with her teacher around 1000 years ago. In each time period, we see little ways in which Frieren has developed as a character and been impacted by those around her that she grows to care about. While Frieren gets the most development and character investment, Fern, Stark, and others are also allowed plenty of room to grow. Having said this, Frieren is still a shonen and once you reach the first tournament arc…yes course there’s a fucking tournament arc…you do get some characters that are less impressive. For example, we get this grumpy, middle aged bastard named Richter who not only is willing to kill 2 teenage girls to pass his wizard exam, but he goes out of his way against the orders of his superior to try do so and seems to revel in it. Then this sadistic and murderous aspect of his personality is just kind of dropped and is never mentioned again. Another wizard is a murderous psychopath, but this is largely played off as a joke and her personality never really evolves much beyond “lol, what a psycho bitch!” The demons are also kind of boring and shitty antagonists, but they’ll get their paragraph later. Don’t you worry! Frieren is a shonen in terms of its core demographic and it uses several of the familiar trappings of popular shonen manga, but also a deliberately slower pacing in order to place just as much focus on its themes as it places on kickass fights. Frieren at the end of the day is a series about mortality and the bonds we form with other people. Even if we’re not immortal like Frieren, we all know a grandparent, a friend, or someone else who passed away and we would do anything to have spent more time with that person. We care deeply about the people that we love and recognize on an intellectual level that we only have a very finite, precious time to spend with those people, yet it’s still so easy to take our time on Earth for granted and neglect our personal relationships. Frieren captures a fundamental human struggle that’s both universal and powerful. When it’s at its best, Frieren is an emotionally moving series that inspires us to live our lives better and not shut ourselves in. Sadly, we must now talk about the other controversy surrounding Frieren besides its unusually high MAL score. This controversy surrounds the demon race, who are the primary antagonists of the series. Frieren needed some kind of external conflict to add danger and keep things from getting too boring. So, the writer of the Frieren manga took the easy route and created a generically evil fantasy race that wants to wipe out or enslave all the other sentient species and must be stopped at all costs. However, this evil species isn’t like the goblins from Goblin Slayer. Those little bastards are a semi-sentient walking virus who can’t even naturally reproduce on their own without raping the females of other species and murdering the male population. They are simply a fantasy disease. Frieren’s demon race are a civilized, intelligent, fully sentient race who are simply evil and must we wiped out. Who cares? They’re literally demons, right? Well…sort of. They’re not demons in a Christian sense. They’re a naturally occurring, sentient species of humanoids with a slightly higher base level of magic who all just happen to be jerks and normal humans refer to them as demons. Unlike Warhammer demons and other Christian inspired demons, they don’t literally come from Hell. If you kill a Frieren demon, they die permanently with no afterlife. If you kill a Warhammer demon or any Christian inspired demon, they just kind of go back to Hell. The demons in Frieren have no interest in corrupting Humanity or deceiving humans into doing horrible things. They trick other species like Elves, humans, and dwarves into feeling sorry for them or giving them a chance before immediately betraying and kill them. Then the demons cry crocodile tears when they finally get what they deserve. The concept of an innately evil species that needs to be wiped out is one that fantasy has largely been trying to leave behind for about 40 years now. Tolkien is sometimes credited as the architect of this trope, but with him it comes from a very different place. Tolkien’s writing is always heavily influenced by his devout Catholicism. The orcs, trolls, and Easterlings aren’t evil because God made them that way. The God of Tolkien’s universe known as Eru Iluvatar didn’t create any being specifically to be evil, let alone an entire species. Tolkien’s equivalent of the Devil was jealous of God’s creations, so he took stuff that Iluvatar created and made his own warped mockeries of those things. However, even the Orcs in Tolkien’s belief are not entirely beyond redemption since they still retain the gift of language, which shows that part of their original souls are intact. Frieren is entirely secular in its morality and advocates a genocidal solution purely based on what seems to be rational. “There are no women and children. Get it through your head. These are mere animals who imitate human forms. They convince the whole world to feel sorry for them and each and every time it’s just a trick so they can attack us again the moment our guard is down. The solution is obvious. We should just kill them all!” While this quote is very close to one spoken by our favorite Elf Waifu, a quote that the series does EVERYTHING to perfectly validate her on, this isn’t actually a Frieren quote. This is a quote from some random old lady that got interviewed by CNN last month. The language that Frieren uses casually and without much thought by the mangaka is used almost word for word to advocate genocide in real life. It’s not just bad timing and bad luck that Frieren was released when it was. There is no time period where this aspect of the series’ writing would have been praiseworthy. Frieren in regards to this sub-plot engages in writing so lazy and so regressive that it stumbles into uncomfortable territory. Imagine for a second if you would that some political party in some country was actively planning a campaign of genocide or ethnic cleansing. However, they know that such actions are no longer seen as acceptable in any circumstances by an overwhelming margin of society. So…they decided to finance an addictive and popular show that (while not being the focus of course) subtly promotes genocide in a rational light and tries to shift the thinking of young audiences. This isn’t what happened of course, I already said that Frieren’s case is one of criminal laziness. However, that show would look EXACTLY like Frieren and that’s not a good thing. Overall, I’m giving this series an 8 for now…but it would be more accurate that I’m giving it an I for Incomplete. I think Frieren promises to be a strong franchise and has all the potential in the world if it can avoid shooting itself in the foot. However, I wouldn’t have written that lengthy previous paragraph if Frieren was safe from monumental errors of judgment. The series could very well turn out to be a disaster that I will be embarrassed that I ever enjoyed. Or it could be absolutely amazing, and we will all just kind of forget some of the less ideal aspects of S1. The future of Frieren has not yet been written. Most of my offline buddies haven’t seen Frieren and don’t want to watch Frieren. To be honest, I’ll probably hold off shoving it down their throats until I get a better grasp on which way this franchise is headed.
keirashii
04/07/2024, 11:46 AM
This review contains spoilers. Why do we have to accept mediocrity under a veneer of elegancy? Never has a middle of the road show been so celebrated. The utter lack of identity this show exhibits is absolutely bewildering and perhaps I was expecting this to improve within the second half, but I was wrong; there is a severe lack of any substance whatsoever in every single pore of this anime and it is completely forgettable. Sousou no Frieren played a safe formula and won the jackpot. They are still the exact same fucking person after 25 episodes, you can literally define each character with a singlesentence. Something can be simple yet still be distinctive, yet Frieren is basic and it doesn't have any soul or substance; there is nothing to grasp in this anime that evokes even a semblance of interest. This show doesn't take into account just how complicated humanity can be especially in a fantasy world like this, all of the people Frieren meets throughout her path have one-dimensional motivations and are always up to help Frieren and her group, which is just absolutely ridiculous and unrealistic; except demons, who are big bad evil guys of course. Demons are such bland antagonists for which genocide is the only counter of course; the author really went out of their way to lazily write such boring characters, they are DND evil-personified royalty scumbags who trick other species and then BETRAY them! So fun and thought provoking. This last arc a la Hunter Exam is completely unnecessary and only serves a purpose for the people who, understandably enough, were bored of the absolute slog this series is; why Frieren doesn't just go through the lock, considering she defeated the fucking Demon King with her group and is one of the, if not THE strongest, mage in the entire planet? She could just blast absolutely everyone that crossed her path like she had always done, there's absolutely no need to do this battle tournament bullshit if she just talked about it, or if any of her allies mentioned it, or if there was a minimal amount of valuable communication, which Frieren, as a whole and to be honest, completely lacks. Dialogue in Frieren is sloggy and useless, oftentimes it will feel like you're listening to two brick walls talking to each other; it lacks any insight or interest that might come with good and valuable communication. If there isn't a strong-enough emotional basis in Frieren to grow sympathy and become a slow-burner, dramatic character development show, what is the identity of this anime? The combat isn't as frantic or notable so it cannot be a battle shounen either, Sousou no Frieren does not exhibit an interesting-enough fantasy world full of mysteries, so it cannot exactly be an exploration show about the value of a long journey; Frieren doesn't have witty dialogue or particularly great humour—beyond repeating the same gag a thousand times without any variation—so it can't be an effective comedy show. The romance between Frieren and Himmel is bland as fuck and I absolutely despise that he essentially works as an emotional prop or messiah and Frieren is essentially the damsel in distress that needs emotional points throughout this entire thing, so it doesn't work as romance either. So with this said: What is Sousou no Frieren's identity? What does this anime want? I do not know, I really don't; this is one of the biggest problems with it: SnF doesn't know what it wants. It goes from being a WoW secondary mission simulator to a cheap copy of the Hunter Exam arc, meanwhile no valuable progress is done for the characters' identity. Funnily enough, the show who lacks uniqueness isn't able to develop an unique identity for their own character cast. Can ANY of these characters express any emotion beyond a boring emotionless face? Can ANY of them express any emotion on their dialogue? Or say anything that I can minimally care about? It tastes so much like air. This show is completely inoffensive and riskless, completely devoid of any identity and inherently soulless. It can't be an emotional journey where we watch Frieren learn, as Frieren's progress feels artificial when it is purely fed by flashbacks, cliché quotes and plot conveniences. SoF seems directionless, like it's completely lost. The last arc of this show suffers from a dragged on pace, they have to explain E V E R Y S I N G L E T H I N G—even irrelevant details—before actually doing it, they have to E X P L A I N C A R E F U L L Y irrelevant shit such as history of magic in the middle of an intense moment such as a battle; oftentimes in the form of a flashback, of course. We have to see these random ass dudes running for their lifes in the middle of an important scene where they are strategizing, why?? I literally do not care about them. I already know Frieren is smiling because this whole thing reminds her of the skirmishes she did with her group on a dungeon, you don't need to slap a flashback and completely break the scene, this exposition dump in the form of a memory is absolutely uncalled for. Exposition and the use of flashbacks can work in complex topics or when cleverly-used, but here it completely ruins the pace and feels out of place; let ME deduce why Frieren is smiling based on my experience on watching the show. This is a constant pattern that is repeated throughout all of Sousou no Frieren: > Frieren sees an old person > Boring ass dialogue ensues > flashback!!! this actually relates in some way to her original party group!!! > 2sad4me melodrama > Frieren sees something, anything > Boring ass dialogue ensues (that is constant within this show) > She relates it back to her party > Mr. Gary "Himmel" Stu tells her everything she needs to hear and everything that is perfect for that specific situation!! He is really wise and definitely isnt just an emotional Macguffin for Frieren to grow in cheap emotion points. > Himmel dicksuckery shenanigans ensues. he's the worst character on the entire show by far btw > A cross-eyed Frieren is lying on the ground, drooling and having an epileptic attack; her eyes haphazardly inspecting the sky > "Is Frieren alright?" asked Sein, worried that his companion could've been going through a tough time > "Yeah, she's on Himmel's flashback, she'll be back in a minute." assured Fern, she was already used to this. Do you like comedy? I do, sometimes; comedy is subjective, thus it might be funny to some but holy shit I believe the author doesn't know anything beyond the same comedy-gag ad nauseam. There isn't anything witty, to deduce or interesting about this show's humour; it is "haha shes in the mimic again lulz" for ten-thousand times or Fern throwing a pouting tantrum and punching our shounen boi. I guess it gets slapped in for fanservice motives or to accelerate the pace of this absolute snail of an anime to acceptable amounts; same with the action, I feel like the author assimilated that this was absolutely horrific and decided to put some action in the last arc, which I honestly appreciate, I don't know if I could stand 12 more episodes about World of Warcraft secondary quests and nothingburger characters peppered with melodrama. I bet that if you write "Create boring-ass plain World of Warcraft secondary quest" in ChatGPT it would bring a plot point fit to Sousou no Frieren's standards. Perhaps if it were 12 episodes it'd be less obnoxious and bland, because watching these bland archetypes talk with nobodies constantly was drawn out to absurdity. It truly becomes a nothing-fiesta when every dialogue sounds like it was AI-generated. There is no different way to approach each character, dialogue, action, expression; there's no nuance, nothing. Frieren meeting kid Himmel for the first time is so absurdly convenient its cheesy; of ALL the forests in the fucking world, in THIS specific moment, in THIS specific night AND day of the year was where Frieren met Himmel for the first time. The relationship between Frieren and Himmel annoys me to my core, it is a prophet and damsel in distress relationship where Frieren cannot realize anything without having it spoonfed by Himmel thru endless memories; guess what, there's many times in life where you have to do shit by yourself and there will not be anyone to tell you what you need to do; there will be inmense doubt, conflicts and sometimes suffering. Their connection is rotten to the core and consists on a flashbacks-based savior complex from Himmel, he MUST be the one who teaches Frieren emotion, he MUST be Frieren's love interest; it feels so wrong and forced, the rest of the group are just spectators of this degenerate link between a savior and a broken or lost one. I still haven't talked enough shit about the character cast, which oftentimes turns into one-dimensional archetypes, devoid of any charisma and very lackluster identities, which is a huge problem in a show such as Frieren. Twenty-eight episodes yet Fern is still absolutely insufferable, Stark has no personality traits beyond being a shounen boy & Fern's love interest and boxing-bag, Sein appears to have been absolutely thanos'd from reality, Übel is your crazy bitch archetype—who is the only one that thankfully puts some spice in this slog—and Himmel... oh, fuck Himmel. I really cannot describe just how much I dislike him honestly; he's the core on my main disdain towards this show. He's a Gary Stu who's entire personality traits are being Frieren's would-be love interest and a hero. Yeah thats about it, he's a blue-haired Ken with no interesting traits whatsoever; the worst thing by far is his discount-ass motivational phrases which do nothing but artificially inflate Frieren's emotional points, oftentimes through flashbacks ad nauseam, something that feels cheap, frequently pace-breaking and bland; he's essentially an emotional deus ex machina, whenever you feel like Frieren is having a hard emotive situation Himmel will be there to spit some motivational stock phrases so Frieren has a huge epiphany and the show will be like "See? They were truly one for the other!" It feels so forced and disgusting when he plays this messiah superman-esque role. Heiter is "haha le drunk guy XD" comedy relief in the heroes' group who occasionally pukes motivational slop a la Himmel. Eisen is strong dwarf who teaches shounen boy and theres not much more about him. Who in the fuck is Methode? Oh, that one girl in the exam; okay I don't care, who even cares? Who are all these people? Why are they so completely plain? Fern is still absolutely insufferable, a complete brat and a Frieren copy—and being cared for under Frieren's bosom isn't a good excuse—having both Frieren and Fern talk to each other is like clashing two rocks with each other. It is STILL the same shit after 25 episodes and hasnt changed a thing. The main trio is lazily conformed and their thoughts are vaguely explored; without a semblance of interesting dynamics or substantial thoughts. Relationships tend to be notoriously complex, depending on endless layers of emotions, interests and more; Sousou no Frieren simplifies this in a lazy way and the author only dares to make straightforward, boring interactions and links between characters. Finding any interesting traits in these characters feels like trying to find a penny in the atlantic ocean. Frieren is an elf femcel who gets punched ad nauseam by emotional planitudes and nothingburger motivational phrases. Have you ever read these classic happy-go-lucky phrases like a la "Living is good! Keep living!"? That's what Himmel constantly slaps in your face in every scene he appears in. This show is oftentimes praised by its emotionality yet the characters are barely human, 90% of times the characters' expressions look like Moai statues without any emotionality whatsoever (with no offense to moai statues, they are pretty rad in comparison to this blandfest). Many excuse Fern's absolute nothingburger identity through being cared by Frieren's teachings; however, this is no excuse, I still fail to comprehend why shes completely devoid of any notable traits. You can be teached by someone your entire life and STILL derail from their ideas, morality, teachings, etcetera; hearing Frieren and Fern talk might as well be two Frierens talking to each other, just lame as fuck. There's also the vague and plain worldbuilding which doesn't get better: > Welcome to village numba 1 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM > Welcome to village numba 2 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM > Welcome to village numba 3 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM ad nauseam > Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you. > Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you. > Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you. ad nauseam > Welcome to magic city. As you can see it is full of magic; betcha you didn't expect that. Is there anything beyond this? Nope, it's magic city, why in the fuck would you expect something more? But I guess shounen fans just can't understand this immaculate piece of peak fiction and the symbolism behind Frieren's feet, they want skibidi brainrot lobotomykaisen fast paced spoonfed everything, they have a low attention span and can't stand HEAVY and SLOW shows like Frieren... nevermind the fact that I do enjoy slow-paced media and still found Sousou no Frieren to be a complete slog and a restaurant of nothing meals, despite what the Frieren fanbase might tell you, not everyone who dislikes Frieren are skibidi ipad kids. In a show like this character development is deemed to be a very important aspect yet there's virtually no advancements towards anything resembling development, and if it happens, it is completely irrelevant. The arc a la Hunter Exam doesn't work when every battle is fought by pokerfaced nobodies with not even an inch of personality, they fail completely at even evoking a semblance of emotion in me when it just looks like they dont wanna be in this anime. Watching Frieren characters fight between each other looks like when you were going to do a class presentation in a topic you absolutely didn't care about; that's Frieren battles in a nutshell. How can I care if they don't seem to care? Where's the emotion in these expresionless androids? Where's the emotion in their ChatGPT dialogue and fights? Where's the emotion that is so praised about this anime? Wait, before delivering flashbacks, BOOM LAZER, MAGICAL BULLSHIT; now, let's haphazardly introduce the flashback. After all they are supposed to be humans, of complicated thoughts and intricate morality yet they seem to lack anything of sorts, instead looking like a reptilian trying to replicate superficial philosophy, feeliings and humanity; it's tough when a show that's supposed to feel human and emotional instead feels like E.T trying to make a personal story. Frieren and Fern vs Frieren clone in the last arc is supposed to be a huge climax yet it feels like nothing, there are no stakes I already know they are going to wreck the shit out of it; especially if you slap a fucking flashback on me where it essentially praises humanity and their advancement towards dominating magic, soon to be equal or even surpass elves—of course, it refers to Fern—just like that stakes are completely gone. As a whole package, Sousou no Frieren might be the most ambitionless anime I've seen in a long time, only carried by the talents in Madhouse, who I applaud for improving this blandfest and jack of all trades turned into a devoid master of none.
Latooq
04/01/2024, 03:14 PM
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 lovegiven 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.
Kzzz
03/25/2024, 03:14 AM
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 anddedicate 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.
Trikkiez
03/24/2024, 02:03 AM
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 ofstyle this anime offers nothing that anybody who has seen more than 20 anime likely hasn't already seen before. It's not ambitious in any way and just feels soulless. I will say that for an anime to be good it doesn't have to be avant garde, or have insane directing that blows your mind, but there is nothing this anime offers that even makes up for its lack of identity (boring soulless characters and world). World Building- I've seen so many people praising the "amazing world building" this anime has, but I don't understand where they are getting this from. The actual locations they go to feel like they have little to no importance in the actual world. They just feel like random kingdoms and villages, but why are these kingdoms actually important in the world? We are never really told, so it kind of just feels like they are just there to give the characters a place to go. it makes the world feel less alive and less dynamic. The world isn't changing around our characters, but rather they are changing around the world. It makes watching them journey around random areas feel meaningless. I never once during this anime thought to myself about where the characters would go next, nor did any area feel distinct from each other. There was nothing differentiating the different areas culturally and it just made the anime really boring and feel not alive. There was never a single character we met in one of these areas that wasn't also forgettable. The world we are in is also so incredibly stereotypical. The fantasy elements aren't creative in any way and they just feel like copies of the same blueprint that fantasy stories have been using for a long time. Even Konosuba was parodying these stereotypes over 10 years ago but yet we are seeing them even more now for some reason. Regardless, Frieren does nothing interesting with these elements. The magic system is generic, the Demons are just bad guys who want to kill people, the kingdoms and villages are all generic, and I can go on and on. It just felt like this anime had a checklist of fantasy setting elements to include, but didn't bother to do anything interesting with any of them. The magic system is poorly implemented as well. Why doesn't pretty much everyone in the world use magic? It's such an advanced tool that I feel like everyone even people doing basic jobs should use it to make their jobs more efficient. It isn't a very well thought out concept and it goes back to what I was saying earlier about how they just included it because that's the norm for fantasy stories. Animation/Art/Directing/Soundtrack This is the strongest part of the whole anime. The animation was insane sometimes and there were lots of pretty colors that I actually liked looking at. Animation is such a non factor though this barely added anything to the experience for me. This is probably the least important category when it comes to making a good anime. As far as the art goes, I thought the background scenery was overly generic a lot of the time. Once again, it felt like I couldn't separate it from anything else. It didn't feel very atmospherically alive, but if it did I think I would've liked it a lot more. If this anime was more like Mushishi for example where each scene is just breathing life, I would've appreciated it so much more. In Mushishi there is always so much going on in the background and environmentally, even when nothing is happening it creates such a nice watching environment, that I am just completely entranced. It feels like this is what this anime wanted to be, but failed miserably. The lack of an interesting soundtrack also plays a heavy role in this. There were times where it actually felt like the soundtrack was AI generated. The directing was very boring and there were a lot of annoying flashbacks that happened in the middle of a fight. Sometimes I literally forgot the fight was even happening because of how long the flashbacks were, which is where the problem lies for me. There is nothing wrong with the flashbacks inherently, but they were just very annoying and uninterestingly implemented. There were some scenes where a monster or demon would die, and for some reason they would randomly dissolve as if it was a video game or something. And there is also an annoying amount of explosions in this anime. To the point where explosions pretty much mean nothing since there is one every 3 minutes on average. Even when nothing happens to cause an explosion, one will just randomly happen anyways. There were a lot of questionable sound design choices surrounding the comedy scenes that took me out of whatever immersion I possibly had left. They would use silly sound effects that didn't fit in the actual world and it felt really off putting. However, as for my first positive in this whole review, I actually really love the crystally sound effect they use whenever a character uses magic. It actually sounded really cool and it was probably my favorite part of the whole anime. Comedy- This anime does a poor job at mixing in its comedy with seriousness. There is one episode where Stark is bitten by a venomous snake and he was on the edge of potentially dying. Yet, the characters were being very unserious about it, as if it didn't even matter. There were many instances of this during the anime and it just got unwatchable. How am I supposed to take this anime seriously when even the people making it aren't taking it seriously. Besides that a lot of the comedy feels like it was written by a 13 year old. The jokes just felt very forced in, and it often repeats jokes a lot as if us hearing about the drunk priest again for the 50th time was gonna be any more funny than the 49th time. A lot of the characters are purely used as comedy sticks and don't even feel like their own person. Pretty much the entire cast of Frierens old group are 1 dimensional comedy characters that got carried by Frieren to defeating the demon king. The priest is drunk every time we see him in a flashback, himmel is always acting like an idiot which is supposed to be funny because he's actually supposed to be like a hero or something, but he actually is just a goofball (its funny and stark is totally not the same character), and the beard guy never talks and is pretty much just afk. Oh and if one drunk priest wasn't enough, we get a second one midway through the anime. Characters- None of the characters feel like humans. They are constantly expressionless, especially during fights, and it just makes them very unrelatable. The way they talk is robotic as well. It's annoying that our main 2 characters are the most expressionless in the whole anime, and of course they get the most screen time. I already talked about the other characters from Frierens flashbacks, and that applies here too. Most of the characters are either expressionless robots, or purely comedy characters. There are very few actually serious characters and when I say very few I mean only 2. There is no character development, and everyone stays the same as they were before. After Stark defeats the dragon on his own early on, he doesn't grow as a character, he just stays as an annoying whiny brat. Fern is always mad at stark, even when their relationship progresses, it always goes back to square 1 and nothing ever happens to progress anything really. Plot- Boring, nothing happens between episodes 10-18. There isn't really much to talk about because there isn't really much plot to begin with. Frieren is kind of just looking after Fern because the drunk priest wanted to and they just wander around together. That's pretty much it. I guess they have an objective to go up to the north so they spend 18 episodes doing nothing, and then doing an exam so that they can try becoming tier 1 mages to go up north. It's very boring and nothing happened this entire season. This anime is more about its themes than its plot but I think the themes aren't explored very well. I did resonate with them a lot early on, but the same themes of nostalgia and time perception got really repetitive and they never really went anywhere. In conclusion, this anime is not good in any way and honestly I gave it the most positive rating I could've possibly given it. I was bored from start to finish, and there was very little redeeming qualities in this anime. The only reason I didn't rate this anime lower is because I think there are much worse anime out there and in comparison to those, I guess this one isn't the worst thing ever, but it probably deserves a 2 or a 3 in reality. This anime is full of plot conveniences and nonsense. If you would like to see more of what I thought about this anime, feel free to check out the youtube channel in my bio. I uploaded a full length review on this anime where I talk about a lot of the things I wrote here, as well as a lot of other things I didn't go into depth about.
BeetleR19d
03/22/2024, 08:18 PM
The title "Beyond Journey's End" does sound appealing, doesn't it? While I typically oppose altering the literal meaning of Japanese titles during translation, in this case, I make an exception. "Beyond Journey's End" more effectively conveys the essence of "Sousou no Frieren" manga/anime than "Frieren at the Funeral" does. The title indeed suggests that the anime serves as an ‘After Story’ for a particular journey of Frieren, the story’s protagonist. It’s important to note that Frieren is an elf who does not age physically and possesses a unique perspective on time, relationships, and interactions, differing from humans. These two pivotal aspects form the foundation of thenarrative, as we witness Frieren come to appreciate the value of the relationships forged during her travels and anticipate the journeys yet to come. Plot(9/10): As Frieren is several thousand years old, a significant portion of the story consists of flashbacks across various timelines. One timeline depicts her youth as a disciple of Flamme, while another showcases her time with the hero party. The narrative primarily unfolds in the present timeline. Throughout the anime, we witness Frieren reflecting on the past while assimilating her current experiences. It presents a form of redemption from a certain perspective. The central theme of this story is about ‘Living in the moment and not having regrets later.’ Each past encounter and memory with the hero party influences Frieren to cherish her present companions more deeply, as she harbors many regrets for not understanding the hero party members’ sense of time. Frieren, vastly older than the rest of the cast (excluding other elves), continues to learn—learning how to interact and empathize with humans whose lifespans are merely a fraction of her own. Setting aside all those travels, the final third of this anime focuses on the 'First Class Mage Exam' arc, which brims with action and introduces a substantial number of additional side characters. Each fight scene offers viewers insight to grasp the characters' depth and their underlying philosophies. Overall, ‘Frieren: Beyond the Journey’s End’ skillfully blends the central theme of the series with various elements such as the magic system, and the Demon-Human conflict. Characters(9/10): This anime features a large cast of characters. Not all of them play a significant role in advancing the plot, but that’s not a complaint though. It’s unreasonable to expect an anime to delve deeply into the background of every character introduced. However, the characters of Frieren and Fern had to be likable and well-written at the same time as they received more screen time and narrative focus. The author did more than a decent job in that regard. Watching the evolution of their relationship, enriched by mutual care, is particularly heartwarming. Additionally, there are numerous scenes that provide comic relief, each one is humorous and relaxing. Stark and Sein also have significant portions of their backstories explored. Their moments on screen never felt dull; Stark, in particular, had some 'Wow' factor in the scenes we see him facing opponents . The “First Class Mage Exam” arc introduces a bunch of new characters. Among them, Ubel and Serie stand out, capturing attention with their unique character traits. (Serie is actually a very important character of this arc) Frieren’s former companions: Eisen, Heiter, and Himmel. They epitomize the ideal hero party members. Each one is portrayed as a ‘Good Guy,’ and rightfully so. Let’s focus on Himmel for the time being, as he is likely the primary reason we follow Frieren’s journey with Fern. Hero Himmel is depicted as cheerful, brave, and humorous—a quintessential hero. He was a person who inspired others. His passing led Frieren to realize her errors in gauging time and in valuing relationships from her perspective rather than from the humans’ viewpoint, with whom she had spent a considerable amount of time (from their perspective). As mentioned earlier, it was Himmel’s influence that prompted Heiter to adopt Fern and care for her, as he believed Himmel would have done the same. This, in turn, led to Frieren assuming the responsibility of looking after Fern. Animation and Visuals (10/10): 'Madhouse Cooked again!' that was my initial reaction while watching Frieren's first 4 episodes on the same day. The studio behind so many classics is still producing more of them. The manga already had good art and uniqueness in character design. So the production studio just had to do one thing and it was to not 'mess up' the adaptation. And they did that beautifully. Environment and atmosphere of 'Frieren: Beyond the Journey's End' anime turned out to be a lot brighter and colorful than my expectation and I loved it. The direction of the fights were top notch. They improvised in some of those and they never felt out of place. Whether it was Fern casting zoltraak like fireworks or Stark defeating a huge dragon, I enjoyed every fight sequence this anime has to offer. Kudos to the people working behind the scenes, specially the storyboard directors. Audio and Soundtrack (9.5/10) : I was actually surprised after seeing that they cast Atsumi Tanezaki to voice Frieren. (I always imagined Frieren having a more childish voice while reading the manga.) She did a fine job, actually. The rest of the cast also delivered commendable performances, leaving me with no complaints about the voice acting. 'Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ features three songs in its soundtrack. The first opening theme is ‘Yuusha’ by Yoasobi, followed by the second opening theme ‘Haru’ by Yorushika, and the series is rounded off with the ending theme ‘Anytime Anywhere’ by Milet. Each track is enjoyable in its own right, but ‘Anytime Anywhere’ stands out to me the most. It’s not only as catchy as the other two but also has lyrics that resonate deeply with the show’s themes. Overall(9.5/10): I am still quite surprised to see this anime garnering so much attention on the internet. It’s become one of those ‘Everywhere I go, I see her face’ moments for me. I had actually expected ‘Frieren’ to become one of the underappreciated, gatekept animes in the future, but that’s far from what actually happened. In fact, ‘Frieren’ is the most popular non-sequel release of 2023, along with ‘Oshi no Ko’ and 'Zom 100' . It also checks all the boxes to add itself to the list of all-time classics created by Madhouse. ‘Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ does almost everything right. It has a meaningful story, a protagonist whose journey feels exciting and emotional at the same time, just enough focus on the side characters, excellent animation and direction. Moreover, it blends all the genres involved extraordinarily well. That’s why you never feel anything is amiss when it shifts from the slice-of-life genre to the action genre in the last few episodes, or when observing some sort of romantic development in Fern and Stark’s relationship. I will remember ‘Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ for a long time. The last time I was this eager to watch the next episode of an ongoing anime was when ‘Summertime Render’ was airing way back in 2022. Frieren indeed made my Fridays better. Therefore, this is an easy recommendation from me to anyone looking for a good, comforting anime. 'Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ is certainly one of the very best of its kind.
chekkit
03/22/2024, 12:40 PM
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 ifyou'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.
CaptainKenshiro
03/22/2024, 10:29 AM
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 protagonistdidn’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 despite being such small details. First, since elves are so long-lived, they get easily emotionally detached from everyone else, they don’t have strong feelings for anyone, neither romantic nor sexual, and that’s why there are few of them and why the protagonist herself is so cold at first. It also helps to explain why, despite being one of the most well-known heroes in history, no one seems to recognize her at first, like Luffy in One Piece, but here is far more believable because the setting doesn’t have the same technology and the main character herself does as much as she can to keep a low profile. Another good detail is the explaining for why there isn’t any transportation magic and for why flying magic is limited, which also forces the main cast to actually travel through the fucking setting, whereas other series have several ways for the main cast to be where they need to be when the plot requires them to. This also helps in making the anime feel like, well, an adventure, because how can you have a proper adventure if there is no adventuring, no travelling, no exploring the setting? It’s not like Sousou no Frieren has a world that needs much building nor explaining, it’s a very typical fantasy setting with typical classes, creatures and archetypes, but at least is properly written and established, and it is actually explored, while it also doesn’t function like an RPG, how many other modern fantasy anime can claim the same, eh? That’s why the characters can’t just go wherever they want and in any ways they would like, every city and every place has its rules, and since Frieren herself knows the route well, you get a bit of lore or history from them, having the rest of the party going on their first adventure also helps, since that way the author has a reason for all the explaining to be done, the exposition is excused. Not to say that this anime is perfect of course, since there is no clear reasoning why, despite magic evolving so much for being studied for decades and even centuries, basic spells still work the best against newer, supposedly better instructed mages, or why the only mages that know how to control and repress mana in-series are the ones related in some way to the main character. Then, the whole thing about Frieren kind of falls apart when you consider, “wait, wasn’t her teacher a human? Doesn’t that go against her whole character arc and the main theme of the show?” And the answer from me is yes, I have no excuse for that, and consider it a big flaw in the writing. Likewise, the second half of the show is inferior than the first, exactly because it falls for the same issues as the series I compared it to. It is a tournament/exam arc that you would find in an action shounen instead of this one, it completely sidelines an important character, and although needed for the characters to keep going, the plot stops progressing completely for a lot of episodes instead of the mini adventures from earlier, and there are a lot of unimportant secondary characters getting a lot of rushed focus. Other series do that as well (Dragon Ball, Hunter x Hunter, Naruto, Yu Yu Hakusho) but being long fighting shounen, their characters don’t disappear completely from the story until way later. I’m an anime only here, thus I can’t tell if someone from the second cour is coming back at some point or not, but I hardly doubt it and I’m sure they don’t join the main party, essentially meaning that for at least this first season, they work against the plot by killing time and taking screentime for no reason. With that said, it’s not straight up bad, since there are still moments to flesh out the two main girls and see them interacting, and there is still some cool action from time to time. And also, well, there is hardly any plot in here, it’s just low on action and stakes basic traveling and adventuring with an overpowered protagonist that goofs around before solving most things thanks to how powerful or experienced she is, and although I like that she is kind of like Maomao from Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, neither an idealistic hot headed idiot typical shounen protagonist, nor an asshole that doesn’t give a shit about people like Elaina from Majo no Tabitabi, she still doesn’t actually do or not most things on her own wish, that’s why she says things like “Himmel would scold me if I did that” or “Himmel would praise me if I do this”. Thus, despite part of me respecting the value and appeal it might have for some emotional people and for how mostly well established the writing and presentation are, the cynical bastard I am only finds boredom in here, because there isn’t much plot, the characters are simple, the stakes are low because the protagonist is overpowered, the plot devices are not the type of which I’m usually thrilled about, the setting is basic, the energy is low, the aesthetics are simple, and the second half, although it still fleshes out two of the main characters, is inferior than the first by falling for the usual meh writing of other shows. In the end I consider it a decent relaxing time passer that can be very appealing for some viewers, but nowhere near as good as the general consensus says it is, and a complete chore to watch for part of the audience, myself included. At least I can say that this anime doesn’t have recaps neither inside nor outside the episode count, which is more than I can say about the other shows I was following at the same time.
Marinate1016
03/22/2024, 08:32 AM
Time is a precious thing. The most valuable resource in life. We never know how much of it we have, and we can never get more of it. So, what would you do if you had all the time in the world? Sousou no Frieren explores this concept in a way never before seen in the medium, all the while having generational production values, loveable characters, realistic life lessons and a proper grand fantasy premise. It’s not hard to see why this is one of the biggest anime in recent memory and it’s well deserved. I know there can be a general trepidation to accept thehype of series like Frieren. It’s everywhere, everyone’s talking about it and you’ve probably seen the characters on social media. But I promise it’s warranted in this case. Frieren’s appeal for most people, myself included, will be the themes of loss and regret. As we get older we really begin to feel the impermanence of life. Whether it’s losing family members or friends, or just drifting apart from people we were once close with. Time changes everything and that’s scary. But, that doesn’t mean that we should shut ourselves off from the world. While life and relationships will come to an end, they have meaning. In fact, it’s because they end that they do have meaning. The good days we experience won’t be here forever, so we have to cherish them. Frieren as a character is a nigh immortal elf, who after millennia of shutting herself off from the world, has begun to open up and embrace the world. All thanks to the journey and experiences she had as part of the hero’s party. The story uses both the past and present to illustrate Frieren’s growth, often bouncing back and forth between her days as a member of the hero’s party, and her current time with her students Fern and Stark. Often something will come up and remind her of the days now long past that she spent with Hero Himmel. Offering a sort of window into her slowly “melting” heart. Speaking of melting, “Frieren” means cold in German, more on that later though. Through these flashbacks, we see Frieren gradually realise that she valued her time with her friends much more than she could have ever imagined. She goes from thinking that a human lifetime is insignificant to her, to realising it’s not the length of time, but the quality of it. Even now, nearly a century on from their meeting, Himmel and her other friends are front and centre on her mind. For me, that’s what makes this one so special. Pieces of media that I can take lessons from and apply to my own life always resonate the most, and I’m sure I’m not alone. While we may not have the lifespan of Frieren, there’s moments that all of us wish we could get back, people we wish we could talk to and tell how much we love them, etc. Though, perhaps the biggest takeaway is that while we can’t get time back from the past and we can’t undo our mistakes, we can learn from them. We can be better for the future and for those around us now. Frieren embraces this idea by taking on her former party members’ students, Fern and Stark, and going on a traditional grand fantasy adventure with them. Earlier I referenced the importance of Frieren’s name to the story, that’s a recurring theme for the entire cast as they all have German names corresponding to their character traits. Some, like “Übel” and “stark” are a little too on the money, but others like “Fern” are subtle and reflect the character’s purpose in the story. I found them to be nice nods and really enjoyed seeing how characters evolved with their names. The other big thing to talk about is the character interactions. Other than the life lessons, I think most people will really enjoy how the characters bounce off one another in the show. The dialogue doesn’t feel cringe or forced, the seiyuus talk in realistic every day voices for the most part, and it truly feels like you’re on a journey with a group of friends. There may be fights and disagreements, *cough cough* Fern and Stark, but at the end of the day everyone realises how important their friends are and make up. I could go on and on about the story and characters, but I’ll spare you on that. Suffice to say it’s good. It’s simple, well paced and no arc overstays its welcome. Episodes don’t harp on one thing too long either like a lot of modern anime. Characters talk out their issues instead of hiding them and letting them explode. It feels about as real as a high fantasy setting can, and I think that’s some of the highest praise possible. Frieren just manages to do all the simple things really really well and as a result, it’s become one of the biggest anime. The other massive component of the situation is studio MADHOUSE. After their bankruptcy, they’ve been kind of hit or miss with anime projects, but dare I say it this is the best thing they’ve ever done. It truly feels like they’ve risen from the ashes and not just returned to former glory, but exceeded it. Thanks in no small part to the director, Saito Keiichiro. Saito-Sensei himself proposed the idea of a Frieren anime after reading the first volume of the manga and falling in love with it. It shows. From the art to the character designs to action scenes, this world has been meticulously crafted with so much love and care and stands as a shining example of what a director with a clear vision and a supportive production committee can do. Something we don’t get nearly enough of these days. While Frieren is a slower paced story at times, there is definitely action and when it pops up it’s incredible. The animation during fights is among the best I’ve ever seen, and if we’re counting TV anime only, surely has to be top 3. If we’re talking production we also can’t forget about the work Evan Call did on the series. Adding so much emotional weight to scenes and heightening the experience. He was amazing in Violet Evergarden and even better here. The show would certainly not be the same without him. In conclusion, Sousou no Frieren is a riveting and enchanting fantasy story that we can all stand to learn a thing or two from. Even those who are not traditional fantasy or slice of life fans will find something to love here, even if it’s just Frieren getting trapped in a mimic chest. It’s a must watch. Frieren gets a very easy 10, out of 10

Sousou no Frieren 葬送のフリーレン

2023 fall | Episodes: 28 | Score: 9.3 (589891)

Updated every Fridays at 23:00 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Synopsis

Voice Actors

Ichinose, Kana

Tanezaki, Atsumi

Kobayashi, Chiaki

Kiyoto, Arisa

News

Reviews

Rwurg
11/08/2024, 11:13 PM
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 livesso 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.
McLarrm
10/08/2024, 12:24 PM
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 whathappened 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.
BlackCrowGrows
08/26/2024, 11:07 AM
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 wheremost 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.
shantanuT
08/22/2024, 01:43 AM
Did not like. Felt like it was written by someone who has faked their way to top or only are there because they specialize in character design or something. Story was horrible. Each episode was mind bogglingly boring and bereft of meaning to the point I was questioning if this was written by a toddler. My time was utterly wasted. Other than some cute looking characters and animation, this show had nothing to offer. It was so empty and parody-like that I have no idea how it got the rating that it has. It is horrible in too many ways. Do not recommend. It willpiss you off if you're looking for any depth in stories. From someone who's enjoyed MHA quite a lot for its quality in creating compelling characters and a gripping plot line, I highly recommend you skip this one.
Zigizmund
08/02/2024, 07:53 PM
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 oneof 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.
Berm
07/25/2024, 04:11 PM
(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 tobe explored, mana levels depending on how long you have trained, and monsters evaporate into smoke when defeated. Frieren and her party of heroes happen to always stumble upon the right people who know exactly what they’re looking for. There’s a level of luck that fictional characters can have due to the nature of storytelling and needing a story to progress, but Frieren does it too much too often. There’s also a trend where Frieren happens to run into a lot of people or locations she came across in her past. This only makes the world of Frieren seem smaller, not larger. The locations they come across aren’t interesting either, with a majority of locations being either forests or the small looking medieval styled towns you see in every fantasy anime. As for the magic system in the show, while not terrible, it isn’t anything to write home about. It doesn’t help that the leads of the show use the most generic magic in their world simply because it is more effective. We never get to see more than a bunch of streaky white lines being shot around until much later into the show, when much more interesting magic is able to be used by other characters. I do find it interesting how the show establishes a history of magic and we learn how it has changed over time and understand how it works in the period the show takes place. Of course the leads of Frieren and Fern never once stop using the most generic attacks and so we are forced to watch the same boring magic fights over and over again. On the topic of Frieren and Fern, why don’t we talk about our two main characters. While I can say Frieren and Fern are well defined characters, I cannot say they are interesting ones. You can definitely attribute a wide variety of character traits to both of them, but they don’t make for interesting leads. Frieren and Fern don’t show emotion much, and while this is likely intentional narratively as Frieren was uninterested in human emotion for most of her life and her mannerisms likely rubbed off on Fern, the dialogue between the two is very stiff and lifeless. Scenes where Frieren and Fern are talking always consist of the most blank expressions and the coldest most lifeless voices you can imagine. The characters are presented in such an uninteresting way as to become tiresome after a while. The facial features of the characters are much smaller compared to other anime, which makes it even harder to depict emotions on their facesI was glad by the time Stark joined them, considering he gave some life to the cold and mundane dialogue between Frieren and Fern. This isn’t getting into the fact that Frieren and Fern are also pretty much the most powerful mages in their world. Frieren was part of the party who defeated the Demon King, something we know right from episode one. Once we know this, there is absolutely no sense of danger that we as an audience can feel for her as she has already defeated the most powerful creature in existence. This remains true for the entire show, where the only time Frieren gets damaged whatsoever is when she is cut in THE FINAL EPISODE, and she doesn’t even react to it. Frieren is an overpowered protagonist, just like a majority of fantasy anime protagonists. Any danger we would be able to feel for the side characters is completely undermined by healing magic as well. In fact, in the entire show, not a single named character is killed, other than the villains. The side characters aren’t much better than our leads, with them either having a single trait that completely defines the character, or having no traits and being the most bland and forgettable person ever. Stark is probably the most interesting out of them considering he gets the most screen time, however he still doesn’t get nearly enough characterization. His childish scuffles with Fern also make it very apparent that this show is in fact a shounen geared towards younger teens. The plot, worldbuilding, character motivations are all explained to you by the characters of the show, leaving no room for nuance. There’s nothing to interpret when everything is so hamfisted and shoved down your throat. In Stark’s case, he is often the one asking questions to Frieren and Fern about what is happening in the plot, so his screen time is mostly utilized to start exposition dumps from other characters. I won’t go into detail about the other characters in the show, mostly because there are too many to go over. Another trend you see with modern anime is having huge rosters of characters in the hope that the viewer will be able to latch onto even a single one in order to get them to continue watching. Having such a huge roster of characters means that each one has less time to be characterized. I am struggling to remember most of the side characters outside of the last arc of the show despite having started it less than a week ago because they simply left no impression on me. As for the storytelling on display in Frieren, it’s pretty bad. Most episodes have a set cycle to them, with it starting with the party coming across a new town. They then meet a character from Frieren’s past or someone new who says something that reminds Frieren about her past. We get a boring flashback scene during every one of these situations and Frieren comes to a realization about her past with her old friends. Despite this, Frieren as a character remains stagnant throughout the entire show, not changing whatsoever from the first episode. This is mostly the same for Fern and Stark aside from before they join up with Frieren at the beginning of the show. Any development they get after that point however is always told through flashbacks. The same goes with side characters. Development of the characters can only happen through flashbacks apparently. Once you know about the cycle the show goes through each episode, the anime gets extremely boring, with only the visuals helping to not make you fall asleep. Studio Madhouse animated the show and did a great job, with even boring dialogue scenes getting plenty of attention. The direction of the visuals are less than stellar, however. I already talked about how the main characters are always lifeless and how the settings always look the same. With good direction even these could have been remedied. We never get many interesting looking visuals outside of the action sequences, and even those are few and far between. Perhaps the most unbearable part of Frieren (and most anime in that manner) is the humor. If you have seen 5 anime then you already know the punchlines to every joke in Frieren. I do not understand how people find anything here funny. Frieren getting stuck in a fake chest is not funny, and is especially not funny after the 10th time you see it. I have also seen people comment on how there’s no fanservice in the show, and while that is true, there are still jokes about characters' boobs in the show, how mature. To end this all off, I would like to mention how Frieren has similarities to Violet Evergarden and Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song. In all three of these shows, we have a female lead who is deadpan and is unable to show any emotion. All three of these leads go on a journey to finally understand human emotion, or at least I’d like to say that because Frieren remains stagnant throughout the entire show. At least Violet Evergarden and Vivy have interesting worlds that were created for them. As to why Frieren is much more critically acclaimed than these already critically acclaimed anime that are similar, I have no idea. Quite simply, Frieren is one of the most overrated anime in my eyes. While many see it as a masterclass of storytelling and animation, I see it as a hollow shell of an anime relying solely on its visual presentation to carry its middling story and characters. Despite some great animation, Frieren was a slog to get through.
higisawig
07/02/2024, 05:51 PM
Frieren is overrated but you already knew that. I'll keep it short. Lets start with the positives. The early episodes are charming. After Frieren's new crew expands, the anime turns into decent enjoyable slop... just good enough to pass the time. The artstyle and coloring is nice. However, the animation can dip in quality at times. Voice acting is good. OST is forgettable, OP and ED are a skip as always. Now, the negatives. A million flashbacks, unnecessary info-dumps, cringy and uncharismatic characters hogging up screentime. The writer thinks that you're an idiot who needs to be spoonfed every single detail. Just stop watching after episode 17 ifyou value your time, everything bad about the show gets amped up to 100. Frieren should've been/stayed a SoL.
Cyrose
06/03/2024, 02:51 PM
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 calledthe 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 or seen. It ACTS original, because it is smart. It LOOKS good, compared to all the “trash” coming out nowadays. It tries its hardest to outsmart its audience by giving everyone what they want to see. It plays the role of a celestial being, above everything and everyone, like it has no weaknesses. The key to its success is to keep the audience in the belief that it is what it pretends to be and it “pretends” to be the greatest adventure sol-shounen. Every anime has weaknesses, and for the case of Frieren weaknesses, is simply my existence. In its actuality, regarding of the key behind its flawless performance, it lies in what its story symbolize; Time and life. These unheard and extraordinary themes are so egocentrically human-centered that we are mad hooked and enchanted about it. So much so, that I can also use the phrase that we are just mentally distracted from everything. As it is about us and not something or someone else. It’s neither complicated philosophy nor impartial mythology, but self-explanatory. From the reason that we are so selfish, we naturally grasps the “virtues” of these themes. It is really interesting that all these sentimental themes slowly converted into random epic fights. The mimic’s evolved into epic slay faces.. just to be more “enjoyable“. - Zzz Fights It really pulls out all the psychological cards that a starter watcher would likely fall into extrapolating it as a sleek move. Howbeit, for a veteran viewer it is known as a common trick. To make us think that the opponents are way stronger, the author consciously holds back the main cast full potential. To make the viewer believe that they have no chance coming out this situation alive. The author makes the antoganists act like they are unbeatable, and right before they could finish off the main characters, the main cast takes off their fake masks and pulls out their trump-cards for the late win. Then gave the enemies the chance to process their mistakes of underestimating their opponent’s abilities. To make it look more compelling, allowing them to die in a hard-fought battle. It seems more entertaining this way, but in reality it is just exaggerated and dull, especially when the anime plays it out three times in a single episode. The fight between Frieren vs Frieren is a great final fight for this anime, because it manifests how overweeningly self-satisfied with itself. They are gods compared to anything in their verse, so how would you make it even more satisfying to the viewer? Let the undefeatable face the undefeatable. Although the fights were animated quite well, it separated the whole anime into two fragments; Slow slice of life and fast paced action which was way too afar from each other. Resulting confusion on what this series genres exactly. The Animation (8/10) Giving credits where credits due, in spite of what Frieren’s animation first seemed nothing more than mid-range level, it ultimately established close to par-excellence in its quality. This wouldn’t surprise those who are familiar with its studio in charge of its production, as they should know that they were in for a treat. Madhouse is a warhorse studio as their production quality is well known to be consistent and well executed. Their art are colorful and vibrant along with their smooth and meticulous animation values. This studio has been producing gold after gold. Their work are extraordinary and much deserved to be recognized. For the early stages of this project, I was really impressed by the background art having a touch of oil-paint brush which wasn’t about being too detailed, but made it more elegant and unique in my eyes. When it comes to the fight scenes, they are also just as amazing, but people now started to compare it to fate animation which is quite embarrassing. It certainly looks good compared to all the trash that comes out nowadays, but anime ten years ago possessed just the same or not better animation qualities. Overall, its animation is pretty and faithfully represented the anime atmosphere and its historical themes. Characters (5/10) Characters personalities felt flat and uninspired. Although they were cute, they weren’t possessed the most vibrant personalities. Snobby personalities sometimes good and can be interesting if there is someone next to them that has the opposite personality traits. Although they had some random personality traits for the jokes, like frieren tends to trap inside chests and act sleepy, or the famous mimic face impressions. She sometimes even pull cat faces.. However, for the most part we have set with 90% of the same low-demanding-emotionless-boring dispositions. Fern and Frieren are like mirrors. Before someone says it’s obvious that Fern got her attitude and personality by growing up next to Frieren. She was always been like this, and not just her. That demon girl, or all the demons factually they all got this low interest look or full narcissistic personality. Which made the show quite repetitive pretty quickly. From this reason Stark character was a game changer and his appearance made this anime much more entertaining for me personally. As he wasn’t a loner and dull like the rest of the cast. If you would just take a look at the casting pictures , 90% of them are the same natural faces with no smile, no anger, no emotions. Moreover, the funny expressions and the characters funny sides were became cliche so early. Frieren wasn’t trapped in chests, but she was looking for to be trapped in all sort of things.. It felt forced rather than being natural. In addition this really showed how one dimensional and shallow the cast of this series actually are. Frieren cast being praised by their development and natural expressions is really strange. As I haven’t noticed any significant development on their characters. It was more of a clishe how they all were just a copy of their teachers. They had the exact same characteristics.. Soundtracks (5/10) Maybe it is little harsh to compare it to larger titles OST like for example Violet Evergarden that had opera house level of scores. I mean multiple albums that are just incredible. Frieren in its actuality is also hold a pretty decent albums and has some novelty notes that fits its historical themes. The opening and the ending is nice, but I always felt something mandatory about them. Nothing extraordinary or outstanding which is quite surprising considering the main score of this series. As in my opinion music is one major factor in emotional attraction to the story which in this series wasn’t able to make a profound impression. Enjoyment (4/10) Frieren is an easily likeable anime for those people who prefers a slow and simple anime. At the same time it can be found monotonous for people who prefers fast paced and more complex stories. However even if you belongs to this group, after epsiode 6 it gets slightly better. So that’s going to be the bare minimum recommended amount of episode to invest into it. The thing is that Frieren on its whole 28 course of episodes gave me the same feeling that other titles did in just one scene alone. I have watched it without a single reaction. It couldn’t made me smile or wow a single time. it wasn’t able to make me exited nor produced anything remarkable or unexpected. All these sentimental themes can be found in other titles that have handled them better without being this forcefully and fundamentally obsessed with them. Although there are things which made it look unique like how the demons were portrayed, but that alone wasn’t on par nor executed anything that I have already seen. We read books and watching anime, because this world is boring. Our reality doesn’t offer the level of exiting things than a fantasy story can. However, this isn’t true to Frieren. I feel that if I would have spent the same time outside or took a book from the shelf would have been much more worthwhile than watching this. A massage for the lost generation To answer the first question on why is Frieren so highly recognized. There was a interesting experiment which tells us what lies within this myth. In a vine sampling, three different kind of vines were sampled to a group of people. One glass of vine was labeled as 2£ another as 4£ and the third one labeled as 12£. After they’ve tasted each vine samples and gettered all the votes. 85% chose the third one labeled as 12£ as the most delicious vine. In reality, the most expensive vine was 2£ the middle priced was standard and the expensive 12£ vine was just a cheap store vine. People are like ants and only a few can act true to itself without being blindly manipulated by circumstances. We are afraid of doing against numbers because we are weak and simple. “Most people don’t really want the truth. They are just looking for answers that confirm their prejudices. “ - Jim Wilhelmsen “The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.” -Richard K Morgan “It's only because of their ignorance that they're able to be so sure of themselves.” - Franz Kafka Epitome There is no such a thing as flawless anime, even those that are considered masterpieces are not perfect in every inch. Which is completely fine as being perfect in everything isn’t what really makes an anime special. As the real good anime aren’t built to be special or perfect. They makes the viewer feel special and awakens something magical inside them. That conquers all boundaries, by fulfilling our soul with warmth satisfaction and as it merges with cold harrowing nerves recollections that riddles through bones. By the time this mixture of emotions reconciles and reaches our heart, an enlightened sense of peace possesses our mind. Only a few titles can reach this level of absolute exhilaration and pureness. “You cannot truly feel the enlightening warmth of the summer without living through the darkling coldness of winter’s.” Frieren: Beyond Journey's End didn’t even came close to this feeling. Which not surprising considering and truly comprehending its core values. As Frieren has took itself way too seriously and self-persuaded that it is above all things considered. While it is smart and cleverly written. It couldn’t possessed nor was able to show anything remarkable or refreshing that other titles haven’t already did without being so sentimentally intrigued nor had to included even a single fight scene. Neither had to show a millions of flashbacks just to make us feel something. While people acting like Frieren invented a whole new level of the Sol-Adventure. In reality, it just used the same old formula in a super safe and smartly manner. It presented itself as a superior etiquette while it basically just copied straight away from Violet Evergarden cover picture. Conclusion At the end, judging this anime without looking neither of its backgrounds nor its cover and strictly what it provides. I genuinely don’t see the appeal behind its generic and monotonous concept. Perhaps it can be enjoyed by a few individuals, but not for its characters and neither for its story. It’s impressive that this show was able to convinces the viewer that they’re watching something new, something unique while in reality they are just watched another cliched themes utilized smartly. Because Frieren is indeed cleverly written and executed. Proportionally contains slice of life, sentimental messages and action that visualize a flowing harmony on its surface. In my view however, I sense great confidence surrounding over it on the outside, overlaying the unfenced emptiness on its inside. Therefore in my eyes, Frieren is just as close to masterpiece as it is close to pathetic. Final Score 5/10 ⭐️ TLDR; Frieren is the most shallow, empty and simple anime ever to engross the number 1 spot and officially became the harbinger of an end to an era. The fact that this is going to be the face of the anime is just pure madness. Thank you for taking the time to read my review!
GentlePro
05/12/2024, 02:53 PM
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. Frierenis 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.
TheVistrian
05/03/2024, 07:06 PM
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 ofcriticism. I will start with the positives. Freeren is number one amongst all anime in one aspect. The first outro of Freeren is the greatest anime outro I have ever seen. It is absolutely gorgeous and compliments the show perfectly. For a show that is supposed to focus on the stuff in between the action, the action is pretty much the only enjoyable part, and a lot of it is quite good. There are two arcs of the story that I found generally quite enjoyable. These are between episode 7 and 10, and between episode 18 and 21. This series contains one episode that I would consider to be really good, that being episode 9. This episode features two very high quality fights that have multiple points where I found myself rewinding to rewatch sections of the animation because they were so well done, which is something I do not do very often. I do not mind the characters Fern and Shtark. I enjoyed many of the moments that these characters shared, And will admit that some of these moments could even be considered mildly wholesome, although I do not take back my previous statement. I also didn't mind a couple of the Mages they added during the Mage exam. Many of the monsters and demons have great designs, and many of the landscapes and settings looked quite nice. There are a few high quality moments of small intricate dingdongmenship relating to ideas such as memories and flowers. Now onto the negatives. If something is to be considered the greatest show, I would say a reasonable minimum requirement is that it doesn't contain any mistakes. This is not a standard that Freeren meets, There are many objective writing errors in the show. This is not my opinion, this is A fact about the show. None of them that I was easily able to catch were that significant or seriously affected the show, yet they are still there. For example I will break one down in detail so you can understand what I am saying. In episode 15 there is a quick flashback where Freeren Is caught by a mimic right in front of Fern. Although it is not directly shown, This scene logically requires that one of the two following options has happened. Option one is that Fern gets Freeren out of the mimic, requiring that Fern learns how you get someone out of a mimic. Option two is that Freeren gets out of the mimic herself, Requiring that Fern learns What happens to Freeren’s hair when she gets herself out of a mimic. By episode 15, Fern is required to have learned a minimum of one of those two pieces of information. In episode 23 there is another scene, in the present, of Freeren getting caught in a mimic, In this scene Fern reveals that she does not know how to get someone out of a mimic, as she has to be told by Freeren how to do it. Fern then immediately reveals that she also does not know what happens to Freeren’s hair when she gets herself out of a mimic, as Fern has the aha moment of “So that's why sometimes you show up with a completely different hairstyle.” It is impossible for Fern to be learning both of those pieces of information at that point in the story, yet this is what the scene is. If one was to intake extreme quantities of copium, A scenario could technically be invented where During the events of the original flashback Fern was separated from Freeren while she was still in the mimic, and then Freeren Gets out of the mimic by herself, and they remain separated for long enough for Freeren’s hair to go back to normal. Yet this scenario of course requires a pretty extreme assumption, along with the assumption that on their previous Journeys Freeren was only caught by a mimic that one time in front of Fern, as well as this Behavior requiring a pretty significant bad-girlesk break of Character for Fern. Thus this is an objective writing error. Again this small little detail does not really affect the story in any meaningful way, but in my opinion something that is considered the best should not contain errors like this. Two more examples of Inconsistencies. Once they enter the northern lands it is the beginning of winter, and it begins to snow, and thus they find a cabin to stay in, they then stay in this cabin for 6 months to wait out the winter. At the end of this sixth month period, at the beginning of Summer, it is still snowy all around them. The next scene, presumably happening in the middle of summer, is them getting caught in another blizzard and having to find shelter again. (Freeren during this time also reveals that she does not know any spell that produces any type of heat, fire spells do exist yet she does not know a single one.) They could have justified this scene by simply saying something along the lines of, they're traveling through the mountains now, so the weather is like this even in the middle of summer, and if it was winter then it would be 20 ft of snow or something. But they don't do this, it doesn't explain, it just gives us the characters stuck in a blizzard in the middle of summer and expects us to figure out why. It feels like they were so obsessed with having time pass that they forgot to have time actually pass. Early on in the show there is a section where Freeren and Fern decide to clean a massive beach for a fake book. We are then treated to a couple of scenes where Freeren, the most powerful Mage in the world, is picking up 10 little pieces of wood at a time. It then clarifies that Freeren and Fern stay here and are cleaning this beach for 3 months, meaning that both of these Mages have spent a minimum of 3 months exclusively training their floating magic ability. Later on in the show it attempts to justify why Freeren was only capable of picking up small quantities of wood at a time, by saying that no one other than demons and monsters had the ability to fly or float until very recently. (And although spells being made recently is an advantage for things such as zoltrock derived spells it's not for floating Magic.) And even though we know they spent months exclusively training this ability they are barely able to actually use it when they need to. And at the end we see an elf using floating Magic 1,000 years before the events of the story, which from my understanding is not a monster or a demon. It's just sloppy, weird little inconsistencies like this shouldn't exist in the best show ever. Now onto the character of Freeren. I do not like this character. First of all this character is an elf, and elves live a long time. She is very proud of this aspect of her existence, and she will bring up how old she is and brag about it every chance that she gets. Yet at the same time if anyone else brings up how old she is she gets insecure about it. She is extremely selfish and narcissistic most of the time, but then sometimes decides to be absurdly generous. At the funeral for her friend, She begins to cry, and she clarifies that the reason she is crying is not for them, but because she feels bad for herself because she didn't get to know him as well as she would have liked. This is the same friend that she had spent the last 50 years ignoring for no reason other than she was too distracted in pursuit of her own personal Joy. If time is truly that abundant for her it would have been no issue for her to send a couple of letters back and forth, at the absolute minimum at least once every couple years but she couldn't even manage that. It only takes 10 years to make it across the planet, so she was likely in his vicinity a couple of times assuming that she was just wandering around the southern lands. This strange feeling of guilt is the thing that inspires this whole story, Yet she is fully responsible for how she feels. If she had just acted like a normal person She wouldn't have this issue in the first place. She has had hundreds of years to learn how to act mature and she still doesn't. It also doesn't make sense why she is having these feelings in the first place, As there is only one person that she has ever known better than Himll, this being her master. Meaning that in comparison to pretty much everyone she has ever known she knew him very well. And she is making the judgement that she didn't know him very well based off of a singular slightly deeper relationship that she had 1,000 years earlier. It is impossible to have any sympathy for Freeren, in her 1,000 years on that planet she should have learned how to have/be a friend, And it never gives any reason as to why she is so closed off to everyone. Just the fact that she is old and from some perspectives it doesn't matter as much, Doesn't work to explain it very well. I think that the character is pretty annoying as well, I usually like characters that are annoying, but not like this. The way that she acts around grimoires is so contradictory to the way she acts around everything else that it feels like she is breaking character and doesn't feel like some natural quirk. It feels like an excuse that is employed to get this character to do anything, as without it the character wouldn't be willing to do anything. Any good character is flawed, as this is how a character develops, they have a flaw at the beginning and have character development by changing. Yet, at the end of this series there's a scene where an old lady drops her basket of goods onto the ground right in front of Freeren, It would take Freeren essentially no effort at all to help out this old lady, The show clarifies that in this moment the thought to help this old lady crosses her mind, and it shows her actively making the decision to not help. In the final episode of this series it clarifies that Freeren Has not had any meaningful character development, and is just as selfish as ever. Yes, she now has a regret, but she is still acting the same way that caused her to gain that regret in the first place. I would assume that eventually in this story she probably learns to have a heart in some way, to act with a little bit of humanity, but that didn't happen in this series, so this is my interpretation of the character. I believe there is a place and time for Slice of Life anime. But that place is not number one, and that time is not all time. I am clearly not whoever this show is meant for. Slice of Life is not really the type of story that appeals to me, I view it as a valid part of what anime has to offer, yet I do not believe it is where anime truly shines. I went into this story knowing that it was very unlikely I would view it as a masterpiece, I only expected a high quality fantasy story. And I still feel disappointed, it did not even deliver on that. There are so many more criticisms I could give But I feel that I have already said enough. I know somehow I am in the minority here, there is some sort of fundamental difference between what I enjoy and most people on this website enjoy, as was clearly indicated by how much respect people give to things such as Steins Gate. And even acknowledging all of this, I still believe that this show is not very good, The story is not well written, it is full of objective errors, The characters are annoying and not relatable, The ideas are not fun or interesting, And I genuinely do not recommend watching this show.
DrReverse
04/29/2024, 01:54 PM
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 youlike 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.
literaturenerd
04/14/2024, 08:52 PM
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 ahighly 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 accomplish just that! So Frieren is gorgeous, has an amazing OST, and is super well directed. So what? How is the world building? This is a shonen that deals with magic, so how is the magic system? This is once again an area where Frieren triumphs. Frieren is very happy to take a pause and explain minor aspects of its world and history but never in a way that bores the viewer. It gives enough details to keep us engaged but there is still a LOT that we want to learn. As for the battle system, some characters in Frieren have a higher base level of mana and can cast bigger and flashier spells, but it avoids the vertical power scaling pitfalls of previous shonen titles. Frieren is very strong, but she’s not invincible. Someone with a lower level of overall mana but the right spell at the right time could easily kill Frieren. This isn’t a series where strategy just goes out the window and it’s all about who has a bigger number. Frieren also manages to avoid one of the huge traps of bad fantasy writing where one spell is SO much better than anything else, that it ruins the magic system and makes everything else essentially irrelevant, so all battles end up looking the exact same. Stuff like fireball in the original D&D, Balefire in Wheel of Time or the Avada Kedavra in Harry Potter. Frieren actually pokes fun at this while adding to its own recurring theme about the passage of time. You have this super arrogant demon who has been frozen in stone for 50 years. He developed this killing curse that’s similar in essence to the Avada and he absolutely decimated the wizard population of 50 years ago so temporarily sealing him was the best they could do. He gets utterly humbled by an apprentice mage because his world beating spell became the new standard by which all offensive magic is judged and all defensive magic was developed against, so after 50 years it’s very average instead of remarkable. This tends to be how real-life weapon advances work and describes the relationship between armor and weapons development. In terms of characters, Frieren once again does a good job. The anime hops back and forth through time between the current day, Frieren’s adventure party from over 50 years ago, and Frieren’s time with her teacher around 1000 years ago. In each time period, we see little ways in which Frieren has developed as a character and been impacted by those around her that she grows to care about. While Frieren gets the most development and character investment, Fern, Stark, and others are also allowed plenty of room to grow. Having said this, Frieren is still a shonen and once you reach the first tournament arc…yes course there’s a fucking tournament arc…you do get some characters that are less impressive. For example, we get this grumpy, middle aged bastard named Richter who not only is willing to kill 2 teenage girls to pass his wizard exam, but he goes out of his way against the orders of his superior to try do so and seems to revel in it. Then this sadistic and murderous aspect of his personality is just kind of dropped and is never mentioned again. Another wizard is a murderous psychopath, but this is largely played off as a joke and her personality never really evolves much beyond “lol, what a psycho bitch!” The demons are also kind of boring and shitty antagonists, but they’ll get their paragraph later. Don’t you worry! Frieren is a shonen in terms of its core demographic and it uses several of the familiar trappings of popular shonen manga, but also a deliberately slower pacing in order to place just as much focus on its themes as it places on kickass fights. Frieren at the end of the day is a series about mortality and the bonds we form with other people. Even if we’re not immortal like Frieren, we all know a grandparent, a friend, or someone else who passed away and we would do anything to have spent more time with that person. We care deeply about the people that we love and recognize on an intellectual level that we only have a very finite, precious time to spend with those people, yet it’s still so easy to take our time on Earth for granted and neglect our personal relationships. Frieren captures a fundamental human struggle that’s both universal and powerful. When it’s at its best, Frieren is an emotionally moving series that inspires us to live our lives better and not shut ourselves in. Sadly, we must now talk about the other controversy surrounding Frieren besides its unusually high MAL score. This controversy surrounds the demon race, who are the primary antagonists of the series. Frieren needed some kind of external conflict to add danger and keep things from getting too boring. So, the writer of the Frieren manga took the easy route and created a generically evil fantasy race that wants to wipe out or enslave all the other sentient species and must be stopped at all costs. However, this evil species isn’t like the goblins from Goblin Slayer. Those little bastards are a semi-sentient walking virus who can’t even naturally reproduce on their own without raping the females of other species and murdering the male population. They are simply a fantasy disease. Frieren’s demon race are a civilized, intelligent, fully sentient race who are simply evil and must we wiped out. Who cares? They’re literally demons, right? Well…sort of. They’re not demons in a Christian sense. They’re a naturally occurring, sentient species of humanoids with a slightly higher base level of magic who all just happen to be jerks and normal humans refer to them as demons. Unlike Warhammer demons and other Christian inspired demons, they don’t literally come from Hell. If you kill a Frieren demon, they die permanently with no afterlife. If you kill a Warhammer demon or any Christian inspired demon, they just kind of go back to Hell. The demons in Frieren have no interest in corrupting Humanity or deceiving humans into doing horrible things. They trick other species like Elves, humans, and dwarves into feeling sorry for them or giving them a chance before immediately betraying and kill them. Then the demons cry crocodile tears when they finally get what they deserve. The concept of an innately evil species that needs to be wiped out is one that fantasy has largely been trying to leave behind for about 40 years now. Tolkien is sometimes credited as the architect of this trope, but with him it comes from a very different place. Tolkien’s writing is always heavily influenced by his devout Catholicism. The orcs, trolls, and Easterlings aren’t evil because God made them that way. The God of Tolkien’s universe known as Eru Iluvatar didn’t create any being specifically to be evil, let alone an entire species. Tolkien’s equivalent of the Devil was jealous of God’s creations, so he took stuff that Iluvatar created and made his own warped mockeries of those things. However, even the Orcs in Tolkien’s belief are not entirely beyond redemption since they still retain the gift of language, which shows that part of their original souls are intact. Frieren is entirely secular in its morality and advocates a genocidal solution purely based on what seems to be rational. “There are no women and children. Get it through your head. These are mere animals who imitate human forms. They convince the whole world to feel sorry for them and each and every time it’s just a trick so they can attack us again the moment our guard is down. The solution is obvious. We should just kill them all!” While this quote is very close to one spoken by our favorite Elf Waifu, a quote that the series does EVERYTHING to perfectly validate her on, this isn’t actually a Frieren quote. This is a quote from some random old lady that got interviewed by CNN last month. The language that Frieren uses casually and without much thought by the mangaka is used almost word for word to advocate genocide in real life. It’s not just bad timing and bad luck that Frieren was released when it was. There is no time period where this aspect of the series’ writing would have been praiseworthy. Frieren in regards to this sub-plot engages in writing so lazy and so regressive that it stumbles into uncomfortable territory. Imagine for a second if you would that some political party in some country was actively planning a campaign of genocide or ethnic cleansing. However, they know that such actions are no longer seen as acceptable in any circumstances by an overwhelming margin of society. So…they decided to finance an addictive and popular show that (while not being the focus of course) subtly promotes genocide in a rational light and tries to shift the thinking of young audiences. This isn’t what happened of course, I already said that Frieren’s case is one of criminal laziness. However, that show would look EXACTLY like Frieren and that’s not a good thing. Overall, I’m giving this series an 8 for now…but it would be more accurate that I’m giving it an I for Incomplete. I think Frieren promises to be a strong franchise and has all the potential in the world if it can avoid shooting itself in the foot. However, I wouldn’t have written that lengthy previous paragraph if Frieren was safe from monumental errors of judgment. The series could very well turn out to be a disaster that I will be embarrassed that I ever enjoyed. Or it could be absolutely amazing, and we will all just kind of forget some of the less ideal aspects of S1. The future of Frieren has not yet been written. Most of my offline buddies haven’t seen Frieren and don’t want to watch Frieren. To be honest, I’ll probably hold off shoving it down their throats until I get a better grasp on which way this franchise is headed.
keirashii
04/07/2024, 11:46 AM
This review contains spoilers. Why do we have to accept mediocrity under a veneer of elegancy? Never has a middle of the road show been so celebrated. The utter lack of identity this show exhibits is absolutely bewildering and perhaps I was expecting this to improve within the second half, but I was wrong; there is a severe lack of any substance whatsoever in every single pore of this anime and it is completely forgettable. Sousou no Frieren played a safe formula and won the jackpot. They are still the exact same fucking person after 25 episodes, you can literally define each character with a singlesentence. Something can be simple yet still be distinctive, yet Frieren is basic and it doesn't have any soul or substance; there is nothing to grasp in this anime that evokes even a semblance of interest. This show doesn't take into account just how complicated humanity can be especially in a fantasy world like this, all of the people Frieren meets throughout her path have one-dimensional motivations and are always up to help Frieren and her group, which is just absolutely ridiculous and unrealistic; except demons, who are big bad evil guys of course. Demons are such bland antagonists for which genocide is the only counter of course; the author really went out of their way to lazily write such boring characters, they are DND evil-personified royalty scumbags who trick other species and then BETRAY them! So fun and thought provoking. This last arc a la Hunter Exam is completely unnecessary and only serves a purpose for the people who, understandably enough, were bored of the absolute slog this series is; why Frieren doesn't just go through the lock, considering she defeated the fucking Demon King with her group and is one of the, if not THE strongest, mage in the entire planet? She could just blast absolutely everyone that crossed her path like she had always done, there's absolutely no need to do this battle tournament bullshit if she just talked about it, or if any of her allies mentioned it, or if there was a minimal amount of valuable communication, which Frieren, as a whole and to be honest, completely lacks. Dialogue in Frieren is sloggy and useless, oftentimes it will feel like you're listening to two brick walls talking to each other; it lacks any insight or interest that might come with good and valuable communication. If there isn't a strong-enough emotional basis in Frieren to grow sympathy and become a slow-burner, dramatic character development show, what is the identity of this anime? The combat isn't as frantic or notable so it cannot be a battle shounen either, Sousou no Frieren does not exhibit an interesting-enough fantasy world full of mysteries, so it cannot exactly be an exploration show about the value of a long journey; Frieren doesn't have witty dialogue or particularly great humour—beyond repeating the same gag a thousand times without any variation—so it can't be an effective comedy show. The romance between Frieren and Himmel is bland as fuck and I absolutely despise that he essentially works as an emotional prop or messiah and Frieren is essentially the damsel in distress that needs emotional points throughout this entire thing, so it doesn't work as romance either. So with this said: What is Sousou no Frieren's identity? What does this anime want? I do not know, I really don't; this is one of the biggest problems with it: SnF doesn't know what it wants. It goes from being a WoW secondary mission simulator to a cheap copy of the Hunter Exam arc, meanwhile no valuable progress is done for the characters' identity. Funnily enough, the show who lacks uniqueness isn't able to develop an unique identity for their own character cast. Can ANY of these characters express any emotion beyond a boring emotionless face? Can ANY of them express any emotion on their dialogue? Or say anything that I can minimally care about? It tastes so much like air. This show is completely inoffensive and riskless, completely devoid of any identity and inherently soulless. It can't be an emotional journey where we watch Frieren learn, as Frieren's progress feels artificial when it is purely fed by flashbacks, cliché quotes and plot conveniences. SoF seems directionless, like it's completely lost. The last arc of this show suffers from a dragged on pace, they have to explain E V E R Y S I N G L E T H I N G—even irrelevant details—before actually doing it, they have to E X P L A I N C A R E F U L L Y irrelevant shit such as history of magic in the middle of an intense moment such as a battle; oftentimes in the form of a flashback, of course. We have to see these random ass dudes running for their lifes in the middle of an important scene where they are strategizing, why?? I literally do not care about them. I already know Frieren is smiling because this whole thing reminds her of the skirmishes she did with her group on a dungeon, you don't need to slap a flashback and completely break the scene, this exposition dump in the form of a memory is absolutely uncalled for. Exposition and the use of flashbacks can work in complex topics or when cleverly-used, but here it completely ruins the pace and feels out of place; let ME deduce why Frieren is smiling based on my experience on watching the show. This is a constant pattern that is repeated throughout all of Sousou no Frieren: > Frieren sees an old person > Boring ass dialogue ensues > flashback!!! this actually relates in some way to her original party group!!! > 2sad4me melodrama > Frieren sees something, anything > Boring ass dialogue ensues (that is constant within this show) > She relates it back to her party > Mr. Gary "Himmel" Stu tells her everything she needs to hear and everything that is perfect for that specific situation!! He is really wise and definitely isnt just an emotional Macguffin for Frieren to grow in cheap emotion points. > Himmel dicksuckery shenanigans ensues. he's the worst character on the entire show by far btw > A cross-eyed Frieren is lying on the ground, drooling and having an epileptic attack; her eyes haphazardly inspecting the sky > "Is Frieren alright?" asked Sein, worried that his companion could've been going through a tough time > "Yeah, she's on Himmel's flashback, she'll be back in a minute." assured Fern, she was already used to this. Do you like comedy? I do, sometimes; comedy is subjective, thus it might be funny to some but holy shit I believe the author doesn't know anything beyond the same comedy-gag ad nauseam. There isn't anything witty, to deduce or interesting about this show's humour; it is "haha shes in the mimic again lulz" for ten-thousand times or Fern throwing a pouting tantrum and punching our shounen boi. I guess it gets slapped in for fanservice motives or to accelerate the pace of this absolute snail of an anime to acceptable amounts; same with the action, I feel like the author assimilated that this was absolutely horrific and decided to put some action in the last arc, which I honestly appreciate, I don't know if I could stand 12 more episodes about World of Warcraft secondary quests and nothingburger characters peppered with melodrama. I bet that if you write "Create boring-ass plain World of Warcraft secondary quest" in ChatGPT it would bring a plot point fit to Sousou no Frieren's standards. Perhaps if it were 12 episodes it'd be less obnoxious and bland, because watching these bland archetypes talk with nobodies constantly was drawn out to absurdity. It truly becomes a nothing-fiesta when every dialogue sounds like it was AI-generated. There is no different way to approach each character, dialogue, action, expression; there's no nuance, nothing. Frieren meeting kid Himmel for the first time is so absurdly convenient its cheesy; of ALL the forests in the fucking world, in THIS specific moment, in THIS specific night AND day of the year was where Frieren met Himmel for the first time. The relationship between Frieren and Himmel annoys me to my core, it is a prophet and damsel in distress relationship where Frieren cannot realize anything without having it spoonfed by Himmel thru endless memories; guess what, there's many times in life where you have to do shit by yourself and there will not be anyone to tell you what you need to do; there will be inmense doubt, conflicts and sometimes suffering. Their connection is rotten to the core and consists on a flashbacks-based savior complex from Himmel, he MUST be the one who teaches Frieren emotion, he MUST be Frieren's love interest; it feels so wrong and forced, the rest of the group are just spectators of this degenerate link between a savior and a broken or lost one. I still haven't talked enough shit about the character cast, which oftentimes turns into one-dimensional archetypes, devoid of any charisma and very lackluster identities, which is a huge problem in a show such as Frieren. Twenty-eight episodes yet Fern is still absolutely insufferable, Stark has no personality traits beyond being a shounen boy & Fern's love interest and boxing-bag, Sein appears to have been absolutely thanos'd from reality, Übel is your crazy bitch archetype—who is the only one that thankfully puts some spice in this slog—and Himmel... oh, fuck Himmel. I really cannot describe just how much I dislike him honestly; he's the core on my main disdain towards this show. He's a Gary Stu who's entire personality traits are being Frieren's would-be love interest and a hero. Yeah thats about it, he's a blue-haired Ken with no interesting traits whatsoever; the worst thing by far is his discount-ass motivational phrases which do nothing but artificially inflate Frieren's emotional points, oftentimes through flashbacks ad nauseam, something that feels cheap, frequently pace-breaking and bland; he's essentially an emotional deus ex machina, whenever you feel like Frieren is having a hard emotive situation Himmel will be there to spit some motivational stock phrases so Frieren has a huge epiphany and the show will be like "See? They were truly one for the other!" It feels so forced and disgusting when he plays this messiah superman-esque role. Heiter is "haha le drunk guy XD" comedy relief in the heroes' group who occasionally pukes motivational slop a la Himmel. Eisen is strong dwarf who teaches shounen boy and theres not much more about him. Who in the fuck is Methode? Oh, that one girl in the exam; okay I don't care, who even cares? Who are all these people? Why are they so completely plain? Fern is still absolutely insufferable, a complete brat and a Frieren copy—and being cared for under Frieren's bosom isn't a good excuse—having both Frieren and Fern talk to each other is like clashing two rocks with each other. It is STILL the same shit after 25 episodes and hasnt changed a thing. The main trio is lazily conformed and their thoughts are vaguely explored; without a semblance of interesting dynamics or substantial thoughts. Relationships tend to be notoriously complex, depending on endless layers of emotions, interests and more; Sousou no Frieren simplifies this in a lazy way and the author only dares to make straightforward, boring interactions and links between characters. Finding any interesting traits in these characters feels like trying to find a penny in the atlantic ocean. Frieren is an elf femcel who gets punched ad nauseam by emotional planitudes and nothingburger motivational phrases. Have you ever read these classic happy-go-lucky phrases like a la "Living is good! Keep living!"? That's what Himmel constantly slaps in your face in every scene he appears in. This show is oftentimes praised by its emotionality yet the characters are barely human, 90% of times the characters' expressions look like Moai statues without any emotionality whatsoever (with no offense to moai statues, they are pretty rad in comparison to this blandfest). Many excuse Fern's absolute nothingburger identity through being cared by Frieren's teachings; however, this is no excuse, I still fail to comprehend why shes completely devoid of any notable traits. You can be teached by someone your entire life and STILL derail from their ideas, morality, teachings, etcetera; hearing Frieren and Fern talk might as well be two Frierens talking to each other, just lame as fuck. There's also the vague and plain worldbuilding which doesn't get better: > Welcome to village numba 1 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM > Welcome to village numba 2 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM > Welcome to village numba 3 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM ad nauseam > Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you. > Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you. > Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you. ad nauseam > Welcome to magic city. As you can see it is full of magic; betcha you didn't expect that. Is there anything beyond this? Nope, it's magic city, why in the fuck would you expect something more? But I guess shounen fans just can't understand this immaculate piece of peak fiction and the symbolism behind Frieren's feet, they want skibidi brainrot lobotomykaisen fast paced spoonfed everything, they have a low attention span and can't stand HEAVY and SLOW shows like Frieren... nevermind the fact that I do enjoy slow-paced media and still found Sousou no Frieren to be a complete slog and a restaurant of nothing meals, despite what the Frieren fanbase might tell you, not everyone who dislikes Frieren are skibidi ipad kids. In a show like this character development is deemed to be a very important aspect yet there's virtually no advancements towards anything resembling development, and if it happens, it is completely irrelevant. The arc a la Hunter Exam doesn't work when every battle is fought by pokerfaced nobodies with not even an inch of personality, they fail completely at even evoking a semblance of emotion in me when it just looks like they dont wanna be in this anime. Watching Frieren characters fight between each other looks like when you were going to do a class presentation in a topic you absolutely didn't care about; that's Frieren battles in a nutshell. How can I care if they don't seem to care? Where's the emotion in these expresionless androids? Where's the emotion in their ChatGPT dialogue and fights? Where's the emotion that is so praised about this anime? Wait, before delivering flashbacks, BOOM LAZER, MAGICAL BULLSHIT; now, let's haphazardly introduce the flashback. After all they are supposed to be humans, of complicated thoughts and intricate morality yet they seem to lack anything of sorts, instead looking like a reptilian trying to replicate superficial philosophy, feeliings and humanity; it's tough when a show that's supposed to feel human and emotional instead feels like E.T trying to make a personal story. Frieren and Fern vs Frieren clone in the last arc is supposed to be a huge climax yet it feels like nothing, there are no stakes I already know they are going to wreck the shit out of it; especially if you slap a fucking flashback on me where it essentially praises humanity and their advancement towards dominating magic, soon to be equal or even surpass elves—of course, it refers to Fern—just like that stakes are completely gone. As a whole package, Sousou no Frieren might be the most ambitionless anime I've seen in a long time, only carried by the talents in Madhouse, who I applaud for improving this blandfest and jack of all trades turned into a devoid master of none.
Latooq
04/01/2024, 03:14 PM
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 lovegiven 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.
Kzzz
03/25/2024, 03:14 AM
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 anddedicate 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.
Trikkiez
03/24/2024, 02:03 AM
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 ofstyle this anime offers nothing that anybody who has seen more than 20 anime likely hasn't already seen before. It's not ambitious in any way and just feels soulless. I will say that for an anime to be good it doesn't have to be avant garde, or have insane directing that blows your mind, but there is nothing this anime offers that even makes up for its lack of identity (boring soulless characters and world). World Building- I've seen so many people praising the "amazing world building" this anime has, but I don't understand where they are getting this from. The actual locations they go to feel like they have little to no importance in the actual world. They just feel like random kingdoms and villages, but why are these kingdoms actually important in the world? We are never really told, so it kind of just feels like they are just there to give the characters a place to go. it makes the world feel less alive and less dynamic. The world isn't changing around our characters, but rather they are changing around the world. It makes watching them journey around random areas feel meaningless. I never once during this anime thought to myself about where the characters would go next, nor did any area feel distinct from each other. There was nothing differentiating the different areas culturally and it just made the anime really boring and feel not alive. There was never a single character we met in one of these areas that wasn't also forgettable. The world we are in is also so incredibly stereotypical. The fantasy elements aren't creative in any way and they just feel like copies of the same blueprint that fantasy stories have been using for a long time. Even Konosuba was parodying these stereotypes over 10 years ago but yet we are seeing them even more now for some reason. Regardless, Frieren does nothing interesting with these elements. The magic system is generic, the Demons are just bad guys who want to kill people, the kingdoms and villages are all generic, and I can go on and on. It just felt like this anime had a checklist of fantasy setting elements to include, but didn't bother to do anything interesting with any of them. The magic system is poorly implemented as well. Why doesn't pretty much everyone in the world use magic? It's such an advanced tool that I feel like everyone even people doing basic jobs should use it to make their jobs more efficient. It isn't a very well thought out concept and it goes back to what I was saying earlier about how they just included it because that's the norm for fantasy stories. Animation/Art/Directing/Soundtrack This is the strongest part of the whole anime. The animation was insane sometimes and there were lots of pretty colors that I actually liked looking at. Animation is such a non factor though this barely added anything to the experience for me. This is probably the least important category when it comes to making a good anime. As far as the art goes, I thought the background scenery was overly generic a lot of the time. Once again, it felt like I couldn't separate it from anything else. It didn't feel very atmospherically alive, but if it did I think I would've liked it a lot more. If this anime was more like Mushishi for example where each scene is just breathing life, I would've appreciated it so much more. In Mushishi there is always so much going on in the background and environmentally, even when nothing is happening it creates such a nice watching environment, that I am just completely entranced. It feels like this is what this anime wanted to be, but failed miserably. The lack of an interesting soundtrack also plays a heavy role in this. There were times where it actually felt like the soundtrack was AI generated. The directing was very boring and there were a lot of annoying flashbacks that happened in the middle of a fight. Sometimes I literally forgot the fight was even happening because of how long the flashbacks were, which is where the problem lies for me. There is nothing wrong with the flashbacks inherently, but they were just very annoying and uninterestingly implemented. There were some scenes where a monster or demon would die, and for some reason they would randomly dissolve as if it was a video game or something. And there is also an annoying amount of explosions in this anime. To the point where explosions pretty much mean nothing since there is one every 3 minutes on average. Even when nothing happens to cause an explosion, one will just randomly happen anyways. There were a lot of questionable sound design choices surrounding the comedy scenes that took me out of whatever immersion I possibly had left. They would use silly sound effects that didn't fit in the actual world and it felt really off putting. However, as for my first positive in this whole review, I actually really love the crystally sound effect they use whenever a character uses magic. It actually sounded really cool and it was probably my favorite part of the whole anime. Comedy- This anime does a poor job at mixing in its comedy with seriousness. There is one episode where Stark is bitten by a venomous snake and he was on the edge of potentially dying. Yet, the characters were being very unserious about it, as if it didn't even matter. There were many instances of this during the anime and it just got unwatchable. How am I supposed to take this anime seriously when even the people making it aren't taking it seriously. Besides that a lot of the comedy feels like it was written by a 13 year old. The jokes just felt very forced in, and it often repeats jokes a lot as if us hearing about the drunk priest again for the 50th time was gonna be any more funny than the 49th time. A lot of the characters are purely used as comedy sticks and don't even feel like their own person. Pretty much the entire cast of Frierens old group are 1 dimensional comedy characters that got carried by Frieren to defeating the demon king. The priest is drunk every time we see him in a flashback, himmel is always acting like an idiot which is supposed to be funny because he's actually supposed to be like a hero or something, but he actually is just a goofball (its funny and stark is totally not the same character), and the beard guy never talks and is pretty much just afk. Oh and if one drunk priest wasn't enough, we get a second one midway through the anime. Characters- None of the characters feel like humans. They are constantly expressionless, especially during fights, and it just makes them very unrelatable. The way they talk is robotic as well. It's annoying that our main 2 characters are the most expressionless in the whole anime, and of course they get the most screen time. I already talked about the other characters from Frierens flashbacks, and that applies here too. Most of the characters are either expressionless robots, or purely comedy characters. There are very few actually serious characters and when I say very few I mean only 2. There is no character development, and everyone stays the same as they were before. After Stark defeats the dragon on his own early on, he doesn't grow as a character, he just stays as an annoying whiny brat. Fern is always mad at stark, even when their relationship progresses, it always goes back to square 1 and nothing ever happens to progress anything really. Plot- Boring, nothing happens between episodes 10-18. There isn't really much to talk about because there isn't really much plot to begin with. Frieren is kind of just looking after Fern because the drunk priest wanted to and they just wander around together. That's pretty much it. I guess they have an objective to go up to the north so they spend 18 episodes doing nothing, and then doing an exam so that they can try becoming tier 1 mages to go up north. It's very boring and nothing happened this entire season. This anime is more about its themes than its plot but I think the themes aren't explored very well. I did resonate with them a lot early on, but the same themes of nostalgia and time perception got really repetitive and they never really went anywhere. In conclusion, this anime is not good in any way and honestly I gave it the most positive rating I could've possibly given it. I was bored from start to finish, and there was very little redeeming qualities in this anime. The only reason I didn't rate this anime lower is because I think there are much worse anime out there and in comparison to those, I guess this one isn't the worst thing ever, but it probably deserves a 2 or a 3 in reality. This anime is full of plot conveniences and nonsense. If you would like to see more of what I thought about this anime, feel free to check out the youtube channel in my bio. I uploaded a full length review on this anime where I talk about a lot of the things I wrote here, as well as a lot of other things I didn't go into depth about.
BeetleR19d
03/22/2024, 08:18 PM
The title "Beyond Journey's End" does sound appealing, doesn't it? While I typically oppose altering the literal meaning of Japanese titles during translation, in this case, I make an exception. "Beyond Journey's End" more effectively conveys the essence of "Sousou no Frieren" manga/anime than "Frieren at the Funeral" does. The title indeed suggests that the anime serves as an ‘After Story’ for a particular journey of Frieren, the story’s protagonist. It’s important to note that Frieren is an elf who does not age physically and possesses a unique perspective on time, relationships, and interactions, differing from humans. These two pivotal aspects form the foundation of thenarrative, as we witness Frieren come to appreciate the value of the relationships forged during her travels and anticipate the journeys yet to come. Plot(9/10): As Frieren is several thousand years old, a significant portion of the story consists of flashbacks across various timelines. One timeline depicts her youth as a disciple of Flamme, while another showcases her time with the hero party. The narrative primarily unfolds in the present timeline. Throughout the anime, we witness Frieren reflecting on the past while assimilating her current experiences. It presents a form of redemption from a certain perspective. The central theme of this story is about ‘Living in the moment and not having regrets later.’ Each past encounter and memory with the hero party influences Frieren to cherish her present companions more deeply, as she harbors many regrets for not understanding the hero party members’ sense of time. Frieren, vastly older than the rest of the cast (excluding other elves), continues to learn—learning how to interact and empathize with humans whose lifespans are merely a fraction of her own. Setting aside all those travels, the final third of this anime focuses on the 'First Class Mage Exam' arc, which brims with action and introduces a substantial number of additional side characters. Each fight scene offers viewers insight to grasp the characters' depth and their underlying philosophies. Overall, ‘Frieren: Beyond the Journey’s End’ skillfully blends the central theme of the series with various elements such as the magic system, and the Demon-Human conflict. Characters(9/10): This anime features a large cast of characters. Not all of them play a significant role in advancing the plot, but that’s not a complaint though. It’s unreasonable to expect an anime to delve deeply into the background of every character introduced. However, the characters of Frieren and Fern had to be likable and well-written at the same time as they received more screen time and narrative focus. The author did more than a decent job in that regard. Watching the evolution of their relationship, enriched by mutual care, is particularly heartwarming. Additionally, there are numerous scenes that provide comic relief, each one is humorous and relaxing. Stark and Sein also have significant portions of their backstories explored. Their moments on screen never felt dull; Stark, in particular, had some 'Wow' factor in the scenes we see him facing opponents . The “First Class Mage Exam” arc introduces a bunch of new characters. Among them, Ubel and Serie stand out, capturing attention with their unique character traits. (Serie is actually a very important character of this arc) Frieren’s former companions: Eisen, Heiter, and Himmel. They epitomize the ideal hero party members. Each one is portrayed as a ‘Good Guy,’ and rightfully so. Let’s focus on Himmel for the time being, as he is likely the primary reason we follow Frieren’s journey with Fern. Hero Himmel is depicted as cheerful, brave, and humorous—a quintessential hero. He was a person who inspired others. His passing led Frieren to realize her errors in gauging time and in valuing relationships from her perspective rather than from the humans’ viewpoint, with whom she had spent a considerable amount of time (from their perspective). As mentioned earlier, it was Himmel’s influence that prompted Heiter to adopt Fern and care for her, as he believed Himmel would have done the same. This, in turn, led to Frieren assuming the responsibility of looking after Fern. Animation and Visuals (10/10): 'Madhouse Cooked again!' that was my initial reaction while watching Frieren's first 4 episodes on the same day. The studio behind so many classics is still producing more of them. The manga already had good art and uniqueness in character design. So the production studio just had to do one thing and it was to not 'mess up' the adaptation. And they did that beautifully. Environment and atmosphere of 'Frieren: Beyond the Journey's End' anime turned out to be a lot brighter and colorful than my expectation and I loved it. The direction of the fights were top notch. They improvised in some of those and they never felt out of place. Whether it was Fern casting zoltraak like fireworks or Stark defeating a huge dragon, I enjoyed every fight sequence this anime has to offer. Kudos to the people working behind the scenes, specially the storyboard directors. Audio and Soundtrack (9.5/10) : I was actually surprised after seeing that they cast Atsumi Tanezaki to voice Frieren. (I always imagined Frieren having a more childish voice while reading the manga.) She did a fine job, actually. The rest of the cast also delivered commendable performances, leaving me with no complaints about the voice acting. 'Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ features three songs in its soundtrack. The first opening theme is ‘Yuusha’ by Yoasobi, followed by the second opening theme ‘Haru’ by Yorushika, and the series is rounded off with the ending theme ‘Anytime Anywhere’ by Milet. Each track is enjoyable in its own right, but ‘Anytime Anywhere’ stands out to me the most. It’s not only as catchy as the other two but also has lyrics that resonate deeply with the show’s themes. Overall(9.5/10): I am still quite surprised to see this anime garnering so much attention on the internet. It’s become one of those ‘Everywhere I go, I see her face’ moments for me. I had actually expected ‘Frieren’ to become one of the underappreciated, gatekept animes in the future, but that’s far from what actually happened. In fact, ‘Frieren’ is the most popular non-sequel release of 2023, along with ‘Oshi no Ko’ and 'Zom 100' . It also checks all the boxes to add itself to the list of all-time classics created by Madhouse. ‘Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ does almost everything right. It has a meaningful story, a protagonist whose journey feels exciting and emotional at the same time, just enough focus on the side characters, excellent animation and direction. Moreover, it blends all the genres involved extraordinarily well. That’s why you never feel anything is amiss when it shifts from the slice-of-life genre to the action genre in the last few episodes, or when observing some sort of romantic development in Fern and Stark’s relationship. I will remember ‘Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ for a long time. The last time I was this eager to watch the next episode of an ongoing anime was when ‘Summertime Render’ was airing way back in 2022. Frieren indeed made my Fridays better. Therefore, this is an easy recommendation from me to anyone looking for a good, comforting anime. 'Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ is certainly one of the very best of its kind.
chekkit
03/22/2024, 12:40 PM
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 ifyou'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.
CaptainKenshiro
03/22/2024, 10:29 AM
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 protagonistdidn’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 despite being such small details. First, since elves are so long-lived, they get easily emotionally detached from everyone else, they don’t have strong feelings for anyone, neither romantic nor sexual, and that’s why there are few of them and why the protagonist herself is so cold at first. It also helps to explain why, despite being one of the most well-known heroes in history, no one seems to recognize her at first, like Luffy in One Piece, but here is far more believable because the setting doesn’t have the same technology and the main character herself does as much as she can to keep a low profile. Another good detail is the explaining for why there isn’t any transportation magic and for why flying magic is limited, which also forces the main cast to actually travel through the fucking setting, whereas other series have several ways for the main cast to be where they need to be when the plot requires them to. This also helps in making the anime feel like, well, an adventure, because how can you have a proper adventure if there is no adventuring, no travelling, no exploring the setting? It’s not like Sousou no Frieren has a world that needs much building nor explaining, it’s a very typical fantasy setting with typical classes, creatures and archetypes, but at least is properly written and established, and it is actually explored, while it also doesn’t function like an RPG, how many other modern fantasy anime can claim the same, eh? That’s why the characters can’t just go wherever they want and in any ways they would like, every city and every place has its rules, and since Frieren herself knows the route well, you get a bit of lore or history from them, having the rest of the party going on their first adventure also helps, since that way the author has a reason for all the explaining to be done, the exposition is excused. Not to say that this anime is perfect of course, since there is no clear reasoning why, despite magic evolving so much for being studied for decades and even centuries, basic spells still work the best against newer, supposedly better instructed mages, or why the only mages that know how to control and repress mana in-series are the ones related in some way to the main character. Then, the whole thing about Frieren kind of falls apart when you consider, “wait, wasn’t her teacher a human? Doesn’t that go against her whole character arc and the main theme of the show?” And the answer from me is yes, I have no excuse for that, and consider it a big flaw in the writing. Likewise, the second half of the show is inferior than the first, exactly because it falls for the same issues as the series I compared it to. It is a tournament/exam arc that you would find in an action shounen instead of this one, it completely sidelines an important character, and although needed for the characters to keep going, the plot stops progressing completely for a lot of episodes instead of the mini adventures from earlier, and there are a lot of unimportant secondary characters getting a lot of rushed focus. Other series do that as well (Dragon Ball, Hunter x Hunter, Naruto, Yu Yu Hakusho) but being long fighting shounen, their characters don’t disappear completely from the story until way later. I’m an anime only here, thus I can’t tell if someone from the second cour is coming back at some point or not, but I hardly doubt it and I’m sure they don’t join the main party, essentially meaning that for at least this first season, they work against the plot by killing time and taking screentime for no reason. With that said, it’s not straight up bad, since there are still moments to flesh out the two main girls and see them interacting, and there is still some cool action from time to time. And also, well, there is hardly any plot in here, it’s just low on action and stakes basic traveling and adventuring with an overpowered protagonist that goofs around before solving most things thanks to how powerful or experienced she is, and although I like that she is kind of like Maomao from Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, neither an idealistic hot headed idiot typical shounen protagonist, nor an asshole that doesn’t give a shit about people like Elaina from Majo no Tabitabi, she still doesn’t actually do or not most things on her own wish, that’s why she says things like “Himmel would scold me if I did that” or “Himmel would praise me if I do this”. Thus, despite part of me respecting the value and appeal it might have for some emotional people and for how mostly well established the writing and presentation are, the cynical bastard I am only finds boredom in here, because there isn’t much plot, the characters are simple, the stakes are low because the protagonist is overpowered, the plot devices are not the type of which I’m usually thrilled about, the setting is basic, the energy is low, the aesthetics are simple, and the second half, although it still fleshes out two of the main characters, is inferior than the first by falling for the usual meh writing of other shows. In the end I consider it a decent relaxing time passer that can be very appealing for some viewers, but nowhere near as good as the general consensus says it is, and a complete chore to watch for part of the audience, myself included. At least I can say that this anime doesn’t have recaps neither inside nor outside the episode count, which is more than I can say about the other shows I was following at the same time.
Marinate1016
03/22/2024, 08:32 AM
Time is a precious thing. The most valuable resource in life. We never know how much of it we have, and we can never get more of it. So, what would you do if you had all the time in the world? Sousou no Frieren explores this concept in a way never before seen in the medium, all the while having generational production values, loveable characters, realistic life lessons and a proper grand fantasy premise. It’s not hard to see why this is one of the biggest anime in recent memory and it’s well deserved. I know there can be a general trepidation to accept thehype of series like Frieren. It’s everywhere, everyone’s talking about it and you’ve probably seen the characters on social media. But I promise it’s warranted in this case. Frieren’s appeal for most people, myself included, will be the themes of loss and regret. As we get older we really begin to feel the impermanence of life. Whether it’s losing family members or friends, or just drifting apart from people we were once close with. Time changes everything and that’s scary. But, that doesn’t mean that we should shut ourselves off from the world. While life and relationships will come to an end, they have meaning. In fact, it’s because they end that they do have meaning. The good days we experience won’t be here forever, so we have to cherish them. Frieren as a character is a nigh immortal elf, who after millennia of shutting herself off from the world, has begun to open up and embrace the world. All thanks to the journey and experiences she had as part of the hero’s party. The story uses both the past and present to illustrate Frieren’s growth, often bouncing back and forth between her days as a member of the hero’s party, and her current time with her students Fern and Stark. Often something will come up and remind her of the days now long past that she spent with Hero Himmel. Offering a sort of window into her slowly “melting” heart. Speaking of melting, “Frieren” means cold in German, more on that later though. Through these flashbacks, we see Frieren gradually realise that she valued her time with her friends much more than she could have ever imagined. She goes from thinking that a human lifetime is insignificant to her, to realising it’s not the length of time, but the quality of it. Even now, nearly a century on from their meeting, Himmel and her other friends are front and centre on her mind. For me, that’s what makes this one so special. Pieces of media that I can take lessons from and apply to my own life always resonate the most, and I’m sure I’m not alone. While we may not have the lifespan of Frieren, there’s moments that all of us wish we could get back, people we wish we could talk to and tell how much we love them, etc. Though, perhaps the biggest takeaway is that while we can’t get time back from the past and we can’t undo our mistakes, we can learn from them. We can be better for the future and for those around us now. Frieren embraces this idea by taking on her former party members’ students, Fern and Stark, and going on a traditional grand fantasy adventure with them. Earlier I referenced the importance of Frieren’s name to the story, that’s a recurring theme for the entire cast as they all have German names corresponding to their character traits. Some, like “Übel” and “stark” are a little too on the money, but others like “Fern” are subtle and reflect the character’s purpose in the story. I found them to be nice nods and really enjoyed seeing how characters evolved with their names. The other big thing to talk about is the character interactions. Other than the life lessons, I think most people will really enjoy how the characters bounce off one another in the show. The dialogue doesn’t feel cringe or forced, the seiyuus talk in realistic every day voices for the most part, and it truly feels like you’re on a journey with a group of friends. There may be fights and disagreements, *cough cough* Fern and Stark, but at the end of the day everyone realises how important their friends are and make up. I could go on and on about the story and characters, but I’ll spare you on that. Suffice to say it’s good. It’s simple, well paced and no arc overstays its welcome. Episodes don’t harp on one thing too long either like a lot of modern anime. Characters talk out their issues instead of hiding them and letting them explode. It feels about as real as a high fantasy setting can, and I think that’s some of the highest praise possible. Frieren just manages to do all the simple things really really well and as a result, it’s become one of the biggest anime. The other massive component of the situation is studio MADHOUSE. After their bankruptcy, they’ve been kind of hit or miss with anime projects, but dare I say it this is the best thing they’ve ever done. It truly feels like they’ve risen from the ashes and not just returned to former glory, but exceeded it. Thanks in no small part to the director, Saito Keiichiro. Saito-Sensei himself proposed the idea of a Frieren anime after reading the first volume of the manga and falling in love with it. It shows. From the art to the character designs to action scenes, this world has been meticulously crafted with so much love and care and stands as a shining example of what a director with a clear vision and a supportive production committee can do. Something we don’t get nearly enough of these days. While Frieren is a slower paced story at times, there is definitely action and when it pops up it’s incredible. The animation during fights is among the best I’ve ever seen, and if we’re counting TV anime only, surely has to be top 3. If we’re talking production we also can’t forget about the work Evan Call did on the series. Adding so much emotional weight to scenes and heightening the experience. He was amazing in Violet Evergarden and even better here. The show would certainly not be the same without him. In conclusion, Sousou no Frieren is a riveting and enchanting fantasy story that we can all stand to learn a thing or two from. Even those who are not traditional fantasy or slice of life fans will find something to love here, even if it’s just Frieren getting trapped in a mimic chest. It’s a must watch. Frieren gets a very easy 10, out of 10

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Sousou no Frieren 葬送のフリーレン

TAAF 2025 Anime of the Year Winners Announced

North American Anime & Manga Releases for December

'Sousou no Frieren' Gets Second Season

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