Series in one sentence:
Fairy walks around the place slowly and does things slowly.
Series in more sentences:
Frieren was once a hero who saved the world from doom, but because of her species, knows she'll be the only one to remember this and her fellow heroes for many generations to come.
With two of them already dead, she begins to realize how she took everything for granted and retraces her fondest memories of them with her new companions, whilst traveling towards a land that's claimed to house the spirits of the dead, hoping to settle some open ends.
A great idea with a boring execution. Characters just show up, relationships are cheaply established with the help of silent montages, and whenever they do talk to each other, it's almost always with this monotone, soft voice. I think that makes sense for Frieren, but why is everyone else in this show equally unexcitable?
The flashback scenes of the other heroes were nice, especially Himmel inserted some life in these otherwise slow episodes, but, you know, the guy is dead, so he doesn't exactly get that many appearances. It's still Frieren's story. If not that of her equally dead-faced student, Fern.
Alot of episodes have this "story of the week" feel you know from Saturday morning cartoons; which introduces a character with some kind of plight that the heroes briefly get involved with, again making it hard to feel emotionally invested.
Then the series takes a turn to this magic school story arc, and damn me, just the announcement of them going there bored me endlessly. I thought you were going to meet Himmel inside that afterlife domain, Frieren, what is this? Seeing Himmel was the only exciting end goal the show introduced here, why waste time with all this other crap?
Cannot relate to the people who deem this their favourite anime of 2023/2024, and I've heard quite alot of Youtubers utter that opinion. It's the whole reason I checked this anime out, but little to nothing happens in terms of action, and the philosophical side of it also isn't expressed well -if only because I'm not feeling any genuine love amongst these characters. It's not convincing when time keeps skipping and casual, natural conversations are few.
To suddenly introduce a character's funny habit or mention an interest they had definitely isn't convincing me. Fern likes to have her hand held whenever she's sick and in pain? Then why have you not shown Frieren doing that when she was young, Beyond Journey's End? Her period as a caretaker is completely glanced over and only afterwards does Frieren barf out a few comments about that time and how she feels about seeing Fern having grown up.
I failed to pick up on the brilliance other viewers witnessed when watching this show. This was truly boring. Truly. The demons at the start inserted much needed action, but they fuck off the moment they appear and aren't mentioned again.
Since I can't imagine myself ever putting on this anime again, I have to give it an "Average".
