Great anime but overhyped. Overall still a 8/10.
Criticisms and praises are at bottom.
World building:
The world at the beginning is laid out pretty well in the first few episodes and is expanded upon slightly nearing the end.
Some have criticized the world building by saying that it’s not original or that they places have no significance and they’re basically just teleporting place to place. This isn’t a bad thing. The places that they visit involve interactions with other characters that give depth to those characters. At worst it could be considered a decent filler arc. As for the teleportation part or seemingly randomness: a lot of anime
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don’t usually show the transition anyways unless it’s to introduce another character and even in D&D for example it’s normal to skip the in-between part of traveling town to town.
Characters:
It does a great job at laying out the characters at the beginning as well as when new characters are introduced. The introduction of characters seems quite natural and doesn’t seem forced in anyway
Even the side characters have depth to them and are added upon throughout. Although some side characters only appear for a few episodes and might be criticized as unnecessary still end up contributing in some way to how the characters/party interact/their relationship with each other. Each character clearly has a unique background/story and all (mages) have a different specialty which adds on that.
Character development:
There is a decent amount of depth and character development given at the start and end(end as in last 5 episodes). Even Himmel has his character/personality shown frequently through flashbacks that would help the viewer sympathize and understand him.
Comedy:
Very few funny moments in the anime which I would more or less have expected given the sentimental theme. Even then, there isn’t more than maybe 5 moments that could realistically be called a funny moment that would’ve made me laugh.
Visuals/art/animation:
I can’t say the style and art is too unique but I can at least say that it’s at least better than half of the existing fantasy animes.
The art and visuals for the background scenery in most scenes is pretty bland or unoriginal for the most part. There are a few exceptions to this.
The animation isn’t too stunningly done. The animation that accompanies fights isn’t bad, don’t get me wrong, but it’s lacking a bit of flair or something. I won’t say that it’s bland but it isn’t too colorful. The fight choreography is great though!
Plot:
The way the main characters meet each other and what lead them to meeting fits together(makes sense) nicely and doesn’t seem forced. The fights are intertwined along with the overarching narrative quite nicely as well (narrative = overall goal and lesson). The fights that occur seem naturally occur and non-forced AKA there was a logical reason for it and not just to progress the plot.
It had a nice lesson to teach of not taking life for granted.
————-Criticisms and Praises:
Characters & Character Development:
A lot of the character development for Stark in the later half of the anime is just done through interactions between him and Fern which in my opinion is lacking. Sure it builds a bond, but that doesn’t really add anything more to him. The same could be said for Fern regarding these interactions.
-Stark - He had a great opening and character introduction but after the first few episodes his character didn’t really get added onto much other than through fern. He also doesn’t appear for almost the entire last 1/4th of the anime. He doesn’t display his emotions which can’t be good considering Fern and Frieren are already emotionless looking.
-Fern -too stoic which is fine but the one of the only other times her emotion is shown on her face (with very few exceptions) is when she is upset. I do feel though that Hummel had more character development (through flashbacks) than Fern.
-Frieren -decent but considering the theme of the anime I would’ve expected at least I bit more emotion to be depicted when reminiscing.
-Serie - I liked her character and how she clearly had set morals(She was semi-complex but the viewer would be able to understand her). I also liked how near at the end of the anime her character was added onto through the interaction between Frieren and the old 1st class mage guy (don’t remember name).
-Land - found it nice that there was the (although expected) twist of him actually still being in his house and actually having his “real self” also being a clone.
-Übel - great character (far from unique personality though which isn’t bad)
-Richter -Played no real important role other than an enemy for two of the other side characters to fight against. He wasn’t given any background nor was any of his personality shown other than him being stern-faced like half of the cast.
Just about half of all of the characters that actually play a role (main party and side characters) all are too emotionless or stern-faced. Some characters, given their displayed personality, it would make sense for them to be stern-faced or emotionless but not for half of the ENTIRE cast?!?!? There were plenty of opportunities for those side characters (who show no emotion on their faces) to show emotion whether it be shock or fear but none of them did. It just doesn’t make sense. I understand that the logic of “oh they’re veteran mages/adventurers so their injuries aren’t affecting them as much” can work but not even one of them reacted to injuries. Not even a smile from them when they were confident or anything like that.
It just made most of them seem 1-dimensional. You could easily tell which side characters were actually important (Wilbur, Übul, Kraft, Sense, Denken, Land, and the girls with red and blue hair -might be forgetting one) with the rest just being 1-dimensional filler that were Included in the fight scenes. They didn’t contribute to the plot either except to be used in fight scenes.
Animation:
Kinda already put my critics above.
Plot:
Kind of disappointed that the anime didn’t end with Frieren arriving at Heaven (where souls reside or whatever it was called). I still did like the sentimental ending though. I did feel that it could’ve just ended on episode 27 (even if a few loose ends remained).
Knit picks:
—that hypnotist girl was able to sense when the Sense clone died even though Frieren couldn’t detect Sense’s clone to begin with? She was also able to tell that Übel did it which I’ll give benefit of the doubt in saying that she might’ve been able to sense Übel’s unique magic wavelength or something like that.
—the whole interaction of the hypnosis mage girl figuring out whether or not they could hypnotize the Frieren clone was kinda pointless filler. It could be argued that that scene was then used as to give a reason/time for the other characters to group up then leading to them forming a plan —which would’ve happened regardless.
—Denken’s story kinda doesn’t make sense. It takes a first class mage to get to his village due to the monsters that surround it. Then is that village guarded by several 1st class mages or something??? There aren’t even 100 1st class mages. And his wife is buried there so does that mean he must’ve hired a first class mage in order to leave the village?
-(high chance I forgot the reason) if money wasn’t a problem then why didn’t Denken just hire a first class mage instead of waiting to take the exam considering it took several weeks to take all 3 exams.
—kinda disappointed the end goal wasn’t shown in the anime.
Conclusion:
Great anime. Good world building. Good plot. Decent animation/art. Some unique characters with them having depth while others being 1-Dimensional/severely lacking. Development among characters was lacking. The plot was good with a nice end goal.
My score: 8/10
Jun 1, 2024
Sousou no Frieren
(Anime)
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Great anime but overhyped. Overall still a 8/10.
Criticisms and praises are at bottom. World building: The world at the beginning is laid out pretty well in the first few episodes and is expanded upon slightly nearing the end. Some have criticized the world building by saying that it’s not original or that they places have no significance and they’re basically just teleporting place to place. This isn’t a bad thing. The places that they visit involve interactions with other characters that give depth to those characters. At worst it could be considered a decent filler arc. As for the teleportation part or seemingly randomness: a lot of anime ... |
