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Great post about Frieren. There are so many lies and exaggerated descriptions about this show. Here's more ammunition for you to use (if you agree with):

- "There is no [sexual] fanservice!" = Yet, theres literally a character with big breasts and a scene where Frieren compares the size of hers. There are also apparently intentional foot fetish triggers.

- "You can feel the confidence the writer have with such a contemplative calm story!" = Yet, it suffers from a major identity crisis: it starts out as a charming adventure drama about the passage of time and often turns into a battle shounen with huge sakuga action sequences, overpowered MC, cliche Hunter/Chuunin Exam arc and plot-armored fights. It doesn't know what it wants be.

- "The character development is impressive!" = Yet, Fern and the red-haired boy have literally barely changed anything since the moment they quickly joined the group. The MC's "growth" consists in basically reaffirming something she already realized back in the first episodes. It doesn't help that she herself doesn't LOOK very interested or curious about changing or understanding emotions, unlike Violet Evergarden for example. The same goes for 99% of the other characters. You can notice implied changes in characters like Expressionless Man #2 (I think it's "Denken"?) and Expressionless Man #3 in the final episodes, but far from writing worthy of such note.

- "The flashbacks are done differently and right!" = Why? What exactly makes the use of flashbacks here so different from any other series that similarly uses this device for build-up? If anything it even makes the anime feel sometimes more drawn out and less fluid.

- "It's geared more towards older people" = A thousand-year-old elf who still acts like a teenager = Check. Cute magical girls with colorful hair = Check. Sexual fanservice = Check. Flirting with the battle shounen genre = Check. Misplaced humor and anime-sque cute faces for cute social media gifs = Check. ...Yeah no, it's a shounen and it's geared towards making teenagers THINK that loving it makes them wise and mature.

- "You're too dumb to understand art, go back to your brainless shounen!!" = Yet, 1/3 of the season was dedicated to a shallow Chuunin/Hunter Exam and there are several battles full of plot armor (e.g. Red hair boy vs demon girl) or "You Underestimated Me" power fantasy moments simply flexing their unbeatable god-like MC powers on poor secondary characters for the sake of it.

- "The characters feels human, fresh and alive!" = Yet, EVERYONE is emotionless and stoic. Why? Also all classes and personalities are tropey. And Himmel is a complete Gary Stu, the perfect human being who has a wise answer for everything at the right time and recognizes all his "defects" by declaring them out loud (like all other humans in the story). At least he is one of the rare expressive characters I guess?

- "The antagonists are unique and fresh!" = How literally just demons driven by survival instinct makes them well written or revolutionary? They had the audacity to introduce antagonists whose main characteristic is being "emotionless" while theres no one to contrast them, as for some reason every human, elf and dwarf in this anime is as expressive as a faceless robot.

- "The anime is unique and innovative!" = Yet, there are Iyashikei released almost every season, theres Natsume Yuujinchou, Mahoutsukai no Yome, Yokohama Kikou, Maquia, Ária, Wandering Witch, Akatsuki no Yona OVA, Kino no Tabi, To Your Eternity, Vivy, several animes with the same vibe and themes as Frieren, and of course, Violet Evergarden, the show that Frieren desperately wants to be, which refused to force action sequences into its dramatic narrative in order to actually keep focus and consistency.

- "Its just too sad and heartwarming since EP 1!" = The show basically begs me to feel something for characters I barely know anything about, including that random elf that I'm seeing crying in a funeral. Should I feel sad just because its a cute "girl" crying? If it worked for you, good for you. IMO this is mediocre storytelling. If this was the 2nd Season, while 1st dedicated to actually see all the moments Frieren spent with her old party, similar to what Vinland Saga did, then it could be an entirely different emotional punch.

- "It's a life-changing experience!! It changes how you see anime!" = I'm really skeptical that a fantasy cartoon really changed someone's life on such a serious and profound level, it really sounds like people who like to inject as much emotion as possible into their words to gain the reader's connection in an almost forced way, it even sounds laughable to be honest. I usually say that Frieren's success says more about the state of the industry and the mental state of the audience than the work itself. It's well known that society today has lost its sense of identity and people don't know who they are and what they do here, which explains these overemotional speeches implying that they found the meaning of life in cheap entertainment. As soon as they finished watching the anime, these people probably kept their faces glued to a black screen letting their life sucked out of them as always has been. It was just a huge dopamine spike and nothing really changed.

- "It deserves the #1 unlike Demon Lord FMAB!!" = Yet, its already proven theres a huge amount of bots rating 10/10 to this show and 1/10 to FMAB and other series in the top. Yet, people also ignore the herd effect of social media with thousands of popular Youtube/TikTok videos influencing literally millions of young people to inject as much as crazy explosive emotions as they can in their judgment on this show. Also FMAB, Gintama, Steins Gate, always keep a score next to each other, they're all pretty much equally loved. But Frieren holds a massive, cosmic 0.25 score above the other Top contenders. Frieren is just far too superior to anything else on existence.

- "It was the best anime of the decade!!!" = It was barely the best FANTASY anime in the SEASON it aired. It really felt like there's much more effort put into Dungeon Meshi's writing than Frieren, thats for sure.

- Basic and poorly explained power system
- Extremely simplistic world-building and setting, seen in any medieval fantasy
- It doesn't have a strong, closed overarching storytelling or well structured narrative like Attack on Titan or FullMetal Brotherhood (at least not yet).
- Generic and unimaginative art (compare it to almost any other big shounen, especially the character design of Bleach and JoJo)
- Theres no mystery, no lore, no twists, no enemies, no interesting strong goal, nothing to fuel your discussions and keep talking about.
- There is absolutely nothing original, artistic or stylish in the execution of its narrative or its themes.

PS: English is not my native language so I didn't elaborate too much, I just thought out loud typing on my cellphone. Also my comments are locked but you can message me or add me.