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A profound journey.

This was the only sentence I have been staring at for a long while while writing this review. I couldn't think of anything else to write, because it encapsulates the essence of Sousou no Frieren perfectly without the need for any additional information. It is hard to write about something that has so much depth.

However you may look at it, the high fantasy that Sousou no Frieren offers is by no means an action show that aims to entertain you with its flashy fighting scenes or overarching plot with twists that will make your eyes go wide with surprise. It is a ... deep look into human nature from an alien perspective whom we refer to as Frieren the mage.

The show itself is an adaptation of a manga series written by Kanehito Yamada and drawn by Tsukasa Abe. It follows the story of Frieren, a (young?) elf mage, who - after defeating the demon king with a party of four some 80 years ago - sets out on another journey to understand human nature and revisit the memories she made with her previous comrades.

I will admit, I went into this show without ever reading the source material first, and in retrospect, I am grateful for that since I was able to witness the anime without any prior biases that would influence my view of the show as a whole. It was recommended to me by a friend; the premise of the show seemed odd at first (given there is no reason to follow a story after the happy ending when everything is set and done), but I gave it a go anyway. And I can fairly say that I was pleasantly surprised by the show; it was something that I expected it to be and much more.

Story

The story of Sousou no Frieren is probably its strongest suit. As I have said before, the show's main aim is to explore human nature from an outsider's perspective. Frieren is a female elf who is ancient by human standards but still childish and naive from the viewpoint of her own people. Her view on everyday human life is vastly different from the other protagonists of the story since elves are nearly immortal compared to humans. But she is still inexperienced in the ways of life, as pointed out by other elves whom we meet throughout the series. The story is set around her regret of losing her fellow party members with whom she defeated the demon lord. She spent a 'mere' 10 years with them and reunited with them after 50 years only to see them die one by one. She suddenly realized how short and fragile a human's life is, and she sets out to Ende to face one of her biggest regrets and to get to know humans better.

This is where the real story of the show begins. Frieren teams up with new companions and starts the journey to Ende, which took her a good 10 years before with her first party. Along the way, they face many adventures as well as mundane, everyday tasks. The beauty of the show is that it shows the passage of time, the mark her original party left on the world. What makes Sousou no Frieren unique is that the show is able to explore loss, regret, passage of time, growing up, growing old, having responsibilities, having insecurities, self-improvement, dealing with great burdens, birth of legends, and fading of fame without the human element. These themes and motifs are what make the show and characters brutally familiar to the viewer. The story was able to blend these elements into the story and struggles of its characters seamlessly.

While the show's tone of the story is generally serious and mostly melancholic, it always utilizes humor and warm moments to emphasize that life isn't always gloom and doom and we should take time to appreciate the beauty and truly precious moments we get to experience. While the humor is nothing to write home about, it usually gives the characters and the viewer some relief and makes the characters feel more realistic and relatable.

The show hosts a myriad of characters, each given unique personalities. Some complex, some pretty easy to understand. With this many characters, there is no surprise that we meet some that feel a bit clichéd and very "anime". However, their actions and interactions fit into the story well, so they don't stand out much.

Another difference from other shows worth mentioning is how Sousou no Frieren handles the demons as a race. While most anime and manga make just another race of people out of demons, devils, and the like, Sousou no Frieren takes a completely different approach by portraying them as beings of pure desire, their motivations being utterly alien to people. They are cunning, deceiving, proud, ruthless, and highly intelligent. I personally like this approach far more than the other approach where demons are just normal people with horns, wings, and tails.

One of the biggest beauties of the show that I admire is the air of mystery around it. You don't need to explain every nuance of a story to make it compelling and enjoyable. This is especially true for a high fantasy show that has its fair share of legends, fantastical beings, and magic. What is magic? Where do humans come from? Where did the elves go? Who was the demon king? Are there multiple gods? What countries are there? Who are the dwarves and where did they come from? None of these questions are answered because they do not add anything significant to the story, and I can respect that. Questions are only answered when there is a need to answer them. We are too used to stories which explain every facet of their world in great detail and then lose the meaning of their story in the sea of exposition. The only purpose they serve is to gratify our morbid curiosity. Thankfully, Sousou no Frieren is not guilty of that. There is a certain beauty in mystery that the show is capable of upholding until the very end.

Characters

Let's start with Frieren. The titular character of the show is probably the most complex and most explored character of the story. While on the outside she seems like a quirky young girl who is aloof, lazy, and has a weird fascination with magical tomes and has a "pretty close" relationship with mimics. She experienced great trauma at a young age which defined her character and actions later in life. We never got to know what the original was like since it never mattered to the story. This trauma has caused great resentment and a burning hatred inside Frieren which she harbors even to this present day. A burning hatred that burns slowly and patiently but intensely at times. But that's not what defines her character; it is merely a part of it. She can still be considered a child from an adult human's point of view. She spent a thousand years honing her skills without ever interacting with humans until she met Himmel, who ultimately freed her from the shell she had made around herself, closing off every outside influence. It was this meeting that set events into motion and changed her life forever. But given her past and long life, Frieren was not able to perceive the weight of this encounter and the people whom she met along the journey. She realized this only at the funeral of one of her companions, and this was the only point in the series where she was driven to the point of crying. She was not mourning her fellow companion, but she was mourning her own ineptitude to understand the value of her encounter after realizing how important it was and how big of an impact it had on her own life. From this point on, we can see a slow coming of age for Frieren, who - as the story progresses - starts to learn more about humans and their nature. Her childish, aloof nature is the source of many comical moments and reminds us that she is - in the end - not a human, but an elf, who is so vastly different from us that it is no surprise that she perceives things normal to us as weird and utterly incomprehensible. Frieren herself is a very kind person who cares very much about her companions, and as time passes, she learns how to express her feelings of compassion towards them. She sometimes acts as mentor, a mother figure, an older sister, and ultimately a mischievous little sister who is nothing but trouble.

The person who had the most impact on her life was Himmel the hero. He was the one who organized the party of a drunken priest, a dwarf, and an elf mage girl. He was naive and dangerously good-willed towards people. He had a lot of wisdom despite his young age but had a childlike curiosity to complement his personality. He harbored feelings towards Frieren, who - because of her not understanding the feelings of romance - was completely oblivious to Himmel's feelings until his death.

The most 'controversial' member of the party was Heiter, who - despite being a priest - spent his life drinking and enjoying life to its fullest. Later as he got older, his personality changed to the point where it was visible to the oblivious Frieren, and at the last stage of his life, he took in an orphaned girl who later became the student of Frieren despite her objections.
Then there is Eisen the dwarf, who is surprisingly on par with Frieren in the misunderstanding of human emotions. It is surprisingly not due to him being a dwarf but rather a personal character trait. He is stoic, with all his feelings concealed behind his thick beard. He later takes on a student of his own, named Stark, who becomes the third member of Frieren's party.

Fern was the orphan girl whom Heiter took under his wings and then asked Frieren to train as a mage. Fern is by all means a normal teenage girl who deals with the hardships that come with growing up. She usually puts up a stoic face; her emotions are most of the time unreadable. Except for Frieren. Frieren keeps saying she doesn't understand Fern at all, but she can read her mood better than anyone due to the time they have spent together without even realizing it. She has a hard time with her teenage rebellious phase, but in the end, Frieren acts as Fern's guardian. In return, Fern knows Frieren the most, her quirks, her faults, her daily routines. Even though they have spent a relatively short time together during their travels, they care about each other a lot.

The third member of Frieren's new party is Stark, a young human who was originally Eisen's apprentice but left him due to a misunderstanding. He is also in his teens, thus dealing with the troubles of growing up. Aside from that, he is a well-mannered young man with good intentions. He is also a teen and faces the daily problems that come with his age. His combat skills are truly unique and outstanding; however, he himself still feels inferior to Eisen and has a complex about this. Despite this, he is able to take down a highly skilled demon all by himself. Stark joins Frieren's second party at a later time, and he is absent throughout the last arc of the show due to the nature of the plot; however, he is still an important member of Frieren's party.
The show features a lot of other characters as well, each having unique personalities that are easily recognizable and feel real in their own little roles they play.

What is unique to the world is that all characters have German names - Japan loves its German, even though most times they cannot pronounce the words - and each of these names is a very short description of the character's personality. And no, Fern is not a plant; in German, the word means 'far away'. The same goes for the town names too.

Music

Now on to the music. The fantasy setting with the overall medieval feel of the world warrants music that feels close to this setting. Evan Call composed the original soundtrack of the show, and he put much emphasis on the setting in a way that the music feels in tune with a fantasy world. Flute music is very prevalent in the soundtrack as well as other folk instruments. Usually, the music is slow and somber; however, the fight scenes have very lively music that complements the scenes' intensity very well. Aside from the folk elements, the show features a lot of motifs that are supposed to emulate Celtic music; this is very noticeable in the aforementioned fight scenes. The OST itself deserves praise in itself. Not gonna lie, I already listened to it multiple times.

Art

The visuals of the show are breathtaking. I was afraid that as the show progresses, lesser and lesser emphasis would be put on the visuals, but I was really surprised that the show was able to stay very consistent until the end. Most of the time, the show has very few motions, and it is important to highlight the surroundings since one of the messages of the show for us is to learn to be able to stop and enjoy our surroundings and the moment we are in. Majestic landscapes fitting of a high-fantasy world, cozy towns, bleak battlefields - all of them are highlighted but still feel real enough that they could exist in real life. The visuals don't fall into the trap of being too colorful or having too much contrast either, just enough to make your eyes scan the world.

A little thing that really appealed to me was that the anime was able to observe the passage of time in the show with the past recollections of Frieren. When she met Flamme, the world had aesthetics that resembled ancient Greece in architecture, clothing, and furniture. It provided a nice contrast to the medieval world that we were used to up until that time. One thing that was also part of the visual storytelling is how Frieren was able to integrate and move on with society changing, while Serie was stuck in that Greco world - in every sense - that we saw in Frieren's recollections.

Animation

The animation is simple at times where the show doesn't require any motion; however, the fight scenes are very intense, dynamic, and fluent and are short. These scenes really stand out since they break the flow of the show in a good way. I think you might see it as a negative, but personally, I feel that it adds to the realism and relatability of the fights. Sure, anime might be the medium where the participants fight for days without getting tired and injured, but it is nice to see something that stresses that real fights do not last long and usually end up with serious injuries and fatigue.

Conclusion

I will not delve into the message and symbolism of the show; I think it is best left to your own interpretation. I think it is best to watch the show and draw your own conclusions about what its message is to you. It is a rare occurrence since most shows lay out a clear message towards the viewer; few shows can achieve the same goal as Sousou no Frieren does.

One thing is certain: ever since the show started airing, it has swept up the anime community, gathering immense popularity. Whether you like it or not, this is a really big achievement in an age where isekai - and to a lesser extent - fantasy anime still reign supreme.

tl;dr

All I can say is that I wholeheartedly recommend the show for anyone. It might not catch your fancy with its slow pace, but it has good chances that it will. Give it a try; this is the kind of show that comes by once every decade.

Ga-Rei Zero caught my attention while browsing a forum. To be more accurate it was a character named Yomi. The motto of the show “Will you kill someone you love because of love?” seemed interesting and makes you wonder about the series.

The show starts basically with the ending. We don't get any introductions we just arrive in the middle of the action. The whole first episode is raced through the events, and it got a sudden and suprising end. At the beginning of the second episode the whole pace changes, and we return to the events that happened years before the first episode. After this ... the show basically turns into a slice of life show with few bits of drama and pretty much cominc relief elements.

We get see the main characters relationships to each other and their motives explained. There are some action scenes in-between, but they don't become important to the main story until the end. The last few episodesw pick the pace up again and show us the events that eventually led to episode one.

Now few words about the ending. After all this build-up, you wait for a a climatic, atcion-packed conclusion and you might think everything gets explained and resolved. Wrong. You get the action and you understand the motives of the main characters, but it is so rushed and meaningless, that barely feels like an ending. The anime was a prequel to the manga series, so it is a bit understandable, that not everything is wrapped up, but there are so many unexplained elements to the story, that I had to look after the answers to my questions at more places.

The last episodes introduces dramatic changes in the story that felt rushed and they came basically out of the blue. I think they are supposed to have a dramatic effect on the viewer, however they only raise more questions instead. While the ending is dramatic, the monologues of the side characters ruin the mood and while these scenes are supposed to show the inner thoughts of the main characters, while they are explained through the viewpoint of the supporting cast. This distances the viewer from the main characters.

The characters themselves are colorful we can see many types of people appearing in the first episode. Too bad, that the supporting cast takes too much focus from the main characters, Kagura and Yomi. This wouldn't be bad if they played important part in the events. Sadly in the end the majority of the supporting characters only serve as cannon fodder to the demons and don't even play any role to the development of the story, save for a few exceptions.

Yomi is the one character who bears the whole show on her shoulders. She sets events in motion, her character is pretty unique and she has the most focus throughout the story, while the other characters are static. Her development is the only worth mentioning altough her actions may seem inconsequent due to the poor storytelling. But if there is one character you might get attached to during the that is undoubtly Yomi. Kagura, the other main character of the show is young girl who joins Yomi in her job as an exorcist at a very young age. She has a naive and kind nature, and this remains so during the events. She faces many hardships despite her young age, but the sad thing is, it doesn't even change a bit of her personality. At the end of the show, the flash-forward shows, that her personality hasn't gone through any changes at all, rendering the previous events almost meaningless.

I personally feel, that the show could have been much better if the story would only be about Kagura and Yomi. While they get much screentime, too much of it goes by without any meaningful events, and this gives back the feeling of a slice-of-life show.

The animation and the action scenes are the major strong-points of the show. The fights are well animated, the motions are fluid, the scenery is also nice. The sound effects and the music is pretty mediocre, it is not really worth mentioning. The opening song is very catchy, it goes well with the action scenes of the show and the slow ending matches the mood of the story.

The pacing of the show totally ruins the mood of the anime. I only can recommend the series to people who like action shows and are prone to tear-jerkers. For those, who look for a more time, Ga-Rei is certainly not their choice.

The slice of life genre became quite popular recently, studios have been adapting more and more titles. It all began with the release of Azumanga Daioh and the genre is blooming ever since. A-channel also belongs to the ever increasing list of slice-of-life anime and the title is originally a 4-koma comic like K-on! or Lucky Star, which also have an adapted anime form. The anime was made by the relatively new Studio Gokumi, which is known for its other title Koe de Oshigoto.

The question about the show is: how is A-channel different from the slice-of-life shows listed above? The short answer is: there is ... no difference. A-channel follows the daily lives of 4 high school girls: Tooru, Run, Nagi and Yuuko. It's your standard high school setting with an almost all-female cast. Still A-channel turned out to be really enjoyable despite its flaws

Story:
Like in all similar anime, episodes can viewed independently from each other. There is no distinctive story that will develop throughout the episodes, there are rather stand-alone episodes which center on a certain event or setting. Since it was adapted from a 4-koma manga, it is a big question whether you can produce a continuous 20-25 minute long episode, or not. I think it did a great job with that. The episodes are nicely written; if some tension is built up during an episode it is usually resolved by the end of the show. A-channel moves with a really slow pace, so you might think it’s boring, if you're not used to the genre. I think the anime managed to put up a nice balance between the comedic and serious moments too.

Art:
The backgrounds are surprisingly well drawn in the anime. In fact there are very few occasions when someone seriously takes care of the backgrounds in a slice-of-life anime. The colors were vivid, they represented the mood of the scenes really good; overall it was a real eye-candy for me. The character designs are simple as they were in the manga, sometimes a little bit too simple for an anime adaptation. Most of the reactions and expressions were displayed through chibi faces, which they did a little too many times during the show. But the designs were appropriate.

Sound:
The background music wasn't anything remarkable, it was rather forgettable. The opening song 'Morning arch' on the other hand was very catchy and goes very well with the mood of the whole show. The songs at the end sung by the actresses were a nice addition and the lyrics also passed to the episode's story and mood, but they didn't make a great impression despite this. The ending song wasn't anything special either. The studio did a good job at selecting the voice actors for the show particularly with Yuuki Aoi, who almost single-handedly carried the whole show on her back. Kotubuki Minako and Fukuhara Minako already had some experience with the genre before and they did a good job with their characters too. The deep-voiced Uchiyama Yumi is a relatively new to the anime world, but her characteristic voice made Nagi unique.

Characters:
While the voice actors did a good job, their characters were just re-hashes from earlier anime. We can easily spot Azumanga Daioh's Yomi in Nagi, Lucky Star's Tsukasa in Run (I think it was intentional that they even share the voice actor), K-on!'s Mio in Yuuko's character (the producers managed to enroll Kotobuki Minako who had a role in K-on! as Mugi-chan, so I think she knew Mio's character pretty well enough, to play her counterpart in A-channel) and Mitsudomoe's Hitoha in Tooru (she can be also considered as a copy of Noel from Sora no Woto, since both characters have the same actress). While the characters are only copies from previous shows, their interactions and the story makes up for them, they really get along well together. Most of the stories somehow center on Tooru and events can be seen mostly from her point of view. We can also have some insights on other characters as well, but the only character, whose personality gets thoroughly analyzed is Tooru.

Summary:
A-channel is typical case, where a show offers the exact same thing we expect from it, nothing more, nothing less. Anime industry seriously needs more anime like this, where you get what you expect and the show manages to live up to the expectations of the viewers. A-channel is not the best slice-of life anime ever made, but is nicely done, and the studio managed to put up a heart-warming show from mediocre source material. It is the anime that you watch after a stressful day, when you finally get to sit down to relax. I can only recommend this show to those who like slower pace slice of life anime.

What do you do, when you suddenly see a ghost of a person that you were close to? Most people would think it's just their imagination or the effect of stress. But what if your mind doesn't play tricks on you and you really encounter a ghost from the past? AnoHana plays with this idea. The story starts out on a usual day for the shut-in Jinta, who suddenly sees the ghost of his childhood friend Menma. Menma tells Jinta she has a wish that she wants to be granted by him. And from here on, Jinta's unusual summer starts.

Story:
The story itself centers around the ... six members of the Super Peace Busters, which was seemingly disbanded after the death of one their members. At first you'd expect that the story revolves around Menma and her wish but the truth is, the story tries to center around the members' lives and the way they were affected by the death of their friend and the show does a sloppy job with that. Of course true friends wouldn't leave each other in times of need. So why were the Super Peace Busters disbanded? Obviously there are more reasons behind that than the death of their friend.
I personally thought that story would be a coming-of-age story, where the characters deal with the problems of becoming adults and finally dealing with the death of their beloved friend. And boy was I wrong. Instead, the show turned out to be a love story pretty soon and the romance became the major driving force of the entire show. The mystery behind Menma's wish didn't unfold until the last episode and tension has been lifted so suddenly, at first I didn't know how it happened. The story itself moved forward pretty slowly, until the last 3 episodes, where the pace suddenly changed and everything was wrapped rather quickly up in one final episode. Not to mention many questions were left open and many were left unexplained.
The first 4 or 5 episodes were very promising, but after them, the plot went down the drain pretty soon and was dragged out for too long. I think the story could have been told in roughly 6 episodes, and then we could have been spared of all those unnecessary scenes that were dealing with the love polygon between the characters. It's a pity that they wasted 11 episodes on a story that was worth roughly 6 episodes.
The reason why AnoHana became popular is the romance and the fact that you could ship many characters together. Most of the characters rethink their relations to the others and since the cast is half male half female, it is inevitable that some of them play with the thought of starting a relationship with someone other from the Super Peace busters.
The plot wasn't really planned out from the start and it seemed the writer didn't know what to do with the 11 episodes he or she got, the pacing of the story made this obvious. This problem affects most of the original anime shows and AnoHana wasn't an exception either.

Art:
One of the major strong-points of the show. The animation is consistent, the backgrounds are well drawn. This is no wonder, since the anime was originally meant to attract tourists to Chichibu city and I think that AnoHana managed to capture the beauty of the region pretty well and reached its goal with this.

Sound:
The background music fits in the show perfectly, it was very well done. The opening and ending songs are very catchy and perhaps they are the best of the season.

Characters:
There are 6 main characters in the story. The creators could have used 6 episodes to explore their backgrounds and the nature of their problems, but the show wasn't able to do this either. I would have really liked if we could have gotten more info about Chiriko and Poppo too, since they were as important as the other four. The characters aren't any special and there is little to no character development throughout the story. Not to mention everyone is emotionally so unstable, that they can break into crying every now and then. This became very annoying especially in the last two episodes. The conflicts between them feel over-exaggerated most of the time and everyone runs in circles until the very last episode. But the execution of the last episode was so terrible, I can even tell the exact moment when all the problems are suddenly solved. The character interactions are melodramatic and take everything to the extreme. As I was telling earlier I was expecting a coming-of-age show, so I thought maybe the characters were going to discuss their problems and try to find a solution to them, but all the cast was doing was crying and complaining about their issues throughout the story and they didn't even care about the things the others were saying. Without analyzing characters I must say, that they weren't original, the show just managed to re-use some common and popular character archetypes. They are rather easy to forget.

Overall:
This show makes a perfect job on summoning emotions from the viewers and fills the holes of the plot with the tears of the viewer. It started out as a promising drama but failed to live up to its high expectations. But this might be a good start if you're unfamiliar to dramas, because AnoHana heavily relies on the sympathy that you feel towards the characters and takes you on an emotional rollercoaster and sucks you in to the story easily. If you had experiences with dramas before, I suggest you skip the show, because it’s forgettable and has many flaws that might disturb you and the rushed ending basically ruins the tension that has been building up since the beginning. Overall I say that AnoHana is a mediocre show, that had potential, but failed to exploit it, but despite this it became very popular. If you like shipping in general and crying over love stories, AnoHana is the anime for you.