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I watched this out of curiosity more than anything else, but I've gotta say I've found it to be much better than I thought it would be, despite its flaws. Here's my take on it:

STORY] (7.5/10)
The story starts off seemingly ok, but after the first episode it starts to show all its potential: it's the story of a woman struggling in a feudal society where everybody has more power than her, forcing her to play all her cards correctly in order to make the best out of the (not so good) situation. The show tries to recreate a credible court environment set in ancient china ... (although explicitly not historically accurate), and does a discrete job at it, or at least good enough to keep me interested.
The real problem is that the title is somewhat inconsistent in terms of "aura", or feel, if you prefer. It tries to build up pathos around historically credible matters, like the envy and the schemes constantly going on between the emperor's favourite ladies, each trying to sabotage the other in order to prevail in his eyes, but then it breaks it providing unrealistic reasons for the story to be solved and/or too optimistic and idealized outcomes where everybody is happy. Moreover, the main character often refers to modern concepts of medicine and chemistry to explain things nobody else knows (even the court medic), making her feel like she comes from the future and is sharing some yet undiscovered knowledge, more than someone from her day and age. In the anime this is justified with her master being exceptionally good and educated abroad, and with her being really curious about stuff from a very young age, but it just doesnt hold up since she's a half-orphan peasant, daughter to a recluded prostitute and an absent father.
Then, at some point out she goes from being a pharmacist to a sherlock holmes, starting to solve everybody's problems cause she just can and everybody lets her, while at the same time nobody ever resents her for more than 10 minutes, or tries to remind her of her place.

CONCLUSION: it would've been a 10/10, but it's too filled with classic anime elements (random cuteness/chibi, unreasonable and over-the-top excitement over random shit, pudic yet explicit romantic relationships, everybody ignoring obvious historical mentalities like misogyny/social class discrimination/...) and naïve storylines that completely ruin the immersion, forcing the viewer to constantly question whether or not what's happening is credible, often resulting in a "not really, but it's ok".


[CHARACTERS] (7/10)
All of the main characters have been given an actually well explored personality, with much more elasticity and depth than the average anime, of which of course I can only be happy. You've also got to love the fact that this is almost an all-female story without it being too centered around sexualisation and random boob moments: the MC and most main female characters are respectable for their merits, and not only for their looks, although that part is obviously remarked a lot as well. It's still an anime. And this is exactly the problem, all characters are too anime for the realistic vibe they were trying to go for: the good looking guy is both authoritative and simping like a fucking reverse harem dog, the MC is independent, smart and sensitive but we're never shown her ever truly struggling with something, she can figure out complex murders and subtle hints but cant figure out when people are blatantly hitting on her, she's always in control of her emotions despite her having a hard background or literally being beaten half to death by a guard, and so on. The show just keeps building up this expectation of excellence and then crushes it with random mass-pleasing elements that nullify all the previous efforts.

CONCLUSION: Could've been another 10/10, but it's just not.


[SOUND] (7/10)
In-story music is ok, and even though I'm not an OP maniac, I somewhat appreciated this one.

CONCLUSION: An unremarkable good work


[ENJOYMENT] (8/10)
Despite it all, the product was still enjoyable and had more good things going on for it than bad ones, making the overall enjoyment better than its critical analysis. The story and the characters are somewhat relatable, and the plots, while a bit superficial and always with a good ending, are developed well enough for them to feel interesting and worth following: nothing is ever left hanging, and all the episodes connect together perfectly in one solid and well oiled line of events. I'd love to see the second season making up for these, after all, small mistakes that could be easily fixed by focusing more on the realism and less on the anime shit.

I've watched all the episodes that came out as of this review's date, so I hope it'll be as precise as the readers need, but I could update it in the future. Here we go!

[STORY] (7/10)
The story starts off rather conventionally, there's a hero, a party with mixed fantasy races, and a demon lord that needs to be defeated in order to save the world and bring an era of peace. The real twist is the point of view: not that of the hero, but that of a quasi-immortal elf mage (Frieren) who helped him defeat the demons, in her eyes, an adventure that lasted ... "measly 10 years" of her millenary life span. Most of the facts about that adventure are discovered as flashbacks during her current one, which is rather slow paced and ordinary (as most real adventures are), but often evocative of past interactions that helped her grow as an individual.
In fact, while humans are forced to grow due to the limited time at their disposal, elves feel no rush to mature in any way, and other than day-to-day survival they have little to worry about since they always have the option to procrastinate their decisions. This is why Frierel is intrigued by humans, despite her not understanding them fully, and the whole anime is basically about her growing up to be a wiser and empathic individual thanks to her friendship with the hero's party.
That's good and interesting for the first 8 to 10 episodes, but after a while it starts to get old, since the story structure repeats itself over and over in the same way and there's barely any progress made, both in her character development and in the story: Frieren is lazy, she decides to do something of secondary importance, a random narrative expedient conveniently makes everything fit together, everybody follows her cause she's cute and hopeless, random flashback that shows how the hero was gentle and had already understood everything about her, cute emotional ending. Repeat 5 or 6 times with different characters, and you get this anime.


CONCLUSION: It's a very good idea, but a bit poorly executed after a while

[CHARACTERS] (5/10)
Pretty much the same as the story section. The whole point of the anime was to shine a new light on an epic story, giving new meaning to the ordinary that resides in the extraordinary, so it would make sense that all the characters are rather "normal" in essence. The hero acts like a gentle hero, the depraved priest is a drunkard, the warrior is brave and masculine, and the elf is apathic and reflective. The real problem comes again with repetition: the hero is ONLY gentle, the priest is ONLY drunk, the warrior is ONLY indestructible. The priest and the warrior get some slight character development later on, which aims to show some flaws they have, and obviously the same goes for the elf too, but that comes to be repetitive as well after 10 episodes.
To be fair, Frieren's stability is the least worrysome, since the whole story is centered on her time being "infinite", and it would make sense that she changes at a slower pace than the humans around her, but even her new young companions (a young mage and warrior) are just a repetition machine: stark (shtark?) is pathetic but strong and good willed, Fern is cute but tsundere and lunatic, they fight over random shit that is not problematic at all, they make up, and back to square one . The good news is that I rarely found any of them to be super cringe, which is a big plus.

CONCLUSION: They completely failed at giving characters proper depth, other than the protagonist which is "fine", but at least in the beginning they're credible

[ART] (7/10)
The animations are good and modern, although not spectacular (not even close to a Jujutsu Kaisen), and the drawing style is ever so slightly recognizable. The scenery is a bit bland, nothing that isekai enjoyers haven't seen a million times already, and same goes for the aesthetics of all characters (both heroes and demons). The character design is also rather poor: there are a lot of lolis and other classic fantasy anime archetypes like the mature lady, the old mage, high-society well-mannered villains, and so on.

CONCLUSION: Doesn't strike as excellence, but isn't bad either

[SOUND] 6/10
I'm not really into OPs so can't judge on that one, the in-story music was barely noticeable, so a not-good not-bad middle ground.

CONCLUSION: At least it wasn't annoying I guess

[ENJOYMENT] 8/10
Even though the singular elements did not reach an 8/10 grade, as a whole the anime was rather enjoyable, although not constantly through its development. I really liked the idea of playing with time perception and the translation of the main story to the past; it's rather original (at least for me) and mentally intriguing, and it helped me immerse in the narrated world.
That brings ups another good point to the anime's favour, that sadly doesn't fall in any main cathegory, which is the detail and the credibility of the world the story takes place in. The magic system is complex and well-rounded, tasks take a realistic amount of time to get done, social status actually does influence characters' reactions in a credible way (both of protagonists and not), and overall there's little idealisation to the humans' and the world's nature. Not everything is set out to be good or to have a good ending, it's the power of the characters that brings those forth.
In conclusion, while it retains many aspects of a light work meant for a younger audience, the anime carries out a subtle, but deep reflection over the meaning of time, experience, memory, remorse, regret, mortality, and all the emotions that characterise the life of older people, making it an occasion for the viewer to reflect upon, walking side to side with Frierel as she's brought to do the same by her interaction with mortals. The slow-paced ambience of the anime, I think, has been carefully designed to support the viewer's meditation, which is always low-intensity in nature, and to set him up to a pervasive nostalgic optimism, which can't help but make him wonder. - "what about my adventure?"-

CONCLUSION: A weird middle way between a shounen and a seinen, but definitely a good work in essence. It's a shame that they couldn't keep up the initial pace, it could've been an easy 9/10, but I have to give it a 7. Hope the second season will be better!

[STORY] (9/10)
I feel like The girl who leapt through time isn't exactly a "story anime", although it shares its iconical traits. Good animation, highschool setting, lots of sunsets, identity troubles, romance... It's almost too standard, in some sense. But here's where lies a notch of originality. Time travel, which isn't exactly original per se, gets thrown in the mix and revolts the plot from the ground up. All of a sudden everything either goes extremly smoothly or tremendously wrong: for a short while Makoto is able to dodge even death, but it isn't long before the thread tangles up. Micro-stories begin but never finish, or ... they finish so many times it's like they never began, destinies are swapped and put back in their places so rapidly nobody can tell which end is the head and which is the tail. And it's not a coincidence the whole plot suffers from the same illness. Ever since we're explained how time travel came to be, it becomes unclear when the story actually started; was it with Makoto's death? Was it in the science room? Was it in the future? Or maybe... In the past? Towards the end, Makoto's aunt is revealed to have had similar experiences as her niece, way too many, such that one can't but wonder: "are they the same person? Is she past Makoto who traveled back through time and camouflaged as her own aunt?". But then you realize that's not possible, that Makoto never met herself during the on-screen travels, so her aunt must've loved another time traveler, as the photo on her shelf suggests. Finally the story ends, but only so to speak, cause all we're left with is an unlikely promise: what the future holds, we may never know.

On a surface level the story, although well told, looks quite average and a little approximative with its explanations, but at a closer look you can notice how it's really just a big knotty “what if”. "What if I'd known...?", how many times have you had that thought? Well, this anime brilliantly shows that such a question is meaningless, that even if you could know it wouldn’t make a difference. Even if you could time travel and know exactly what would happen, there would always be a bigger “what if” behind the corner, and that the more you turn it the bigger it gets. There’s only one possible answer: courage. Embrace the unknown of the present and whatever it holds, let it discover you, and only then you will find your true life path. After all, time waits for no one!

CONCLUSION: great low-intensity mind twister, but still a bit too stereothypical for a 10/10.

[CHARACTERS] (8/10)

Characters are the least original part of the movie in my opinion, being essentially a refined version of recurring highschool anime archetypes. The tomboy girl who’s clumsy and likes sports, the one friend who sticks with her ‘cause he loves her but she doesn’t realize, and the too mature and reliable guy who silently supports them. That being said, it’s true that dialogues never feel forced or cringy, they’re always coherent with the situation, and their personality is explored enough to make them credible and relatable. Since this is not as common a thing with animes, I’ll take what I can get.

CONCLUSION: Good enough for the genre, but still I’ve seen way better designs.


[ART] (8.5/10)

Although the settings and the overall atmosphere/drawings were nothing extremely original, the animation and direction of the scenes were totally on point. Time/screen swaps were always confusing enough that they would be credible, but also clear enough that you wouldn’t wanna throw your [insert preferred device] at the wall. Also, there was a subtle and graceful precision in the way characters’ depiction was swapped from detailed to just a few essential (and warped) lines, without ever hurting the on-screen flow.

CONCLUSION: Overall a pretty good product, although I feel like it could’ve achieved more

[SOUND] (8.5/10)

About the same goes for the sound department as well. I don’t really care about OPs, but I can say the sounds during the storyline were chosen (and discarded, when silence was needed) appropriately. The dry sound of the baseball hitting a glove, with nothing more going on, or the silence that hugged Makoto’s panting when she was terrified greatly helped my immersion.

CONCLUSION: Not spectacularly memorable, but a very good job

[ENJOYMENT] (9/10)

Overall, I really appreciated this title, mostly for the philosophical trickery hidden behind it, that kinda forced me to go back and forth between breaking and regaining immersion to see through the lines. Not the most surprising product ever, but still a pretty fun run.

I tried watching this anime 'cause I loved Mushishi, and a lot of people tend to compare them in terms of quality and content... But now, after I've forced myself through 5 seasons of this, I can boldly say that's the biggest stretch I've ever heard. Let me tell you why:

[STORY 1/10]
There isn't one, and I mean it technically. A story is composed of an initial situation, a complication, a development and a final solution, but Natsume's Book of friends never goes past the first element. Throughout the series Natsume (protagonist) found himself fighting numerous youkai, encountering exorcists of different mindsets, getting the chance to ... know more about the spiritual world and her own grandmother's past, but every time that happened it would invariably be nullified at the end of the episode. By the beginning of the following one he would've already forgotten about the exorcist circles he learned to draw and use, he wouldn't use his connections to learn about his supposedly huge power and prefered going back to punching monsters instead, miserably failing every time (even though his entire personality is "I'm kind and I want to protect others"). The "power of friendship" is the only thing he ever has going for him, meaning he stays just as weak and pathetic for the whole series, waiting for Sensei and the other youkai to save him. The only reason he's not dead is the godly power of the main character.
Also, after 5 seasons I still don't know why Natsume Reiko stole the names of the Youkai (S1 ep1), what's her relationship with Sensei (S1 ep1/2) and why he was sealed (S1 ep 1/2), which is funny cause it should be the foundation of the whole plot.

I could go on and on with examples, but you get the point: twists and developments are forcefully removed from the plot in order to keep everything exactly as it is in the beginning. Natsume is overly kind and helps everyone, Sensei is funny and tsundere, everybody else loves the MC cause he's been kind to them, and that's it.

CONCLUSION: Great if you're a child, you can't follow the complexity of the average story, or you need a laxative.

[EPISODES 2/10]
Since there's no general story, I've created an "EPISODES" section to be as fair as possible with my review, although I'm not sure it's for the best. Every episode is a short story in itself, and while at the beginning it was mildly captivating (5-6/10) it rapidly grew old, repeating the same structure (random initial situation / a youkai appears / he proves to be more human and kind than you'd think / he asks Natsume for a favor and he can't refuse cause he's too kind / random teasing from Sensei / everything is solved with the magical power of "I'm the MC, stfu" / happy ending), the same settings, the same story message (be kind!1!11!), the same scene direction.

CONCLUSION: Even taken episode by episode this anime is as original as my dad's forgetful storytelling.

[CHARACTERS 3/10]
I'm not rating lower only 'cause I'm considering "5" as average and "3" as "below average", but I would easily give it a 1/10. As for the story the anime offers plain characters, completely sterothypical, easily predictable, and tragically static. Everything they do and say is stricly determined by two factors: the "How-much-do-you-love-the-MC" factor and the "one-liner-personality" factor. Now Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V that throughout 6 seasons and voilà, masterpiece complete.

CONCLUSION: Pringle's ingredients are less forgettable.

[SOUND 5/10]
I barely ever noticed there was a soundtrack playing, so I'd give it a "not good nor bad" 5.

CONCLUSION: The answer is blowing in the wind

[ART 5/10]
Maybe it was good back in 2008, but at this review's date it's forgettable both in the artistic depiction and in the animation. Nothing particular about dialogues either.

CONCLUSION: Like watching that weird old T-shirt you used to wear.

[ENJOYMENT 1/10]
There's actually no point in watching this except wasting your time: there's no profound message to be learned, no story development, no artistic value... Nothing at all.

CONCLUSION: Great if you want to experience the insubstantiality of Being.


AVERAGE RATING: 2.7

[OVERALL OPINION:] This is an anime for people who like to watch something without having to think too much about what's going on. Is it well done? Not really. Is it good within its own limits? Sure, why not. Although it's almost as far away from my tastes as possible, the fact that I was able to rush through 5 seasons should be a good testimony of how easy and chill this anime is. So, to wrap things up: definetely not a masterpiece, but great to wither away in your bed after a day of work.