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This is an amazing series and a 7 is FAR below what it deserves. This is a story about guilt, tragedy, suffering, forgiveness, and family. It's a story that pangs with destructive moments and with a few changes would have been one of the most devastating stories I'd read in a while, but even without it the moments of darkness are shocking.

Often stories in a similar scenario are played out like a love story, or like a political thriller. This story plays like a real life story more than anything. The blend of both styles combined with realistic responses and events creates a whirlpool of ... emotions and thoughts as you find yourself asking questions and receiving answers at the same time, causing is disconcerting feeling along with the main character. When things seem happy, they are happy. When things seem insane, they are insane. There is a constant flow in the fantastic writing that causes the reader to match the feeling of the MC, and that is rare.

10/10 - when the MC's heart drops, so will yours.

Frieren is an often misunderstood story. People look at it and start to nitpick episodes or parts of the show - the first part is so emotional and I love it but then it goes downhill from there. The action is so good, wish there was more of it. The ending was less than I expected.

All of this discounts what the story is trying to actually show, and the fact that the actual scenes shown are part of the plot itself in a unique way.

Frieren is a story about moving on, growth, and living in the moment. At the start of the series, time advances ... rapidly scene to scene, and everything is a reminder of Frieren's past. We are shown constant flashbacks and huge time leaps sometimes months apart as if the day to day events in between mean nothing. As the series progresses these flashbacks decrease more and more until they are almost not even present in the final episodes, and on top of that the time gap between scenes becomes almost slice of life-esque - day to day moments are preserved, remembered, and shown on screen. We are constantly reminded by characters to cherish every moment we have, and we see Frieren slowly changing as the series goes on.

This subtle approach to story telling and integration into the actual scenes shown is an incredibly unique aspect of this show I haven't seen anywhere else, and really brings home how amazing this series is. I've never seen storyboarding integrated into a plot in such a way that it changes the experience once you look at it from the outside. This work is an experience everyone should learn from, even apart from the events inside being incredibly animated and interesting. It's a story about nothing and everything, just like life. We only remember the big events, but it's the day to day moments that sustain us and keep us whole. Live for today, so you don't have regrets in the future.