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Underwhelming. The fantasy setting is about as generic as it gets, nothing about it feels fresh or interesting, and as an emotional journey story it feels like reading a YA book and being delivered conclusions that aren't particularly complex or nuanced to you, as an adult. Which, I get this is a shounen series aimed at teenagers and I'm not exactly the target audience, but that being said, I feel like Adventure Time deals with complex emotional issues better than Frieren does and that show is aimed at children. So Frieren doesn't get a total pass on that.

I gave it a 5 out of ten ... because by fantasy anime standards it's perfectly average, not particularly bad or anything (and the quality of the animation is good, no complaints there - Madhouse did it and it looks great), but like... when you leave that realm it really doesn't hold up. This show seems like it's trying to tell a different perspective to classic trope-y fantasy anime like Lodoss, which could excuse the generic fantasy setting (assuming it's doing that to hearken back to specific fantasy anime tropes) if it felt like what Frieren had to say had any real depth or complexity, had anything new to bring to the "immortal" trope, or had interesting things to say about the tropes of the fantasy genre. It's not saying anything other fantasy manga authors and fantasy works outside of the manga/anime realm haven't already said. Now that would be fine if the writing of Freiren were stronger - you don't need to be re-inventing the wheel - a compelling, well-written story can stand on its own regardless if the message has been said before. Manga-wise To You My Immortal feels like it tells a much more emotionally compelling story about the struggles of immortality than this show does (that manga has its own flaws don't get me wrong, but I don't think its depiction of the struggles of immortality is one of them - imo it also does a much better job of getting you to relate to and feel emotionally invested in its main character. Obviously these two stories have plenty of narrative differences but I feel like the depiction of immortality comparison is valid).

There was no point in this story where I was moved emotionally - the characters are cookie-cutter and their emotional conflicts are handled in a basic "wikihow therapy" way. This entire show (at least the 12 episodes I watched, but even if it turns around for the better later on that doesn't excuse 12 mediocre episodes) feels very "safe" in the emotional places it's willing to go to, which combined with the uninteresting setting made it pretty boring to follow along with. And then of course the character designs are also very generic and forgettable. Idk, it all feels like the most milquetoast, mass-marketable way to tell this story. I have no problem with "slower" more thoughtful anime if either the visual artistry on display is compelling (angel's egg), the setting itself is very interesting (serial experiments lain) or the story trusts the intelligence of their audience and therefore creates more nuanced, messy, realistic character interactions (house of five leaves). Obviously this is all my own opinion (as with any critical review anyone has for any piece of media), but in my experience this was unfortunately as underwhelming a show as its half-assed cliche character designs made it seem like it would be.

TLDR: I think if you lower your expectations significantly (this anime has been seriously overhyped) or are just used to YA/light novel levels of quality (not to say that every YA/light novel lacks narrative complexity and/or emotional depth, just that they often do by the nature of their target market combined with a push towards what is expected to sell the easiest), you'll enjoy the show fine. But if you want something with more depth, nuance, and a little less hand-holding then pass on this. The show didn't improve on me at any point after episode 1 so if you watch episode 1 you'll probably know if this is for you or not.