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It seemed like I was watching a show for 5-year-olds, because there were so many unbelievable things. A suspension bridge romance between two enemies who met for like 2 hours. A crybaby who prioritized sending a letter to his GF instead of keeping his comrades safe during a mission. Treating a war as a game, getting caught by the enemy, sentenced to death and escaping a cell because a guard decided to come inside. Getting out of your mecha some kilometers above the ground and not being blown away, frozen or just suffocating.

The characters themselves are flat. An old guy who had a minute of ... screen time had more personality than the MC and most of his crew.

The only good thing was art.

The main girls are bastards. Jealous, pathetic, manipulating pieces of absolute schmuck who don't deserve to receive even an ounce of the MC's love. They don't want to resolve the ambiguity of their being relatives and strangers at the same time, so they form an alliance to deter other girls form the MC. All they do is put themselves into problematic situations, so that their prince shows up and saves them. That's how romance is cultivated in this show.

There's another girl, MC's senpai, who is miles better that they could ever hope to be, but guess what happens? She gets pawned off to another side ... character in a single episode. Zero foreshadowing, bar one weird sentence just prior. And the bastards congratulate them on becoming a pair!

I hate them so much.

On another note, the music, art and pacing are quite nice. The script is bad - the same phrases that amount to nothing are said over and over.

Honestly, I wish those twins weren't in this show at all. I'd rather it was about the MC, his senpai and his guy friend, and their possible love triangle.

The first episode felt like obscene American romcoms, where all the characters talk about is sex. OK, sure, unusual and very different from the trademarked innocence and purity that anime often has. But at what cost? It's just non-stop cringe now. The characters (MC especially) think about sex all the episode, get flustered and return to having lewd thoughts. There's nothing "progressive" or "brave" about this topic, and whether it's realistic or not doesn't matter if it's painful to watch. Oh, and they have two unrelated verbal bullying scenes for two of the main cast. So much for straying from clichés.

The show's unbearable, but not ... because it explores some non-vanilla topics. The dialogues, monologues, scenes - everything is so cringe it makes you stop the playback every couple minutes. It doesn't "explore teenage girls' psyches" or whatever pretentious crap one could come up with. I like coquettish and lustful girls, but there's always a time and place for everything and especially the way you describe things. Naming gal's love juices "Pork Ramen" and then inserting it throughout the whole episode as a gag just isn't it.

If you like this author's (Seo Kouji) previous works, you'll probably like this as well. Keep in mind though, there's far less drama and romance than before.

If you are like me, in the dislike/hate domain, then skip. Simple as that. Even if the first half seems interesting, it will go downhill like it always had.

When I first began reading it, it felt like some sort of satire, in a good way. There are major references to his previous books (including spoilers), and since the theme is about manga authors and editors, it sometimes felt like he was venting a bit through his characters, which was ... fun. The new characters are interesting, and the potential love triangle was promising to be entertaining, so everything was going pretty well...

...but then it nosedived. The final good moment was when the MC got a girlfriend, about halfway through. Here's what I didn't like:

1. The MC is just lucky. Everyone's going on about how he's got some special talent of an editor, but in reality he simply gets assigned to work with very talented authors, while all he does is shout "That's interesting!" or "No, it should be that way!" during their overview sessions. Sure, all his 5 authors experience different problems, while he's helping his partners overcome them. But his "talent" is never shown, so he ultimately maintains the image of an unskilled but lucky cliché-spewing good guy.

2. The characters are come-and-go. Some look like they've been forgotten by the author himself, as if he wasn't sure in which direction to take the story, so he introduced new characters and then abandoned them. In the first chapters there's a female acquaintance of MC's, and she shows up maybe 2-3 times during the whole 13 volumes. She has affection for the MC, but it's never expanded upon. The other guy is a talented new editor, with whom the MC is competing in the beginning. He later disappears for like 10 volumes. There are other "forgotten" characters, but their roles demanded so, e.g. MC's childhood friend, who helped his romance progress.

What I can't forgive though, is that the main characters are treated the same. The moment their distress ends, they are shoved away so that a new one could take their place. This leads to shallow characters, which mars the romantic aspect especially, since they are thrown out before their feelings can be properly shown.

There was a certain manga called "Blue Hearts" from the ReLife's author. That's how the episodic struggles should be done. None of the characters felt abandoned neither by the author nor the MC, even after their problems got resolved. Everyone was connected on a deeper level, and not through a get-together dinner every couple of volumes.

3. The romance is bad, particularly after MC gets a girlfriend. There's no proper rivalry, and he is either oblivious or indifferent towards the girls' feelings. There's also a rule that says the editor shouldn't be in a romantic relationship with their author, since it will create bias, which will destroy them or their work in the end. And how does the main couple get out of this predicament? Quite easily - they just keep it a secret and he continues to be an "excellent" editor. Great writing. There's also almost no romance after he gets a partner, only a couple of out of touch "comedic" transitions to them having sex, so that the reader still remembers they're a couple. There's no drama about this manga's romance, and it's not interesting in the slightest. Some characters' feelings towards the MC never get fleshed out and are forgotten by the author and the characters themselves (how convenient).

4. The ending is abrupt and doesn't contribute to anything. It's like "Our work isn't done! We will strive for further heights!" and such. It's all MC's fault by the way. His ambitions got to his head.

Oh, and, do you also hate how heroines with unreciprocated love get random boyfriends so that "everyone's happy"? Well, you're not in luck, since it's here as well! And the best thing? One of the heroines talks about how she doesn't want to get a random boyfriend in the last chapter and still gets one! Thanks as always, Mr. Seo! Peak romance! Peak writing! Acta est fabula, plaudite!

A waste of time. Every time I read the author's works, I hope that they are better than the previous ones, and I always get disappointed. Will I read "Megami no Cafe Terrace"? Yep, I'll probably burn myself for the umpteenth time, but I still continue to hope that one day Seo Kouji will produce something truly great.

Nothing ever gets explained or delved on (including the ending), and everything happens "just because". Characters are shallow or annoying. The music side doesn't really intertwine with any other aspect of the show. Like, the monsters get attracted to music. Okay, then why the only things that can kill them do that with magic shotguns, swords, etc.? The OST is also pretty unremarkable for a music-themed anime. The romance could've been better, even considering that this is not a romance anime.

They also somehow managed to make a filler in a 12 episode series. The show wasted too much of it's own time.

Not a bad series, but doesn't hold a candle to the 1st one. It's mostly a mix of calm and dramatic scenes without epic fights or battles. Unfortunately, there was a lot of internal dialogue which kept going over the same things all the time. For Thorfinn it was about how killing is bad, while for Canute it was about how he's becoming more like his father. These daydreamings and nightmares took away the time from more interesting things.

The other thing I didn't like is the middle arc. It's dramatic, but the story unfolds in such a way that makes your unable to sympathize with ... a certain character. So, instead of "Man, I feel bad for [the character]", it's "Man, [the character] got what they deserved. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes". And only after most of the arc's events have happened, they show why [the character] did the things that way. And since you don't really care about [the character] most of the time, you become a bit annoyed at how all the things revolve around them.

Overall, much worse than the first season, but okay by itself. It has both great and bad moments. OPs and EDs are good too.

First three episodes. The felt truly magical, especially compared to what the industry has been putting out lately. The OST, animation, and style are wonderful, and they complement the solemn beginning of the story very well.

Next two episodes. The first impression magic slowly wanes, and you get accustomed to the quality of the show's technical sides. Now you redirect your attention to the main characters and the story. Well, the former are flat, and the latter is kinda too much reminiscing and aimless wandering. But it's just started, surely it will get better. It's probably just a precursor to something grander.

Episodes 6 and 7. The ... characters are still shallow and begin to get on your nerves. The story is still in its early stages - they've just picked up their latest party member - something interesting will happen lately, it must. You also begin to notice that the humor just doesn't work most of the time, because the characters' personalities and reactions do not allow it to. Oh, and they also meet the first real villains, wonder how that will unfold.

Episodes 8 and 9. The girls effortlessly defeat their opponents, the boy struggles a bit but pulls through, because he has a very timely understanding that HIS SIDES ARE ABLE TO WITHSTAND A FULL SWING GIANT AXE ATTACK DESPITE NOT BEING APT IN MAGIC. AND THE PURPLE-HAIRED GIRL WINS AGAINST A MAJOR DEMON BECAUSE SHE'S CASTING FASTER. And he's like "Oh, I excel in every single way, but she pew-pews fast so I'll die I guess bye". WHAT THE FUCK? HOW IS THAT PROPER WRITING?

I dropped after this, it's just unreal. I hate the party, I simply loathe it. This show tries not to adhere to any overused tropes and do things differently but everything just falls to pieces.

There's no philosophy, unlike bite-sized pieces you would get from each of Kino's adventures. Frieren is a walking regret: "Blue-haired hero this, blue-haired hero that, I wish I knew him better". The other girl is even more emotionless, that the elf. The boy is just a comedic relief for those girls half the time. I understand that they all have inner problems, and it would take time for them to surface, and that somewhere in there lies the philosophy everyone's talking about, but goddamn it's boring. By the time they get to fixing the characters, you'll hate them too much to even bother.

I've seen some comparison's to Kino, so I'll add one more thing. What made Kino special was the fact that she wasn't in the spotlight, despite being the protagonist. She did influence some cities, but ultimately she was an observer, so her own character wasn't fleshed out that much (watched too long ago to be 100% sure but I think I'm right). I can only suppose that Frieren follows the same pattern of going to different places, but everything remained the same during my 9 episodes - go to village/town, one-two-shot monster, go to the next settlement, rinse/repeat. And the spotlight mainly shone on the boring party.

There's also no action, since the party's overpowered. I get that Frieren lived for more that a thousand years, she has to be OP in some sense, but the other girl has no business doing what she did to that demon completely poker-faced, despite having her shoulder pierced. There were like 30 seconds of good fight between the boy and the demon girl (I'm sorry, I can't even be bothered to remember their names), but the abrupt ending marred it.

There's no comedy, as double straight man act doesn't work. The entry of the ginger guy didn't change anything, since the straights' ripostes are too weak. The humor is too dry to be called such.

There's no drama, cause it's all about people that had already passed, some of them offscreen.

There's just... nothing.

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

This manga is kind of a metafiction, a bad one, however. The plot is absurd just for the sake of it, with the weightless and poorly thought out twists being the worst. Art is nothing to write home about. I'd even say it's lazy, given how like 10 panels in a row have the same background, with only bubble text changing. I mean, yeah, artistic decision and whatnot, except the conversations are also dull. It's either pretend humor or make-believe philosophy. Characters are bland, no progression whatsoever. No real comedy or drama. No romance either.

All it has is uniqueness. Read if you are new to ... manga or easily impressed. Hard skip otherwise.

Highly overrated. I'm not much of a one-shot lover, but I've still read short works much better than this in all aspects.