Frieten is a masterpiece. The way it takes its time slowly building up two separate sets of characters by juxtaposing them against each other and relying on universally resonant and identifiable, human themes makes its storytelling hit so much harder than you'd expect. On the face of it, and if broken down into its constituent elements, it feels almost run of the mill in its makeup. Then you watch it (or read it! The manga is great too), and it just hits so different.
You add a gorgeous art style, beautiful music, great voice work (in Japanese AND English, this is the rare anime where both voice tracks are amazing), along with incredible animation and production values, and you get something that is truly remarkable, and much, much, much more than the sum of its parts.
Top tier masterpiece.
