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.
