This review contains spoilers.
The utter lack of identity this show exhibits is absolutely bewildering and perhaps I was expecting this to improve within the second half, but I was wrong; there is a severe lack of any substance whatsoever in every single pore of this anime and it is completely forgettable. Sousou no Frieren played a safe formula and won the jackpot. They are still the exact same fucking person after 25 episodes, you can literally define each character with a single sentence. Something can be simple yet still be distinctive, yet Frieren is basic and it doesn't have any soul or substance; there is nothing to grasp in this anime that evokes even a semblance of interest. This show doesn't take into account just how complicated humanity can be especially in a fantasy world like this, all of the people Frieren meets throughout her path have one-dimensional motivations and are always up to help Frieren and her group, which is just absolutely ridiculous and unrealistic; except demons, who are big bad evil guys of course. Demons are such bland antagonists for which genocide is the only counter of course; the author really went out of their way to lazily write such boring characters, they are DND evil-personified royalty scumbags who trick other species and then BETRAY them! So fun and thought provoking.
This last arc a la Hunter Exam is completely unnecessary and only serves a purpose for the people who, understandably enough, were bored of the absolute slog this series is; why Frieren doesn't just go through the lock, considering she defeated the fucking Demon King with her group and is one of the, if not THE strongest, mage in the entire planet? She could just blast absolutely everyone that crossed her path like she had always done, there's absolutely no need to do this battle tournament bullshit if she just talked about it, or if any of her allies mentioned it, or if there was a minimal amount of valuable communication, which Frieren, as a whole and to be honest, completely lacks. Dialogue in Frieren is sloggy and useless, oftentimes it will feel like you're listening to two brick walls talking to each other; it lacks any insight or interest that might come with good and valuable communication.
If there isn't a strong-enough emotional basis in Frieren to grow sympathy and become a slow-burner, dramatic character development show, what is the identity of this anime? The combat isn't as frantic or notable so it cannot be a battle shounen either, Sousou no Frieren does not exhibit an interesting-enough fantasy world full of mysteries, so it cannot exactly be an exploration show about the value of a long journey; Frieren doesn't have witty dialogue or particularly great humour—beyond repeating the same gag a thousand times without any variation—so it can't be an effective comedy show. The romance between Frieren and Himmel is bland as fuck and I absolutely despise that he essentially works as an emotional prop or messiah and Frieren is essentially the damsel in distress that needs emotional points throughout this entire thing, so it doesn't work as romance either. So with this said: What is Sousou no Frieren's identity? What does this anime want?
I do not know, I really don't; this is one of the biggest problems with it: SnF doesn't know what it wants. It goes from being a WoW secondary mission simulator to a cheap copy of the Hunter Exam arc, meanwhile no valuable progress is done for the characters' identity. Funnily enough, the show who lacks uniqueness isn't able to develop an unique identity for their own character cast. Can ANY of these characters express any emotion beyond a boring emotionless face? Can ANY of them express any emotion on their dialogue? Or say anything that I can minimally care about? It tastes so much like air. This show is completely inoffensive and riskless, completely devoid of any identity and inherently soulless. It can't be an emotional journey where we watch Frieren learn, as Frieren's progress feels artificial when it is purely fed by flashbacks, cliché quotes and plot conveniences.
The last arc of this show suffers from a dragged on pace, they have to explain E V E R Y S I N G L E T H I N G—even irrelevant details—before actually doing it, they have to E X P L A I N C A R E F U L L Y irrelevant shit such as history of magic in the middle of an intense moment such as a battle; oftentimes in the form of a flashback, of course. We have to see these random ass dudes running for their lifes in the middle of an important scene where they are strategizing, why?? I literally do not care about them. I already know Frieren is smiling because this whole thing reminds her of the skirmishes she did with her group on a dungeon, you don't need to slap a flashback and completely break the scene, this exposition dump in the form of a memory is absolutely uncalled for. Exposition and the use of flashbacks can work in complex topics or when cleverly-used, but here it completely ruins the pace and feels out of place; let ME deduce why Frieren is smiling based on my experience on watching the show. This is a constant pattern that is repeated throughout all of Sousou no Frieren:
> Frieren sees an old person
> Boring ass dialogue ensues
> flashback!!! this actually relates in some way to her original party group!!!
> 2sad4me melodrama
> Frieren sees something, anything
> Boring ass dialogue ensues (that is constant within this show)
> She relates it back to her party
> Mr. Gary "Himmel" Stu tells her everything she needs to hear and everything that is perfect for that specific situation!! He is really wise and definitely isnt just an emotional Macguffin for Frieren to grow in cheap emotion points.
> Himmel dicksuckery shenanigans ensues. he's the worst character on the entire show by far btw
> A cross-eyed Frieren is lying on the ground, drooling and having an epileptic attack; her eyes haphazardly inspecting the sky
> "Is Frieren alright?" asked Sein, worried that his companion could've been going through a tough time
> "Yeah, she's on Himmel's flashback, she'll be back in a minute." assured Fern, she was already used to this.
Do you like comedy? I do, sometimes; comedy is subjective, thus it might be funny to some but holy shit I believe the author doesn't know anything beyond the same comedy-gag ad nauseam. There isn't anything witty, to deduce or interesting about this show's humour; it is "haha shes in the mimic again lulz" for ten-thousand times or Fern throwing a pouting tantrum and punching our shounen boi. I guess it gets slapped in for fanservice motives or to accelerate the pace of this absolute snail of an anime to acceptable amounts; same with the action, I feel like the author assimilated that this was absolutely horrific and decided to put some action in the last arc, which I honestly appreciate, I don't know if I could stand 12 more episodes about World of Warcraft secondary quests and nothingburger characters peppered with melodrama. I bet that if you write "Create boring-ass plain World of Warcraft secondary quest" in ChatGPT it would bring a plot point fit to Sousou no Frieren's standards. Perhaps if it were 12 episodes it'd be less obnoxious and bland, because watching these bland archetypes talk with nobodies constantly was drawn out to absurdity. It truly becomes a nothing-fiesta when every dialogue sounds like it was AI-generated.
There is no different way to approach each character, dialogue, action, expression; there's no nuance, nothing. Frieren meeting kid Himmel for the first time is so absurdly convenient its cheesy; of ALL the forests in the fucking world, in THIS specific moment, in THIS specific night AND day of the year was where Frieren met Himmel for the first time. The relationship between Frieren and Himmel annoys me to my core, it is a prophet and damsel in distress relationship where Frieren cannot realize anything without having it spoonfed by Himmel thru endless memories; guess what, there's many times in life where you have to do shit by yourself and there will not be anyone to tell you what you need to do; there will be inmense doubt, conflicts and sometimes suffering. Their connection is rotten to the core and consists on a flashbacks-based savior complex from Himmel, he MUST be the one who teaches Frieren emotion, he MUST be Frieren's love interest; it feels so wrong and forced, the rest of the group are just spectators of this degenerate link between a savior and a broken or lost one.
I still haven't talked enough shit about the character cast, which oftentimes turns into one-dimensional archetypes, devoid of any charisma and very lackluster identities, which is a huge problem in a show such as Frieren. Twenty-eight episodes yet Fern is still absolutely insufferable, Stark has no personality traits beyond being a shounen boy & Fern's love interest and boxing-bag, Sein appears to have been absolutely thanos'd from reality, Übel is your crazy bitch archetype—who is the only one that thankfully puts some spice in this slog—and Himmel... oh, fuck Himmel. I really cannot describe just how much I dislike him honestly; he's the core on my main disdain towards this show. He's a Gary Stu who's entire personality traits are being Frieren's would-be love interest and a hero. Yeah thats about it, he's a blue-haired Ken with no interesting traits whatsoever; the worst thing by far is his discount-ass motivational phrases which do nothing but artificially inflate Frieren's emotional points, oftentimes through flashbacks ad nauseam, something that feels cheap, frequently pace-breaking and bland; he's essentially an emotional deus ex machina, whenever you feel like Frieren is having a hard emotive situation Himmel will be there to spit some motivational stock phrases so Frieren has a huge epiphany and the show will be like "See? They were truly one for the other!" It feels so forced and disgusting when he plays this messiah superman-esque role.
Heiter is "haha le drunk guy XD" comedy relief in the heroes' group who occasionally pukes motivational slop a la Himmel. Eisen is strong dwarf who teaches shounen boy and theres not much more about him. Who in the fuck is Methode? Oh, that one girl in the exam; okay I don't care, who even cares? Who are all these people? Why are they so completely plain? Fern is still absolutely insufferable, a complete brat and a Frieren copy—and being cared for under Frieren's bosom isn't a good excuse—having both Frieren and Fern talk to each other is like clashing two rocks with each other. It is STILL the same shit after 25 episodes and hasnt changed a thing. The main trio is lazily conformed and their thoughts are vaguely explored; without a semblance of interesting dynamics or substantial thoughts. Relationships tend to be notoriously complex, depending on endless layers of emotions, interests and more; Sousou no Frieren simplifies this in a lazy way and the author only dares to make straightforward, boring interactions and links between characters.
Finding any interesting traits in these characters feels like trying to find a penny in the atlantic ocean. Frieren is an elf femcel who gets punched ad nauseam by emotional planitudes and nothingburger motivational phrases. Have you ever read these classic happy-go-lucky phrases like a la "Living is good! Keep living!"? That's what Himmel constantly slaps in your face in every scene he appears in. This show is oftentimes praised by its emotionality yet the characters are barely human, 90% of times the characters' expressions look like Moai statues without any emotionality whatsoever (with no offense to moai statues, they are pretty rad in comparison to this blandfest). Many excuse Fern's absolute nothingburger identity through being cared by Frieren's teachings; however, this is no excuse, I still fail to comprehend why shes completely devoid of any notable traits. You can be teached by someone your entire life and STILL derail from their ideas, morality, teachings, etcetera; hearing Frieren and Fern talk might as well be two Frierens talking to each other, just lame as fuck. There's also the vague and plain worldbuilding which doesn't get better:
> Welcome to village numba 1 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM
> Welcome to village numba 2 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM
> Welcome to village numba 3 Frieren-sama, thank you for staying; here's my sad story for you to hear. FLASHBACKS ENSUES BOOM
ad nauseam
> Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you.
> Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you.
> Thank you for hearing my sad story and helping me, I will help you.
ad nauseam
> Welcome to magic city. As you can see it is full of magic; betcha you didn't expect that. Is there anything beyond this? Nope, it's magic city, why in the fuck would you expect something more?
But I guess shounen fans just can't understand this immaculate piece of peak fiction and the symbolism behind Frieren's feet, they want skibidi brainrot lobotomykaisen fast paced spoonfed everything, they have a low attention span and can't stand HEAVY and SLOW shows like Frieren... nevermind the fact that I do enjoy slow-paced media and still found Sousou no Frieren to be a complete slog and a restaurant of nothing meals, despite what the Frieren fanbase might tell you, not everyone who dislikes Frieren are skibidi ipad kids. In a show like this character development is deemed to be a very important aspect yet there's virtually no advancements towards anything resembling development, and if it happens, it is completely irrelevant.
The arc a la Hunter Exam doesn't work when every battle is fought by pokerfaced nobodies with not even an inch of personality, they fail completely at even evoking a semblance of emotion in me when it just looks like they dont wanna be in this anime. Watching Frieren characters fight between each other looks like when you were going to do a class presentation in a topic you absolutely didn't care about; that's Frieren battles in a nutshell. How can I care if they don't seem to care? Where's the emotion in these expresionless androids? Where's the emotion in their ChatGPT dialogue and fights? Where's the emotion that is so praised about this anime? Wait, before delivering flashbacks, BOOM LAZER, MAGICAL BULLSHIT; now, let's haphazardly introduce the flashback.
After all they are supposed to be humans, of complicated thoughts and intricate morality yet they seem to lack anything of sorts, instead looking like a reptilian trying to replicate superficial philosophy, feeliings and humanity; it's tough when a show that's supposed to feel human and emotional instead feels like E.T trying to make a personal story. Frieren and Fern vs Frieren clone in the last arc is supposed to be a huge climax yet it feels like nothing, there are no stakes I already know they are going to wreck the shit out of it; especially if you slap a fucking flashback on me where it essentially praises humanity and their advancement towards dominating magic, soon to be equal or even surpass elves—of course, it refers to Fern—just like that stakes are completely gone. As a whole package, Sousou no Frieren might be the most ambitionless anime I've seen in a long time, only carried by the talents in Madhouse, who I applaud for improving this blandfest and jack of all trades turned into a devoid master of none.
