Review of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Frieren is a perfectly fine fantasy adventure anime that doesn't try to change the formula at all, which is part of why it has been able to become so renowned. The OST is fine, it makes complete sense for this anime to have an OP sung by Yoasobi. Visually its good, the animation was one of its strong points, with combat and action sequences done well. The art direction is good, with well painted backgrounds and scenery. The character designs aren't anything too special which is fitting. The plot was generic, with nothing really happening. This would be able to be ignored if the anime actuallyexplored the themes that it hinted at early on. There was so much room to explore the characters maturing, learning to be human and growing but this is just ignored. Every flashback that plays just reinforces this, as most conflicts are just resolved by Frieren having already encountered them previously, and using the knowledge and skills that she already obtained.

The characters are also generic, not experiencing any growth and also not being unique. Both Fern and Frieren are emotionless which makes sense contextually however it makes for uninteresting interactions. Even after Stark is introduced nothing changes, and while he does actually undergo character growth, its all resolved in like one episode and then he just stagnates from there.

Ultimately it wasn't bad enough for me to drop and despite my rating of 6, I can fully understand why its ranked so highly. There is much more interesting anime in the genre that either try to parody/break away from the typical formula, or just do it honestly better.