Review of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

A Viral Phenomenon: (noun) when a piece of media is viewed and shared by millions of users online, in a short timespan. When Frieren first started streaming, I suspected its near instantaneous popularity and the memes were just part of some Viral phenomenon… And after watching, and suffering through its dull, dry exposition and lethargic pacing, its dreadfully boring dialogue and disjointed, directionless storytelling through an excruciating 28 episodes- I can now say my original suspicions have been confirmed with absolute certainty. Watching Frieren the whole way through has been one of the most disappointing, the most baffling, most frustrating viewing experiences of my entirelife.

It doesn’t even have any redeeming qualities that I could try and point out as a counterbalance to everything that’s wrong with the show- it’s just a painfully dull, boring, unoriginal -and I mean completely derivative- pile of cliches that any viewer of anime, or fantasy, or even Hollywood movies- has seen in any random title hundreds of times before- even Rings of Power does the same character archetypes better than this and at least has visuals far outpacing this show a million times over. This isn’t even good to LOOK AT with the sound off- it looks the exact same as every other generic D&D Fantasy that’s been done in anime since the beginning of time and does absolutely NOTHING different, or better.
Tell me how many archetypes: The Dwarf Warrior. The Healer. The Mage. The Priest. A Demon King. Dragons. Magic. Grimoires.
They aren’t even unique takes on any of these- apart from the slightly puffy round faces like Frieren herself has- and she isn’t even cute or pretty or intriguing to look at in any way- there’s nothing I can say about her character design other than that it’s as frumpy and unimaginative as the show she’s in. The dwarf is by far the worst- looking like a paper cutout most of the time.
But watching this thing- my God- it’s like watching grass grow. Really boring grass. A typical episode has our Heroes slowly walking on paths through the greenery, on their way to nowhere in particular, calmly talking in monotone voices. Not talking about anything interesting, it’s usually Fern just asking Frieren, why does she like this kind of magic? Or why doesn’t she like to eat peanuts or why does everyone in this town walk funny or something… none of the dialogue is captivating. None of it is interesting, informative, stimulating, or necessary. But they talk CONSTANTLY. Entire episodes are literally just that- these characters, slowly walking, and talking endlessly about some relationship or other with a person in her past.

Flashbacks are a well-worn trope that anime loves to use and abuse- and they are most notorious in the Shonen genre- where they can be thrown at the viewer in the middle of an exciting fight- either the protagonist or antagonist is remembering some inspirational thing said to them, or some awful letdown- before scoring a winning blow on the enemy….
But here- flashbacks are literally the entire story.
Look, here’s the problem: A flashback is often used to show a dramatic memory in a character’s past that motivates them (or relates their fear) to make the next move in the plot. When they’re done really well- they actually show scenes that we’ve already experienced a previous episode- in a way to give those words (or that insult) extra meaning by reinforcing it. When used well, and sparingly- flashbacks can really add emotional weight to the story.
But when the story itself never actually began- when you just introduce us to a handful of characters, proclaim that they’ve already won the honors (defeated the Demon King we never saw) and are just standing around talking- YOU CAN’T JUST FLASH BACK TO MORE STANDING AROUND AND TALKING. It doesn’t work!!! It builds no dramatic tension. It just feels tedious.

Like so many new anime these days, this show is in one specific way exactly the same as all those generic isekai’s: it does no setup of its world, and does not introduce the protagonist of the story at the start of their struggle- it just skips over everything.
It doesn’t show us an interesting world, or a battle, or the ruins of a town or city at the end of one. It shows a bunch of archetype characters, skips giving any background, and then just fast forwards into the future- and tries to use flashbacks to relate bits and pieces of the story it never told in the first place. Something is missing- you say to yourself if you’re paying any attention at all- as you watch this show- and the same thing is missing in EVERY EPISODE. Why don’t I care about these characters? Who are they? Why are they? Where’s the moment one of them saved the other’s life? Where’s the pivotal moment???
There isn’t one. It’s post modern is what it is- it’s “deconstructed” storytelling and decided to try just isolate the individual components and show them to you backwards, without proper context- so that the viewing experience is very dry and without meaning. Meaning is something that comes out of CONFLICT and STRUGGLE, followed by understanding. This show decides those three things can be isolated components which it can then just deliver to you individually in reverse- and no, it can’t.

Sosou No Frieren is a masterful failure at storytelling like nothing I have ever seen. And the reason I’m so angry and so frustrated with it is beyond how bad it is. In truth, this show is really not bad on the level of something poorly made (it isn’t), the most frustrating thing about it is the absolutely undeserved praise it has from millions of people who can not POSSIBLY have watched the same show I have! The avalanche of praise this gets, from people who would call a nearly identical anime boring if it had a different title- is maddening.

When the next viral phenomenon shows up- and it will- Frieren will be forgotten in a FLASH. No, nobody 25 years from now (or even 5) will be amazed by this, or feel like it’s essential viewing. It will be forgotten- because it’s too long and it’s not very entertaining. The world and the concept has been done a thousand times before, the characters aren’t very pretty or very interesting, the dialogue is dull, the music is flat, the action is sparse, and the magic system is inconsistent and poorly defined. There is nothing- not character design, nor soundtrack, nor fighting, nor artwork, nor dialogue that I could say was memorable.

The next time a viral sensation like this spreads, the next time an anime shoots to #1 on MAL in just a few weeks- I am trusting my instincts and skipping it. You can have this show. And its boring premise and its dull dialogue- congratulations, it’s yours. I wasn’t impressed. Now I want the 13 HOURS of my life back that I wasted on it!!!