Review of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Before starting to watch "Sousou no Frieren", what caught my attention was the high mean ranking of this show and the many praises coming from a lot of people, praising its mature themes, profound message, and melancholic atmosphere. Knowing how the so-called anime community tends to strongly overexaggerate a lot of things, especially when a lot of anime enjoyers overhype or overhate a show, I decided to give it a try anyway, thinking it may actually be a good one this time. Now I can say that once again, it was unwise to believe the general anime audience. At least when the word "masterpiece" wasmentioned.

This review is free from spoilers. It is long and can be confusing at times, but I advise to read it till the end. By doing so, most of doubts should go away. I hope they will, anyway. ;)

Starting by listing the negative aspects of this series, I need to address the aforementioned themes. Basically, mature themes are almost non-existent, which is understandable, because this series' demographic is marked as shounen. But a profound message? Where? I can see the dedicated audience seeing it, as the whole main idea for this story is to make its core centered around the effects of time passing and the world changing over time. But adults? Are a lot of adult people watching this anime and heavily praising its "profound message" really that immature and emotionally oblivious to be shocked that people die, if not by a sickness or unfortunate event, then by old age, and that it's important to cherish the time spent with them? That's just life, basic element of life, in fact. Sure, the story starts with Frieren, a thousand years old elf, finding out that humans can get old and die (!!!), and that she needs to learn more about them... only to dip and leave her old friends behind and just do whatever stuff she has been doing all the time. Wow, truly a melancholic moment of all time, eh?

That being said, themes are not the only things offered by this show. What it offers is a generic fantasy adventure with a party consisting of powerful, naturally talented individuals. They travel to reach a distant point sometime that is placed somewhere and marks the end of their adventure. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not a fan of this kind of concepts, but I won't call the premise bad per se, because it's not. Does "Sousou no Frieren" succeed in being a show featuring such a main theme? Yes, but nothing more, nothing less. Adventure-heavy story with storytelling fitting the shounen demographics, to which "Sousou no Frieren" belongs. With a lot of generic, repetitive moments meant to be funny, but easily becoming funny after a while (feetservice, certain jokes). Speaking about repetitiveness, what is also repetitive is this show's flow, making most of episodes seem really similar to each other. I didn't like it myself, but I won't consider it as a technical con, because it is a matter of preference and many people may enjoy that kind of anime structure.

Some may say it's a character-driven series. It struggles to be one, but for anything that's character-driven, you need to have characters that are actually interesting with decent amount of complexity. Unfortunately, "Sousou no Frieren" lacks that kind of characters. They are just bland, especially the main character, Frieren. She's dull and hollow, being portrayed almost as if she was an elvish version of Mary Sue. Clumsy Mary Sue, who, despite being 1000 years old, has found out that humans actually die faster than elves. What about her friends? They are mediocre. As cliched as they may be, but not to the point of being visibly bad. Their dynamics are something I'd call fine, but not great by any means.

Tonal changes, switching way too often, make the first episodes really messy. More serious tone of eps. 1-4, more lighthearted ep. 5, then switch to "moe humor" with certain degree of lewdness intertwining more serious moments in ep. 6. I don't mind having storytelling variety. It's mostly welcome. In Frieren anime's case, however, it resembles more like a messy storytelling trying to fit as much stuff into the story as it is possible, without looking at the overall consistency, or even if cartain themes perhaps wouldn't be better to not be included in the show out of the blue. Direction is good in general, but so what, when so many elements meant to support it fail to be supportive and drag its quality down with them?

That's why, please, do not get fooled by various comments praising this show for the aforementioned elements. They are present, they have their role and at times that role is important, but they are not the dominant aspects of this show, or its essential elements. They are there as mere pieces forming the bigger picture, which is this series as a whole.

And what's so good about "Sousou no Frieren" that many people fell in love with it? If we exclude overexaggerated things listed above, or structural problems at the beginning of this series, we can actually find a lot of positive things. First of all, it's a very solid shounen. It mixes a lot of themes in a pleasant way, without overwhelming the viewers, and gradually exposing them to what is happening in the story. The pacing is also good, as it finds the balance between slower, more static scenes, and faster, more dynamic ones. Some people might point out that the show is slow. Well, it's not an action-centered shounen, that's for sure. However, it has more flashy, action-packed moments, filled to the brim with sakuga animation. They blend into the rest of the show in a great way, naturally intertwining slower scenes. They also appear at the right moments, in right time, and with the right intensity.

This show is heavily carried by its audiovisual side. Beautifully drawn backgrounds, really well animated, both slower and faster-paced scenes, fitting soundtrack... While it's not enough to make up for absolutely all the cons, it can't be denied that Madhouse did a wonderful job and succeeded in making a great looking animated series. Story and characters are only parts of an animated show. Its core, in most cases, always lies in the audiovisuals and their quality. In this aspect, "Sousou no Frieren" is a very good and polished show.
One more thing about character designs: arguably, one could say the character designs are a mixed bag. While I agree they are too moe at times, they are alright. Except for Frieren's ears being too big, even going by the elvish beauty standards in the anime, but that's just me.

I feel this anime is worth checking out, just to see with your own eyes and judge for yourself whether that kind of entertainment fits your preferences. As for me, I had fun. Most of episodes were really fun to watch in every aspect. Even so, it would be unfair to write a review and not mention things that, in my humble opinion, were not as good as the others. I think that the tonal change in the storytelling, happening after the sixth episode, may be a disappointing turn of events for one type of viewers, or something actually improving the show for the other. There are also anime enjoyers who just won't care about it, since tonal changes are one thing, and pretty much the same storytelling is another. I can't tell how you, dear reviewer, will feel about it. But the fact that something like this can be easily noticed made me start treating it as one of the crucial elements to focus on while writing this show's review.

I'd find it awkward to not go with "Mixed Feelings" option when talking about any anime that needs several episodes to finally find its way and continue to be like this till the end of the season. To be clear, it's not the case of a slow-burner anime. If it was, I wouldn't be complaining about it. It's more about seeing an animated series struggling for several episodes to find its own identity. And going back to what I was talking about in this paragraph before, I'd definitely feel bad if I said that "Sousou no Frieren" is perfect, because it wouldn't be true. That's why I elaborated on things I found as positive, as well as those I found the opposite. At times it might feel as if I wanted to be overly critical or positive, or I was just contradicting myself. Not at all, that wasn't the case and I hope that after making it to this moment of this review, you, dear reader, don't feel that way, nk matter what were your initial thoughts on my take presented in this review.

Thus, the final score I can give to "Sousou no Frieren" is 7/10. But don't get me wrong! Despite its flaws, it's still an extremely solid shounen series. Very good piece of anime that I would personally consider it to the list of shows that may be called as "gateway anime". Series perfect for people new to the medium, due how good they are and how they grasp the essence of what's special about anime that so many people like it.