Review of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Score: 5 - I rate shows mostly based on how I enjoyed the experience. If I were to give it a more objective and comparative score, it'd be higher, but I want to tell you what to expect. Why would you watch the fantasy show Frieren? You'd do it for the relaxed pace and storytelling, the high quality and care put into the stories within the 28 episodes. The animation quality ranges between simple and exceptional, but never bad and the music is quite good. It's quite wholesome when it's good. There are some great action scenes. There is an undercurrent of deliberate emotion put intothings without being dramatic.

Why wouldn't you watch Frieren?
In the latter part of the show, it goes from being an adventure to a dragged out tournament arc that overemphasizes the value of a single magical trick, it rushes to introduce characters and adds a ton of exposition and mouth-flapping (panning stills with no animation except for mouth movement). For me, this is the mark of a bad show and trying to fill animation time. I cannot express how much I can't stand it when a show wastes the viewer's time.
The delivery of nearly every character is monotone and while they'll have childish reactions to insignificant things, their reactions to getting stabbed through the body is to look regretful and then immediately move on. It feels janky and it gets repetitive.
There are a lot... and I mean a *LOT* of unlikable characters and there's a bad habit of the show wanting you to be engaged in who they are by telling you things about them but rarely showing it.

The worst part for me, besides the exposition, is that there's a hollow feeling to it all, like nothing and no one matters. You can tie this into some of what the story is about, the main character's long life span, but it permeates everything, as if no one cares when they should.

There are slop shows I'd recommend over this, because at least when I watch those, I have fun and don't get frustrated. Do not get it twisted, it's not a terrible show, but Frieren is not a masterpiece and its extremely high rating on this site is not deserved.