This review contains minor spoilers.
Before any discussion (or praise) of Sousou no Frieren can start, it’s important to establish that it is fundamentally derivative. It's a fantasy, and it comes with all of the concepts that have been ingrained in pop culture since Tolkien published The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. While derivation is typically looked down upon, it isn’t necessarily bad. It has its benefits, like the audience already having a working knowledge of its tropes. That knowledge can be played off to pedal emotions and themes not originally expected of the genre. In Frieren’s case, it is used to convey how the human condition is affected by the passage of time.
But we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Yeah, of course, I can say what the story does that makes it so unique, but those who haven’t experienced it for themselves can’t exactly understand it. So how does Frieren utilize the fantasy genre in such a unique faction, and more importantly, why?
To start with the “how”, Sousou no Frieren firstly sets a massive scope for itself. This comes in the form of an expansive world akin to most other fantasy sagas, but more importantly, the timeframe of its story is incomprehensibly large. While long sagas of years or decades are common, Frieren takes it to an extreme. This saga instead encompasses centuries, and at times millennia. Frieren’s titular protagonist is an elf, whose lifespan is exponentially longer than anything else can live. Frieren is effectively immortal given what humans can understand. This one specific trait of this archetype ends up being the primary narrative framing device. The story starts with an 80-year time skip, and every time skip afterward tells how much time has passed since Himmel’s death at the end of Episode 1. The first season alone takes place over the course of 109 years. The audience is continually reminded of the sheer length of time that has passed since Frieren's original journey ended through story, dialogue, visuals, etc. And in all of that, we see most of it through Frieren’s perspective, as an elf who looks the same through the season’s 28 episodes.
Though Frieren technically lives at the same time as the rest of the world, the world around her ages far more rapidly than she can reasonably keep up with. This disconnect isn’t something one-off, rather, it is something the series fully commits to showing. It is so committed to it in fact that a sizable portion of the show’s energy is dedicated to depicting it. The first two episodes show the most notable examples of this, due to them having the largest time skips in the series. To put off simple practical plot elements like the deaths of Himmel and Heiter and the initial growth of Fern, Sousou no Frieren put in a lot of work by telling the age of its world through the visuals.
This is something the manga of Frieren already put heavy stock into, but the anime brings it to new heights. It shouldn’t be surprising that the show has the same director as Bocchi the Rock because even if Bocchi is more explicit about its visual detail, they are similarly dense with them. These visual details include locations becoming decrepit decades apart and marks of age like wrinkles appearing on older characters. They are pretty much everywhere, and many of them are so subtle that I doubt even a fraction of the audience would notice them.
My favorite visual detail to show the progression of time is how Fern’s height continually increases as time passes. Aside from the first three episodes where time moves faster compared to the rest of the series, this is a gradual increase, so it may not be initially noticeable. But it is notable enough, that Frieren goes from the one towering in height to Fern being the taller one.
On the whole, they lend heavy credence to the portrayal of a rapidly changing fantasy world. It is one thing to tell an audience about the passage of time, but it is far more effective to show it more than anything. It's no longer an orally told nebulous theory as it is now a strongly tangible fact.
There is a (somewhat obvious) point of the story committing itself so much to showing an aging world. This whole commitment is the main draw of the show, and it is also probably the strongest part of it. The reason why it constantly flaunts the timespan of its story through the visuals is because it knows that it’s its driving strength. The worst parts of the series, like the First Stage of the Mage Exam arc, are the times when it is showing off the least. Committing to any direction of this nature to this strong a degree usually leads to fruitful results, and Sousou no Frieren is no exception to this. And now that the groundwork has been laid for a story about age, it can now go into the deeper philosophical aspects of its story. Or, the entire “why” of it all.
For as much as the narrative stretches out its timeframe, it never is something that makes itself feel very long. It can go on and on about how time makes the world an ever-changing place and shows the aftereffects of it, but the show never wants to make its audience feel like that same time is progressing. And the feeling is very intentionally omitted.
That is because Sousou no Frieren is a hopeful story. For as much as it shows the degradation that time can have on humans, it never really shows a point in giving up. The passage of time is something that only weighs someone down if they let it weigh them down. But it is never too late to improve oneself.
Frieren experiences the most intense example of this concept in the very first episode due to it being straddled across decades. However, she isn’t the only one to experience it. Although the further supporting cast is made up of humans, mostly everybody who has a minute of screen time and a hint of emotion goes through similar arcs. In a way, Frieren is passing on her wisdom from what she learned in the very first episode.
Even as an individual has turned its back on its advancement, there is no such thing as a point of no return. Even as years and decades pass, everyone is always entitled to become the best versions of themselves up until the point of death. And even past death, the memory of what a person has done can even lead them to improve themselves even posthumously. These concepts also apply to the whole of society as well as the single person.
The emphasis on a large timeframe throughout the whole series leads to a conclusion that the same time does not matter in the grand scheme of things. And that is beautiful.
also with occasional sakuga action scenes too, but you know, those are kinda hard to fit into a review like this. this show is amazing on the macro visual detail as it is on the micro-scale, but although it is more flashy it is also less important. go on sakugabooru if you want to look at them, i’m lazy at this point tbh
Also, please don’t like or dislike the review without reading it.