Includes minor spoilers
Frieren is a medieval fantasy whose main character is an elf mage with great skills. She travels with her student mage and a young warrior.
In this anime we can experience a fairly simple but well executed story. We won't find many dimensions in it, but it's enough to keep you hooked up while explaining everything that you could question. We have both the past and present timeline, the first being about beginning of frieren's adventure, where she got into a party of adventurers with a knight, priest and warrior/barbarian. The present talks about actions as we go with the new party. There are many encounters and non-linear story progression, for example when the student mage has to pretend to be a partner of the warrior, who has to play a role of a prince that died, but whose death isn't public. Encounters that are happening from time to time often make us have to think if our main character is actually going to win it, since there's always a twist like a fight meant to be simple turns into an ambush, or a dangerous demon who killed many adventurers. I can't really think of something that could be done better here, it all seems to just work and be exactly what I want, but it could go further.
90/100
Our adventure is filled with different persons or other creatures, each of them having a purpose, some more like Himmel, who is the hero of the world and knight of the old party, others less like villagers thanking our new warrior for fighting off the dragon. Those meant to be remembered are vastly unique and memorable, even if you forget their name, you can always imagine how they looked like, and how they acted, just like the drunk corrupt priest, or the dwarf warrior who has a long beard who has the strength of a mountain. Frieren itself, the main character, has a distinct personality, as she doesn't understand emotions, acts cold-headed and stoic, but understands when someone is mad or upset about an action. She's also a sleepyhead, which is in contrast to how powerful of a mage she is, being known as one to be reckoned with. Her student mage on the other hand doesn't like wasting time and often tries to wake up the elf, but fails to, and herself she's getting mad if someone doesn't understand her, and likes to give the silent treatment. These are just two of them but each of the mainline characters has such personality. I wish we could know more past of them, as we're just getting a brief summary of what they went through.
90/100
Sousou no frieren's visuals shine the most during encounters, especially in spell effects. They show the power appropriatly and really make you feel it. Blood effects are on point, real enough to be believable but still coherent. The rest of visuals are pretty good, there are detailed eyes and realistic body proportions, with the faces looking especially good. Buildings are unique, well thought out and what you'd expect a fantasy medieval buildings to look like.
95/100
Main theme is still playing in my head, as it's sometimes repeated at least twice an episode, usually limited to just the intro. Rest of the audio is good, there's nothing bothersome about it and it seems fitting.
90/100
Episodes follow an order of build up, cumulative point, and building up again, which doesn't make you feel like it's too slow, or too fast. Each 25 minutes feel valuable, even if an episode is a bit slower, as there isn't as much action, it still brings value to the story and moves it forward. We also get flashbacks to the old times as frieren is remembering her times with the original party.
95/100
Medieval fantasy with rpg like team isn't something unique, nor is it groundbreaking take on something we know of. Frieren makes use of what we already know and what we're familiar with, and perfects it. While i can't exactly say that the idea for the show is unheard of, the main character in that world is what truly shines. In the contrast to everyone else, frieren stands out as the character, with others busy in overcoming emotions, she shrugs it off and powers through. The main character is what's unique about the show and it might be one of better decisions to make, we know enough to feel at home, but the twist is just right to keep us interested in watching more.
90/100
The world in the show gets created through flashbacks of past, as well as present actions like defeating the demon who could kill anyone weaker than her or defeating the dragon terrorizing nearby village. Each time we face new enemies it feels like these are the strongest ones yet, and there's always some way that our group managed to win over them. We carefully travel through each quest forward until we reach the end goal, the challenges are that, challenging and the world feels real, as real as a fantasy can be. There are some less important quests like getting groceries, or some that end up fighting two powerful mages, you can't really predict that.
90/100
I didn't often find myself sad about a character taking off to the other side, which might be as that was quite rare, but there was this emotion of suspense and uncertainty. What happened commonly was feeling shock or rather surprise when the new challenge turned out to be something that could very well end the journey at that point.
90/100
91/100
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