Another Seasonal Hype Bandwagon I started watching Frieren because it was gaining a lot of attention and reputation. I've done this with many anime, but this time around I felt disappointed. I'll go ahead and warn you that I haven't finished the series and made it around half way through. Still, I feel like an anime of this supposed caliber definitely shouldn't be this difficult to stay interested in. I realized the problems are simple. The show doesn't really do anything new or interesting. The fantasy world is filled to the brim with cliches: mana, mages, spells, demons, dwarfs, elves, dragons, and so on. The messages that the story contains has no need for the fantasy world and would have been better if it were grounded in reality, so the fantasy world ends up feeling superfluous and a scheme to lure people in. The biggest problem has got to be the uninteresting characters. Both Frieren and Fern are quite stoic and their characters are written in uninteresting ways. Frieren acts more like an emo teenager than she does a person who's seen a thousand years, and Fern, while making more sense for her age, is still a boring character. Frieren feels like a character who's designed to be relatable to older teenagers and young adults, and it's more in a negative way. Frieren and perhaps Fern reflect the lack of gratitude in life, and a lack of experiencing hardships. They are not expressive characters and don't have anything fun or unique to say or do. As stated before, quite a stoic teacher and stoic apprentice. Stark is here too, and I do like that he has humility despite his strength, but I gotta say that's about all I have to say about him. Both Fern and Frieren show little struggle on their journey and kill high caliber demons almost without breaking a sweat or suffering moderate to severe injuries. The pacing is quite inconsistent as in one moment, the plot is developing, and in the next, it plummets into it's usual slice of life pacing.
This anime has great animation and music, and the messages are generally decent. I just find nothing intriguing from the main cast or world building. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End feels unimpressive as an animanga consumer for the past 5 years. The anime isn't widely appealing like Fullmetal Alchemist or Attack on Titan and it doesn't have the thrill of discovering a niche anime story. While there is a plethora of animanga I enjoyed more, here's a list of widely acclaimed manga that had more meaningful stories and better written characters: Real, Vagabond, Hajime no Ippo, Monster, Violet Evergarden, Vinland Saga. There are many more, but these come to mind seamlessly.
So I guess I'm stuck trying to figure out why the anime is hyped as much as it is. I've come to the conclusion that it's due to some type of bandwagon, given that this anime is quite a bit newer and seasonal anime tend to have TONS of bandwagons that die out after a while. There have been numerous reviews from content creators and high scores that provide the needed praise and hype for such a thing. That said, there's nothing wrong with liking it - and I believe there is a lot to like for those who enjoy cliche fantasy, good animation, meaningful messages, and relate to the characters. But it certainly is not among the best, as many reviewers will want you to believe.