0:00 - 0:03 / 1 - 2: Seki

0:03 - 0:05 / 3 - 4: Tsuchigami (original drawing/roughs), Yama (genga)

0:05 - 0:07 / 5: Seki
0:08 - 0:11 / 6 - 9: Watanabe, Yama (genga for the character)
0:11 - 0:14 / 10: Bahi JD
0:14 - 0:14 / 11: Yama (motion), Seki (inside of bulding's details)
0:14 - 0:17 / 12 - 13: Seki
0:17 - 0:20 / 14 - 16: Onsen
0:21 - 0:22 / 17 - 20: 店 (mise?) (https://twitter.com/ma__2224)

For better or worse, once Tolkien popularized the leading strand of fantasy, we've
seen many elves in fiction. They're elegant, beautiful, and mysterious, living for
hundreds or thousands of years. Usually, we explore fantasy through the eyes of a
relatable human, and the elf is a supporting character. The typical story features
a band of heroes looking to vanquish the dork lord's empire. The elf remains exotic
and elusive even when joining the party in most cases. However, if we wanted to
explore long stretches of time and understand how myths form around heroes over
decades and centuries after their passing, then the elf would be better cast as the
main character in our story. That's Sousou no Frieren's main appeal. Or is it...?

While writers have explored similar ideas with immortality in the novel format, the
only anime of a similar nature that comes to mind is the nauseating Fumetsu no
Anata e, which is only comparable in that both are fantasy, featuring a main
character with a long lifespan and a tremendous amount of room for growth because
these characters are oblivious to human affairs and enter all social interactions
like they're on a tricycle with a safety helmet. Some reasonably believed this
setup meant we were getting another cheap FnAe cry porn configuration (myself
included), but the emotions on display are too stunted; there is understated
emotion, as one would expect with a character-driven work emphasizing the passage
of time and nostalgia, with Frieren maintaining a poker face like a champ and
remaining a deer-in-head-lights doofus for most of the duration. Though trumpeted
as a possible masterpiece, regrettably, SnF is marred by less-than-stellar
execution. It has many elements undermining the work and leading to an identity
crisis, and the source material is ambitious beyond its means. The series is held
aloft by—blink, and it will go away—decent moments, character dynamics, and world
building but carried mainly by Madhouse's excellent animation and technical chops.

Instead of showing us the adventures of the heroes so we'll have a connection to

the party, the author takes the bold move of cutting right to the humdrum fanfare
of the epilogue for an entire series. However, that will become a bait-and-switch
once the author decides to flip back and forth between a walking simulator and
battle shonen. Mary Sue—I mean, Frieren—will retrace the steps of her former party,
treating us to these precious piecemeal memories. The journey of Frieren's new
party will also reinforce what preceded it, exploring adventuring, friendship,
heroism, and the like. Not only is the story's backdrop conventional, but the
character designs are pervasively generic, and the initial hero party looks like
they were dragged out of a Z-grade isekai, not even fit for a bargain bin. At least
they put effort into making the handful of female characters as endearing as
possible to generate extra revenue from anime pillows and figurines, so I guess
it's not a total bust.

If SnF were a sci-fi, it would be an android-raising simulator, and, to quote Mark

Zuckerberg, "The more of your data I collect, the more human I become." Though the
genre we're engaging with is fantasy, the result is the same: to become sentient.
Yes, Frieren may be 1,000 years old, but her understanding of human emotion, let
alone her own, is so limited as to be shocking. Fern nurses her, pulls her out of
bed, dresses, feeds, and caters to her every whim, like a mommy tending to her
elflet. Yeah, it's in part an elfblob-raising simulator, if only to mine
milquetoast humor and to be as on-the-nose as possible about Frieren's
paradoxically childlike nature. Frieren is a kuudere whose name means "frozen."
She's a forever-alone elfcel with no friends, is elftistic or on the elftism
spectrum, and fails to be very relatable since she's over 1,000 years old (there's
a reason why the 900-year-old loli is usually a supporting character...). Aside
from a creeping bit of sarcasm to keep the series from being too one-note in its
character dynamics, she's the ice-cube elfblob extraordinaire.

It is a surprise that we also get a kuudere sidekick. No, elves don't reproduce via
binary fission like bacteria. Fern's sense of humor, competencies, occasionally
temperamental nature, and dialogue vary from Frieren's. Still, when we spent about
five episodes alone with these two, something appeared to be missing, and it was
sticking out like a crooked painting on the wall with too much negative space. Then
Stark rounds off the circus troupe to restore balance. Before that, it would be
like reading a Sherlock Holmes novel, only to have two Watsons bumbling around and
unable to progress the plot or figure out whodunnit.

Let's look at what makes Frieren tick: With development and wealth (or lifespan, as
you can compare elephants and humans to "lower" animals), the correlation tends to
be fewer children, and elves are a hyper-realization of this trend, marching toward
extinction. In SnF, elves have no community and often go centuries without seeing
another of their kind, leaving Frieren to seek human companionship or be forever
alone—maybe both! Humans and elves are distinct and don't mix well—oil and water,
for their lifespans and ways are too dissimilar.

From this odd arrangement arise the issues Frieren has with the "time differential"
elves have in contrast to humans. She's out of sync with humans, so she doesn't
fully understand how they or she feels until seemingly MUCH later... I mean, not
even years—more like decades! It's like a latency issue in connecting with others,
or she has a dial-up connection and takes 40 years to download 1 MB of emotional
data. Of course, in the days of horribly slow internet and ancient hardware, it
would say your download would take 40 years, but if you left the room, it might
take 5 minutes. For Frieren, those absurd time estimations are accurate! The idea
is that Frieren has had no long-term acquaintances, friends, or anything for close
to 1,000 years other than one master-pupil relationship with a human, so she is
sort of like an ignorant child in her emotional development, off in her little
world. The script is written in such a way at first that neither the elves nor the
humans seem to understand how the other perceives time and are so lacking in
empathy that they don't attempt to imagine it. In most fantasy, there is usually a
disconnect between humans and elves. The author of SnF chooses to multiply this
aspect in a way that acts as both a compelling plot device and a dubious quirk upon
which everything hinges, requiring a massive suspension of disbelief.

Frieren had a carefree millennium, hunting down grimoires, reading voluminously,

and picking berries in the forest. Therefore, a charismatic Gary Stu needed to step
forward to sweep Frieren off her feet and talk no jutsu her into the party, not
unlike a dungeon master noticing the dedicated RPG nerd by the golden gleam of
Cheetos dust and bringing her on as a wizard. It reminds me of a trash isekai
called How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom. The MC in that series calls forward
people with talent—any talent, no matter how useless it may seem—which leads to him
recruiting several people into his inner circle. One is a fat guy who has eaten a
lot of food from around the world. That character functions as a stand-in for an
otaku who doesn't know anything other than anime, manga, and games, but his diverse
gluttony becomes a "great talent" that leads to world recognition! Frieren is about
the same because she spent 1,000 years attending to her hobby of finding and
reading grimoires and has a curious "OMG, just like me!" appeal. Let me preempt all
the "Nuh-uh! Frieren touches grass and travels" objections because her hunting
around for grimoires is the medieval equivalent of a NEET stepping outside to pick
up a preordered Nintendo game. The main difference here is sensuous elfblob
wallpaper (meh, Deedlit is better, unless you're into grannies) and her hobby
leading to her having godlike magical abilities.

Otherwise, we wouldn't get the sick battle shonen parts to relieve the monotony.
Firstly, there's the foreplay that's the classic shonen "I know you are, but what
am I?" talk and flex competition, the convenience of demons abiding by the honor
system as justification for plot armor, and characters sitting around like dopes
and monologuing instead of capitalizing on weaknesses that would end everything in
under 5 seconds (looking at you, Fern). Secondly, a repetitive and mindless
onslaught of Pew! Pew! Pew! IMMA FIRIN' MAH LAZER! X 263... "Hah, how pathetic you
are, puny elfcel. Didn't you know I'm a gazillion times stronger than you'll ever
be!?" "No, you're wrong! I was hiding my power level and tricking you the whole
time! I'm infinity times stronger than you! Cope and seethe, demon!" *The continent
explodes.* The thought process behind the fight scenes is so primitive that it's
comparable to the apes learning to use bones as clubs in 2001: A Space Odyssey!
Madhouse's talented staff made these scenes soar despite the source material's
blatant shortcomings. Perhaps the battles lack substance, but they're oozing with
more aesthetic and emotional weight than many character-driven scenes, sadly. It's
not that SnF HAS to have more elaborate action scenes, but one must wonder if it
needs them in the first place. Having the occasional monster appear that gets
vaporized is acceptable, but devoting entire arcs to a battle shonen format is not
the author's forte.

The series tries to be a jack of all trades, and the result is always being a
master of none. As a fantasy, SnF does manage to be more organic than usual, for
there are many innocuous spells like generating tea and other novelties, as you
would think magic probably started with many practical uses other than combat;
there are neat touches like the humans acquiring flying magic rather than creating
it themselves, thus not being able to modify it for lack of fully understanding the
process. There's a hint of structure to the magic reminiscent of real-world
disciplines, plenty of trial and error, and the equivalent of a magical arms race.
If most series with magic have an occult vibe, SnF wants to present it as a
science, though it loses some of the mystique. Unfortunately, the fantasy is too
generic to be fantastical, too sluggish to be exciting, and too strewn with fetch
quests, chores, and tonal clashes to be consistently atmospheric.

Although the series initially appears to be a slice of life with glacial pacing,
the author is afraid to slow down to the extent required and self-consciously
believes he'll bore someone, so he starts peppering in action and attempts at
comedy. The humor is largely stock or facepalmish, like making fun of Stark's dinky
(maybe we'll get a fart joke next), "hahaha, the 1000-year-old can't dress
herself," or the agonizingly repeated mimic vore jokes where Frieren hungrily hurls
herself inside the maw of a monster. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Elfcel Grandmas
in a Dungeon? Because that's one thirsty cougar trying to show off that she's
single. Where's the "deep, contemplative, and mature"™ bluster now? There are a few
well-timed humorous moments, but only a handful feel like they bring the characters
closer together or have any depth, the most obvious being the surprisingly great
"boob cloud" scene, representing one of the few episodes where melancholy,
character bonding, and backstory were all integrated seamlessly as an ode to both
friendship and adventuring. Though there are highlights and decent moments
throughout, the emotion and drama are similarly hit or miss, diluted by the series'
clashing elements and identity crisis, cementing the jack-of-all-trades syndrome.

With all the context in place, I'll return to Frieren's initial 10-year journey to
clear the final boss, the most precious event that she must relive and cherish, the
duration being no more than spit in the ocean next to her long life, representing
the only time she has had anything resembling friends to bond with: I don't know
whether to laugh or cry. Once the credits should have been rolling, Frieren left to
pick up all the Nintendo games in her backlog, which took about 50 years, leaving
her companions aged and withered. She's like, "Why are you guys so old and uggo? I
don't understand time, aging, and complicated stuff like that. X)" It would appear
Frieren has had her first taste of regret, for the beloved Gary Stu soon passes,
and she concludes that she never got to know her party as much as she would like.

Hence, we embark on a quest for Frieren to track down the ghost of Gary Stu. The
rest of her old party says, "Frieren, it's so sad that Gary Stu died, but we're
still alive. Why don't you get to know us? :)" "Because you guys are ugly bastards,
lol! X)" "Oh, right... sorry. :(" It turns out she got to know her party better
than she thought but was too much of a dope to realize it until the flashbacks were
cued. Another essential thing to bring up concerns Gary Stu: Despite being
handsome, competent, and renowned, there's no evidence that he ever had a romantic
relationship, got married, or had kids... hell, he's not even a cat gentleman! He
was pining away into old age, wishing Frieren would notice him again. There's even
the implication that the cursed item Gary Stu kept for Frieren for several decades
caused gravity to compress him into a lawn gnome, further emphasizing his devotion!

At first, the story appeared to be more about employing an elf's lifespan to

explore myth formation, deconstruct the hero's journey, and heighten the emotional
response, and... it does all of that to an extent. Still, what starts as an
examination of lofty and ambitious ideas gives way to an undignified focus on the
undying love between two forever-alone individuals. Nonetheless, when boiled down,
we're getting the same old teen or 20-something having their first-time romance,
flecked with equal parts lost and forbidden love. Hey, many people like that, and
it works. However, when you consider the author is simply reframing the same Lonely
Hearts Club formula with a fantasy veneer, depicting true love™ between a human
incel ghost who died at an old age with his love unrequited and an ageless beauty
and coded virgin elfcel of 1,000 years, what should be a natural and compelling
process is rendered as what I can only refer to as "romanticized derangement,"
upending what should have been a profound exploration of adventure, camaraderie,
and heroism.