Frieren: We welcome you all to this new post of Gogoanime! It has been 28 chapters, 168 days, 24 weeks, 6 months, or half a year since Frieren: after the journey ended came to our screens and today we are here to talk, in the form of a review, about what we thought of this work, stopping to analyze its small details and beautiful messages. We will review these aspects and the foundations on which the work is based to argue why it is a very enjoyable story and, in addition, an ode to humanity and life with its important main and secondary messages.
Without further delay, we invite you to enjoy this review and its entire process, just as Frieren herself would do.
Frieren: A surprising and novel starting point
There are many fantasy stories that we have seen in which we are told the epic feat of the group of heroes who manage to defeat the Demon King to save the world and introduce it to a period of peace and prosperity. In the case of Frieren, this is the first of many standards that it breaks, as it places us at the beginning of the plot in which the Demon King has already been defeated. In fact, the first scene of the anime is literally Himmel's group returning to their hometown after defeating the powerful villain.
Speaking of the first episode, it is interesting to see how they establish the character of Frieren from the viewer's point of view in just 20 minutes. In this broadcast, there is a lot of emphasis on the idea that our protagonist is an elf with hundreds of years of life and that she is incapable of valuing the lives of the humans around her and their short duration.
Thus, at the moment of Himmel's funeral, she says that she never got to know him and sets herself the goal of learning more about humans and their lives, to understand them. This is the initial step of a work that focuses a lot on highlighting the figure of life and humanity for the viewer, so placing her protagonist at this point is a success on her part.
In this way, with Frieren's new objective, those flashbacks that we have seen so much throughout the 28 episodes begin to appear in the work. These moments, as usual, serve the viewer to tell us about the past of the characters and the world in which they are situated.
However, it is interesting to consider that these memories are also seen by Frieren herself, who after setting out to meet humans, relives scenes from her past that teach her valuable lessons about them. That is to say, these memories of Himmel and company that have moved us so much are also moments that Frieren has been remembering during her journey.
Regarding the beginning of the work, it takes a while to get going on a plot level, since it is not until a few episodes later that the protagonist is given a final objective in the plot: to reach Ende to meet up with her old companions. Although this may have made the beginning somewhat slow, we believe that it is essential to launch the first important message of the work: what is important is not only the objective but also the journey. This message is something that we see present throughout the work and that later in this review of Frieren we will analyze in detail.
Other striking and original aspects of the work are the foundations of the world on which it is based. For example, we are already very used to seeing magicians who manage to become powerful through years and years of study and training. However, in the world of Frieren, this is not enough and you also have to imagine being able to successfully perform the spell, a very important little nuance that allows it to differentiate itself from magic systems in so many other works. What is the message hidden in this detail?
As for the world itself, it seems that it is not much more than another medieval fantasy world that we are used to. But this may be intentional, not only to simplify the design of cities and villages but to highlight the importance of the journey even if you go through simpler places. Simplicity is also a very important factor in the work, which we will analyze a little later.
The messages that Frieren sends
It is no secret that Frieren sends many messages to make the viewer reflect, as the work does not fall short in insisting on some of them. In this section of the review, we will try to analyze most of them (both the main ones and the secondary ones) and evaluate the narrative elements that he uses to send them.
First of all, we recall the previous comment that most of the messages are sent to the viewer through memories of Frieren's past and conversations she has had with all kinds of important figures in her world. Although some of these conversations could be placed timelessly in a plot, it is undeniable that the work does not write one story, but two stories simultaneously. Although we are not expert writers of fictional stories, we want to emphasize the value and difficulty of being able to write and intertwine two different stories: that of the present and that of the past.
A very recurrent message in these memories is the one that surely every viewer has received: enjoy the journey. It may not be said directly at any time, but it is undeniable that the main and most important message of the work is this one that encourages the viewer to enjoy the day-to-day and life itself, without obsessing over objectives and without forgetting to live the moment. However, although this message is sent to us many times, each time it is done in a slightly different way than the rest and a large number of elements are mixed together that enhance this thought. What are these elements?
One of the first ways the play teaches us this is when the group of Frieren, Fern and Stark stops at each of the small villages along the way and they are forced to spend a long time in that town. This creates an obvious debate among the characters due to the characteristics of their races, as Fern (a human) is overwhelmed and feels the need to continue the journey as soon as possible to reach her goal, while Frieren (an elf) focuses on enjoying the town they are in calmly and without hurry.
In the case of the spectator, I would dare say that we are all human, so we unconsciously see ourselves reflected in Fern because we want to see as soon as possible how the story of the play we are watching progresses. However, Frieren stops both Fern and the spectator and focuses on sending a very clear message: enjoy the moment.
Another important element of Frieren's work that we want to highlight in our review is the secondary characters, as they all have a message to give and some characteristic that makes them different from the rest. In addition, most of them are all human. These two aspects seek to be a reflection of a lively society and a variety worthy of both a fantasy world and our world.
Everyone has something that makes them unique and anyone can contribute something to our journey that makes us learn and grow as people. In this way, there is another important message that is sent to the viewer and that the protagonists of the work themselves can observe: let us value the encounters along the way.
It may be something that goes unnoticed, but it is also important to analyze how the work gives a lot of weight to the figure of the human being. The most obvious moments are when Frieren and Serie talk about how human magicians will be more powerful than them, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, as the most important figures in the work are all human: Flamme as the legendary magician, Himmel as the hero of the world or Fern as the most promising magician are some examples. So, another significant message could be hidden here: the strength of the human being, our strength.
A crucial element of the hianime is, as expected in a fantasy world, magic. As we are already beginning to see in this review, Kanehito Yamada (author of Frieren) does not waste the opportunity to launch another important message through the magic system of this world. Already at an advanced point in the work, it is explained to us that for a spell in this universe to be effective, its caster must be able to imagine himself succeeding with it.
Although it could be a way of speaking and not a certainty of magic, we believe that the fact that it is commented on by important magical figures in the plot allows us to affirm that the imaginary factor is important in the power of a magician. But what message is hidden here? Very simple.
Here we are urged to be ambitious because if we are not able to see ourselves succeeding, we will surely not be able to emerge victorious from many objectives. We could say that the message sent by an element as important as magic is: let us believe ourselves capable of achieving our goals and let us be optimistic.
Speaking of magic, even though our protagonist is really powerful and even legendary in her field, it is curious how Frieren shows a huge interest and favoritism for the simplest and most useful spells in everyday life. We can see her get excited about getting a spell capable of creating cooking ingredients or telling her apprentice that she is proud of her for choosing a spell to clean clothes over others.
In addition, Frieren says on numerous occasions that her favorite spell is the one that allows you to create a field of flowers out of nothing, something that can be very simple, but undoubtedly beautiful. The message here is also clear: let's value simplicity and everyday life.
Now that we have analyzed some of the most important messages of the work, let's try to draw some small conclusions about it. It is undoubtedly that all the messages we have discussed revolve around personal focus and growth, encouraging us to focus on details of life that adversities can make us forget.
Optimism, the importance of everyday life, the details of everyday life, the encounters along the way and the importance of enjoying the journey are all elements very close to the main message of the work and something that is reflected in each chapter: to treasure every moment.
I am sure that many viewers will have received this message that Frieren sent us. And it is that, although sometimes we may have a bad day, someone has spoken badly to us, we have slept little or the week has run us over, we must never forget to treasure every moment, every day, every person or, in short, enjoy life.
Life is something that is reflected in Frieren's work as the journey, which is something that the plot and the characters constantly insist on. I am sure that many of you have finished watching an episode of Frieren and have thought internally that you wish you could take a trip like that of Himmel and his adventurers.
Well, the work tries to tell us that we are constantly having that journey, because what for the characters is an adventure, for us is our daily life, it is our life. Therefore, although we may have been too insistent, we want this review to value Frieren's message and we want to thank all those who are behind the fact that, for half a year of our lives, they have reminded us in weekly doses of 20 minutes to enjoy life, that it should not be so difficult.
Madhouse is back with everything
Although the message we want to focus on in this review is the one that goes hand in hand with the work, we do not want to miss the opportunity to value the work of Madhouse, the animation studio behind Frieren: after the journey ends. It's no surprise to anyone that this studio does things right because we've already seen them shine in highly renowned works like Death Note, Hunter x Hunter, One Punch Man...
But many of these works are already many years old and it's the fact that lately, Madhouse was doing a good job, but not sublime (possibly influenced by the studio's problems in the last years of the last decade). However, the studio has hit the nail on the head in practically all of its decisions when working with Frieren and they have managed to make the work shine in its jump to animation.
It may be surprising to some that we highlight Madhouse's work because what shines the most in the industry today are the incredible combat scenes that some works have and, although this anime has flashes of great combat animation, they are not very long. However, the value of Madhouse's animation and production lies in how well it captured the message of the work by focusing on the details of simplicity and everyday life.
There are many everyday moments of the characters that have a very refined, detailed and fluid animation and this is a success because it is what Frieren wants to focus on to write this ode to humanity and life. There is nothing more characteristic of them than everyday events such as going to buy bread, being happy about a gift we give ourselves, or the nerves before knowing if the detail we have had with a loved one will be successful.
On the other hand, the soundtrack composed by Evan Call (Violet Evergarden, My Happy Marriage) is simply magical and manages to evoke an incredible peace with the first chords of many songs. In addition to the incredible hits that sound in the most frenetic moments of the fights. We also wanted to mention his name in this review about Frieren because we believe that his work is worthy of being valued.
Why is Frieren an ode to humanity and life?
Although we have not said it directly, we believe that it has been made clear throughout the review that Frieren: after finishing the journey we found it to be a brilliant work in many aspects and that we would recommend it to any viewer, although we are not going to enter into the debate of the top 1 of MyAnimeList, since those are numbers generally based on the insistence of fandoms and that may not reflect reality (although in this case we are happy that this work is top 1 hehe).
After having commented on the topics of the previous sections of the review, we believe that beyond how interesting the plot, the world and the characters of Frieren are, it is important to highlight both the originality of the foundations of the story and the messages they send, thus having a large number of perfect ingredients to be able to conclude that it is a very well structured and very enjoyable work.
Whatever the case, we don't want to be too repetitive on the topics we've already discussed, so we'll simply try to close this post with the message of the work itself. In case it hasn't been clear to us after watching the first season of Frieren: let's focus on enjoying life and everything that it contains, because every day is unique and surely hides valuable details that the negative aspects don't let us see, so let's look for those elements. If in such a complex world with magic and demons, the characters can value simplicity and everyday life, why don't we try to do it too?
Anyway, we don't want to be heavy or give you many more speeches, we hope that the message has been clear in the rest of the review and that you have been able to see Frieren's intention of being an ode to humanity and life. We say goodbye here, but not without first encouraging you to leave us your opinion on this wonderful work that so many viewers have loved via comments or social networks. That said, see you in the next post and in the meantime remember the most important message of all: enjoy the journey.
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