Sousou no Frieren a thought, a review.

Frieren, or how to appreciate the time you spend, not forgetting the time you spent with previous people, a beautiful tale enchanced by its adaptation.

The plot is simple, yes I agree, but sometimes you don't need the most complicated plot twists or shenanigans to make a great story. Yeah it's not a faced paced story, a lot of people discarded the show for this reason, but they missed the whole point. Frieren is about this, enjoying the time, take it slow, doing some detours here and there. I glady recommend the show to even the people that only watches high paced full of action show, it will pay off.

I absolutely love when a story makes good use of their supporting character, and Frieren is how to do it right. Not only by reviving the ones that passed away, but every other character will touch you. I don't really know myself how this series exactly made the characters so important, maybe, again the time passing you see them grow, evolve, their relantioships changing in such a natural way due to do the perfect pacing.

(by @ve_0ekaki on twitter)

It's the main actor here, and her favorite hobby is collecting random spells ? This seems pointless at first, but every characters in Frieren are made, by those little moments, traits. Again everything she says, does, is linked to something, to a memory, to someone. Her love for the spell that grow flowers for example, came from Flame, she showed it to Himmel later on. This makes what could be a not so special elf mage in a fantasy world such a unique and well tought character. As time goes on, words from Himmel are having a meaning in what Frieren is experiencing now with Fern and Stark.

Maybe the most outstanding character in the series. Frieren managed to create someone dead but yet so lively. Himmel continues to live throughout memories, statues, people that our new group encounter. All by those moments where he decided to make a detour, help a town, help somebody, all those moments, they're not gone, no they are still alive. Everything about Himmel is built arround this, he gave us some of the most touching moments, I can't forget this moments where you see Himmel kneeling for Frieren in such a beautiful way. Yes Frieren Himmel will be here forever if you need someone's shoulder to cry.

(by Laubun on danboru)

She's the first new companion that we met, she grown training to become a mage after being adopted by Heiter. Fern is probably the 3rd most important character yet with Himmel and Frieren, because how huge the impact she had on the 1000 year old elf. With her attitude she achived what none tought possible, change Frieren. She will be the future of humans in this magic world, she will be on the top of magic one day.

The second addition to Frieren's new party, he's the warrior here, trained by Eisen the former Demon's King party. Unfortunately it's the main character we see the least, since the second cour is mostly focused of the first class mage exam. However that doesn't say he's meaningless. We have to talk about Himmel again that had a certain relationship with Frieren, and there you can see some similarities with Stark and Fern. Meanwhile Fern plays a big role in changing Frieren, Stark does the exact same with Fern. If I had to chose one moment with him, it'd be obviously the fight with the Dragon, at long last after all this years, it all ended in 30 seconds of pure and magnificent action with Stark using his years of training to defeat him and save the village.

The most important part about Frieren, and it got it right. Frieren uses the most ingenious ways to let us know how the time is progressing.

It all starts on episode one when Frieren first was insensitive to the passing away of Himmel, but then she realize and starts crying, it's the first major breaking point in our adventure. Time will still be needed for Frieren to completly change but from now on her perception of time won't be the same. The arrival of Fern, is the second breaking point. She bought her a gift, food, agreed to watch the New Year's Eve sunrise.

Frieren is probably one of the best stories at telling two stories in one with the use of the time passing, everytime you hear a sentence it'll have a meaning on both the past and the present, every little moment, detour, character has a purpose unique to them through the passage of time. An important part, is the abondance of statues across the world of Frieren than emphasize how her and her companions put their names, their faces, their legacy into History. It is gift through time about their story.

Love

Frieren is definitively one of the best non romance series as doing romance. As said previously when talking about Stark, there's some relationships in the show that probably would relate to romance, but it is very untold.

The slowly growing relantionship between Fern & Stark is just so mesmerizing, at first she just sees him as random guy and him seeing her as the annoying spout girl. However due to this unique perception of time we get to see a one of kind slow progression between the two. From being completly ignorant to each other, to care about the other, buy them a gift and Fern is going to Stark if she has a problem with Frieren (she's kinda tough to live with). Meanwhile we see the other untold, romance between Himmel and Frieren as they slowly get closer in her memories. Very touching.

I'll get straight to the point. It's just perfect everything is done right. You recognize a passion project when you see one and this is one of them.

The art fit so perfectly to the tone and pacing of the original story, from the color palette, to the drawings. It's a series that calls on you to take the time, and the calm, serene, peaceful atmosphere they managed to create works perfectly. Also I want to point out all the little animation details that are grass, clothes or hair, when you see them you feel this little breeze it's so suttle but they did an amazing job to such little details.

When talking about annimation I cannot not talk about the point that blew my expectations the most, I didn't even knew there were fights in Frieren. Then I saw episode 6, episode 9 and so on... The direction on the fights is agrguably one of the best in the industry. Every detail has been tought so deeply in those sequences. Of course I wanna talk about episodes 25 & 26 .. yeah how about I say, I litteraly cried on the begining of episode 26 ? It completly took me by surprise, the fight was just on another level, it was just so elegant ? It just worked so perfectly, it's hard to describe my exact feelings about it, but it's for sure one of the best fights we'll see in 2024 if not the best one and one of the moments of the decade.

Finally let's talk about the music, oh my god. Thank you Evan Call you're such an amazing composer and you're the final touch that made this show this special. The final touch to grab the serene vibe from the manga and translate it to anime. On the other hand Evan Call provided such great combat OSTs ... Zoltraak, it's as powerful as the spell named after itself.

Frieren was and will be one of my favorite show, I know there's some recency bias, but everything about the production value isn't affected by it, and looking how beautifuly is this anime was made I won't change my mind. This show was pure breathe of fresh air every Friday, teaches us how to appreciate time, I felt some vibes of time passing like in Barakamon (one of my absolute favs) by times. Frieren is a lesson about love, caring and time, I hope people will grow with the show.

Thank you Frieren, the journey isn't ended.

To give some context I heard about the anime maybe a year ago when I started REALLY getting involved into anime and was instantly hooked with the concept / synopsis of the series but never took the time to watch it. Then participated in a Secret Santa and recieved it, so .. I watched it.

Art & Character Design

Starting of with one of the best part of ReLIFE. The art is very simple, yes BUT very soft and fits very well the show. We can feel that the manga was published in full color, the show plays with colors a lot during the chibi characters moments. This is something I particulary like in other shows like Horimiya, MahoYome or 3-gatsu and it works as much in ReLIFE makes for very funny and lighthearted moments, I love it.

Story

As said in the intro I got hooked instantly about the plot. This isn't the first anime/manga about getting a second chance but this time the time is limited, you're not reincarnated to live a whole new life, you just have one year, then everyone will forget about you. No time to get attached to anybody. Our main character you think would take this chance to only improve his life after the experience and take advices from it, and nope you see his kindness towards other people and making them change little by little helped by his 27yo's life. I think it's a story that will more and more relatable as I grow up. I love seeing Yoake trying to push Arata forward all along the series knowing what happend with the 1st subject.

Maybe I could say a little downside on maybe bit overdramatic was the "volley-ball arc", not that I didn't liked it but maybe was a bit too much and the other con of the show didn't helped (the OST).

Characters

Again a strong point of the show, that completes what I said about the story. The characters all work together with a small cast all helped by Arata. He with his social facilities achieved in a small amount of time to be a part of this class like no other. All of them have their uniqueness to them like Horimiya (gosh I'm having a good time comparing both shows lmao) but with the smaller cast and more focus on the supporting characters since there's less. All the characters feels realistic especially Kairu, yes humans are annoying, and so is she.

First the production value and animation, yeah this is not stellar or anything but not shit either it's just ok and the kind of you would expect of school romcom drama. Some people talked about on how everything went down 'till the end, but I did not noticed that, I was probably too hooked on the characters and the story.

Secondly, music, OP & EDs. It's both insane and the biggest con of the show. The OST ... it pissed me off some times especially during the "volley-ball arc", the piano was omnipresent and too loud. For the OP it's engaging song that I know I'm going to keep in my immense playlist, and has pretty simple but cute visual with the characters interacting with each others.

Now the EDs, it was the show I was watching at 5AM so I skipped a lot of them and didn't knew about the unique ED until episode 5. Then I started not skipping them and yeah there was a lot of banger, with such huge artists coming, I need to listen to them all again.

Conclusion

I loved this show so much despite one bit overdramatic moment or the OST that pissed me off at times, the rest of the experience was just so great. Very good comedy, nice and compelling characters, and just an amazing story and concept that works very well.

I know the manga is better, I can't wait to read it for the entire story and for probably more impactful moments. If you love drama, romance, comedy and slice of life I highly suggest to watch it. Makes you take a step back about youth and living experiences to the fullest, your youth is unique you can't not experience it another time.

To start off, I'm a fan of romances or Slice of Life in general, so obviously I'm bias when it comes to some very good shows on those genres, even tho I've seen a lot of them and can be hard on judging them. Those are the anime that make feel the best when I'm watching a show I don't want to be on war steroids all the time.


Also worth to mention this is my first complete ever review on anilist and in english (I'm French, don't mind the english mistakes here) so be nice with me I'm talking with my heart don't take it too seriously <3

That being said time to talk about why I love Horimiya, why I loved this season.

Art & Character Design

When it comes to Horimiya one of the first things that come in my mind is how beautiful it looks. Daisuke Hagi created those aboslutly stunning characters, they are just recognizable even if not especially unique. It just fits the characters and their personality, and I just love the different colors of each characters they make them unique in their own way. On the character design part, obviously Horimiya is still one of the best at it. In every episodes you will have different versions of every character, they love to put chibi versions or other to everyone, it just makes those situations funnier and funnier.

I want to talk about the "pausing shadows" iconic moments that just looks absolutly beautiful and that makes the romantic scenes so impactful even in Horimiya Pieces. Those scenes are just putting a stop to let us focus on the relations of the characters, when you have those energetic moments of comedy those moments of calm are so precious to let us understand the relations.

Story

Since you've watched the original series (I assume you did before reading this) you know the plot of Horimiya. You know it's simple, but Horimiya is the evidence that you don't need a complicated story to be good. That said it would probably something more impactful to say about the original series, but even Pieces still has some of main components from Horimiya, it still has this romance, yes it has less romance but we still see this realistic portrait of Highschool romance, with their doubts, high and lows. This realism in the romance departement is what makes Horimiya so special to me, it feels so nostalgic, when you those emotions in your own life. As for a focus on what Horimiya Pieces added, the comedy (it had some before I know). Again the comedy just hits, and it hits hard everytime. You can't have a bad time watching it, not gonna say every jokes are going to work on you, but the chemestry between those friends makes it just so good. If you add the exceptional art and the character design with all those faces, chibi heads etc ... everything together makes a stunning comedy. You're not overload with jokes like a NIchijou and yet you have little to no rest between the jokes. This is probably why I liked more Horimiya Pieces than Horimiya.

Characters

What was missing from Horimiya ? The focus on the different characters, and that's what we got. The main characters that have been developped a lot in the main series were not as much seen there (main couple, Yuki and Tooru), but that's for the good. We nearly got an entire episode on every supporting characters. With it we learned much more on their personalities, and this completes Horimiya, a story about the different faces you have,the one you have at school with your friends, classmates, and the one with your familly. It was really cool to see them have their own moment. Without spoiling I was never a fan of Sawada after watching the original series, but then the episode focused on her came out and it just made me rethink my toughts about this specific character, this shows how this season made the difference about how we perceive and think about them. With those characters you have such a variety of people it feels so real, of course it has the "anime manga" vibe, but the realism of them, of their way of acting (outside hard comedy moments), or their way of thinking is one of the most realistic in a romance.

Opening / Endings / Production

Can't not talk a bit of this opening, at first I was worried since I was attached to the original one, but god I was wrong. Like the anime itself, it just look so damn gorgeous, creative ways to show the characters and settings of the anime. I always loved how Horimiya was directed (OP, ED, and anime) you can clearly see how much work has been put into it.

I'm not going to spoil what is happening in this scene, but it's those kind of scenes that makes this Horimiya a such good directed anime, again what I said in art section, the time stops, then camera slows down and you can be focused on the emotions of the characters wich again makes all those moments so impactful to me.

Conclusion

Horimiya in general, and even more Horimiya pieces, is a realistic romantic comedy that I can't stop from loving even tho I know it's not perfect, even tho I prefer Kaguya Sama, or Fruits Basket. Yet I still adore this. I watched the original series a year ago, liked it, but not that much, but as time goes on, it kept growing on me, that I bought the artbook and the manga. Then I made a prediction "Imagine they announce a new season to adapt what was not adapted" then it happend. You can't imagine how happy I was, fast forward to now with the show complete, my love for the series has never been higher, thanks to Horimiya Pieces, I loved every bit of this show every Saturday was the best day of the week.

So thank you Horimiya, thank you Daisuke Hagiwara, thank you HERO.