Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (TV Series) Tsuyoi mahôtsukai (2023) User Reviews

Incredible!!

[zianandroid · 10/10 · 11 November 2023]

I am honestly in awe with the way that this show has played out this confrontation between Aura and Frieren.

Well I was initially annoyed at all the exposition at the start. It all came together, linking past to the present throughout her life. Seeing how her experiences has changed her and the influences others have had on her all justify the final showdown.

Honestly we knew what was going to happen the second the scales were brought out. But through masterful storytelling, we finally reached the satisfying conclusion of this arc. The music, the drama, and the suspense all tie together into one absolutely incredible episode!!

How a must watch looks like

[AndrewGfilms · 10/10 · 11 November 2023]

This was the episode I was waiting for. For reasons I cannot fully explain, when I read in the manga the part where Frieren shows her true mana, my eyes got teary. So I was very curious if, seeing it in anime form, would have the same effect on me. It did. And again, I was left asking myself why that was.

At first, I thought maybe the memories with Flamme were the reason. Their memory has a quiet yet deeply powerful force. And yes, they play a big part, more like a catalyst of feelings.

But if I were completely honest with myself, what really made me so emotional was something that I think was not this story's intention.

Now, I say this mainly because my love for this episode resides in the general portrayal of demons underestimating other beings based on mana output, and especially in Aura underestimating Frieren.

I am sure I am not alone when I say that a lot of people, for one reason or another, have felt underestimated. Either by someone else or by themselves. I am in the second category. All my life, I have been haunted by this feeling of being an underdog, a feeling I ironically created for myself. I am talking about those moments when maybe you had known all the information, you were overprepared, and yet somehow you were too afraid to show it. It is like losing a race on purpose. So witnessing Frieren unleash her true power flooded me with a strong feeling of liberation. It was a small glimpse at something that it is or could be. Something I could be if only I could break these chains of anxiety and pointless overthinking for a moment.

It is nice how art can mean such different things for different people. So I leave this review here for anyone who might feel the same as me.

And even if, in the end, the dream is all that we'll have, then let's dream that it will come a day in this life, or the next, when we'll say our: "... is a mage who's lived for over a thousand years."

Incredibly boring

[jpickens189 · 3/10 · 22 March 2024]

I am not sure why this series felt it needed twenty minutes of foreplay before showing the scene everyone already knew was going to happen for the last few episodes.

I think the only new information I got from the episode was exactly why demons don't learn to suppress their own mana, which, if anything, just makes them flatter, easier to understand, and far less terrifying.

Almost all of the discussion from the flashback is either information that we have already learned explicitly about demons or could have easily gathered from a fairly passive viewing of events.

Among all of the episodes of the series so far, this one is by far the least interesting. There is so little personality in how events are shown, Aura's characterization is largely driven by exposition, and the whole episode just kinda sits in a battle between Frieren and a copy-paste army.

This is also one of the least visually interesting episodes, with Frieren and Aura spending the majority of the episode standing around and talking. Also, in the flashbacks, there isn't a strong sense of identity to the places Frieren and Flamme visit.

It really just feels like this episode had one thing it was trying to say, and instead of breaking that idea down into many interesting component parts, it just kind of said the same thing over and over again. I think most of the rest of the series is okay, but this was not impressive.