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No. 37971
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I thought this series was great at first, but man it's like this turns into an entirely different anime in it's second half. It's like one anime is this fun feel good easy going adventure with a focus on fleshing out deep interesting characters on their journey together with themes of learning how to move on with one's life while still appreciating what you left behind. It also had the bonus of resurrecting a setting that has been ruined by a flood of bastardized copycats each worse than the last, and avoiding all the obnoxious tropes and cliche those introduced.
Then half way in, the pacing and everything else just comes to a grinding halt. The male characters get booted off to the side lines while the girls take part in a very long mage test/tournament. It practically turns into cape shit at that point, with a focus on action and a bunch of new characters having their own unique super powers, who are then made to fight each other in typical anime fashion. They even do that thing where fights get dragged out while we're given context for characters powers as they fight, or in depth explanations of their powers and abilities.
Funny thing is, once they're done fighting each other they're tasked with exploring a dungeon, which as it turns out is just another setting for (essentially) fighting each other some more. The reason given for why this lengthy detour feels so flimsy too. Our characters are traveling north, but they can't get into Canada without a passport, so they have to spend half a season taking tests to get one.
To me this feels like lazy writing, which is weird because it was pretty decent up untill this point. I don't know if the creator got burnt out and decided to phone it in for a while or what. During this second half, most of the flash backs to Frieren's old adventuring days feel poorly done too. Maybe it's just me but as things go on Himmel in flash backs seems less and less human and more like a caricature of a unrealistically perfect handsome and romantic hero trope, more so than he already was. If we're being generous however, one might say this could be frieren coming to terms with her feelings for the guy and remembering him with rose tinted glasses. Either way, it's a bit disappointing to see the direction this took.
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