Frieren is the most overrated anime, and here's why

Sometimes I wake up at 3 AM and start wondering how Frieren is the highest-rated anime of all time on My Anime List, and then go back to sleep, a little more depressed than before.

Yeah, and I’m not joking.

First of all, I’m not a hater, or to be totally honest, I’m not a liar. The more I think about Frieren, the more braincells I lose, and I don’t have much left to lose anymore.

I thought about lying this time to ride the hype train, but alas, I couldn’t afford the train ticket.

It’s wildly common these days to throw the word PEAK here and there without any hesitation and thought put into it.

Thus, the word PEAK has lost its credibility. Frieren is widely regarded as peak fiction, the greatest anime of all time, best fantasy anime, etc., by its fans. Which, unfortunately, doesn’t make it peak fiction. If that were the case, Boruto would have been goated too. Even some people think Boruto is better than Naruto, though I doubt their capability to think.

Let's leave Boruto alone for now and focus on Frieren.

The problem isn’t Frieren - it’s the modern audience:

There’s a growing misconception that if someone doesn’t like an anime which is slow and their favourite for some reason unknown to heaven, is either a TikTok user or don’t understand deep anime. They assume that slow means deeper. Absurd it might be, but this is exactly how they think.

• Some calm character, or should I say paper-thin, perhaps? And meaningless conversation about side projects doesn’t make a show philosophical.

• People focus too much on how the characters and their clothes are more visually good looking that one punch man season 3, ignoring the absolutely generic writing of the show.

People generally consider that Demon Slayer is saved by it’s god tier animation, and here we have Frieren, which bored its audience to death even with a god-tier production quality.

The Main Character Problem (Frieren herself):

The thing that bugs me the most is that the main character is irrelevant. Yeah, you heard it right. That old elf who’s older than the moons themselves is wandering around the world without any curiosity or meaning. Who’s neither compassionate nor empathetic. There’s nothing about that I would root for.

• She has nothing to offer as a main character, and is aimless; neither does she have any urgency nor any internal conflict, cause aparatntly she’s immortal.

• She doesn’t show much expression, stays emotionally distant, and that doesn’t make her a complexcharacter in any way. And there’s nothing mysterious about her, so there’s nothing to look forward to.

• If you are into emotionless main character types, I recommend checking out Ayanokoji from Classroom of the Elite. And I recommend taking some notes on how to write an emotionless character while being a top-tier from the backstory to personality and achieving the love of audiance. Who doesn’t bore the watcher?

To be honest, she’s just empty. Nothing interesting is going on with her.

The issues with the pace:

Throughout heaven and earth, only “I” know how much I have suffered watching Frieren doing nothing and a plot that moves slower than a turtle.

• Episode after episode, I kept waiting for something to happen, and as you can guess, nothing meaningful ever happens in this show. On top of that, some flashbacks make me question my intelligence every single time. I will come to that later.

• You won’t believe me, but I used to watch Frieren at night because I couldn’t afford to sleep during the day. It would put me to sleep immediately, so I had to be careful.

To be honest, there are some things I really liked, and I must appreciate them. Like the art and animation.

The Fantasy World is Generic (but filmed beautifully):

Every frame is an art, and it's amazingly animated, and you truly feel and want to appreciate the animators.

• Top tier Animation and art make it tolerable.

• The world-building is generic fantasy; nothing is extraordinary. I would take it as a positive.

• There’s no political depth in this world, nor is there any culture. Nothing innovative at all.

Misconception of some people:

People have some wild assumptions, though I try to ignore them, but some misconceptions are really hilarious.

• When some genuine people don’t resonate with this anime, the show's fans generally mock them for not liking it. They assume they are intellectual for liking a generic show.

• If you believe that admiring and abusing other people for not liking your below-average show and that makes you a mature fan, then my friend, you are a Frieren fan.

• The argument that MAL rating proves anything is premature thinking, and most of the anime fans don’t have a clue what MAL actually is. The argument becomes very childish as nobody takes MAL’s rating seriously.

Even though I appreciate the scenery and the world and how it looks and feels, the comfort it provides and the music that blends well. I’m disappointed with the hype culture, and that definitely hampered my enjoyment.