Sousou no Frieren

The art and characters are a hit, but I really can't stand the lazy use of video game logic for some things (especially "party mechanics").

For example, there's one point where they're traveling together and a healer/monk wants to join them for a leg of their journey and Freiren tells him "we already have a healer in our party" and it's supposed to be this heartwarming moment except it makes no sense? There is literally no downside to having this guy around for the next leg of the journey? It would keep them safer? Why not have two healers?

This is the kind of thing that could have been justified or explained but it feels like the writer was just too lazy and blindly used "video game logic" that a party can only be x many people. The problem is video games only have those limitations because programmers can't program for every possible party combination. In a story like this there are no limitations besides the writer's imagination.

You could even say this undermines the entire story because in the past why would they only fight the demons as small teams of adventurers? Why would they not unite to form larger fighting forces? I just can't take the story seriously when it's like this...

I was sold this manga as slow but with deep writing and characters... but it's just only slow and shallow.Art is gorgeous tho.

it's better and characters talk like actual people whereas its the opposite in fan scanlation

This starts quite intriguing, but as chapters go it switches more and more towards very typical fantasy adventure plot.

Later chapters are pretty formulaic, we get "enemy of the week" being presented and defeated, largely focusing on action but with heavily interspersed with flashbacks (the only unique bit here). Nothing too amazing for the world building as well, the author had my attention for the moment with her "demons are bad, period"; but otherwise the setting is very generic.

What had me hooked and so interested was the idea of the action already being concluded. A survey of how time has passed and how society moves on after a period of darkness. It still has those moments but it seems to be moving towards it's own grand adventure feel which I don't think is it's strong suit and makes it 'just another Shonen'. I think you can still have this eloquent-ish character arcs without having them mean something in some 'epic' sense.

cons :
Boring/uninteresting/generic plot
Fern being verbally abusive towards Stark most of the time ruined the romance part for me

the main cast better get immortality or some something without that this will be a really sad ending.

I'm happy that I've decided to pick this up. I stray away from reading shounen because it usually bores me but I have liked a select few from the genre, so I was really surprised that this is tagged as shounen (and written by a man!) because I would have badly missed out on this. If someone told me that Frieren was written by a man, I wouldn't believe it because the way that this is so heart-tugging, emotional...is a man even capable of writing such? let alone understanding it lol

This has given me an existential crisis because of how time is always emphasized as fleeting, given that the main character is an elven. I'm always reminded that everything will pass in time and no one will remember what you do and who you are, which I find bittersweet as I read through Frieren's journey, the people she've met and the things she does for them. Despite having such a long lifespan, Frieren has no desire in leaving a legacy but rather spends her time going with the flow and making sense of the world from her peers. I love that every now and then there are flashbacks of how the other characters changed her for the better (Himmel has contributed a lot, and I get why he's 2nd in character rankings). And what I love the most about is the character relationships and interactions, so entertaining and heartfelt.

I look forward to more of Frieren getting eaten by a mimic ^^