Frieren vs ScreenRant

In the last couple days, popular nerd news site ScreenRant has taken umbrage with the anime Frieren: Beyond Journey's End newest arc and I'm here to tell you just why they are so wrong.

The site's main complaint is that an arc like this with a limited location and cast is not playing to the series' strong points but I would argue that this view misses the series's strongest suit, which is its characters and world-building. 

This arc introduces us to a plethora of new mages with all sorts of different motives and backgrounds that inform their opinions on magic. What this means is that the audience's knowledge of this worlds magic rapidly expands in this arc, prior to this we only know what Fern knows which is mostly limited to the basics of battle magic and the true absurdities of the grimoires Frieren collects. Throughout this arc we see all sorts of new magics from Lawine and Kanne with their elemental magics to Laufen's teleportation to Land's clone magic it becomes thoroughly clear that magic in this world is capable of anything that a mage can visualize manipulating with their mana. 

ScreenRant seems to only take a surface-deep reading of this comparing it to an arc with a similar in-world purpose in Naruto. Though even that comparison is week as in Naruto the Chunnin Exams is a lead in to the attack from the Hidden Sound, its the preparation and introduction of characters for that second arc whereas in Frieren the First Class Mage Exams is a contained arc focused on exploring the plethora of different spellcasters looking to prove themselves. in Frieren the exam itself is mostly an afterthought, there's never a question of if Frieren and Fern will pass this trial it's only a matter of what they'll learn and the people they'll come to know along the way.

Unsurprisingly ScreenRant is not the place to look for deep commentary on one of the season's best anime, there take shows how little about the show they choose to talk about. There's no doubt that this arc is league beyond it's contemporaries and well worth your time.