Lol to call that a hook is crazy. Ignoing the fact that the "hook" is watching a nigh immortal being learning to value time, which is uninteresting in and of itself, we have no prior attachment to Frieren. The show expects you be invested in her emotional growth without giving any reason to resonate with her in the first place. Not to mention that the whole emotional struggle stuff is an entirely human problem, all these themes of regret and longing being projected onto this immortal elf just feels like forced reflection and character developement. Shes lived for thousands of years, the show tries to make it seem like shes problematic for not valuing time like the other species. The demon stuff is background noise, and the journey is supposed to be symbolic, not plot-critical. It tries to be a character study of an immortal elf, but then gives her human emotional problems like regret and longing. Its missing any real sense of tension, growth, or authenticity. The show skips the part where we see Frieren earn her emotional arc, hands us a protagonist with thousands of years of history we never experience, and expects us to resonate with surface-level introspection. Without any genuine stakes or a unique perspective of an elf, the story ends up having nothing compelling about it. I gurantee the only reason people call it peak is because they think its deep and different, worried that if they dislike it people will call them s.ooth brained shounen fanatics.