Anime Spotlight #35: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. the Animeister

Are you alright?

Can you hear me?

As you might remember, this was supposed to be released last week, but workplace complications got in the way. Now, as promised, here it is: today's review is the convergence of "I can't believe I slept on this series" and "banger song I listen to every episode."

It's not an upbeat banger like Call Of the Night's opening and ending music or Oshi No Ko's opener. It's not even a sexy jazz banger like Metallic Rouge's opening song. But I'll talk about that a bit later. The action calls, so please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment your demon-slaying exploits at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can afford my quest for new spells, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

I haven't found anything to corroborate this, so it's purely a notice of thematic and contemporary coincidence, but Frieren: Beyond Journey's End was originally a manga written by Kanehito Yamada, illustrated by Tsukasa Abe, and published beginning in April 2020, a month and a half after the official declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic.

The manga is about Frieren, the titular elf mage who accompanied a human hero and his stock-ish party of companions (a dwarf and a human priest) on their quest to defeat the Demon King (as one does in a fantasy series). Since elves live longer than all other races, the manga (and by extension, the anime) picks up with the Demon King having been defeated...and Frieren having to spend the first episode watching her human companions grow old and die (which is why I almost didn't watch the anime - I expected it to just be an ongoing stream of tragedy).

So you'll forgive me for assuming that the creators were working through some COVID-related shit when they created an emotionally distant, nigh-immortal protagonist with survivor's guilt who searches for magical ways to make the world beautiful after helping the last and only group of good people she ever took the time to know personally defeat the leader of a group of evil, power-hungry sociopaths who pretend to be human and tell humans what they want to hear as a means of manipulating and genociding our gullible race.

These are the Demons, and considering my only other comparison at the time were the over-designed, Cockney-spewing versions we got in The Wrong Way To Use Healing Magic, I like Frieren's take on them much better, and they (or rather, the one meme of Frieren getting a female Demon to kill itself) are the reason I decided to give the anime the time of day beyond the sadness of the first episode.

The Demons are coldly terrifying, and the historical context and spectacular animation around this meme make it one of the most badass moments in modern anime.

As for the series itself, Frieren travels the land, encountering the various ways in which the exploits of her old "Hero's Party" were honored or forgotten, the changes in politics and culture that have happened in the world, a smattering of "you're the child I rescued from so-and-so way back then? But, you're so old!," trading goods and information to expand her collection of mundane spells (growing flowers, washing clothes, boiling water, etc.), and being an unwitting mentor and traveling companion to Fern (Black Clover's Jill Harris) and her clueless love interest, a red-headed warrior named Stark (pronounced "Shtark" in the dub to indicate some kind of German folk influence to the series' world, and he is voiced by Jordan Dash Cruz, who has done dub work for several series I have reviewed, including Black Clover, Trapped In A Dating Sim: The World Of Otome Games Is Tough For Mobs, and Shadows House). The first episode, and later flashbacks, feature some more peak VA dub talent for the Hero's Party: Himmel the Hero (My Hero Academia's Cliff Chapin, a.k.a. Bakugo, but with a kinder, less edgy tone to his voice), Heiter the "Corrupt Priest" and Fern's original master and surrogate father figure (Dragon Ball Super's Jason Douglas, a.k.a. Beerus), and Stark's dwarven master Eisen (the Overlord Ains Ooal Gown himself, Chris Guerrero). Though Beyond Journey's End is mostly a character-driven scenery tour of break-ups, make-ups, and flashbacks, that is enough to make its twenty-eight episode run worth the binge, and things pick up about halfway through when Frieren's desire to journey north (where the series' realm of speaking to the dead is located) requires her to update her mage credentials so she can prove her ability to travel safely through Demon-occupied territories, and the First-Class Mage's Exam kicks off. We're talking the usual battle tournament-type stuff with incredible effects and fight animation to make it as beautiful as it is entertaining (thanks to Studio Madhouse, who also brought us such amazing-looking series as Overlord, Hunter X Hunter, and Trigun), followed by friendly but deadly social competition in a trap-laden dungeon and a heart-warming but un-sentimental reunion between Frieren and her human teacher's elven master.

Granted, you need to be in the right mood to get the appeal of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, but it's worth enduring the first episode feels and then some. I hope a second season gets made once more of the manga gets published, but for now, it's considered concluded.

Now for the ending music.

I said it wasn't a "banger" in the same way I've classified other anime bangers, and like Frieren itself, you have to be in the mood (read: prepared to cry and feel lonely) to want to listen to it. But between the lyrics, the sad, reassuring, lonely, friendly feel of the song, the incredible animation of the closing credits sequences, and the fact that instead of using a different song, the second half of the season uses a different verse of the same song, this is a must.

"Anytime Anywhere" by milet

Another must is that you please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment your demon-slaying exploits at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can afford my quest for new spells, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

First-Class

Animeister,

Whispering our lullaby for you to come back home.