Tag: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Review: The Greatest Anime Adaptation of All Time?

I have been keeping up with Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End ever since I first read the manga back in 2021.
Written by Kanehito Yamada, the manga has a unique spin on the fantasy genre.
Rather than follow the heroes Himmel (Nobuhiko Okamoto), Frieren (Atsumi Tanezaki), Heiter (Hiroki Tochi) and Eisen (Yoji Ueda) on their adventure to defeat the Demon King, the story instead takes place decades later, with Frieren reminiscing on that epic, ten-year journey.
This was a journey that passed in the blink of an eye for Frieren, due to her long life as an Elf.
By the time she realizes what that time meant, the hero Himmel and the rest of the party are either gone or fading.
The current story thus follows Frieren, as she embarks on a new journey with Heiter’s adopted daughter Fern (Kana Ichinose), and Eizen’s apprentice Stark (Chiaki Kobayashi), while reflecting on her old adventure.
It is a moving story that I was quite excited to see animated by Madhouse. 

Past events take new meaning for Frieren on her current adventure.

Directed by Keiichiro Saito, the studio clearly had a lot of faith in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End because, not only did they greenlight 28 episodes, but they also aired four of the first episodes together.
Seeing this faith in the project made me excited for the adaptation but nothing could have prepared me for how masterful it was.
I would go as far to say that Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is the greatest anime adaptation for a manga of all time.
This is a bold claim but I feel that it is more than warranted with just how much the anime elivates the source material.
So many battles in the manga take place in single panels, yet the anime adapts these into fully fledged and meaningful fights, with stunning animation that never falters.
The incredible animation even applies to character building scenes, with a moment as simple as Frieren jumping out of a bed being unbelievably detailed. 

The humor of this scene was enhanced by the animation.

The emotion of the anime also just hits deeper, with the soundtrack by Evan Call working with the animation to bring the viewer into the scene, whether that be a fight scene or a character growth one.
Staying on tune with the sound of the anime, the voice acting is also superb, with the actors ironically bringing a lot of life to the often-monotone voices of the characters.
This monotone style of speaking creates a lot of humorous situations, as do the few moments when characters break out into explosions of expression, as mostly seen with Stark.

Stark reacting to Fern being angry at him will never not be funny.

I have been heaping praise upon praise for this anime adaptation but now comes the time in the review where I have to state my criticisms… or I would, if I had any.
Seriously, this adaptation is so good it even removed some of my criticisms of the manga.
In my review for the manga, I said that it felt like some storylines overstayed their welcome, yet the flawless nature of this adaptation made the scenes flow so well together.
Seeing the quality of this adaptation made me extremely excited to see future arcs in the story adapted.

Epic scenes like this one make me even more excited for Season Two.

If the anime can keep up this level of quality for future seasons, then Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End could stand among the best anime of all time.
I would even argue this first season is one of the best in all of anime.
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is now the gold standard of anime adaptations, for me.
I would say goodbye to it, until hopefully Season Two, but it would be embarrassing when we meet again. 

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: An Adventure After the Heroes’ Adventure.

I remember scrolling through Reddit a while back and coming across a fan animation for an ongoing manga called Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End of an elf doing a weird dance.
I thought it was funny so I decided to give the first chapter a read and it immediately sucked me in to the point that I binged the whole thing and have been reading every chapter upon its release.
Written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End has one of the most interesting and emotional openings to a story that I have seen in a long time.
We have all seen the typical fantasy story where the hero overcomes the big, evil dark lord, right?
It is by no means original.
However, what is original is to focus an entire story on what happens after this point in the many years following the dark lord’s defeat.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End explores what happens to the fantasy heroes and the world they live in long after they have completed their epic quest.

This is how the first chapter begins, with the hero Himmel and his party of the titular mage Frieren, priest Heiter, and dwarf Eisen, returning from their successful ten year journey to kill the demon king.
After much celebration, the group separate, deciding to meet up again to see a meteor shower that occurs once every 50 years.
Sure enough, 50 years later, Frieren returns to meet up with her party, only to reconnect at the end of Himmel’s life.
In all this time, little has seemed to pass for Frieren as, being an elf, she can live for thousands of years, with the time she spent with the hero party being little more than a blink in her long life.
Yet, despite knowing this, she still finds herself crying at Himmel’s funeral and wondering why  she did not take the time to understand him.
As the years pass, Frieren is eventually tasked with taking on the dying Heiter’s student Fern and Eisen’s former student Stark.
Together, the three of them begin their long journey to a place where souls rest so Frieren can see Himmel again.

The manga mainly follows Frieren, Fern and Stark on their long journey to find Himmel’s soul, going through many, many minor adventures along the way.

Make no mistake, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is mostly a slife of life story, with the adventure of Frieren, Fern and Stark exploring this fantasy world decades after the demon king’s defeat, while occasionally flashing back to Frieren’s time with the hero party.
All of the character’s, whether from Frieren’s current or past party, are fantastic, with a lot of great, funny and emotional moments.
These emotional moments come specifically during the first few chapters, where Frieren has to experience the deaths of many of her old friends who are dying of old age while she continues to live.
It really makes you think about how Frieren’s current adventure with Fern and Stark could also be so fleeting for her.
All those little slice of life adventures they have could become just another blink in Frieren’s eye and that is a sad thing to consider.
Speaking of slice of life, though, this is not all the manga is because there are actually some plot progressing storylines in Frieren’s current journey as well, like the demon arc, one of the early arcs in the story, which has what is easily one of Frieren’s best moments.

Frieren is at her coolest when facing off the demon army lead by Aura the Guillotine.

There are great moments spread out like this across the manga actually, although, there are some parts of the slice of life that are less interesting than others and some of the big storylines do seem to overstay their welcome a bit, like the most current one. 
And that is pretty much my only problem with Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End.
I find the rest of it to be a great comedic, sometimes emotional story with good action and artwork.
It is a highly interesting take on what happens after the hero’s journey we are all so familiar with comes to an end.