Tag: Madhouse

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. 

Death Parade Review: Not a Very Cheerful Parade.

4 and a half stars
The anime club at my university recently started and, during our first meeting, we watched the first episodes of five anime, three of which we would choose to watch for the rest of the semester.
One of these anime was Death Parade, directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa, and of all the anime we watched that night it was by far my favourite.

episode 1 second attempt
The first episode, “Death Seven Darts” does a great job setting up the theme of the series, along with its characters and structure.

Imagine my disappointment then when Death Parade was not one of the anime that was selected.
Although, I suppose this did turn out in my favor because it gave me the opportunity to binge the 12 episode series over three days.
And, let me tell you, despite what the fantastic OP would have you believe, this anime is anything but a cheerful parade.
Death Parade is mostly set in Quindecim, a bar where many people turn up with no memory of what happened, only to meet the mysterious bartender Decim (Tomoaki Maeno) and his new assistant (Asami Seto).
Decim reveals to his guests that they will have to play a game by roulette of which their very lives will be stake.

decim
Decim and his, at first, unnamed assistant have a great dynamic, especially when it comes to the morality of Decim’s job and how the assistant deals with that.

To say anything more would be to spoil the twists of the first episode, which, although expected, I don’t wish to ruin because of how good the anime is.
With Death Parade‘s episode structure, it would have been very easy for the show to become repetitive but it almost never does with its great leads in Decim and the unamed woman and plenty of memorable side characters.
This culminates in many fantastic episodes like “Death Counter”, which is incredibly engaging in its mysteries and twists, and the final episode “Suicide Tour”, which really gets the tears rolling with its emotional climax and fitting ending.

Sad Decim
Prepare for a whole lot of tear jerking moments in the final two episodes.

One criticism I do have with the anime, though, is how often it is brought up that a certain group of characters cannot feel emotions, only for them to be clearly displaying emotions, with one of these characters almost always being angry.
Granted, I do not speak Japanese so the meaning of emotions could be very different in the language context so I could just be misinterpreting this.
Still, Death Parade is a great anime with plenty of memorable characters and tragic scenes.
Just don’t mistake it for the happy looking show that the OP makes it out to be.