The Quiet Beauty of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

Finding good fantasy anime is a challenging task these days. Most of the time, they’re either isekai or lean so heavily into that genre’s worst tropes they may as well be isekai. Disappointing as that is, it’s understandable; fantasy is far bigger here in the West than the East.

Something tells me that’s gonna change here real soon. At least, so I hope.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is a phenomenal story. The premise alone is ingenious, and that’s just a minor fraction of what makes it so brilliant! This show just about conquered the anime landscape, and for good reason!

But why? Why has Frieren risen to the top (at least according to MyAnimeList, so take with that as you will)? Just what is it that makes this series so special?

Luckily for me, we don’t need to look any further than the first episode to find out.

The story begins at the end. The Demon King has been slain by a party of four adventurers: Himmel the Hero, Eisen the Warrior, Heiter the Priest, and our leading lady herself: Frieren the Mage. After traveling together for ten years, their quest is complete, and now they return home to celebrate.

Himmel, Eisen, and Heiter all look back fondly on the journey. Those ten long years changed all three of them a great deal. But Frieren doesn’t feel the same. Elves live for over multiple millennia. To her, ten years is just a pitstop. Even so, she makes plans to reunite with Himmel and the others to see a meteor shower fifty years from now.

And so they do. But while Frieren hasn’t aged a day, the same can’t be said for the others. Himmel is half his height, bald, and has a frankly magical mustache. Heiter is old, gray, and somehow even more corrupt than before. Eisen is… more or less the same, just a bit more wrinkly. Even still, they all travel together as though they haven’t been apart more than a day.

The meteor shower scene is nothing short of beautiful. Not just animation wise, though it’s certainly gorgeous in that regard. But rather because we see it through Himmel’s perspective. For us, it’s only been five minutes, but he’s waited fifty years for this moment. That one night where he can be with his friends again and see something amazing. And it’s everything he could hope to be.

Which makes the next scene hurt so much more.

Human lives are oh so short, even for heroes. A lesson learned the hard way when Himmel passes on. While the country mourns the loss of their hero, said hero’s traveling companions don’t seem too bothered by it. Frieren is as cold as ever, Eisen as stoic, and Heiter as carefree.

But as Frieren looks on at Himmel’s burial, something changes. She thinks back on their adventures together, those ten years that were so long for him and so short for her. To her, he was there and gone as quick as the blink of an eye. And she realizes: she never bothered trying to know him better. A realization that brings the calm, stoic elf to tears.

This was the scene that made me realize how special this show would be. We’re only one episode in. We still barely know these characters or what they’ve been through. Yet we’ve already lost one and I’m sobbing like a baby.

And we’re only just getting started.

More time passes. One day, Frieren is called upon by Heiter, who is in his last years of life. The corrupt old priest now has an adopted daughter, Fern, whom he wants Frieren to teach magic. They strike up a deal, and Frieren takes Fern as her apprentice.

It’s at this point that the show reveals one of its most interesting narrative tools: time. Remember: Frieren is an immortal elf. Time passes differently to her than it does to our human characters. Rather than just telling us – though the show does do that to make things easier to follow – we get to see it in how the environment and the people around her change. We meet Fern as a child, and not two episodes later, she’s an adventure-ready adult. Some of these changes are so quick you could miss them in a blink. It’s an interesting creative decision that puts Frieren’s life into perspective.

One of my favorite examples is the fight scene against Qual. Once, his destruction magic was considered unstoppable. But then in the decades after Frieren defeated him, humanity took that spell and studied it, learning to use it for themselves. Now it’s considered standard offensive magic, and the once untouchable Qual is swept aside with ease by his own spell. Like how real-world firearms from a century ago led to the creation of new weapons that vastly overpower them. It’s fascinating stuff that only a show like this could pull off.

This idea is further expanded upon by the show’s dual narratives. In the A plot, we have Frieren’s new adventures with Fern and her new party. In the B, we get to see her past adventures with Himmel and the other heroes. An interesting narrative device, but a tricky one. How do you make your audience care for two stories at the same time, while having the one inform the other in a cohesive way with sixty-plus years splitting them apart?

But Frieren pulls it off to incredible effect! Frieren is literally walking the same road that she did all those years ago, so the past often bears consequences upon the present. The two plots weave together seamlessly like a tapestry, I love it!

While I do love the A plot with Fern and Stark, I enjoy the segments with Himmel and the others the most. For a quest as dangerous as slaying the Demon King, they sure had a lot of fun with it. They literally made a point of having a good time! Their journey is just so fun!

*Side note: Himmel is the best. I love this pure-hearted goober so much it hurts. He’s just so wholesome!

Of course, you can’t have adventure without a world. And the world of Frieren is vast, indeed, full of open green plains, dense forests, rocky mountains, and snowy fields. It’s got a Medieval German folk story energy to it that I adore. Even more so thanks to the excellent soundtrack.

Why is it that Japan and Germany go together like peanut butter and chocolate?

With that being said, the environments do tend to blend together. I get that it’s based on Europe, which isn’t exactly a varied place. But would a little variety kill you? I can only take so many copy-pasted cities before I get bored. Combined with the slow pace of the story, this show can be a wee bit of a slog every now and then. At least for me.

The world of Frieren is quiet and beautiful. This isn’t a mile-a-minute action adventure. It’s a slow, calm ride with some lovable characters. So much so that it’s pretty relaxing to watch!

Which makes the rare battle scenes all the more intense.

Fight scenes don’t happen often, but they’re marvelously done. The animation team and composers work together perfectly to give us some jaw-dropping and exciting battles. Fern and Stark’s tag-team duel with demons is one of the best anime fight sin 2023, and we got Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 that year!

*Side note: the demons in Frieren are legitimately creepy. They have no concept of love or family, but they know exactly which words to use to trick and manipulate those that do. Most aren’t even malicious, but cold and disinterested. They feel genuinely inhuman and it gives me chills every time.

It’s not hard to see why Frieren has been such a smash success. In the face of all it does right, those few issues are minor and easy to forgive. This is how you write good fantasy right here!

I hope this series is as popular in Japan as it is here. I’d love to see more thoughtful fantasy shows like this. Even if only once in a while, to break up the pace between the isekais and the almost-not-isekais.

Or at least set more of them in, like, Scotland or something. Gimme anime characters screaming at each other in tilted Scottish accents.