English Dub Season Review: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

Overview:

After the party of heroes defeated the Demon King, they restored peace to the land and returned to lives of solitude. Generations pass, and the elven mage Frieren comes face to face with humanity’s mortality. She takes on a new apprentice and promises to fulfill old friends’ dying wishes. Can an elven mind make peace with the nature of life and death? Frieren embarks on her quest to find out.

Our Take:

I mentioned this in one of my episode reviews but the fact that Frieren is still the top-ranked anime on the website My Anime List is a pretty big deal because Fullmetal Alchemist has been number one for what seems like forever. Why does this matter, well I’m getting to that.

Every once in a while a series will come along that you can tell is going to be a classic from the moment it airs, and that’s how I feel about Frieren. I was at my other job today before I sat down to write this and one of my coworkers asked me to describe Frieren because they had heard good things and were interested. One of the best things I can say about this series is that there is a little something for everyone. Action, comedy, romance, drama, and it’s in here.

Any show can have these elements and not be good, so what sets this anime apart? Frieren is a big part of it, she’s an elf that has been alive for over a thousand years. This is her journey to find out what it’s like to live truly. This series starts where most other series would be ending, with the hero’s party defeating the Demon King. To an elf like Frieren, fifty or sixty years is nothing but when she goes back to check on her other party members she finds them old and frail. This is what sets Frieren off on one of the most beautiful journeys I’ve seen not just in anime but in media period.

The characters of this story are the best part and if you’ve read any of my reviews that won’t come as a surprise. At first, I remember being disappointed that we wouldn’t be getting much time with the hero’s party outside of flashbacks but the characters that Frieren takes on as her “new” party are so fantastic that my worries were quickly washed away.

Fern, the girl that Frieren would take on as her apprentice was under the care of another one of her former party members, Heiter. Their relationship is the motor that makes this series run in my opinion, though at times it feels more like Fern is the mature one. They add another party member, Stark the warrior, who is being trained by Eisen, another one of Frieren’s old friends.

There isn’t a ton of action in this series but when there is it’s a visual masterpiece. Madhouse isn’t a bad studio by any means but when I think of top-tier animation I usually think of Ufotable or WIT, after this, I will have to add Madhouse to that list.

Look… I could write about this anime all day but we both already know where this is going. If you’ve made it this far just watch the damn show. The only regret you’ll have is only being able to experience it once. My only negative for this series is that it ended, which is high praise for a show. As of now, there hasn’t been a second season announcement but the end card for the last episode essentially said “To be continued”. Between that and how popular it was I can’t imagine we won’t get a second season eventually. I hope we get it sooner rather than later because this was without a doubt one of the best anime I have ever watched.