*Nitsuj is lying down on a couch with Mira sitting in a chair with a notepad taking notes*
(Mira): So tell me Nitsuj, what brings you in today?
(Nitsuj): Well, I find myself at a crossroads in my life. I think Frieren may just be my new all-time favorite anime.
(Mira): I see. Is there something wrong with the previous anime you considered your all-time favorite?
(Nitsuj): No. It’s still a great anime. It’s. . .Frieren just pulled me in like no other anime has, and now I’m afraid what everyone is going to say if I decide to review it and claim it as my new favorite anime.
(Mira): And when has the thoughts of others stopped you from expressing what you think and say?
*Nitsuj gave her questionable look*
(Mira): You’re free to change your favorite anime at any time you want and if anyone has a problem with that they can suck it. As far as the review goes, I would say do what you’ve always done. Be yourself, be honest, and review it to the best of your abilities.
*Nitsuj sits up*
(Nitsuj): You know what, you’re right. Thanks, Mira.
(Mira): You’re welcome. Now get out there and never waste my time like this again.
*Nitsuj gets up and heads upstairs*
(Nitsuj): So. . .Frieren. Based off a manga written by Kanehito Yamada in 2020. Frieren would quickly go on to reshape the way people view fantasy anime. For the longest time it seemed like the fantasy genre in anime was in a downward spiral, with isekai taking its spot. After one year of its publication it would go on to win multiple awards and be seen as one of the greatest graphic novels and mangas out there. With its success it only made since to turn it into anime and in 2023 the series got an anime produced by the most unlikely studio, Madhouse (Overlord). Madhouse was in a rough spot during this period. Once seen as the biggest powerhouse studio in the industry, Madhouse had steadily gone downhill due to a drop in anime releases and most releases not being anything to write home about. So when this anime was announced, nobody was sure what to expect. But in the months to come, they got their answer as the anime would go on to be considered one of the greatest animes ever made. I know that phrase gets tossed around a lot for anime, but this anime really was amazing and I could make the argument that it’s become my new all-time favorite anime. So join me as a we go on a journey. This is Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End.
Opening and Ending Themes
The first opening is “Yuusha” by YOASOBI. Best known for their songs on Beastar, the duo would go on to become a staple of anime openings and endings in the years to come. This opening being one of them. One of my favorite openings from 2023, the song perfectly sets the tone for the anime and sums up the emotions and feelings of our main character. I like how the song starts off robotic and emotionless only for the singers to sound more human and emotional as the song continues. Once again doing a good job telling the journey of our main character. The second opening is “Haru” by Yorushika. Now some people have said they like this opening more than the first one but I personally prefer the first opening. Still, this song is good. It gives off major travel vibes and once again does a good job showing the journey of our main character and how much she’s changed. Even though the pain of losing others from the past is still there, she has met new people and has developed bonds with them.
The first ending is “Anytime Anywhere” by Milet. By God, the first line two lines of this song almost broke me: Are you alright? Can you hear me? It sets the tone for this bittersweet song about fleeting beauty in life that blends together. It makes you wonder, is this how the main character sees the world or is it how she wishes to see the world? The second ending is “Bliss” by Milet once again. This song is beautiful. It perfectly captures the pain of lost, growing up, and finding the strength to move forward and form bonds with others. Milet’s voice makes this feel like as if an old folklore song is being sung and I love every second of it. This is another situation where a majority of people say they like the first ending more, but personally, I think the second ending is better.
Episodes 1-5
So the anime begins at the end of the journey. Yep, the hero of this world, Himmel, and his party have just defeated the demon lord and are returning to the capital where they’ll be held as heroes. In this party is a dwarf and priest named Eisen and Heiter and our main character Frieren a powerful elf mage voiced by Atsumi Tanezaki (Anya from SpyxFamily. Wow, impressive range. How do you go from voicing someone as child-like and expressive as Anya to someone as mature and emotionally distant as Frieren?). It was a 10-year long journey but to Frieren it might as well have been a short afternoon nap. The concept of time means nothing to her because she’s an elf and during that 10-year journey, she took little to no interest in getting to know her party members (just like an open lobby in COD, Battlefield, or Fortnite). As they reminisce about their journey, they see a meteor shower which occurs every 50 years. Frieren says the view sucks and promises to show them a better view at the next shower (living to your 70s or 80s in medieval time? That’s nothing short of a miracle). Fifty years have passed and Frieren reunites with Himmel who has grown old (and shrunk apparently) and the others. Keeping to her promise, she brings them to a lake to watch the meteor shower which was even better than the first time they saw it. Shortly after the meteor shower, Himmel passes away and it isn’t until his burial where Frieren finally has her breakdown. She knew human life was short and regrets not taking the chance to get to know Himmel more (scene here: https://youtu.be/UqgdxZgStYs?si=dCA4ArfNFmIxTolB, the hardest thing about death is the regrets that die with our loved ones). After the funeral, Frieren decides to go on another journey. This time in the hopes of learning more about humanity. Twenty years have passed and Frieren finds herself in the holy city of Strahl where Heiter lives. She goes to visit him where she sees he’s taken in an orphan named Fern (she’s adorable!) voiced by Kana Ichinose (Tuesday from Carole and Tuesday) and wants Fern to take her on as an apprentice on her travels. Frieren says no as Fern is too young, so Heiter asks her to stick around and decipher this old book said to contain the secrets of immortality and resurrection. Frieren says it’ll take five to six years which Heiter is okay with and invites Frieren to teach Fern some magic in her spare time as apparently, Fern is a natural.
In episode 2 the years go by. Fern grows older and stronger while Heiter grows older and weaker. Frieren gets done deciphering the book which had no mention of immortality or resurrection. Heiter of course already knew that. The whole deciphering was just a rouse to stall for time until Fern could grow older and become a proper mage. Now Frieren has no excuse not to take her on her journey (hook, line, and sinker. Frieren was focusing on the six-year plan instead of the ten-year plan). When Heiter finally passes, Frieren takes Fern on her journey. In the second half of the episode, Frieren and Fern take on the quest of a florist to clean a statue of Himmel. In the past, when the florist’s town was attacked, it was Himmel who came to the town’s rescue. As a thank you, they built him a statue which took 18 hours to make because he couldn’t decide on a oppose he wanted to make. After cleaning up the statue they decide to put flowers around it, but when Frieren remembers that Himmel’s favorite flower is blue moon weed, she decides to plant those flowers. The only problem is the flower has gone extinct in the region, so Frieren and Fern spend six months looking for the flower until they eventually find it at the top of a tower (and the search was worth it because they are beautiful. Scene here: https://youtu.be/-C3Jqo7wUxE?si=hyGjI5fsBYx7jZJw). On the surface, it’s a silly little side quest that really has no impact on the world or journey, but when you dig deeper you actually learn something more. Frieren becoming obsessed with finding the flowers is her secretly trying to learn more about Himmel. She wants to understand why these flowers meant so much to him and after seeing them she gets it and learns something new about him. We also learn why she’s so obsessed with learning spells. It’s not just a hobby for her, it’s because Himmel always liked her spells. Her continuing to learn spells is her way of remembering Himmel. It’s no different than Fern. She could have learned anything, but she chose to learn magic. Why, because of Heiter. It’s a symbol of her bond with him.
Episode 3 gives us our first look at some action. The episode starts with our two mages in a town where Fern notices Frieren acting strangely. Fern secretly follows Frieren around to other shops to make sure she doesn’t buy anything they don’t need (scene here: https://youtu.be/dMIZrie15z4?si=ACaRNsabwFXma8nh). In the evening, Frieren takes her to a nice dessert place and gives her a hair ornament for her birthday. Even though Frieren doesn’t know that much about Fern, she’s putting in the effort to get to know her and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Fern. In the second half, Frieren and Fern journey to a village where a demon known as Qual was sealed. 80 years ago, Qual once terrorized the area with his instant death spell that no one could defend against (plenty of items in Persona to counter that spell). Himmel and the others once faced off against him, where he was so powerful that the only thing Frieren could do was seal him up to save everyone, but knew that he would eventually break out. Since then, Qual has been sealed and Himmel actually visited the village every year to check on the seal and was confident that Frieren would return before the seal was broken (or pull a Zoro, got lost, and arrived just as Qual broke free and beat his ass). Frieren removes the seal on Qual to fight him and he tries to use his instant kill spell only to see it can’t break her defense spell. Frieren reveals that not only did mages analyze and study his spell, but they reversed engineered it to develop counter spells to it. In the 80 years that he’s been sealed, magic has advanced so much that his spell has become obsolete (in other words, he’s the Atari to Frieren’s PS5. It’s an oldie but a good one. However, it pales in comparison to today’s games and tech). So Frieren kills Qual (and with his own spell. That’s just dirty. You didn’t have to do him like that) to save the village (scene here: https://youtu.be/pubJzYdUg7g?si=BLtjNNo5blGjychd).
In the first half of episode 4, Frieren accepts the job of cleaning up a beach for a grimoire written by the legendary mage Flamme. The book is a fake according to Frieren who says Flamme never wrote down her grimoires. How does she know this? Because she was Flamme’s student. A thousand years ago Flamme took in a young Frieren and taught her everything she knows about magic. So why did Frieren take on this request for a fake book? Well it’s because this beach was a spot that she and the others visited in their travels. It was here that the group saw the sunrise, but Frieren being a notorious late sleeper, missed it which angered everyone and she didn’t get why (scene here: https://youtu.be/-uIpCTGDX44?si=ufr7u4jhAif4zu1m). It takes them a few months, but they managed to get the beach cleaned up and just in time before the new year. Fern drags Frieren to the first sunrise of the new year (which is beautiful to look at) where she still doesn’t see what the big deal is until she sees the joy on Fern’s face (scene here: https://youtu.be/rbKhjMvrBbE?si=x8G6GXtllMDI-V8E. Again, this is a silly side quest which has no impact on the story or world, but helps Frieren connect to Himmel and the others. It was never about the sunrise. Kind of. It was about sharing a beautiful moment with people you care about and making memories. It’s the equivalent of staying up until New Year’s Day. Is there really a point to staying up until midnight? I don’t think so. Then why do I stay up and plan on doing it again this year? It’s because I get to spend time with my friends and family and bring in the new year together with them and make fun memories). In the second half they go to visit Eisen who asks for their help in locating the only grimoire Flamme ever wrote. Supposedly, Flamme found a way to speak to the dead and Eisen thinks it would be good for Frieren to speak to Himmel one last time (and let him hear those three magic words he’s always wanted to be told). They find the grimoire where Flamme says she found Aureole, the land where souls go to rest. It’s in Ende, the northernmost part of the continent where the demon lord’s castle is (you’re telling me after all these years nobody bothered to ransack or tear that castle down? What are you doing with your lives?). Frieren invites Eisen on their journey, but he says he’s too old and would only slow them down. The journey will be long but Eisen is happy to see how much Frieren has changed for the better.
In episode 5 Frieren and Fern are on their way to Aureole (we’ve found the anime’s main plot). Along the way, they stop at a village where a number of people have gone missing in a forest passageway after seeing ghosts of their loved ones. Frieren suspects this is the work of an Einsam, a monster that uses illusion magic to lure in victims (think sirens except with the power of illusions). At first, Frieren decides to ignore it, but Fern seeing people in trouble says they should destroy the monster and Frieren agrees to do so. They find the Einsam where Fern sees Heiter again and just can’t bring herself to attack him despite it being an illusion and knowing so (she was like a deer in the headlights). Frieren sees Himmel which is a shock as she was expecting Flamme to appear (proof that she’s thinking about Himmel more). Frieren easily destroys the illusions exposing the Einsam, and Fern kills it (scene here: https://youtu.be/Mk56nYzQWyo?si=wq4UHckLhf2648cO). In the second half, the two come across a solar dragon who has grimoire in its nest. Wanting it for herself, Frieren tries to get it only to discover that their magic has no effect on the dragon thanks to its scales. The two retreat to nearby town and decide they need a warrior’s help. Thus they start looking for a boy named Stark who was trained by Eisen and actually defeated the dragon in a staring contest when it attacked the village. They find Stark voiced by Chikahiro Kobayashi (Mash from Mashle) who agrees to join their party but wants to take care of the dragon first. Frieren says if he can keep the dragon busy for 30 seconds she can destroy it, but Stark reveals that he has zero monster slaying experience. In fact, when he confronted the dragon the first time he froze with fear and by the grace of God the dragon spared his life (well we know his luck stat is high). Fern thinks they should find another warrior, but Frieren says that he’s a strong warrior who will fight to protect the village. Fern has her doubts (listen to the elf. She traveled with the hero’s party. She knows what strong is. If she says he’s strong then he’s strong) but once she sees him training and sees how explosive his power is, she starts to change her mind about him (and seeing as well this is the first boy she’s met around her age there’s no way she’s letting this opportunity slip).
Episodes 6-10
Episode 6 gives us our dragon fight where Stark takes it on himself. Despite being scared he faces the dragon head on where he beats it all by himself. Yep, the guy didn’t even need Frieren’s help. He managed to kill it with one attack (and with amazing animation to boot. It’s not the most action-packed fight, but the movements, camera angles, along with the speed and impact, this felt like an epic battle. Scene here: https://youtu.be/jKKm-BHJWRA?si=Q-RksWqzg27eQ4NG). With the dragon defeated the village is safe, and Stark joins Frieren and Fern on their journey. Moving onto the second half, the group has made it to Waal, a fortress city that has closed their checkpoint due to the high number of demons in the area (well we’ve got two skilled mages and a warrior who just killed a dragon. I’m sure for a price they could clear the area). While Frieren is content with waiting around for the checkpoint, Fern and Stark are impatient as it seems like it’ll take them 2 years to reopen it (fuck that shit). They try to find other ways only to come up short. They meet back up with Frieren who is being pursued by the guards. At first, they think it’s because of her odd behavior, but instead it’s because they finally know who she really is and think she came here to defeat any demons. The checkpoint is gladly opened for them and they receive a hero’s sendoff much to Frieren’s embarrassment.
Frieren and the others continue to travel north where they help clear a landslide that happened as a result from the demons. After clearing the landslide, they travel to the next town where Frieren reveals that there aren’t that many elves around. Due to their longevity, they live apathetic lives and don’t reproduce or develop romantic relationships (after meeting Frieren that makes sense). They make it to the next town where it’s getting ready for their Liberation Day. A celebration for when Himmel and the others passed through and defeated the demons in the area to liberate the town. We get another good flashback which shows how selfless Himmel was and how much he cared for Frieren by wanting statues to be made of him and the others so that she would never forget him or the others. After this, they arrive in a city where Frieren spots a demon and tries to attack him. Before Frieren can attack she gets tackled to the ground (knight brutality!) and arrested for trying to attack a peace envoy. It turns out the demons are being led by Aura the Guillotine who has been waging war on humans for 28 years (so around the time Himmel died. That checks out). But seeing as how there’s been more losses than gains, Aura and the city have decided to start doing peace talks in the hopes that both sides will benefit in some way. But Frieren warns them from experience that demons cannot be trusted and that they’re being set up (the sky is blue, the grass is green, snow is white, and a demon will lie as naturally as you breathe. Scene here: https://youtu.be/hFuqCO4lWKk?si=1oNt9RbN8t_Kn16e). They ignore her warning and sure enough the peace envoy is a trick to get the city to lower its barrier so that they can attack. One of the demon’s sneaks into the dungeon to assassinate Frieren but she warns him that she’s stronger than Aura and will defeat her.
Episode 8 begins with Frieren easily killing the demon (scene here: https://youtu.be/gMluEj4R1Vo?si=ijrTmWK_1sceEAnm. Didn’t stand a chance. I feel like her and the Doom Slayer would be good friends) and then escaping into the city. The city’s garf, Garnat starts to become suspicious when one of the demons is missing and confronts Lugner of the peace envoy (and he looks like Johan Libert from Monster. It’s just Johan showing his true form). Lugner’s plot gets exposed and he captures Garnat where he intends to force him to lower the city’s barrier and allow Aura’s army to invade the city. Back in the city, Frieren actually runs into Fern and Stark. The two took Frieren’s warning to heart and decided to warn Garnat about the demons (a little late for that). Frieren leaves the city’s safety to them while she goes to fight Aura and her army. Fern and Stark sneak into Garnat’s mansion and rescue him from the demons who remember Frieren as the one who has slayed more demons than anyone in history (Doom Slayer would beg to differ. I knew these two would get along).
Episodes 9 and 10 give us the battle for the city. We see Fern and Stark get Garnat to a church for safety and then head out to fight against Lugner and another demon. The animation and soundtrack are woven together wonderfully here as both Fern and Stark are able to defeat the demons in appropriate fashions that match both of them (scenes here: https://youtu.be/DLoQu-WB28s?si=FSRAPpqZS3xh8PFN, https://youtu.be/UOky_kYH5iE?si=MLblyVnRZkEc-Ipe, https://youtu.be/sywn2YiWHuU?si=_Hv0HwffKqelpHoL, and https://youtu.be/CiN0Ue3b1Ns?si=lw-cjGtC74yhG0QG). Frieren takes on Aura and her army of soulless knight armor. We get some flashbacks which show how Frieren met Flamme as well as Himmel and the others. We discover that all her life she’s been following DBZ logic and suppressing her mana to fool others into thinking she’s weak. This trick actually works on Aura who believes she has more mana than Frieren, but when Frieren finally unleashes her full mana she realizes how insignificant she is (you’re fighting against the elf who went up against the demon king and came out alive. Did you really think you could beat her?). And if you thought killing a demon with its own spell was dirty, how about overwhelming a demon with your mana and telling her to kill herself which she does (scene here: https://youtu.be/3zGM3WE3FSo?si=wUwKpsr1hMcT8UDa).
Wow. I don’t know where to go from here. Let’s stop here for now and continue the story next week. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.