Watch Frieren. It’s what Himmel the Hero would’ve done.
What They Say:
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.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
For the tenth anniversary of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, I wrote a retrospective declaring it the greatest anime of all time. I ended the article by saying “If something else could take its throne after all this time, I’d be shocked but would absolutely welcome it. After all, nothing is quite like experiencing the thrill of a new all-time best.” That prophecy was fulfilled another half-decade later, upon the conclusion of an anime series called Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End.
I have a bad habit of getting my hopes up for new series based on positive reception to the source material or past works by the crew, and almost invariably end up disappointed. I had heard acclaim for the Frieren manga a year before the anime was announced. Then came the news that it would be adapted by Madhouse, which has long been by far my favorite studio of all time thanks to the likes of Hunter x Hunter, Death Note, Monster, every Hajime no Ippo series, the good season of One Punch Man, and the best films of Mamoru Hosoda. I was becoming dangerously excited.
Eventually, I realized that it had assembled something of a dream team for me: the director of Bocchi the Rock!, the adaptive writer of One Punch Man, and the composer of Violet Evergarden, starring the voice of Anya from Spy x Family and with songs from artists behind memorable themes of “Oshi no Ko” and Demon Slayer two seasons prior, with the latter having also contributed to Vinland Saga. Contrary to the usual outcome of such impossible expectations, all of my hopes – unrealistically inflated as they were – were unbelievably surpassed this time. The material and the creatives involved in its adaptation struck the perfect alchemy to bring out the absolute greatest potential, complementing each other’s strengths and enhancing them at every step.
Frieren gives itself the hardest premise to work with. Not only does it plant itself firmly in the very specific high fantasy trappings that evolved from Tolkien to Dungeons & Dragons to Dragon Quest and subsequent generations of derivative Japanese media, but it makes a point of literally opening its story immediately after the point that its progenitors and contemporaries would end. Hence, Beyond Journey’s End. From its very first moments, Frieren makes its purpose boldly known: it’s far more interested in seeing how people live after completing their life’s work than telling the same story that so many others already have. The Demon King has been defeated. We didn’t see the battle, nor the beast itself, because that ultimately doesn’t matter. What comes next?

One of the most instantly striking things about the series is that it takes these seemingly limiting aspects like the Tolkien and RPG tropes and instead of being hindered by them, utilizes them to not only explore the possibilities of such a premise but also our own reality through this fantastical lens. Much of this manifests in the character of Frieren and her nature as an essentially immortal elf. Through her, the question of what life entails after the great adventure ends becomes infinitely more pronounced. At the same time, the ephemerality of human life is most effectively examined from the perspective of someone who experiences it as an observer rather than its subject.
This is the central motif of the first big emotional catharsis of the series, the catalyst through which a freshly galvanized Frieren finds her sense of purpose after more than a millennium, after having achieved what anyone else would see as the most meaningful purpose of all. Frieren has lived for so long that her decade with the hero’s party was less than one percent of her life up to that point, and she’ll continue to live for so long that it will hardly even register as something she once did. With her unimaginable years of wisdom, she’s sure that she must be a perfectly rational being, and this is clearly the rational outlook.
But that facade of cold rationality finally breaks down when she experiences loss that makes her realize how much she could have cherished the time she had with these humans and their tragically short lifespans instead of coolly insisting that she was so above it all as their decades withered away. From the very beginning of the series, Frieren shows remarkable growth after over a thousand years of life, accepting and even embracing her terrifying vulnerability and using it as a trigger to dedicate her life to a path she had always mocked previously.

The struggle of mortality is universally relatable, with its impact arguably more profound for someone fated to lose everyone she cares about and go on living, but the reverse is equally challenging. Many are of the opinion that death gives life purpose. It certainly gives it closure. It’s not just that Frieren has to watch her friends die; she also has to figure out how to fill an endless period of time. How can anyone be expected to find a purpose that will last for millennia? Save for a brief ten years among thousands, Frieren has almost always been in that state of nebulous limbo. Even the mastery of magic has become so trivialized to her that she now sees it chiefly as a hobby for collecting. Himmel the Hero got to live the most venerable life, die a proper death, and have his legacy remembered long after. If Frieren ever dies, there will be nobody left to remember any of the achievements she had accomplished in her life. It’s an achingly desolate existence in solitude, and one of perpetual tragedy given the alternative.
Thus Frieren’s true journey begins, not one of killing an evil demon but of existential discovery, of empathy for the fragility of humanity, and of introspection regarding her own past indifference. She laments having squandered her time with Himmel, letting his life pass by out of sight, and now she yearns to understand him and everyone else from whom she had acted so detached. She even entertains the idea of an afterlife, which runs counter to her beliefs, committing another “mere ten years” to the hope of experiencing the opportunity for a proper farewell that she threw away when she had the chance.
The destination for this gamble takes Frieren on the same path she traveled with the party to defeat the Demon King, weaving the journeys of past and present together. As Frieren retraces her steps, echoes of the past come flooding back and she reflects upon her experiences with a more open mind that facilitates renewed appreciation, gradually enriching the understanding she seeks. We didn’t see the original journey as it truly played out, so instead we experience it through these intersections across time via the biased, potentially unreliable lens of Frieren’s nostalgic longing.
It would hardly be the most productive exploration of humanity if Frieren stayed alone, so she quickly finds herself with the perfect excuse to learn more about humans: raising one from childhood. Chasing the memory of Himmel is what anchors Frieren to this pursuit, but the much more concrete existence of another person by her side – initially requiring her supervision – demands that she stay relatively focused on the matter at hand instead of getting distracted for, well, more than a few years at a time, at least. Fern humanizes Frieren in a way that the idealized concept of a dead man never could, and their respective characteristics mutually influence each other as Fern grows up.

Frieren essentially functions as Fern’s parent, but as the already precocious Fern ages, her maturity quickly surpasses Frieren’s in specific ways, amusingly resulting in her feeling more like the adult in the relationship at times. There’s a deep bond of love, respect, and trust that builds up between the two of them, often left beautifully understated. No matter how their dynamic appears at times, Fern gives Frieren the connection she longed for, and Frieren is the irreplaceable mother, friend, and mentor that Fern always needed.
Before long, they’re joined by another companion, Stark. Although he joins them after having already reached young adulthood, he is still very much a teenager who fits into the family structure quite naturally. He and Fern make an especially endearing pair, somewhere between siblings, childhood friends, and crushes. With her refreshed worldview, Frieren recognizes the potential of a party as family, wishing she had let herself be more invested in her previous party but smiling upon the kids whose company she now enjoys with gentle contentment and sincere pride. It’s not as if this is a completely disconnected new life for her either. Poetically enough, as she walks the same path as she did with the original party, her current party represents their enduring legacy. Fern was first raised and taught by Heiter and then by Frieren, and Stark was taught by Eisen but is unintentionally the inheritor of the true nature of a hero that Himmel exemplified.

Himmel was the prototypical hero. He’s remembered even if the rest of the party was equally critical yet forgotten. He gets all the credit. If he was the rockstar frontman, Frieren was the humble bassist. He has statues all across the land, by his own insistence. He appeared to be a vain egotist obsessed with his image and legacy. We see him almost exclusively through Frieren’s memories, dripping with bittersweet, melancholic nostalgia as she paints an ideal, dramatic portrayal every time she thinks of him. He was clearly in love with her, but in retrospect she realizes that the feelings he elicited in her were also profound enough to transform the course of her life. He was possessed of magnetic, infectious charisma that imbued those around him with hope and inspiration, but that’s only part of what makes an effective leader and a true hero.
More importantly, Himmel embodied pure, innate sincerity and selflessness. As the final episode exhibits, being a hero isn’t about going off to some far land and killing some big demon. It’s about meeting everyone where they are and helping them in ways that feel personal, authentic, and impactful. The average person isn’t directly affected by the Demon King, so they remember Himmel as a hero because of the small ways in which he takes the time to improve their lives as individuals.
At the same time, the Demon King represents a great evil that threatens the world as a whole, so it’s still essential that he be eliminated. It’s because Himmel uncompromisingly treats both the macro and the micro scales as the top priority that he earns his title as hero. “It’s what Himmel the Hero would’ve done” has become a meme, but I love how that fact suggests that this characterization has successfully contextualized the concept of a moral conscience in a presentation that has proven digestible to generations for whom cynicism is particularly fashionable.

That same ethos applies throughout the execution of the series. “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey” is a trite platitude, but its essence is clearly on display here. Of course, in this case it can be said that it’s really about what comes after the journey’s end, but it turns out Frieren’s answer to one journey ending is just to start another one anyway. The point is that the greatest value of life is derived from cherishing those small, quiet, inconsequential moments all around you, rather than pushing everything aside in the name of some goal that may not prove fulfilling in the end. Frieren’s timelessness is an existential curse in some ways, but it also affords her as many second chances as she needs to learn from what could’ve been and apply it to her future experiences, provided she has the people with whom to spend it.
As such, this is a striking theme of the series, especially in its first half. It allows itself time to breathe like few other anime series, eschewing a perpetual pressure to advance in favor of deliberately paced, contemplative meditation on its core tenets, letting us appreciate the idyllic beauty of its world. The most brilliant aspect of this is that it immerses us in how the passage of time feels to Frieren, who has an eternity stretched out before her. The series offers serenity without ennui, philosophy without pretension, and character development without abject despair. It frequently sits comfortably within iyashikei with a depth that belies the frivolity common to the genre, and it’s not afraid to have fun. In fact, when it wants to inject comedy, its subtle sense of humor, sparing usage, and masterful comic timing make it the unlikely funniest show around. Frieren has almost divine levels of power and wisdom, but she’s also an idiosyncratic, flawed goof, and that makes her infinitely more lovable.
Most of Frieren as described on the page is, indeed, straight from the page – that is, from the manga. But nearly everything we’re discussing right now demands immense credit be given to the main anime staff that made me so excited about this adaptation in the first place. Two years ago I had never heard of Keiichirou Saitou. He had never directed a full project before. Then came Bocchi the Rock! a year before Frieren, in which he transformed what could’ve been a cute girl gag show into an incisively resonant depiction of social anxiety.

Saitou deftly captures character, nuance, empathy, tone, and atmosphere. Everything I’m describing about how uniquely meditative yet meticulous and cinematic these scenes are comes from pure directorial inspiration. It’s unbelievable that this man only has two series under his belt. What a spotless track record thus far. What an incredible start to a career. This is a monumentally powerful, visionary new voice in this industry, and I could not be more excited to watch where he goes from here. In a year and a half he went from someone I had never heard of to perhaps the single creator I’m most excited to follow.
Adaptive anime writers don’t get much attention. After all, the manga already essentially wrote the screenplay, right? That’s already a bit reductive as not everything that works in manga writing is going to be optimized for anime and vice versa, so a good screenwriter will still know what to tweak, but the role of series composition becomes especially instrumental when pace is such a vital characteristic of a series. Tomohiro Suzuki, having served as such for One Punch Man in the past, operates as a crucial partner to Saitou here, setting the flow of the adaptation at just the right cadence to realize his vision.
I suspect there’s little debate that Saitou’s atmosphere would be nowhere near complete if not for Evan Call’s sublime score. He had already showcased his abilities throughout the Violet Evergarden franchise enough to leave that as his magnum opus and feel impressively accomplished. But the sonic mastery of the Frieren soundtrack is so evocative that it not only enhances the tone of every scene but is essential to its impact. Using Celtic folk music as a core inspiration – as is customary for medieval fantasy properties – it springboards off of that baseline into an eclectic variety that proves supremely enchanting as it ranges from uplifting to heartrending, ethereal to thrilling.

Akane Fushihara has established herself as easily one of the best cinematographers in the business, serving as director of photography on series like Spy x Family and Madhouse’s One Punch Man before this one. Between her sensibilities and those common to Madhouse, Frieren is an immaculate production that accentuates its clean line art and vivid colorization with gorgeous lighting and seamless compositing. But the thing I absolutely adore about its aesthetic is the implementation of subtly textured filters that add so much richness to the image. They recall the warmth of film grain, but while real grain is inherent to the materials, the flexibility of this digital texturing allows the team to tweak its prominence in each scene to always be enriching but never distracting, as even some of the most beautiful film restorations run the risk of becoming. This creates a timelessness fitting for Frieren’s own life, and that will serve her series phenomenally as it ages.
Similarly underappreciated as the role of DP is the art director, yet nobody would deny the jaw-dropping impact of the magnificent background art in this series. Sawako Takagi is at the helm for these sweeping vistas, having previously taken us across Europe in Monster, also from Madhouse. Fantasy worlds can feel superficial if treated in a purely perfunctory capacity, but Takagi’s team pays so much loving care to the majesty of less-disturbed nature and the intricate craftsmanship of medieval architecture. Overlaid with Fushihara’s lighting and filters, given the time to take center stage from Saitou’s restrained shots and Suzuki’s patient structure, set to some of Call’s more ambient compositions, these peaceful excursions are transformed into transcendent euphoria.
So many of these individuals worked on this project because of their connections to Madhouse, and unsurprisingly given the aforementioned, unparalleled laundry list of masterpieces they’ve been behind in the past, the studio’s work on this adaptation is exceptional in every aspect. Much of this was mentioned in highlighting some of the individual departments, but there’s so much more to appreciate about the visual language of the series. Despite its expertise at depicting the calm and subdued, just as Frieren can suddenly be the funniest comedy around, it can also be the most sumptuously animated action series around when it wants to be.
Its first grand battle sequence in Stark’s introductory arc unites many of the most talented animators in the industry, including Yutaka Nakamura, the easiest choice for the greatest of all time, which is especially notable given that he is specifically an employee of a different studio. The result blends their styles and skills into a spectacle of propulsive dynamism that remains my favorite piece of sakuga animation from the past year. It’s not the first time Madhouse has been so dedicated to bringing all the best of the business onboard that they’ve nabbed Nakamura, but it goes one step further in establishing how no effort was spared in making Frieren the best at everything it does. And that’s just six episodes into twenty-eight.
The series doesn’t remain wholly episodic; shortly after Stark joins the party, they find themselves in a story arc dealing with demons. This provides more opportunity for political intrigue, character discovery and growth, and exhilarating action, but perhaps its most compelling contribution is in how it deals with the nature of demons. Initially it appears that Frieren is prejudiced against demonkind from her history of war with them centuries back, and that they’ve come to coexist with humans and other races like elves and dwarves. But further developments validate Frieren’s instincts and in turn raise ideologically fascinating ethical dilemmas.

A relatively simple read is that demons are an examination of the possibility of a species that is essentially human but whose brains fundamentally work in different ways that impede mutual understanding. But when the facet they lack is empathy, they begin to resemble a much more familiar, insidious paradigm that exists within humanity. Demons are the predators, manipulators, narcissists all around us who take advantage of goodwill and abuse those compassionate enough to offer it unconditionally. It feels wrong to not give them the benefit of the doubt, but that’s what they count on, and for one’s own wellbeing, identifying the people who will behave in that way can be necessary for survival.
While the fact that they’re a different species makes the identification decidedly more convenient for Frieren, it makes the message slightly more difficult to reconcile. But it can equally be said that these are inherent characteristics of some people wired in that manner, and even if it’s not their “fault” in a sense, that doesn’t entitle them to prey upon others, so depriving them of the opportunity can prove the only solution. This is the kind of challenging engagement I want art to demand from me.
The flashbacks depicting Himmel with the demons eloquently articulate this dynamic. Himmel was the paragon of empathic virtue, but to these sinister people – these cunning demons – that’s naivete that they can latch onto and weaponize. He came across as the ideal politician of the people, but a lone warrior can’t remain that effective yet incorruptible when faced with the reality of opponents seeking out whatever “weakness” they can find to use against him and dragging him down to their level. That’s where Frieren’s pragmatism comes in. Harsh as it may have seemed when events catered to Himmel’s optimism, it complemented his deficiencies when diplomacy failed, giving Frieren the darker role that allowed Himmel to continue shining with unblemished purity. Perhaps the perfect politician, then, isn’t an individual, but a pair of partners, running mates if you will, who can balance earnest idealism with defensive realism.

Although the series has so much going on, the openings and endings still deserve acknowledgment. We open with the unmistakable style of the tremendously popular YOASOBI, an odd fit for Frieren from a first impression, but as is standard for YOASOBI, the lyrics speak directly to the story itself. Additionally, the song grows in association with the series to become an iconic representation of it, especially in its livelier moments. It’s balanced out by the other theme songs matching the slower vibe that many may expect, including its equally excellent successor by Yorushika. Both opening sequences are storyboarded and directed by the captain of the ship Saitou himself, a pair of tautly woven encapsulations of the series and its themes. The former culminates in a brilliant visual metaphor of Frieren bridging her past and present together, while the latter matches the tonal shifts of the series proper to the varied intensity of the song, complete with a painterly, heavily pronounced expression of its signature textures.
Each opening has a corresponding ending sequence, though each employs a different section of the same track: milet’s heartfelt “Anytime Anywhere.” Each set to a different style of staggeringly creative visual art, its two halves delicately encompass the breadth of the series, appropriate given that Call himself arranged the piece. On that note, an equally fantastic insert song also from milet, both composed and arranged by Call, concludes the demon arc as the musical component to a montage that it enhances immensely.

Much of the second half of the series focuses on an exam arc, which can come across as a red flag based on other anime series. Indeed, it introduces the requisite truckload of new characters needed to tell such a story. But while common convention would suggest that these characters operate mostly as a background mob, with the remainder being primarily archetypes and maybe one or two realistic people, Frieren once again defies expectation.
Instead, it utilizes the time dedicated to this storyline by fleshing out each new character with any amount of screen time as a singularly unique, complex, nuanced individual who could be the protagonist of their own series. Even if it’s a relatively long arc for Frieren, it’s still a remarkably short time to accomplish this much with this many characters, especially considering how much it continues to develop Frieren and Fern and progress its plot all the while. Moreover, the nature of an exam may seem relatively trivial to warrant so much time, but when a series opens by conveying that the final battle against the Demon King is the least important part of this story, any viewer should understand its ethos well enough by this point to know exactly how meaningless such a sentiment is.
The first exam is an excellent platform to showcase Frieren’s simultaneous maternal qualities, unbridled power, and the patience that plays such a key role in the presentation of the series itself. Everything that we’ve seen up to this point has been subtly, deftly layered into Frieren’s character. The way she tenderly smiles upon these raucous kids living out their youths extends from her experience as a mother figure to Fern and Stark, and in addition to the displays of absolute oblivion she showed the demons being implemented in a very different context, the demon-driven patience to which she dedicated her life also becomes vital for her strategy. Frieren selflessly shows pride only for others, never herself, which was equally true of her time with Himmel. We can appreciate watching strangers come to realize what a legendary sage Frieren is firsthand, but it never matters to her.

After some candidates are eliminated, the second exam allows all those remaining to assume the role of main characters, which offers much greater depth for most of them. As we get to know them, we find sympathy in the ones we may have judged harshly and flaws in those who seemed more upright. Even with this many characters, none are painted as good or evil, each of them a different blend of grays as we learn more of what makes them tick. As the series approaches its end, all of its strengths begin to coalesce into an expertly executed roller coaster of character exploration, adventure, enthralling tension, cinematic action, and hilarious levity when the moment is right. Despite its trappings, this stretch probably includes several of the finest episodes in the entire run.
The conclusion of the exam may feel underwhelming to some, but that’s likely a symptom of the expectations of shounen competition tropes. Any such notion should be promptly dismissed by Frieren’s tranquil nonchalance at the situation, as she remains true to her character and only interested in Fern’s success, laughing off bitterly vitriolic pettiness without entertaining the provocation whatsoever. Stark is mostly absent for the exam and therefore the bulk of the second half of the series, but when we do catch up with him, we’re reminded of how charmingly silly he can be, and it’s especially delightful when Fern metes out punishment for his mundane flippancy. Most importantly, we see more examples of Stark inheriting Himmel’s casual heroism as we learn that, while the girls were hard at work, Stark was effortlessly winning the collective heart of the town through wholesome acts of helpfulness that came as naturally as breathing.
The ending similarly subverts the “rules” of how to end a series. In addition to the obvious and practical factor that the source material continues past this point, it’s also an especially appropriate series to pay little heed to its ending, as it has always been the story after the “end” and has consistently shown little concern for assigning arbitrary importance throughout its run. For that reason, it actually has the optimal ending, which was absolutely no mistake by the staff. To paraphrase Frieren: “Don’t make such a big deal about the series ending. It would be embarrassing when we got another season.”

This becomes the most intriguing aspect of declaring Frieren the greatest anime of all time: its incompleteness. On one hand, the only thing almost as exciting as discovering a new number one is getting to look forward to future installments of it. But that also opens up its legacy to dangerously precarious risk. The stars aligned and we got the best possible adaptation of this material. The second season was just announced yesterday, but if nearly anything changes about the team or the environment, it could hinder the perfect formula that yielded this miracle. Likewise, the material itself may go downhill at some point, especially since it, too, is ongoing. The longer the series runs, the more vulnerable the continuity of its quality, especially in the anime, which has so many more variables.
All I can say is that I’ll wait as long as it takes for more at this level. The worst thing that could happen to the Frieren anime would be rushing out a suboptimal installment, and the bar is sky high right now. If Saitou wants to go off and direct another series, great. I can’t wait to see it. Let Frieren sit until it can be something worthy of the standard set for that title in animated form. To Frieren herself, any hiatus would pass by in the blink of an eye. In retrospect, we’ll feel the same, and we’ll be so much more thankful that we waited in eager anticipation.
In Summary:
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is essential viewing, both as an anime and a television series in general. It’s a deftly understated meditation on life’s achingly fragile impermanence, utilizing its high fantasy trappings for profound thematic richness, and that only scratches the surface. From poignant pathos to existential rumination to euphoric iyashikei to insightful social allegories to spectacularly animated action crescendos, Frieren offers it all, blends it all seamlessly, and executes it all masterfully. Its production gathers a dream team of top talent in the industry and showcases each member of that crew at the top of their craft, elevating their individual reputations, their colleagues’ artistry, and the already stellar material they passionately adapt. Frieren easily earns its place atop any list of greatest anime of all time.
Frieren isn’t a perfect series. There’s probably no standalone piece of media that has ever been perfect or ever will be. But to honor its accomplishments and indicate its status on a level above any other anime I could review, I’ll go ahead and give it a special grade.
Grade: A++
Streamed By: Crunchyroll