Review of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

I'm confident that the rarity of some event and the significance of that event are correlated. Take a meteor shower for example, if it happened every night it would stop being exciting. And just like seasons die one after another, every year at least several shows get the status of being a "modern classic". However, it stopped being about the quality because it always happens when the show is still airing and it gets overshadowed by yet another show afterwards. And this time it's Frieren beyond journey's end, which doesn't deserve the community's lovegiven terribly misleading title. For Frieren the journey is nothing but endless, and the title would perfectly fit for a side character spin-off. On a serious note, the story has some serious issues I can't get past past.

The anime is set in a fantasy world, however, there is no wars or politics it usually expected given the genre. The story begins after all of that took place and is mostly episodic, where arcs' lengths range from 10 minutes to several episodes. It's not a bad thing per se it's just about keeping your expectations in check instead of anticipating the best plot ever written. On the other hand, the focus is the characters; even the side characters who appear for a single episode have their backstories and personalities. And the main cast feels so natural in the way they communicate and behave. But the centerpiece of the story is Frieren, whose whole personality is so distinct from other characters because her life span exceeds generations and her character arc is about finding happiness in small and transient things. I know it's nothing original and Spice and Wold did that over a decade ago but this show is new, shiny, and has better animation, so I understand why it got so popular. The story in the second cour changes the direction and now fights is the highlight of the plot. In summary, the anime is focused on characters, has character development and contains both slice of life episodes and amazing fights, this is a good story by the book. It's more likely that it won't appeal to you rather than make you hate it, so what is there to dislike about the show?

It's said that water comprises 60% of the human body and in the same way 60% of the story here is flashbacks. Just like a rabid dog it constantly jumps between different flashbacks, which is probably the reason I have always felt so detached. The flashbacks are nuts and bolts of the story: no matter how small and trivial an arc is it always has to have a bloody flashback in it. They're always shown in randomized order with time skips ranging between 10 minutes and several hundred years, and they never form a cohesive storyline like it was done in Made in Abyss S2. On top of that, there are infamous flashbacks inside flashbacks and flashbacks from the previous episodes like the target demographic is children or tiktok users with a negative attention span. Of course flashbacks somewhat also benefit the show: keeping records of how many flashbacks a single episode can contain or how long it takes for an episode to insert a flashback was the only thing that kept me from falling asleep. The latter is kind of boring though, because some episodes start with a flashback.

A lot of people have noted that Frieren beyond endless flashbacks actually tries to create a unique fantasy world without relying on rpg mechanics. And I even agree with them I just don't think those attempts are successful. In this world demons are the most dangerous creatures, they were commanded by a king and after people had wielded the magic that king was slayed by a party of heroes which Frierent was a member of. The problem is I didn't omit any details, that's all about the world building. The demons had been pillaging villages and killing people for hundreds years, yet aside from Frieren and her companions no one had ever tried to kill the Demon King. And neither had the four heroes. In the flashbacks they're doing some stuff and wasting time doing... Why are you picking flowers? Is this the way you kill the Demon King? It's just strange that the tone of the story in the present is no different from the past where people were supposedly waging war against demons. I wouldn't mind the complete lack of world building if the events of the past weren't constantly brought up through... yeah, flashbacks.

The ost is the weakest part of the adaptation, it is a standard fantasy-themed soundtrack and I can't think of any scene, where the ost played a huge role. In contrast the animation and the direction are probably the main reason of the popularity because they're stellar. The visuals in the EDs and the OPs are also of high quality.

In conclusion, the show looks really good, but man I would be lying if I said I would still remember it after a year.

"Episode 28 - It would be embarrassing when we met again."
I doubt we ever will tho.