Review of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

1) Not saturated Although I do not gravitate towards such genres, it is easy to see why Frieren got to be loved by so many watchers. The fantasy genre had suffered for many years, since such anime were usually lackluster videogame adaptations that were just going over the events of the game with no care for pacing or character appeal. Even worse, the isekai plague had led to a dozen fantasy-themed shows each season, most of which were slight variations of the same, lazily-written power fantasy tropes that usually involve harems and slavery. Frieren didn’t belong in either of these two types. It was not theadaptation of a videogame, thus it was not limited by whatever gameplay mechanics and dialogue infodumps the source had. It was also not written to be sleazy escapism for depressed people yearning to flee from reality into a realm where desires could be fulfilled instantly, and women could be conquered with little to no effort.

2) Aesthetic allure
Obviously this is not the first thing most people will realize about Frieren. Your average watcher is just going to notice it has good production values and a waifu-level elf on the cover, and that would be enough to please him. Even with this completely surface-level approach, Frieren manages to have a mainstream appeal by catering to the most basic desires of a casual watcher. Just pretty colors and cute girls. And nothing degenerate that usually alienates a big part of the audience, such as a harem of one-dimensional bimbos, or slavery where the protagonist is forced to do it but it’s otherwise okay because he cares for his slaves.

3) Uncommon premise
Once a viewer manages to see past the most superficial elements, he will be presented with feelings of nostalgia and melancholy, meaning that the show begins with heavy emotions and an elegiac type of premise. In fact, you could say that Frieren begins where most other shows conclude and that it’s akin to an epilogue. All the conventional tales you would get regarding the gathering of allies, leveling up and fighting the demon lord, are over by the time the show begins. We are given the aftermath of such stories, which by itself is something very few stories touch upon. The glory days are over and now we mostly get to see the aftermath of the heroes winning and what that means for the world.

4) World building
Because of how the premise is structured, the plot is heavily based on world building. Since the heroes’ journey concluded, every location bears the scars of their battles and triumphs, thus you are constantly let to know the main characters have impacted their setting. They are neither disconnected from it, nor forgotten as soon as their deed was done. The show places considerable effort in a mostly slice-of-life type of plot, where rarely action or major conflicts takes place. This approach lets the viewer to mostly glimpse into the daily lives of the people in the settings, instead of the wars they had with monsters. It enhances immersion despite being completely tensionless.

5) A protagonist you can get behind
Speaking of tensionless, Frieren is one of the most powerful beings in her world from the very outset. After centuries of training and fighting and getting stronger during the campaign against the demon lord, she is now at epic levels and nothing can be considered a threat to her. Although this could easily turn her into another trite power fantasy akin to the ones in isekai (broken powers right from episode 1) in this case she grinded for centuries to get where she is now, and has a long history of battles and people that interacted with her, instead of being a bland self-insert. Thus she is powerful (thus nobody can complain about being a weak loser), she earned her power (albeit only because of her race), and she has an actual personality and backdrop instead of being an empty vessel for the viewer to self-insert.

6) What the show isn’t about
Obviously, no show caters to the tastes of all audiences, and Frieren is not for action or adventure fans. It is a cozy slice-of-life show about a cute elf and her pouting apprentice, having wholesome vignettes as they travel around and fixing the problems of each area with mostly tensionless fights and stupid-strong magic no opponent has any chance against. It can become dull if you get too much of it, and you are never going to be biting your nails, wondering what comes next. It’s an anime you watch to relax and sometimes feel sad with the elegiac atmosphere, or laugh with the whimsical antiques of some characters. It is a mostly cute girls doing cute things anime, than a Lord of the Rings variant. In this regard, there are bound to be a lot of people who will not be interested in it, but even they are likely to find little to be overly negative about it, since it doesn’t have many elements it can fail at.

7) Personal thoughts
Even I who am not a fan of it, the worst thing I can say about it, is that both story and characters are simple. They don’t provoke contemplation or investment in their fates. Frieren, for all its merits, remains something you watch to relax, and I was never that kind of a fan. I favor action, adventure, big explosions, an inclination shared by the majority of anime fans who seek hype and excitements. It’s why fighting shonen are always the most popular anime, despite being filled with dumb plots and mindless fights. But even that does not mean I dislike the show. I just don’t consider its plot interesting, and thus my enjoyment of it remains anchored at a base level.