Review of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

This is not a perfect anime. It isn't of a genre I particularly like, and it has flaws. Nonetheless, it is an amazing anime that deserves its rating. "Frieren" is an anime about an elf named Frieren, who is about a thousand years old. After she and her party defeat the demon king, she goes off to do her own thing - and when the members of her party die, she regrets not getting to know them better. The rest of the anime explores her desire to get to know the humans she lives with, better. Okay, there's a lot to say aboutthis anime from a storytelling perspective, so let's get the technical stuff out of the way: the technical aspects of this anime are probably the weakest part - with some exceptions. Most of the time the animation is pretty stiff and clearly isn't paid much attention to. But at some points, it's surprising how much effort they put into the little things. It's like they chose specific scenes they wanted to "wow" with, and then just phoned in the rest. Considering this is 28 episodes, that's understandable, but consistently high quality would have made this an even better anime.

Voice acting was very good, the OP and ED were nice, though I think the ED was very good at expressing emotion and was frankly beautiful, none of the music from this anime will make it to my playlists.

If I were to stop here, I think I'd have rated it a seven. But now let's go into why it deserves every bit of rating it gets, *even though* this is not at all my favorite genre and that weighed against it a little, for me.

This anime had something to say. I think that's my summary of the storytelling - the author had a topic they wanted to explore and took great care with that topic. The topic is this: How do you deal with death? Well, the main topic, there are a couple of others, which I'll get into.

The main character, frieren, is a thousand years old. She's seen many of her human friends, or companions, or acquaintances, or even enemies, grow old and die, while she barely does. Their deaths clearly affect her, as do their lives. The complex interplay between all the characters as they navigate their life in a medieval fantasy environment is amazing. It's entertaining, but is also clearly designed to make you think. I've heard many say that this was a particularly emotional anime for them - it wasn't, for me. It was more of a philosophical one. How do the people you journey with affect you, in the end?

One of the story arcs also had an interesting question: Just because something has the power of speech, does that mean it should be treated as human? In today's world of AI, that's actually a surprisingly apropos question, even though I very much doubt that was on the mind of the author. That question made me seriously think, and set me on a philosophical bender that I'm still processing. It's not so much that the question is deep, than that it was something I'd just never considered before this anime asked the question.

I love anime that makes me think, and this one did that. That, for me, made this a good anime.

There is humor in this anime, though it's understated. In fact, nearly everything about this anime except perhaps the fight scenes is understated. The voice acting can be a little monotone, but it's clear this was a deliberate decision on the part of the director rather than any lack of competence of the voice actors themselves - that's exactly what they were going for, and it worked.

Also, in what I can only describe as something that just never happens, there is absolutely *no* fanservice. None at all. Even in those situations where it could have been fanservice (like with a particular potion), it just wasn't. Fanservice has its place, but that's amazingly refreshing.

I've already mentioned the technical flaws of this anime, but there are a few storytelling flaws as well, and I think those mostly come down to the very slow pace of the story. While this anime clearly was intended to be a slow, sometimes peaceful and at times "iyashikei"-type anime, the pace is so slow that I was wondering where it actually was going to end. There is no overarching story arc. Well, that's not entirely true, there is, but this doesn't finish it. In fact, the arc that it finishes on isn't even introduced until about halfway through the anime. They had 28 episodes to work with, I think they could have paced it a little better. All that said, the characters did grow throughout the anime and the growth was paced well.

So in summary, this wasn't a perfect anime, not my favorite by any means (particularly because the genre), but it was a well thought out anime with an amazing story, decent but not great art and sound, and if you like anime that make you think and tell an amazing story, then you'll love this. Strong recommend from me, but in spite of the high ranking, I don't think it'll be for everyone.