Review of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Overall Score: 8/10 Preface Frieren is not the type of show I would generally choose to watch if it had not been recommended to me and shown to be extremely popular. Therefore, this review will be biased, as any other, but maybe more so due to the fact that it isn’t my preferred genre. Plot: 6.5/10 I am not a huge fan of the overarching plot, and while it did have some interesting moments I don’t find it to be particularly interesting or well written. I’d even go as far as to say in some parts, specifically within the first ten or soepisodes, certain plot points are quite poorly written. However, the reason I haven’t given it a particularly bad score is because I find the actual concept to be refreshing and an interesting direction to take within the fantasy-adventure genre.

Animation/Design: 9.5/10

Throughout the first few episodes the animation and character design was most likely the only aspect that stopped me from dropping this anime. While it’s not world’s apart from any other anime of its genre I did enjoy it. The characters, specifically Frieren, had interesting designs and were distinguishable from each other whereas I find that a lot of shows like this one tend to suffer from same face syndrome. This wasn’t the case here. There are quite a few moments in the show where I was impressed by the animation of the surroundings and nature depicted, it’s really a nice show visually.

Characters: 7/10

I will start this by stating my most cardinal sin, I am not a huge fan of Frieren or Fern. I don’t dislike either of them but I find them both to be somewhat difficult to root for or to actually like. I understand that, especially with Frieren, it’s a big part of her character to be disinterested and oblivious to those around her, emotionally. However, I just don’t care for it either, myself. Fern is much like her master within that regard, and I’m unsure if that was done purposely or not. I was happy with the introduction of Stark to their group, also, as it added some well-needed balance to the emotionless pit of the Frieren-Fern duo. During the later parts of the show I also felt like we were very quickly introduced to a lot of characters at once, and it started to get a bit much. It was hard to feel anything for characters I’d only seen for twenty minutes, but it felt like the show really wanted the audience to care for them, though it fell a bit flat. Overall, towards the end of the show I did end up not minding Frieren, or even Fern. The one thing I would have liked to have seen would be a bit more development from the main characters and their relationships with each other, which we only really see (in my opinion) with Fern and Stark. We’re told a bit about it with Frieren and Fern, but really I didn’t notice any major differences from start to finish with those two.

Conclusion: 7.5/10, but I’m nice so I’ll round it up to an 8 ;)

If this is a genre you enjoy, you’ll probably even rate it even higher, and enjoy it even more! I definitely recommend this anime to anyone, even if it isn’t your cup of tea, and while I’m not anxiously awaiting the second season, I will definitely watch it when it does come out.