Review of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Honestly, I was really a little desperate when I got the information that Sousou no Frieren was getting an anime adaptation. Not without reason, but as a reader of frieren manga for quite a long time since this manga was first published, I have often been disappointed by several anime adaptations that were 'supposed' to be good when adapted but turned out to be far below the expectations I had. say, if I give a 'good' manga/novel that I have read a score of 8 or 9, maybe when it is adapted, that score will actually reduce the overall quality of the work. In somecases, it doesn't mean that the studio adapting the anime is bad or something, it's just that sometimes a work can maximize its potential by just being a manga/novel and that's what happened with this Sousou no Frieren manga. At least that was my opinion before finding out that Madhouse was the one who adapted it.

To my surprise, while the Frieren manga already had a score of 10/10 in my mind, Madhouse was able to break that score down to 11/10. The animation displayed, the background seems very complete in its depiction, the animation for small details is made with great dedication, the dialogue for some reason still feels very impressive even though I have read the manga version and the execution per episode is very neat. It all made me think that 'this is the anime I was looking for', an anime that really is 100% in line with what I expected. This doesn't mean that I don't think other anime are perfect, but we all, especially me as a long-time anime viewer, often find anime that don't actually match what we expect, whether it's in terms of storylines that don't match (don't suit our taste). or animation that we feel should be better (that doesn't mean the animation is below standard), but even so, we can still enjoy the 'quality' of the anime even though it doesn't match several things regarding our 'tastes' as viewers, because we like a work personally. and enjoying the quality it has are 2 different things. However, frieren, with a quality story, turns out to be able to be executed even more so that even if someone doesn't like this work personally, they are still able to feel & enjoy the 'quality' it has. then, now imagine if these two things were combined? that's what I felt when watching this anime adaptation.

I will not tell anything or comment on things like "A story about a touching journey..." or "Life lessons that are very rarely found..." or "How structured the world concept is in frieren anime..." and the like, because here I am giving an opinion about the 'Anime adaptation' of the manga Sousou no Frieren and not an opinion about 'Sousou no Frieren's work'. The studio will only get what they do (animation, opening music, seiyuu selection and so on) because when it comes to the story and how good the plot is, I feel the person who deserves all the praise is the creator of the work himself, namely Kanehito Yamada and also Tsukasa Abe. and vice versa, they both cannot be praised for the quality of the animation displayed, right? isn't it the animators' right to get credit for what they've 'done'? Isn't it true that if the opening music performed by Yoasobi and Yorushika sounds good, they are the ones who should be praised and not the animation animators?

In essence... what I want to say is "if Souosu no Frieren by Madhouse Studio really provides a 'breath of fresh air' in the world of animation, especially Japanese animation. The results are amazing work that deserves to sit in the number 1 position replacing FMAB. Maybe it will be difficult to find anime with the same quality as frieren in the future." 11/10 overall rating I can give, and I don't think there is a more 'suitable' value than that to appreciate this work.