This Is The Anime That Lord Of The Rings Fans Have Been Waiting For
(Welcome to Ani-time Ani-where, a regular column dedicated to helping the uninitiated understand and appreciate the world of anime.)
Fantasy is not a common genre in anime. Though most of the shows premiering each season have fantasy elements, they are mostly isekai that borrow more from JRPGs than literary fantasy and focus more on a power fantasy than an adventure. There are exceptions, of course, like "Ranking of Kings" and the Dungeons & Dragons campaign-turned-anime "Record of Lodoss War."
Now, we have a new anime that fully understands what makes fantasy unique and effective for storytelling. This is the anime fans of "Lord of the Rings" have been waiting for, a fantasy epic unlike any other — "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End."
The premise is simple: the Demon King has been slayed and the party of heroes who defeated him return home. Their 10-year-long adventure meant a significant journey that eternally bound the group in friendship and love. The party's mage, an immortal elf named Frieren, barely registered the epic adventure as more than just a leisurely walk around the block. When one of the heroes dies of old age decades later, Frieren is hit by the realization that not only will she outlive her friends but she didn't make much effort to know them. That pushes Frieren toward a new adventure with a new party.
From there, "Frieren: Beyond's Journey" becomes a poignant, beautifully told fantasy story tailor-made for fans of "Lord of the Rings" and Dungeons & Dragons. Make no mistake, this is a masterpiece of animation in the making.
So grab your adventuring party, read a grimoire or two, and let's set out on the wonderful adventure that is "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End."
What makes it great
Considering studio Madhouse also made "One-Punch Man," "Hunter x Hunter," and the masterpiece that is Satoshi Kon's "Perfect Blue," this shouldn't come as a huge surprise, but "Frieren" looks stunning. Directed by Keiichiro Saito ("Bocchi the Rock!"), the anime features incredible action sequences with dynamic camerawork and impact frames that show the power of high-skill magic.
Perhaps more impressively is the art direction and design, as different times in Frieren's life are inspired by different eras of history. There are elements of Ancient Greece in Frieren's distant past, while her time with her adventuring party more closely resembles a medieval fantasy full of castles and knights, and the show's current present looks more like post-renaissance Europe. This helps give the story a sense of progression and worldbuilding through visuals, emphasizing the main theme of time.
Time is the true protagonist of "Frieren," and few shows manage to portray the passage of time as effectively as this one. In the first few episodes especially, we see people age decades in the span of seconds, and the whole world changes in the blink of an eye, as the anime replicates the way the immortal elf experiences time. We are told elves are nearly extinct because they don't really seek out each other, which makes sense because them being immortal means they have absolutely zero hurry to do anything. Everything is taken at a leisurely pace.
It is a small thing, but I have never seen a piece of media that truly shows how alien elves would perceive time as effectively as "Frieren." Of course, none of this would matter if the characters weren't memorable. Thankfully, "Frieren" manages to make each character feel alive and fleshed out, even ones we only really see through flashbacks.
A master of her craft
Much like "One-Punch Man" or "Mashle," "Frieren" focuses on a character who is incredibly powerful. Also like those shows, Frieren herself doesn't do much fighting, and instead dedicates most of her time and effort to collecting new spells and learning the most hyper-specifics of magical practices.
At times, Frieren is reminiscent of Gandalf in "Lord of the Rings," an incredibly powerful mage who enjoys simple joys in life like spending time smoking with hobbits. Both can obliterate their enemy if they want, but also have so much power that on the surface they seem like rather boring people with simplistic goals and desires.
Given how much the show shares with Dungeons & Dragons in aesthetics and tropes, seeing the portrayal of Frieren and her powers brings to mind a common problem among new D&D players — how to deal with higher levels. It is common knowledge that the tabletop game becomes very different in higher levels, as the players get superhuman abilities that make fighting goblins kind of dull and require a specific escalation of stakes and enemies.
"Frieren: Beyond Journey's End" features a fascinating and fresh portrayal of characters with incredible power that still manages to have high stakes when necessary. For the ever-stoic Frieren, most fights are mundane affairs, and she is used to using fairly common spells for most things. She is rarely flashy in either fighting or showing other magical abilities, because she is so beyond most people's imagination of power she doesn't need to showcase her skills — and there's also her immortality.
What it adds to the conversation
Like the best fantasy epics, and very much like "Lord of the Rings," this is a melancholic and romantic show. Time is at the very core of "Frieren." Of course, the impetus for the story is Frieren realizing she didn't have as much time as she expected, but it goes beyond that. A seemingly selfless hero jokes that he does good deeds so he will become famous and be remembered after he's gone — only for the next scene to show the statue of an ancient hero long forgotten. Time ravages everything, except Frieren.
Throughout the first season, we see payoffs to the smallest of set-ups that connect past and present. Frieren can spend a whole episode searching for a flower for seemingly no reason, only for an emotionally devastating flashback to reveal that it was the favorite flower of one of Frieren's companions and he always wished he could show their beauty to the elf. Constantly the anime shows how the smallest of things can impact our lives years down the line.
This also impacts worldbuilding, with "Frieren" sharing a similar romantic view of the past as Tolkien. Frieren constantly talks about and looks at her time with the party of heroes fondly, but in flashbacks to that time she also talks about her past with her mentor as some of her best years. Even if the world is advancing in some senses, there is still a feeling that things were happier, less complicated in the past. Through the undying Frieren, we are not just told but we experience the past, and therefore the progression of this world and its many changes — changes in politics, in the prevalence of magic, in elves now being nearly extinct. It makes the world come alive.
Why non-anime fans should check it out
A good fantasy epic can deliver many things — a compelling adventure full of excitement and danger, memorable characters, and an expansive world that is both alien and recognizable. "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End" does all that, but it adds an emotional core that not many fantasy stories have, because it starts at the end of the adventure.
This is an anime for those who have always wondered what happens after the party of heroes defeats the evil and they realize that they'll slowly drift apart. This is an anime about the moment when the heroes realize that the important moments weren't the fights or celebrations, but the quieter moments along the way when they became a fellowship. This is an anime for those who have always wondered how Legolas felt once Frodo went across the sea to the Undying Lands and realized the only words he ever spoke to the hobbit were "and my bow."
"Frieren: Beyond Journey's End" is not just a fantastic fantasy anime, but also a poignant and effective reflection of time, memory, and regret. Few shows are capable of capturing the sense of not having enough time quite like this.
Watch This If You Like: "Lord of the Rings," "Ranking of Kings," "Pan's Labyrinth."
"Frieren: Beyond Journey's End" is streaming on Crunchyroll.