Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End streaming review
Date: 2023, September 29 15:05
Posted by Joe
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is now available on streaming giant Crunchyroll. We were lucky enough to get access to the official preview screening to review it in advance. Was the show good? Is it worth watching? Read our review and find out.
The whole story
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is Crunchyroll’s newest streaming offering. It is based on the extremely popular manga series, written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe. This series is highly anticipated by fans. We were lucky enough to watch the first four episodes before their online release.
The story follows Frieren, an elven mage in your fairly standard medieval fantasy world. Our adventure begins at the end of the mission. The evil demons are defeated and the hero’s party celebrates and disperses. While the rest of the adventurers wish to settle down and enjoy life after ten years of fighting evil, Frieren has a significantly longer lifespan than normal humans so 50 or even 100 real years not being a long time for her. The anime then follows our goblin hero, adapting to the idea that human life is too short.
What turns the series upside down is that it’s the end of a grand adventure, not the beginning. The main threat has been eliminated and now everything is peaceful and stable. It’s a creative twist on familiar heroes’ journey fantasy stories. What will happen happily ever after?
We are then treated to Frieren’s story. Her adventures are mostly sweet slice-of-life twists with a dash of magician magic. The pacing of the show is perfect; it builds the foundation of Frieren’s world and personality over 4 episodes. There are also light doses of humour, along with subtle responses. The magic system presented feels like it has depth and could be explored more, it’s also revealed in a unique and unhurried manner, a welcome change from some chapters. over-explanation of the complex rules of magic.
The animation is the first high budget episode, we have a lot of intricate scenes with celebratory confetti, beautifully detailed sets etc. Then the next episodes are lighter but they are animated The visuals are of a high standard with plenty of detailed backgrounds as you would expect from Madhouse. It’s a real visual treat. A lot of care and attention was poured into this movie.
Like many people, I’ve read quite a bit of the Frieren manga and the anime version has the same tone and feel as the original. It accurately represents the original manga.
When I first heard they were making a Frieren anime, I was concerned that it might be overhyped. Honestly, though, from what I’ve seen so far, it’s worth calling it the anime of the fall. This is a fun and entertaining show with a great balance of slice-of-life, action comedy, and fantasy nostalgia. Now I just want to see more and see where the journey takes her.
Source: Otaku News
