© Kanehito Yamada, Tsukasa Abe, Shogakukan, Viz Media
Shogakukan is serializing a novel adaptation of Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe’s Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (Sōsō no Frieren) manga titled Shōsetsu Sōsō no Frieren ~Zensō~ (Novel: Sōsō no Frieren ~Prelude~) to be published. released on April 17. Mei Hachimoku (The Mimosa Confessions, The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbye light Novel) will write the novel.
The prequel novel is a collection of five books. Short stories not included in the manga include Frieren, Fern, Stark, Lawine and Kanne, and Aura. The novel depicts Frieren before she begins her journey of “getting to know people”. Yamada is supervising the novel.
Yamada and Abe launched the ongoing manga in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine in April 2020. The series previously went on hiatus and returned to serialization in March 2023. Shogakukan published the first compiled book volume of the manga in August 2020 and will release the 13th compiled book volume on April 17. Viz Media publishes the manga and released the 10th compiled volume in English on April 20 2. The manga has had an additional 7 million copies in circulation since the anime debuted. The manga currently has more than 17 million copies in circulation.
The manga series has won several awards, including the New Creator Award for the 25th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Awards 2021 and the 14th Manga Taisho Awards 2021. Additionally, the series also nominated in the Best Shōnen Manga category for the 45th Kodansha Annual Manga Awards in 2021 and the 46th awards in May 2022. Library Association Comics & Graphic Novels Roundtable USA (GNCRT) included the series in its list of the 10 best graphic novels of 2022 for Adults to Read.
The anime The Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End premiered with a two-hour special episode on September 29. It is the first television anime to be shown on NTV’s “Kinyō Roadshow”, a Friday night program usually reserved for for feature films. The anime then began airing the following episodes on October 6 at 11 p.m. JST in NTV’s new anime time slot, “FRIDAY ANIME NIGHT.” The anime will run for two consecutive seasons until March. Crunchyroll is streaming the anime as it airs and is also streaming the English dub.
The “First Class Mage Exam” arc of the anime begins with the 17th episode on January 5, and marks the beginning of the second course (a quarter of a year) of the series.
Source: Shogakukan