Name: The perfect adaptation, timeless.
Item: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
Rating: 100
Author: AlmasKittenKid

Waifra

The perfect adaptation, timeless.

#Sousou no Frieren a thought, a review.

Frieren, or how to appreciate the time you spend, not forgetting the time you spent with previous people, a beautiful tale enchanced by its adaptation.

TW : The review will contain spoilers

Story
The plot is simple, yes I agree, but sometimes you don't need the most complicated plot twists or shenanigans to make a great story. Yeah it's not a faced paced story, a lot of people discarded the show for this reason, but they missed the whole point. Frieren is about this, enjoying the time, take it slow, doing some detours here and there. I glady recommend the show to even the people that only watches high paced full of action show, it will pay off.

Characters
I absolutely love when a story makes good use of their supporting character, and Frieren is how to do it right. Not only by reviving the ones that passed away, but every other character will touch you. I don't really know myself how this series exactly made the characters so important, maybe, again the time passing you see them grow, evolve, their relantioships changing in such a natural way due to do the perfect pacing.

(by @ve_0ekaki on twitter)

Frieren :
It's the main actor here, and her favorite hobby is collecting random spells ? This seems pointless at first, but every characters in Frieren are made, by those little moments, traits. Again everything she says, does, is linked to something, to a memory, to someone. Her love for the spell that grow flowers for example, came from Flame, she showed it to Himmel later on. This makes what could be a not so special elf mage in a fantasy world such a unique and well tought character. As time goes on, words from Himmel are having a meaning in what Frieren is experiencing now with Fern and Stark.

Himmel :
Maybe the most outstanding character in the series. Frieren managed to create someone dead but yet so lively. Himmel continues to live throughout memories, statues, people that our new group encounter. All by those moments where he decided to make a detour, help a town, help somebody, all those moments, they're not gone, no they are still alive. Everything about Himmel is built arround this, he gave us some of the most touching moments, I can't forget this moments where you see Himmel kneeling for Frieren in such a beautiful way. Yes Frieren Himmel will be here forever if you need someone's shoulder to cry.

(by Laubun on danboru)

Fern :
She's the first new companion that we met, she grown training to become a mage after being adopted by Heiter. Fern is probably the 3rd most important character yet with Himmel and Frieren, because how huge the impact she had on the 1000 year old elf. With her attitude she achived what none tought possible, change Frieren. She will be the future of humans in this magic world, she will be on the top of magic one day.

Stark :
The second addition to Frieren's new party, he's the warrior here, trained by Eisen the former Demon's King party. Unfortunately it's the main character we see the least, since the second cour is mostly focused of the first class mage exam. However that doesn't say he's meaningless. We have to talk about Himmel again that had a certain relationship with Frieren, and there you can see some similarities with Stark and Fern. Meanwhile Fern plays a big role in changing Frieren, Stark does the exact same with Fern. If I had to chose one moment with him, it'd be obviously the fight with the Dragon, at long last after all this years, it all ended in 30 seconds of pure and magnificent action with Stark using his years of training to defeat him and save the village.

Passage of time
The most important part about Frieren, and it got it right. Frieren uses the most ingenious ways to let us know how the time is progressing.

It all starts on episode one when Frieren first was insensitive to the passing away of Himmel, but then she realize and starts crying, it's the first major breaking point in our adventure. Time will still be needed for Frieren to completly change but from now on her perception of time won't be the same. The arrival of Fern, is the second breaking point. She bought her a gift, food, agreed to watch the New Year's Eve sunrise.

Frieren is probably one of the best stories at telling two stories in one with the use of the time passing, everytime you hear a sentence it'll have a meaning on both the past and the present, every little moment, detour, character has a purpose unique to them through the passage of time. An important part, is the abondance of statues across the world of Frieren than emphasize how her and her companions put their names, their faces, their legacy into History. It is gift through time about their story.

Love

Frieren is definitively one of the best non romance series as doing romance. As said previously when talking about Stark, there's some relationships in the show that probably would relate to romance, but it is very untold.

The slowly growing relantionship between Fern & Stark is just so mesmerizing, at first she just sees him as random guy and him seeing her as the annoying spout girl. However due to this unique perception of time we get to see a one of kind slow progression between the two. From being completly ignorant to each other, to care about the other, buy them a gift and Fern is going to Stark if she has a problem with Frieren (she's kinda tough to live with). Meanwhile we see the other untold, romance between Himmel and Frieren as they slowly get closer in her memories. Very touching.

Production / Animation / OST

I'll get straight to the point. It's just perfect everything is done right. You recognize a passion project when you see one and this is one of them.

The art fit so perfectly to the tone and pacing of the original story, from the color palette, to the drawings. It's a series that calls on you to take the time, and the calm, serene, peaceful atmosphere they managed to create works perfectly. Also I want to point out all the little animation details that are grass, clothes or hair, when you see them you feel this little breeze it's so suttle but they did an amazing job to such little details.

▶ Video

When talking about annimation I cannot not talk about the point that blew my expectations the most, I didn't even knew there were fights in Frieren. Then I saw episode 6, episode 9 and so on... The direction on the fights is agrguably one of the best in the industry. Every detail has been tought so deeply in those sequences. Of course I wanna talk about episodes 25 & 26 .. yeah how about I say, I litteraly cried on the begining of episode 26 ? It completly took me by surprise, the fight was just on another level, it was just so elegant ? It just worked so perfectly, it's hard to describe my exact feelings about it, but it's for sure one of the best fights we'll see in 2024 if not the best one and one of the moments of the decade.

▶ Video
(Credits to Vercreek)

Finally let's talk about the music, oh my god. Thank you Evan Call you're such an amazing composer and you're the final touch that made this show this special. The final touch to grab the serene vibe from the manga and translate it to anime. On the other hand Evan Call provided such great combat OSTs ... Zoltraak, it's as powerful as the spell named after itself.

▶ Video

Conclusion

Frieren was and will be one of my favorite show, I know there's some recency bias, but everything about the production value isn't affected by it, and looking how beautifuly is this anime was made I won't change my mind. This show was pure breathe of fresh air every Friday, teaches us how to appreciate time, I felt some vibes of time passing like in Barakamon (one of my absolute favs) by times. Frieren is a lesson about love, caring and time, I hope people will grow with the show.

Thank you Frieren, the journey isn't ended.