Review: Frieren Beyond Journey’s End
This column is mistitled, because this is not a review, but a recommendation. Disclaimer: I have only watched the first three episodes of FRIEREN, and my recommendation is based on the faith, not the certainty, that the remainder will maintain the quality of the beginning.
Foolish as it is to write a review based on the opening episode of a work, I am sufficiently impressed and wonder-struck to feel the need to describe and recommend it.
The premise of the tale is clever but quaint, telling the adventures of the adventurers after the adventure is over. As if one picked up the Lord of the Rings, flipped to the appendix, and read about Sam Gamgee marrying Rose Cotton and becoming mayor, or Gimli and Legolas sailing away together over the sea.
In this case, the tale is told from the point of view of the ageless elf mage after the defeat of a demon lord, who returns to visit her old companions fifty years after the final celebration of their victory. Unlike Frieren the elf, her companions the hero, the priest, and the dwarf warrior age and die, and she wanders the land doing small deeds or large to preserve and honor their memory.
From time to time in science fiction and fantasy one sees stories about immortals among us, and how brief our lives must look to them. JACK OF SHADOWS by Zelazny was the first time I encountered this theme, but it can be found in sources as scattered as PHRA THE PHOENICIAN by E.L. Arnold (1891) and the movie HIGHLANDER, not to mention any number of Urban Fantasies starring vampires. Nonetheless, I have never seen the theme handled with more honest human emotion than here, a persistent but understated poignancy.
The inability of the elf to grasp what the magnitudes of passing time seem like to we mortals is merely displayed, not mentioned, when she speaks of a decade as a brief, or agrees to meet fifty years hence as casually as a mortal might agree to meet next week. Spending six months looking for a lost flower breed in a forest is as an idle afternoon to her.
The plot, at least at the beginning episodes where I am, is strangely plotless. There is a gentle series of slice of life vignettes taking place across the decades as the elf returns to pay calls on old companions, or to visit statues, shrines, or, in one episode, a village where a demon foe was sealed away. As time passes, she regrets learning so little about her fellows, and seeks to learn more of mortals and their ways.
The plot, rather, is the character arc of Frieren, who is aloof from the mortal world, detached from human friendship, attempting to come to know her friends, albeit, sadly, only after their departure.
The characters consist of fairly standard stereotypes of aloof elf, charming hero, hard-drinking priest (this is a stereotype among my people, at least) and stalwart dwarf, not to mention townsfolk, now old ladies and old men, who remember being saved by the heroes during their travels long ago. But stereotyped characters become fully three dimensional when handled with nuance and depth.
The setting is also a stereotyped: a faux Medieval Dungeons and Dragons land, where Tudor style half-timbered houses and huts overtopped by late-medieval crenelated and moated castles are plagued by kabuki-masked demon yoki. As befits Japanese anime, mages have oversized wands to emit wave-motion gun particle beams, and elfs have oversized ears. Everything is as familiar and charming as a warm old pair of favorite slippers.
The draftsmanship is remarkable for a weekly show. It falls short of what Miyazaki can do in a full length feature film, but then again, everyone does. Nonetheless, this is the first show I can bring to mind where I paused the playback merely to admire the color palette or the composition of a shot showing rose colored sunset light glancing off a standing stone, or a shattered rock an apprentice sorceress had blasted, or a garden of blue flowers blooming atop a ruined tower where squirrels had hidden seeds against a winter of long ago, and forgotten to eat them.
As befits a tale of this type, time’s passage is marked by brief and silent scenes showing memorable moments, and one must take care to notice whether winter snow or autumn leaves are in the background, lest, like our elf, the viewer fails to note how many years have passed, or when it was that the child, now a youth, grew taller than she.
The theme is one at the heart of all stories of all genres, namely, what it means to be mortal amid a world that will go on without us once we depart. The theme is handled deftly, without preaching, without intruding.
This story is not for any man in the mood to see action, adventure, or intrigue. The most excitement one is likely to encounter is a scene where a suspicious apprentice follows her elfin master stealthily during a shopping spree, wondering on what odd or expensive gimcrack the elf might waste their limited travel funds, only to discover for whom the gift being bought is meant. No, this is a show for someone who wants relaxation, to meander among melancholy sentiment at the stately pace. The humor is likewise understated.
The anime was based on a manga titled FRIEREN AT THE FUNERAL, where she journeys to the final resting place of souls to be reunited with them: whether this is the direction and plot of the anime is yet to be seen. There are rumors that a second season is forthcoming.
If, in weeks to come, this plotless plot goes off the rails, or if the tale leads to some woke sucker punch, I will return, pen in hand, with an apology to warn away anyone unwary enough to have trusted me. But, for now, I risk all by saying, if the series is as good and warmhearted as the opening episodes, it is well worth watching.
Recommended.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
