The flawless anime you desperately need in your life right now

At a time when things are quite not all right in the world, the return of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is nothing short of a boon. The second season of the hit anime by studio Madhouse, based on the manga by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe, picks up right where things left off when season 1 ended in March 2024, and it truly feels like nothing has changed.

The new season of an anime can feel starkly different from its predecessors (just ask poor One-Punch Man fans), but this is not the case. Frieren’s vibes are still immaculate, and Madhouse is still at the top of its game. Frieren continues her journey to the Northern Plateau with Fern and Stark, the disciples of her companions in the Hero Party, Eisen and Heiter, while filling their days (and our viewing experience) with the everyday trifles and simple pleasures of life. This is a fantasy show about an immortal elf wizard, but barely any spells are cast in this first episode. There’s a big, scary monster, but the party makes the strategic choice to run rather than fight. This scene flips on its head so many shonen and fantasy tropes that it could only work in Frieren, where it represents everything great about the show.

It’s easy to describe Frieren as a meditation on life with a shonen fantasy glaze, but it would be more accurate to say that the focus of this story is the journey itself. Frieren’s goal is to reach the mythical land of Aureole, a paradise of sorts where souls rest, to see her old traveling companions again. However, she’s in no hurry to get there. As an elf, Frieren experiences time differently, and she’s learned that, rather than a curse, this can be a blessing. She wants to live as meaningfully as possible, to give actual value to her endless supply of time. For Frieren, the time spent watching Stark fishing or Fern taking care of her accessories is just as important as the epic battles against the demon generals, if not more.

While season 1 had some magnificent fight scenes, the first episode of season 2 zeroes in immediately on the real appeal of the show. The journey is not about the destination, but the detours you take along the road — it says it right in the title. When asked why they don’t travel by boat to reach the North, Stark says they’re retracing the journey of the Hero’s Party. This means sleeping on the road, struggling with money, and facing unexpected dangers. This may sound unpleasant, but it’s a trip through memories for Frieren, and for Stark and Fern it’s a chance to retrace the steps of their masters and learn more about the men who saved and shaped their lives. “We’re always accepting weird jobs, getting caught up in trouble, and taking detours,” Fern says. It’s that “lateral movement” that makes Frieren shine and encapsulates its deepest message: Life is short, and that’s why you need to take your time through it.

“Subverting tropes” is an expression that gets thrown around a lot in the anime field, but it’s actually really hard to achieve. Frieren does that by taking a traditionally action-focused genre and making it all about what happens between the action. The quiet, the small gestures, and the daily slice-of-life moments are what sustain the series’ narrative, and this first episode makes it clear season 2 won’t be any different.

The quiet escapism offered by a show like Frieren might feel ill-suited for a time when the world outside our window seems scarier than ever, and it’s important to engage with that reality as much as possible. However, in times of bleakness, it’s equally important to have in our lives sources of warmth, and Frieren is surely one. Rather than being a mere distraction, Frieren reminds us of the things about life and humanity that make us feel good. I’m ready to treasure that feeling for another season.