Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End - Random Thoughts

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is one of my favorite anime lately.

It’s hard to recommend this anime to someone who has never seen it before. It’s a story about an elf mage and a hero’s adventure. The elf lives for an extremely long time, far longer than a human lifespan. By the time the humans she once traveled with have all died, the elf realizes she knows nothing about humans, and so she sets out on another journey. It sounds boring, but all I can really say is: watch it, and you’ll get it.

What Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End does best is portraying everyday life. Not every episode is about defeating some great demon king; instead, it focuses more on the small stories along the journey. At first glance, they may not seem like much, but the anime is able to express those emotions with remarkable subtlety.

Frieren may seem emotionless, but after watching the whole story, I still really love her personality. Calm, rational, composed, and willing to think and observe things; she also has things she loves (collecting magic and jumping into mimic chests). If you were to judge her by the 16 personality types, Frieren would probably be INTP, but as the story progresses, she slowly becomes INFP (I guess).

Spoiler warning

One scene I really loved was in the First-Class Mage arc, when Frieren finally broke Seelie’s barrier for the sake of Kanne.

Magic should be free

That scene really moved me. It wasn’t just that the anime made the moment so beautifully, with the whole visual presentation and music being so powerful; it was also Frieren’s gentleness in breaking the barrier simply because she felt Kanne was too precious to lose. I hope I can become someone like that too—peace-loving, not good at expressing feelings, yet strong and gentle.