Season aired: Winter 2026
Number of episodes: 10
Watched on: Crunchyroll
Translated by: Sho Stifler
Genres: Fantasy, Drama, Adventure
Thoughts: After the first season, I didn’t think I’d have much more to say about Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. I thought it was a beautiful anime with a beautiful message that made me look around at life and sigh at the beauty of living. It had dynamic animation, a production team passionate about the story, voice actors who bounced off each other well, and some of the best music I’d ever heard in anime. If the quality stayed consistent, I figured that writing another review would be repetitive – I’d be rehashing the same praises I had last season. After watching season 2, I surprisingly found myself with plenty to say, and all in a good way.
Unlike other anime, the second season eases the audience back in, reminding us once again that Frieren is a thousand-year-old elf, and that her journey to heaven is for a chance to speak one more time with Himmel. However, upon his passing from old age, Frieren realizes she missed the chance to spend more meaningful moments with a guy whose generous heart and kind soul had left a deep impression on her. Now, she’s traveling to a place that might not even exist for a chance to speak with him again. Along for the ride are Fern and Stark, proteges of Frieren’s former party members. They venture up north, where the demons are stirring once again, and coincidentally, where heaven is said to be.
If the first season was about enjoying every aspect of life and not taking a single second for granted, then the second season is about empathy and helping people whenever you can if you have the capacity to – even if you don’t necessarily understand them. As Frieren, Fern, and Stark venture north, the demons they meet are not only numerous but also stronger and smarter. They find themselves helping people far more than in the first season, and it quickly begs the question: why? There is clearly a more efficient way to travel north, and in fact, some choose to travel by sea, avoiding the difficult and dangerous terrain. But as Frieren points out, the traversal itself is the entire purpose of the journey. The three near-overpowered protagonists make their way to actively help people whose homes have been destroyed, whose lives were constantly at risk, and whose chances for a future depend on systems that are slowly being eaten away.
This theme is presented through Frieren’s party and all the supporting and even minor characters. At one point, Stark asks one of the villagers why they wouldn’t evacuate down south where things are much safer, and Frieren bluntly states that trying to rebuild a village for another group is pointless after a dragon attack. Yet, despite their own reservations on why the villagers choose to stay somewhere so dangerous, the protagonists always go out of their way to help for a simple reason: they can, so they should.
More powerful is when the other cast of characters showcase the same empathy and passion. A dwarf who appears in a single episode has completed a crucial bridge between two cliffs, and we later learn he spent nearly a century building it after losing his own family and village in a botched escape due to the lack of easy access between the two ledges. Despite losing everything, it inspired him to build the bridge for the sake of others in the future. As the episode later reveals, he unintentionally regains the family and village he lost, as a village eventually grows around the bridge. Genau, a sour and unlikeable first mage from the first season, returns in one of the most emotional arcs of the second season. When he finds his entire home village massacred, despite his indifferent facial expressions and tone, he still decides to stay behind and put himself at great risk to protect the bodies left so that they can be transported south and safely buried.
At one point in the arc after a big battle, Genau forces himself up. Blood pouring out from his chest, his hands dig into the ground, and he drags himself across to another wounded person. Despite being on the verge of dying, Genau’s only concern is for the other wounded person across from him, and at that moment, I realized I had more to say about this anime.
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is better than the manga purely because of what the animation medium can provide that the manga can’t, and the production team milks every variable they can. The sound mixing wasn’t something I ever paid close attention to in the first season, yet in that specific scene, Genau’s pained breaths coupled with the desperate scraping of dirt physically shook against my ears. This happened all while a score was still playing in the background, but when he began dragging his bloodied body across the ground, the slow rustle of his attempt to reach the other character alongside his desperate panting blended with the score so perfectly that I could feel his pain and understand the desperation driving him forward. Since then, I cannot unhear how even natural sounds blend with the soundtrack — the waves crashing against a silly tune or the sparkle of crystals against a haunting hymn; the sounds elevate and immerse the audience in ways that are almost indescribable.
The anime also makes full use of its runtime, expanding on single manga panels and turning them into internet sensations. Frieren’s emotional breakdown has become one of the most widely shared gifs, and is in fact one of the first gifs you see if you ever type in “anime crying.” What makes it even better is the realization that an entire minute of Frieren sobbing her eyes out, crawling under the covers, climbing on top of a closet, jumping off a closet, grabbing Himmel’s cloak, and hiding in a corner while night and day pass three times — all of it is anime original.
I don’t know if this is intentional on the production team’s part, but the indication seems to be that it is gauging it from the Japanese fans’ tweets and even Crunchyroll’s own decision on thumbnails. Before Frieren aired, a silly yet inspired art trend emerged when an artist drew Frieren looking up, and the end result was rather funky. They bravely shared the art online to laugh at themselves, and it snowballed into a sensational trend of not just online artists but even professional Japanese animators and directors attempting the angle, commenting on just how difficult it was. Eagle-eyed Japanese fans noticed in one episode, Frieren looks up at the same angle, and it was drawn in a much simpler style than the rest of that scene, leaving fans wondering if the production team had paid homage to the international art trend. I can’t know whether the production team could’ve inserted a moment like this so close to its airing date, but I also wouldn’t be surprised. It simply seems like something a team that loves Frieren would do.
Frieren’s second season is more of a bridge to the third season, with its arc demon already revealed in a tantalizing poster. But to say its only purpose was to set up the third is to underrate how powerful it still is on its own. Please pick up this anime if you haven’t already, or continue watching the second season and take its episodes seriously for the themes they wish to tell. Love your life for its good and its bad, and help others in whatever capacity you can. It’s what Himmel the Hero would do.
Rating
Plot: 9.5 (Multiplier 3)
Characters: 9.5 (Multiplier 3)
Art/Animation: 10 (Multiplier 2)
Voice acting: 8
Soundtrack: 10
FINAL SCORE: 95
