'Frieren: Beyond Journey's End' - a series set after an epic journey and battle.
The unlikely protagonist of this after-happily-ever-after fantasy series is Frieren, the elf mage. Frieren is--was, part of a ragtag team of adventurers with their own skillsets and personalities and quirks. In any other story, she would be a side character, a sidekick; the healer, the magic-user, the stoic, relatively-emotionless elf girl who would become a fan favourite, and a potential love interest to the main male hero, as the only female member of the hero group.
But 'Beyond Journey's End' is her story, set after the main male hero's story.
The epic, ten-year quest of the famous, heroic band of adventurers is just one part of Frieren's story - her near-immortal life - that is now past.
Frieren is over a thousand-years-old, and ten years spent with the same people doing one important task - that would be remembered for generations to come - would barely be anything to her; a blip in her ongoing existence.
Until decades pass, and she realises she never really bothered to get to know her mortal companions - her friends - as they age and die. Heck, after their big adventure is complete, she merely leaves them to go her own way without a second thought or a backwards glance, thinking that, for the next hundred years or so, she'll have plenty of time to meet up with them again when the fancy takes her.
By the time she regrets it - regrets taking mortals' time and lives, and her time, for granted - and she cries over it, it's over their graves.
'Frieren: Beyond Journey's End' is about Frieren and her journey without a destination. It is her own self-imposed quest, to learn more about humans. To keep old memories, and make new ones, never taking anything for granted again. She will meet people, and take requests and help them, and make connections with them, fleeting and inconsequential as they may be. After decades of being alone, and then finally reconnecting with her dying or otherwise retired friends, she ends up taking on a new companion, a very young, fellow mage girl named Fern, who will be her apprentice.
This fantasy manga is about Frieren's memories, and the mortal people she learns from and allows into her immortal life, no matter how painful and seemingly pointless.
It's genius, really, this premise.
A sort-of slice-of-life (the high stakes have been and gone... for now) fantasy fable told from the point of view of an immortal elf girl - I wish I could have written something like it.
Another ingenious inclusion to the story is the heroine Frieren receiving a sole female companion on her self-discovery journey/path/pilgrimage, after being known to tag along with dudes. Even though Fern, a war orphan, was "given" to her by an old man...
I like that 'Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Vol. 1' takes its sweet time, gradually, throughout its chapters, to show that Frieren is not as emotionless and heartless as she may first appear. She is not such a cold beauty - she has warmth and heart, that she doesn't always reveal beyond the surface. She has surprising humanity in her, which includes a goofy side, made more apparent as the volume progresses.
Frieren is, in fact, not primarily serious or strict - she can be lazy, apathetic, indecisive, clumsy, shortsighted, and a bad, awkward liar. She hates getting up early - mornings are her weakness (I can relate!) - and she mostly likes to lounge around. People - friends - are not the only things she takes for granted: there's the stubborn, set-in-stone ways that she uses magic (which we don't see often here, not in mighty, powerful, saving-the-world manifestations, anyway). As Fern states, Frieren loves magic, but she says it's a "hobby" of hers, and currently she can't be bothered to learn new forms of using it, not to mention new perspectives and angles of it. Nowadays she can't be arsed to hone her craft properly, and keep in shape, keep her magic from going rusty.
In spite of this Achilles' heel when it comes to practicality, Frieren is smart, knowledgeable, and reads books. She is prone to rudeness and social awkwardness when interacting with mortals, but she doesn't mean to be like that; she has trouble understanding them and their personal insights sometimes.
At its most basic level and core, 'Frieren: Beyond Journey's End' is about Frieren learning to be more thoughtful. To be efficient, get close to people in their remaining time, get to know them, stop to smell the roses (quite literally, and with any flower), and wonder at the world.
The ramblings above should demonstrate my scatterbrained ineptness--er, I mean my expression of just how complex a character our main mage Frieren is. She's a reverent goddess of small stature, and a joy to follow, on her "non-adventures". By the end of the first volume, you are sure to want to find out further things about her and her backstory.
Like how she was the "best apprentice" to a mortal mage woman a thousand years ago...
'Frieren: Beyond Journey's End' is certainly something special. Although I wish it could have spent a bit more time with Frieren's adventurer group, before the time skip to decades later ten pages into the first chapter. The characters' designs aren't very original. They would blend in and be forgettable in any other fantasy manga.
The only characters I really care about are Frieren, Fern, and maybe Heiter, the sneaky, alcoholic, "corrupt priest", as he's always called. And I have a hard time believing that the cocky, arrogant, vain, womanizing hero Himmel (who looks exactly like a 'Fire Emblem' hero) would never marry and have children in the decades between Frieren seeing him, and up to his death of old age. What did he do in all that time? It's never explained.
At least we get nice, meaningful flashbacks of Frieren with her old hero friends throughout, tiny and infrequent though they are.
Also, for a newer manga, 'Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Vol. 1' unfortunately contains two instances of perving on female characters because they are female: one is when Frieren compares her breast size to sixteen-year-old Fern's at the end of chapter 4, which is utterly bizarre, out-of-character and out-of-place; and the other is when, in chapter 5, the elf remembers an old man who used to be a little boy who flipped her skirt once, and Himmel was mad at him - because he wanted to look up her skirt. I don't care if it isn't technically fanservice since nothing is actually shown, it's still annoying, cringeworthy, groanworthy, and unnecessary. It has no place in an otherwise beautiful, tranquil, enlightening, and life-affirming-and-reviving manga like this.
That's all I'll say about 'Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Vol. 1', other than it is mostly set in forests, plus a town or two, and a harbour. And it's in the fantasy genre, yet contains no animal comrades whatsoever.
If you like 'Delicious in Dungeon', 'A Cat from Our World and the Forgotten Witch', and other, similar manga currently fresh and selling widely and wildly on the market, then definitely check it out.
Final Score: 3.5/5
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