Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 2
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Zaiju
 Posts: 5 |
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I loved how one of the first scenes in this episode is mirroring one of the opening scenes in Season 1, with Fern and Stark having the same conversation as Himmel and Heiter about how they will need to find some work, Frieren remarks "Sounds Familiar". Perfect opening
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FanGamer24
Posts: 300 |
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Really good start for season 2. Shame that low episode count means we probably aren’t getting spoiler[El Dorado] this season but I’m sure it will still end up being good.
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Azure Chrysanthemum
Posts: 225 |
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I think the speculation is we'll get right UP to that point but not actually to it and that'll probably be announced right at the end of this season, maybe for later this year or early next year.
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Wasureta
Posts: 89 |
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Fern is really efficient with packing cubes.
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tintor2
 Posts: 2687 |
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After removing Stark for nearly an entire cour from season 1 I guess this was the best way season 2 could begin.
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11equalsfish
Posts: 29 |
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To be honest Frieren is one of the most visually beautiful shows I've ever seen, but it's still really basic and bland, like the point is that it's very subdued in mood and has really simple and quiet personalities. I genuinely want to know what people enjoy about it, it seems very popular and well liked.
It still seems like a beginner's show with cliché anime tropes, light fan service, and no realistic characters or detailed themes. I just can't get into it despite enduring the first season and manga. This first episode was quite boring but I was amazed by how it was everything was drawn and coloured. The action was nice. It could be relaxing to watch, and the characters are mildly nice to each other, but they still butt heads in a frustrating way. The review said "emotionally stunted", and that's the part that's most prominent. Who would want to watch a show with characters or people like that, dragging on about really shallow events? |
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yurayurari
 Posts: 42 |
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Has this been officially confirmed anywhere? I heard the news is not from an official source, although people said they're known of being accurate. Still, I'm kinda hoping that there's a gap in the leak, like perhaps it's 10 episode cour instead of season, and we'll continue immediately, if not a split cour with only a season of waiting for the next cour. |
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gumbaloom
Posts: 329 |
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Look at the specs for the announcements blu-rays - 10 eps Cast iron fact confirmed You know how many eps by blu-ray number and ep count when they are solicited on usually day of broadcast Of course at the end of the last ep the might drop a curve ball like a film? |
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jdnation
Posts: 2492 |
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Yeah, if this is 10 eps, it strongly suggests to me that the El Dorado arc will be a film project announced at the end. (I don't think the Arc's name is a spoiler.)
Which means that unlike Season 1, there will not be any big climactic arc for the finale, just one significant mini-arc in between, bookended by side stories. I'm fine with that, and with Demon Slayer and Chainsaw-Man cleaning up the box office, Frieren stands to make equal bank off a big canon arc film, and El Dorado is a good one to do it with. The manga's hiatus also nessitates a delay until the current big arc is wrapped up, and once it does, there will be enough material for a full length Season 3.
People like it for the same reason they like laid-back slice-of-life shows. Sure, you could diminish much of Frieren's little side-escapades as "cliche", but it only proves that even "cliche" things can be done right with good writing and characters. The show, unlike other fantasy shows, isn't too involved with any central plot. It is broadly about someone with a long life span learning about what life is like for those with shorter ones. Frieren is "emotionally stunted", because to all appearences she is an 'old hag', but mentally she is young as far as elves go, and never bothered making connections with others due to feeling like any time spent with their short lives felt like nothing more than brief acquaintences. But now she is making that effort, and that's because her brief time with Himmel and his party made her realize she was missing something. So Frieren is finally learning about all those little meaningless "cliches" of human life, but for her, these are novel experiences tyhat when gathered together are more than the sum of their parts. That's the theme. And they are literally journeying towards the afterlife. This is a journey of a lifetime. And the lesson here is that perhaps we too ought to stop and treasure life's little moments before they pass. This is a big reason why I think Frieren tends to resonate in a bigger way with an older audience versus a younger one. This is a story about looking back, as Frieren relives her brief past with Himmel through Stark and Fern. As the anime progresses, bigger themes about the passages of time, history, and memory in Frieren's background worldbuilding will continue to also be relevant. It's all deliberately a slow burn, but it continues to cook! |
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11equalsfish
Posts: 29 |
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Thanks for explaining it jdnation, and I see the point you're making. I love slice of life shows about characters and vibes, which is why I know this is really lacking. This is story 101, literally every story is this, so this is impressively stock and minimalist. I just expected more because how great the visual are and how superficially it matches my taste, so the show is just not for the likes of me. It's all vague grand allusions.
If it's nostalgia for a past we barely get to see, then it's about nothing but a failure of Frieren's perspective. Are we supposed to wait a hundred years for her and her group to develop a personality in real time? It's absurd and impossible for these characters this unique to be so subdued and bland in a fantasy world. The show takes itself so seriously and grandly but it is about so little, and I know where the manga goes too. It's really hypocritical and wasteful of people's time. It's like how the color grey is universal and utilitarian, but I can't imagine how any person could relate or enjoy it. |
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jdnation
Posts: 2492 |
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I don't think anyone would disagree about the fact that Frieren isn't doing anything cutting-edge story-wise, nor is it trying to reinvent the wheel in the fantasy genre.
In many ways, Frieren really is a deliberate step back towards a much simpler era of oft-told fantasy worlds with simple classic character archetypes and magic system rules that shun the over-complexities and exoticness of modern action anime. Frieren is also more heavily Western in world, character and style that it has so far eschewed many typical Japanese takes on the genre. But like anime slice-of-life shows, it focuses more on feel-good stories, so it stands out in contrast to a lot of the more ongoing dour, serious villain, revenge, mystery, immediate-situation or world-ending scenarios that are typical of the action genre; Frieren's big final boss scenario is actually in it's past, the present is epilogue. So it's as if The Hobbit was a story post-LOTR. That is likely why it works, it's story 101 is precisely nostalgic for fantasy fans, as well as thematically for it's MC. And it's simplicity also makes it more accessible for those who aren't familiar with a lot of fantasy to get into or aren't big into fantasy precisely because other stuff doing "new" or "better" things with the genre naturally assume their target audience is already familiar with many things and can appreciate new complex takes on it without too much explanation; but that is a smaller audience compared to those not into fantasy, or even anime at all for that matter. Frieren is a show that actually appeals easily to non-anime and non-fantasy fans precisely for stepping back and being more Western. And the majority of it's easy-going more episodic neatly wrapped up in 20 min stories are actually appreciated in the age of lengthy bingeable or to-be-continued-next-week/seasonal epics. Naturally, it's overall fantastic production or direction, animation, art and music is doing a lot in service to it's material. So it's a combination of all of the above factors coming together in the right place and time. Of course you'd have to be in the mood for it... And maybe right now those who aren't digging it crave something more novel and complex or dark than nostalgic and simple or light, and that's fine. But the more classic stuff tends to have wider appeal and longevity, precisely because they act as entry-points to established genres where the "better" stuff can only be appreciated by the initiated. That said, I'd argue that Frieren in it's own right does demonstrate creators who are themselves well-initiated in the genre and do care a lot about the world they've created, which does show signs of complex systems, history, ecosystems, races, politics, life and lore; it's just taking it's sweet time informing us in more natural on-the-road fashion without everything being any major ongoing plot-driver. |
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11equalsfish
Posts: 29 |
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IronWish
 Posts: 231 Location: Ukraine |
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I don't think you need much explaining here. "I can appreciate that this is really well made and has no glaring issues but it does nothing for me personally" is a perfectly reasonable stance to have for any "universally acclaimed" thing. Taste is a personal thing, it's ok do dislike something which majority of people loves. That's kind of another side of the coin to finding 5.8 MAL show and scoring it 9 or 10 since it resonated with you perfectly. I experienced same thing last year while playing Clair Obscur: for me it was a well made game, competent at most it does, but not really excelling at anything, bar a couple of banger boss themes. And then bam: nearly everyone thinks it's a generational masterpiece. Or going back to anime, judging by your MAL you're quite fond of Miyazaki films, and they are as universally acclaimed as possible. Yet I know for a fact there are quite a few people who feel about those exactly same way you do about Frieren. As in "masterfully crafted, yet boring and thematically shallow". |
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jdnation
Posts: 2492 |
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If you know you know...
https://x.com/Girltaku_AT/status/2014846474081665238 |
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1790 |
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Part of it is resentment, I think, she can't help but take her frustrations out on them because she feels they deserve it. Though in this particular episode, Frieren does concede that "speaking to it is a waste of time," but I think she's mostly reminding herself of that. |
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