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Frieren Panel Lets Fans Journey Through The Anime's Soundscape

The Frieren: Beyond Journey's End panel at the Peacock Theater proved entertaining to those curious about the sounds that go into the anime's production. With Stark's voice actor Chiaki Kobayashi and composer Evan Call on stage alongside producer Yuichiro Fukushi, the panel took on a very sonic nature to allow for fruitful discussions regarding Frieren's music and voice acting.

Already known for his sentimental symphonies for fantasies like Violet Evergarden and My Happy Marriage, Evan Call discussed what it was like to be given that same elegiac touch to Frieren's music. “When I got the offer,” Call said, “I read through the manga and the story was just something I was into from the get-go, everything about it I was into; the sentimental feeling and melancholic atmosphere.”

He continued, “What I tend to do when I prepare to compose for shows is imagine what kind of music would go well for what scenes, and for Frieren especially, it just pulled me with the premise of the adventure after the adventure.”

Call also made it clear that he wanted to bring his score to life as much as possible. “I wanted the music not just to be in the background," he said. “I wanted to leave it as an additional character for the rest of the cast. Like it's the voice of the world. And so I put a lot of time into what kind of instruments I wanted to choose, what kind of general tone I was looking for.”

Having a meticulous attention to detail towards Frieren's score meant that Call traveled to various locales around the world to compose and record the music, specifically Budapest to record the orchestral and choral parts, and then to Japan to record the more folky instrumentations. “I still got a little bit left when I get back from here,” he said. “I gotta record some banjo myself.”

Call was then allowed to play an electric piano onstage to further demonstrate his methodology, and as a music lover, I was very eager to hear this. Call claimed that he wasn't that much of a pianist when he finally sat down behind the keys, but this was modesty at play, considering how he played the folksy cut “The Evolution of Magic” with adept precision. The Frieren maestro also admitted that his musical roots were in bluegrass, so I wouldn't expect anything less than whimsical precision.

Regarding Chiaki Kobayashi's voice acting work as Stark, the seiyuu claimed to have had a hunch that he was going to voice the red-headed warrior from the very start. “I was in disbelief,” Kobayashi said. “I was almost in tears cuz that's what Frieren meant to me as a manga. I thought I was going to be either Himmel or Stark, but in my mind, I felt there was a 99% chance I was going to be cast as Stark.”

When talking about his recording sessions, Kobayashi-san focused on how he wanted to portray Stark's cowardly side. “Stark is afraid of a lot of things, and he can't fight on his own as a character,” Kobayashi said. “Because he has Frieren and Fern, he's able to become more comfortable and overcome his fears. That can be said not just for Stark, but for me and perhaps a lot of people in this audience as well. And I think that kind of mindset made it easy for me to perform Stark. To go on a little tangent, I remember when I was Stark's age, I said maybe one too many things to the girls I was trying to hit on, so I could relate to a lot of what he was going through in Frieren.” The last bit got a laugh from the crowd.

Kobayashi went on to recite dialogue from scenes where Stark has to muster the courage to fight a dragon, whose quasi-sympathetic decision to spare Stark on a whim accidentally turns Stark into an overnight hero by villagers who mistake this as the dragon fleeing from Stark's “might.” Another scene where Stark fights the dragon was shown, although Kobayashi did not recite during this. Having not seen Frieren yet, I was amazed by the sakuga of this scene—ANN's fantastic video editor and friend to us all, Stephen, was there with me to confirm that Yutaka Nakamura of My Hero Academia fame was involved in animating this fight, and the results certainly show.

Kobayashi was proud of his work to the point where he deified his role in Frieren by making it an unbreakable bond that will live on. He would go on to say, “In the same way Himmel can leave this lasting impression on the entire world of Frieren, I hope that through providing my voice to Frieren, even after I pass, a hundred years from now I will live through Frieren.”

As with all anime Q&A panels, production inevitably came up as a topic of discussion. Producer Yuichio Fukishi discussed the origins of Frieren's anime adaptation, saying how the execs at TOHO animation encouraged him to not only produce it, but to go beyond the usual twelve-episode cour run for its first season. Given such a task, Fukushi wanted to ensure flawless execution to capture the essence of the manga.

“First off,” Fukisha said, “the first season has 28 episodes, so to do that in itself was a huge challenge. It's more volume than what most seasons have in anime. There was also where to divert our resources since each episode was so poignant and heartwarming, but you have to balance things throughout the entire story. The director's intent needed to be made clear, so getting all of the documentation and resources was very important.”

At the end of the panel, a trailer for the second season was shown, and an announcement that season 2 will be making its way to screens everywhere in January 2026.