The Winter 2026 Anime Preview Guide

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 2

For ten years, elf mage Frieren traveled with Himmel the hero, Heiter the priest, and Eisen the dwarf warrior as they quested to destroy the demon king. At the end of their journey, Frieren set out on her own, not quite understanding how differently time flows for her versus her human companions. Reunited after fifty years only to see them wither and die, Frieren begins to ponder the nature of connections at a time when it's already too late to say goodbye.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is based on Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe's Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Sōsō no Frieren) manga. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Fridays.

This season starts in a way few would expect (beyond those who have read ahead in the manga, of course). The episode has little action and only two brief flashbacks to Himmel and his adventures. This is because this is not a Frieren-focused episode. Instead, it centers on Stark.

Despite their similar mission of reaching the Demon King's castle, Frieren's two parties are far from a 1-to-1 conversion of each other. The current party has two mages and a front-liner—and is currently lacking a healer. This means that Stark has been left to fill not only Eisen's role but Himmel's as well.

But what's interesting is that Stark is not just an amalgamation of their roles, but their personalities as well. While Stark has the cowardly core of Eisen—the trauma and guilt from running away when you feel you shouldn't have—he also has the inherent kindness of Himmel. Every town they go to, Stark befriends everyone—helping with odd jobs and playing with the kids. (I always wondered if he would have been able to pull the sword from the stone that Himmel failed to.)

In this episode, Stark is left to protect the two, now powerless, mages in his party all alone. He's terrified of himself—that he'll run away again as he did as a child. But Frieren has long since learned that retreat does not make a man a coward. If they need to run, they should just run together. And, in the moment, Stark does his job—literally carrying the two mages to safety as they're chased by certain death.

The rest of the episode is likewise centered around Stark, but on what others think about him rather than how he sees himself. Wirbel sees Stark as an asset in his crusade to kill the demons still active in the north—and both Frieren and Fern can see that Stark would likely benefit from the experience in both social and physical growth.

But to Fern, Stark is literally the one man she can count on. He is the one she believes will save her in her scariest moment—which he literally does when she is cut off from magic. Losing him to another party, even if it might be what's best for him, is something she struggles to accept.

In the end, Stark stays with Frieren and Fern because to him, it's not even a choice. They are the ones who give him the strength to be more than the coward he still believes himself to be. Traveling with them has already been the best experience of his life, and he wouldn't leave them for anything—especially Fern. For the first time, he's able to be open about that—and that draws him and Fern closer than ever before.

Like a long-absent friend who returns and slots straight back into your life as if they've never been away, so it is with premier fantasy anime series Frieren. It isn't hyperbole to proclaim this one of the most accomplished anime series of recent years, and an excellent gateway drug to the anime-curious. This is a good place for the second season to pick up, with long-lived elf mage Frieren and her two travelling companions setting off on the next part of their journey, following the conclusion of last season's Mage Exam arc. We're back to short, contained, episodic stories for now, which are among the best aspects of the series, as the relaxed pace allows the characters to bounce off one another as they amble through the gorgeously realized fantasy countryside of their continent's Northern region.

This episode focuses mostly on Stark, who didn't get a whole lot to do during the second half of last season, so it seems only fair we spend some time with him now. He's a stupendously strong physical fighter, yet he lacks confidence and self-esteem. Constantly putting himself down for his perceived failings and supposed lack of courage, an almost-motherly Frieren comforts him, stating she's had full confidence in his abilities since he first joined her party.

When they meet Wirbel's party by happenstance, they offer Stark the opportunity to join them, and we can tell that newly minted First Class Mage Fern is anxious that he might leave. Among her few treasured possessions, the bracelet he gave her is one of her most prized. She keeps it regularly cleaned, and caresses it as she thinks of him. Yet neither are quite mature enough to admit their screamingly obvious love for one another. Fern offers to pet an emotionally frazzled Stark's head, and his first reaction is to recoil in terror. “What are you plotting?” he cries. I completely understand. Women are mercurial creatures; we mere men struggle to comprehend their motivations.

Fans of sleepy Frieren faces are well served this episode, as the ancient mage, true to type, has an uncanny ability to doze off in any situation. Even when lost in a deep underground cavern full of shiny blue magic-sealing crystals, with monstrous abominations lurking in the shadows. She reminds me of my similarly somnolently gifted grandad. If my grandad were a short, sleepy lady elf.

Even in such a relatively sedate episode, Studio Madhouse still manages to show off with spectacular action animation – first in flashback form, and then during Stark's rescue of Frieren and Fern from a particularly angry underground poison monster lizard thingy. I'll not find the image of Stark dragging both Frieren and Fern through the air, both of them dangling behind him, hilariously weird. Frieren's little smile, knowing Stark will always pull through for the party, is very sweet. I'm so glad this wonderful show has returned, even if only for a reportedly short ten-episode season. I'd happily watch this every week of every year, though I worry about the deleterious effects such strain might have on Madhouse's poor animators.

The march of time may be long and unforgiving, but at least we still get to pass it alongside our favorite elf mage. After putting off the manga for ages, I ended up falling in love with it almost immediately, but figured there was little chance a series as quiet and meditative as this one would find mainstream success, so I was happily surprised when the anime managed to quickly cement itself as one of the closest things to a modern classic in our current media landscape. A lot of that can, of course, be attributed to the stellar production by Madhouse and director Keiichi Satō, as they did an incredible job of translating the manga's sense of atmosphere into animation with the right amount of balance between small moments of introspection and big, bombastic fantasy battles, while making both sides of the series look absolutely stellar. Thanks to all that, the first season of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End stands as one of the few anime adaptations that I would consider to an overall step up from its source material (which was already a pretty high bar to match, let alone clear), and while we'll have to see if this second season can maintain that same quality, it's at least starting on the right foot.

Rather than immediately jumping into anything major, this episode gives us a couple of fairly low-key vignettes, which would be an odd choice for nearly any other show. Still, it is pretty much exactly what I wanted out of this premiere. While I did enjoy the Mage Exam arc from last season and thought that the anime did a lot to improve what was otherwise my least favorite stretch of the manga thus far, I actually find that Frieren is at its best for me when we're getting to watch Frieren and her companions simply living in the moment, and tends to be merely fantastic rather than amazing whenever it delves into longer storylines, so it was pretty relaxing getting to cozy up with these characters again.

The first half of the episode sees our central trio stumble across some magic-nullifying crystals, and even in a scenario as mundane as this, it's nice to see just how well each of their personalities is reflected in how they react. Frieren being Frieren is amused rather than terrified at the idea of being stripped of her magic and doesn't really stop to consider the danger here, while Fern's tendency to be more of a realist has her quietly freaking out, but certainly not as much as Stark when he realizes that the burden of keeping the party safe rests entirely on his shoulders. Since Stark can still only ever see himself as a coward who runs from danger, he doesn't really think he's up to that kind of responsibility. Still, in one of her moments of blunt wisdom, Frieren tells him outright that she trusts him with her life and understands that knowing when to flee can be valuable in its own way. It's not the most complex of life lessons, but it is a refreshingly honest one, and the show's ability to dish these out so casually is one of the parts I love most about it.

Good as that segment was, I got even more out of the second one, which draws attention back to Stark and Fern's awkward relationship when Stark accidentally walks in on her and Frieren bathing. In a more standard anime, a scenario like this would come off as exhausting, but having it simply result in an air of quiet, awkward tension so thick that even Frieren can pick up on it was the kind of dry humor this show excels at, and it made it all downright hilarious. This tension also leads to some drama when they reunite with Wirbel, who wants to recruit Stark to join him. While Fern still keeps most of her emotions to herself, even just from her facial expressions, you can tell that Fern never mentally prepared for the possibility of Stark leaving someday. Of course, we know there's no way Stark would ever do that, but it was sweet that part of his reason for turning down the offer is due to how grateful he is to Fern for being the first person to truly believe that he can brave.

It tied in really nicely with his anxieties from the first half of the episode. Sadly Stark immediately killing the mood afterwards means that we're still probably another 3 or 4 years in-universe from seeing these two smooch, but ending the episode with Fern placing the bracelet she got from him alongside her treasured gifts from Frieren and Heiter speaks volumes about how much she values having Stark in her life, even if we're always off from her ever admitting it to his face. Getting bombarded with these kinds of great character interactions was basically the best start this new season of Frieren could have gotten, and while I was a little worried that we might see some notable differences in direction after Keiichi Satō moved on to other projects, Tomoyo Kitagawa is doing a fantastic job of taking the reins and the relaxed atmosphere here feels as charming as ever. With the manga jumping in and out of hiatus, it's hard to know how much ground this season will try to cover and what that could mean for what we get afterwards, but Frieren is more about the journey than the destination, and for a journey as grand as this one, I'm strapped in for whatever sights it has to show us.

As soon as the clock struck midnight on January 1st, I felt a strange combination of relief and tension swirling within me. 2025 was over, but my plate for the year to come had already been thoroughly stacked upon. While working the other evening, I'd stood up for a quick breather and decided to throw on the season premiere of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. A little over twenty minutes later, I felt as if I'd sat down with a hot cup of tea before bed—taking me back to the days when thirty minutes of Dragon Quest VII and tea were a nightly ritual of mine.

I'd fully expected to burst into tears going into this episode, letting the stress just ooze out of my face until it'd subsided. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Frieren's calming return to form as the episode simply chronicled the next handful of days in our party's adventure. Catching a handful of fish, tossing around shiny stones, and catching up with some old friends at the bar—it was a calming exhale of sorts. That even in the often swirling chaos of our daily lives, there are elements that remain steadfast. I fully expect that complication to rear its head in the episodes to come, but this premiere sincerely felt like sharing a relaxing cup of tea with an old friend.

In that way, Frieren very much picks up where it left off. It's not exactly concerned with raising the stakes just yet, but it reintroduces the audience to its signature meditative, considered pacing. The shift is a welcome change, considering that the first season wrapped with the conclusion of a full-blown tournament arc. More than anything else, I'm curious to see how more folks that audiences met during the First-Class Mages Exam pop up in the episodes to come.

Despite the series' relaxed return, it seems that director Tomoya Kitagawa and crew at MADHOUSE didn't want the premiere to go without a bang or two. Aside from the stellar character animation and background work across the board, a fiery confrontation from the episode's midpoint is an outright flex by the animators involved. Not to mention that it's also filled to the brim with a collection of excellent sleepy elf faces.

Frieren's premiere is everything I wanted and then some in a few places. While I might not have bawled for one-hundredth time over the trial and tribulations of this long-lived elf again, I felt an air of calmness that most series tend to shy away from. And with that, I think I'm going to pour myself a cup of tea and get back to work before next week's leg of the journey.