Lessons Learned from Watching ‘Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’

Adapted from the manga series created by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End follows the adventures and new life lessons of an elf mage. She walked away after completing a ten year journey with comrades and forgot to consider humanity’s mortality when a death of a friend catches her off guard. Her newest journey allows her life lessons in what it means to grieve, support the next generation, and work on defining what a legacy is. October of last year brought us the first cour of the anime adaptation that fans of the manga series have been waiting on.  Truly, this is an editorial that has been in the works for a while. I first pitched this piece to the editors last October just before the anime premiered. As a reader of the manga who devoured each volume that was released, I was sure that I wanted to write about grief and what Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End teaches us about it. Yet, as I kept watching into the second cour, my outline was stagnant without much more additional words.  My original pitch sat untouched. Now with the final episode finally airing, a revised version of my original pitch revealed itself to me. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End offers much to ponder about the power of grief, yet it also offers so many more little lessons that amount to so much more about life that I did not feel comfortable glossing over. So, here’s what I’m hoping is a much more fleshed out and meaningfully written piece of not just what stood out to me …