‘Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ Season 2 premiere review: Hello old friend, hisashiburi…

Two years ago, when I joined this organisation as a rookie still trying to earn his chops, the idea of devoting an entire column to an unassuming melancholic fantasy anime felt a little absurd. Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe’s lesser-known Japanese series about a couple millenia-old elf processing grief through detours and half-remembered conversations hardly seemed like obvious material. This was a newspaper with a long history of schooling ambition, after all. And yet, I wrote it anyway.

I dubbed Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End the “future of fantasy”, with a confidence that felt reckless even as I typed it. If you’ll forgive a moment of shameless self-promotion, the piece really took off. It found its way onto the Frieren subreddit, blowing up on Twitter and Instagram, and eventually reached a few seniors at the organisation, who seemed quite amused. Heck, the crowning jewel of that run was realising it had even found its way onto Frieren’s Wikipedia page, which still feels unreal. Along that ripple effect, Frieren had carved out a small space for me, a niche I could stand inside and speak clearly from. For a storytelling medium rarely taken seriously by Indian media, it sure felt like a small act of faith from an eager, if slightly nervous, little otaku writing about something he loved without knowing who would listen. Looking back now, it almost feels like I owe her everything.

Two years since, the road goes ever on, and so have I. The distance between that first column and this sophomore premiere is filled with a montage of shaky confidence assembled piece by piece and a voice shaped through passion and repetition. Now, watching this beloved elven mage finally return carries with it the familiar pang of a Himmel flashback. The memory of where I was last time enriched what I was seeing now. I thought I understood this series, that I was prepared, but this mischievous little elf still had a few surprises up her sleeve.

The second season of Frieren slips back into step beside you with the devotion of a Samwise Gamgee, already walking before you notice. Nearly thirty years have passed since Himmel’s funeral, and for Frieren, that span barely registers. For the rest of the world, it has reshaped borders, dangers, and lives. The episode holds that imbalance gently, allowing time itself to remain the central pressure point, as always.

What struck me most watching this premiere was how deeply personal its layered minimalism still felt. The simple narrative device of the magic-nullifying crystals buried beneath the earth rearranges the emotional geometry of the group. Frieren and Fern lose access to magic, and Stark becomes the axis on which everything turns. The choice to introduce this limitation serves to clarify what the series values. As the unfathomable power of the two mages drains away, what remains is pure, undying faith in their commrade.

A still from ‘Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ Season 2
| Photo Credit:
Crunchyroll

Stark’s role during this sequence develops with subtlety. He has always carried physical strength alongside emotional hesitation, and the premiere treats that tension earnestly. Faced with protecting two companions rendered defenceless, Stark’s fear surfaces once more, and his choice neither mocks nor dramatises it. His decision to flee, carrying both Frieren and Fern to safety, frames courage as stewardship, and the moment echoes earlier stories Frieren recalls about Himmel and Eisen, drawing a clean, romantic line between generations.

Frieren’s own response to Stark’s hesitation also reveals her own incremental growth. Earlier in the series, emotional cues often passed her by unnoticed, but now, she seems to anticipate them better. Her reassurance feels learned rather than innate, shaped by decades of regret and observation, and the series continues its long project of redefining wisdom as something acquired through attention and mindfulness.

The episode’s second half, centred on Stark’s potential departure with Wirbel, flows with similar restraint. Fern’s anxiety expresses itself through care, as she tends to the objects she’s been given, holding memory in her hands. A brief exchange with Frieren about these keepsakes unfolds softly, though with unsurprising weight. Frieren now notices and remembers. This is the same elf who once struggled to grasp why gifts mattered at all, but the accumulation of time has finally seemed to find direction.

When Stark speaks to Fern later, he talks about encouragement, about becoming braver because someone believed in him. The moment resonates effortlessly because it feels so deeply lived-in. Relationships in Frieren evolve through proximity, through shared inconvenience, and even through simply staying — that rhythm mirrors real, organic growth.

Visually, the episode continues to impress without seeking attention with hand-drawn excellence. This opener slips back into form with tranquil worlds, stray adventures and one very funny elf. The wide skies, lush forests, and meticulous regard for movements all reinforce the sense of time pressing against the characters. Evan Call’s marvellous music drifts in and out. Everything serves the same purpose: to let the moment breathe.

A still from ‘Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End’ Season 2
| Photo Credit:
Crunchyroll

What I didn’t expect in those early months of writing about Frieren as an enthusiastic outsider was how completely the show would burrow into the wider conversation, evolving into something larger-than-life that actually mattered to people far beyond me. By the close of its first season, it had climbed to the very top of MyAnimeList’s global rankings, dislodging long-cherished classics that had been permanent furniture for years without gimmicks or evangelism — a feat no other series has managed in the platform’s long history of rabid voters. And the bitter turbulence that followed Solo Levelling’s obnoxious sweep at the Anime Awards last year also spoke to how deeply people had come to care about Frieren, and how it set a standard for what fantasy could be.

In the time since, every major genre release has been discussed against Frieren’s example, whether anyone admits it or not. High fantasy like Delicious in Dungeon, Clevatess, the latest Sentenced to Be a Hero, and even the upcoming Witch Hat Atelier, have all promised scope, scale, or subversion of some sort. Very few promise patience. Fewer still excavate memory with such grace. That gap keeps widening, and Frieren remains unbothered and very hard to ignore.

As the trio resumed their journey toward Ende, I couldn’t help but reflect on the same click I felt two years ago when we published that first piece and wondered if I’d gone too far out on a limb. Frieren has walked this road before, but she walks it differently now, awake to the weight and warmth of the people beside her, each step reshaping the memory as it’s being made. Watching her once more, I felt the same curvature of experience, looking back at my own path since and choosing to keep going as the road goes ever on.

There is no other anime (dare I say, television even) operating on a register this intimate. I don’t fully understand how it keeps happening, but something in the way this show is put together still finds its way past me every single time. I remain mildly baffled by how the sum of its parts keeps slipping through my defences, leaving me in tears all over again.

Two years ago, I called Frieren the future of fantasy, and I feel that conviction resurface with sharper clarity. Nobody else is telling stories like this, and somewhere between then and now, she taught me how to tell mine with more care too.

It’s good to see you again, old friend.

New episodes of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Season 2 stream weekly on Crunchyroll