Imagine if we get a Lord of the Rings story set entirely after Sauron's defeat and the Fellowship dissolves, in which the immortal elf Legolas starts to realize that he barely shared any dialogue with Sam or Pippin before their demises and knows he's never getting that time back. That is basically the plot of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, the best fantasy show you probably haven't seen, which just got added to Netflix. This is an anime best described as a trivial yet unforgettable adventure.
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End takes place decades after a party of adventurers defeated the Demon King and brought peace to the world. But as the party's immortal elven mage Frieren sees her friends are starting to pass away, she realizes she never got to appreciate the time spent with them.
There's a reason Frieren: Beyond Journey's End quickly rose to become the top-rated anime series of all time on the anime cataloguing site My Anime List. For one, the way this show portrays the passage of time unlike any other fantasy show on TV. There's a sense of scale here that's akin to Tolkien. Just like the Lord of the Rings author could evoke the millennia-long history of Middle-earth through a poem or the description of a ruin the Fellowship passed by, Frieren uses the medium of animation to show the expansive, lived-in, detail-rich world that surrounds our main character and how it's changed in her many years on it. From the changes in clothing and architecture that we see throughout the eras in Frieren's memories, to seemingly random visual cues in the background that serve as reminders of the original adventuring party's journey, the show is constantly reminding the audience that the world changes, while also showcasing how little our protagonist does. A scene that quite literally has a village becoming a town in the blink of an eye not only showcases how elves perceive time, but gets at the heart of the anime and its message about enjoying the little moments that don't seem important at first.
Indeed, though the first half of the first season of Frieren is relatively slowly paced, it is part of the appeal, as the anime emphasizes how fantastical the mundane can be. It does so by showing how Frieren's memories of her time saving the world don't involve big battles or heroic feats, but rather the small and seemingly unimportant moments with her friends. "Future generations always romanticize heroes to the point that their original nature disappears," Frieren says in one episode. Frieren: Beyond Journey's End goes above and beyond to do the exact opposite.
This is a world where the party's knight, Himmel, has ascended into a legend that's widely beloved and revered, akin to Eärendil in Middle-earth. But through Frieren's memories and stories, we get to meet Himmel, a boastful knight with an incredibly high opinion of himself, but enjoyed picking flowers along the way and loved silly little spells the most. Perhaps the biggest magic trick Frieren pulls is turning a character that dies after the first episode into one of its most compelling and well-developed.
If this all sounds quite heavy on emotions, it's because Frieren is a rather poignant and emotional show, but it is also one with a big sense of humor — especially when at the expense of Frieren the absent-minded — as well as intense and visually stunning action. Studio Madhouse, known for Hunter x Hunter, crafts some spectacular sword-and-sorcery fights that showcase Frieren's immense power and knowledge. And yet, most of the challenges Frieren faces are not physical ones, but personal ones centered around the radically different lifespans of everyone she meets. In a way, Frieren is like a show centered around Gandalf as he mostly parties with hobbits and appreciates a good and relaxing afternoon in Hobbiton, while occasionally annihilating a powerful demon of the ancient world. Indeed, the most action-heavy the show gets is in the second half of the first season during a magic tournament, and even then the anime finds a way to make it less about showcasing abilities (though there's plenty of that). Instead, Frieren is more about showing how time has impacted humanity's relationship with magic, and how spells, abilities, and regulations have changed with the centuries.
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is a story about regret and sorrow, about realizing you didn't spend enough time with those around you, and about the things left unsaid. But it is also a show about second journeys, making up for lost time, and trying to honor the past even if we can't make up for old mistakes. It is an emotional, epic, funny, heartbreaking, thrilling anime show and the best fantasy TV show in years. Season 2 comes out January 2026, which gives you enough time to both catch up and also spend the rest of the year emotionally healing.
