Is Frieren the Best Anime of 2023?

Lush animation and spiritual reflection make a memorable combination.

by StealthMomo 11/17/23

Madhouse has a long and prestigious history of producing popular and well-crafted anime productions. And their latest endeavor, Sousou no Frieren (released in the West as Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End), is shaping up to be one of the best offerings in their 50 year history.

Director Keiichirō Saitō along with character designer Reiko Nagasawa have created a lush and immersive world to explore. Detailed design elements and the masterful usage of color and lighting create an atmosphere that seems simultaneously mundane and fantastic. The show’s characters and stories more than live up to the visual presentation. One overarching theme is the concept of mono no aware (mon-o no ah-warr-a), a Japanese idiom for the awareness of impermanence or transience of things. A transient gentle sadness at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle wistfulness about this state being the reality of life.

The titular protagonist Frieren is an elf who has lived for over 1,000 years. The elven race is slowly dying out and have a sparse population. At the time of the story it has been over 400 years since she even came across one of her own kind. Her life is a quiet and solitary one, spent in meditation and study of her magecraft. Her brief interactions with humans amounted to those she meets in her travels as she stocks provisions and occasionally hangs around human settlements when feels the need for interaction or companionship - which is rarely.

Fifty years before the story begins, she spent a decade traveling with a party of heroes on their quest to defeat the Demon Lord. Those 10 years were less than the blink of an eye for someone as long-lived as herself. However, those people made a deep impression on her and she came to consider them as friends. Returning after fifty years to meet with them once more she is saddened to find that they have aged considerably. To her it was a short time but to her companions it was a lifetime. We learn that one reason she avoids contact with others and resists forming friendships in the first place is the sadness she feels when they inevitably whither and die while she remains mostly unchanged.

After taking an orphan under her wing as an apprentice, a human girl with a strong magic potential, she decides to retrace the path of the heroes journey, both in their memory and to keep the memory of their deeds alive in the human world. Over time she becomes more appreciative of the ephemeral nature of life, reflecting that she has “lived more in the last 80 years that she had in the previous thousand”. Rather than avoid sadness, she embraces it as proof of existence.

There are plenty of feels to be had here, as well as some adventuring and no small amount of humor. I can’t say enough good things about the quality of this production overall. There may be a few properties that are more popular this season, but none that are as good. I feel certain that when all is said and done Frieren will be touted as the Best of 2023.