Anime may be a primary Japanese export, but it doesn’t always latch on overseas as quickly as it does in the motherland. Massive series like One Piece and Dragon Ball took nearly a decade to find a foothold in Western fan bases. The latest anime phenomenon Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End started serialization in 2020, but with its 2023 Anime release, the series is more popular than ever.
Anime lovers have doubtlessly seen the series trending in the right social media circles, but the series popularity is rapidly swelling. Since it’s anime premiere in late 2023, the manga has sold 7 million copies, easily positioning Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End as one of the hit anime of the 2024.
What is Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End?
Also known as Sousou no Frieren or Frieren: Remnants of the Departed the manga series was penned by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe. The series – which debuted in 2020 – follows Frieren, one of the very few elves left in the world. After a heroic journey, Frieren and her mortal companions manage to slay the Demon King and set everything right in the world. But as her companions return to their mortal life, Frieren stays still in time. Though her immortal life never brought her pause before, after a 50-year break from her human companions, her near-immortal status truly sets in.
Learning of one companion’s death and witnessing another, Frieren realizes she spent too long feeling apathetic toward the short lives of humans. Agreeing to take on her recently deceased companion’s ward, Fern, the elf mage seeks to fulfill the final wishes of her late companions and confront the truths of her long life.
The echo of her human friends can’t be understated, with their loss being the call to action that Frieren needed. Throughout the series and despite their deaths in the first few episodes, Himmel the heroic warrior, Heiter the Priest, and Eisen the dwarven warrior play key roles in Frieren’s journey. Despite the philosophical premise of the series, it somehow remains light-hearted and humorous, and has some stellar fantasy battles.
Is Frieren really that popular?
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End has been steadily gaining traction since it was first released in 2020, but its Anime release has jettisoned the series to a near-hit status. Over 3.5 years, the series has sold more than 10 million, which honestly isn’t that much. But the popularity exploded with the release of the anime. From September to late December 2023, the series has sold an additional 7 million copies.
Hold on, I know what you’re thinking, and yes, One Piece has sold a whopping 480 million copies during its nearly 30-year run, but it’s had a significantly longer amount of time to circulate. But unlike One Piece, it hasn’t taken Frieren long to permeate popular culture.
Part of that may be their series departure from the Shonen-style beat-em-up series that have dominated the industry. The last few years have seen out-of-left-field favorites Spy X Family rake in praise, and while Frieren hasn’t come close to dethroning the likes SXF, it’s got some dedicated fans among Japanese youth. Perhaps more importantly, it’s already become a meme.
Plays on the phrase “Himmel would have done that” became popular after an image from the manga took off on social media sites like Twitter, now X. The site Togetter has compiled instances of Tweets using the phrase, and they’re pretty charming. Himmel, the hero of Frieren’s former adventuring party seems to occupy a similar space to Tanjiro Kamado of Demon Slayer. Driven and heroic, the two seem to scratch that “best boy” itch.
The hashtag comes into play when encouraging those you love to be better versions of themselves. Like any good meme, the phrase’s meaning is versatile, and there are plenty of ways to use it, and plenty have taken to using it as a joke phrase to represent the passing of time for trivial things.
Alongside becoming a meme, the series has started arranging cross-over events with other properties. While Beyblade isn’t as popular as it was in the 2010s, the series still retains enough interest to remain relevant. More impressive than Beyblade is her team-up with longtime manga favorite Detective Conan Edogawa from Case Closed the #4 best-selling manga of all time.
the Frieren illustrator Tsukasa Abe seemed surprised by the opportunity, telling the Animatedtimes, “I never imagined that the day would come when Freelen would be able to hold Conan-kun in his arms. This is the first time I’ve done a cover like this for a Sunday serialized work, so I’m both humbled and honored…!”
Is Frieren as popular outside of Japan?
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End might not continue on its rapid tumble towards success, but with the series winning the Japanese Manga Taisho award in 2021 (seriously, read these fantastic editor reviews) and it’s glowing anime debut there is a real chance it could make it. The series premiere outshone even Jujutsu Kaisen’s second season, and per AnimeCorner, it continued to dominate well into the series.
The series anime has a loyal fan, and has several social media threads dedicated to it and the Reddit discussion thread for the anime has more 43k followers. Despite this, the series is has been criticized for its slow pace, meandering story, and Frieren ’s flat attitude. Ironically, the detractors pick out the very thing that fans seem to love. Fans say Frieren’s challenges are personal rather than power-based, The meandering story represents a near-immortals concept of time, and her aloof nature is a shortcoming the character seeks to overcome. As usual, good boils down to the subjective, but we here at WGTC are biding our time until season two with bated breath.
The series will likely never match the heights that Shonen Jump hits regularly reach, but its fantastical setting, colorful characters, and slice-of-life appeal will certainly land it among minor hits like Fruits Basket, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Full Metal Panic! For now, time will only tell if the series’ second season proves to be as popular as its first, and whether or not Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End has what it takes to stay in the cultural zeitgeist.