It is said that the beauty of the journey is not the destination, but the whole previous path, metaphorical or not, to achieve the goal that has been set for ourselves. This journey can be understood as an adventure or as a psychological path of inner evolution: whatever form it takes, there is no doubt that these ancient words are the very metaphor of life in general. J-POP Manga also brings here in Italy one of the manga that is having the most success in Japan, also transported by the trail of intrinsic novelty seeds among its pages: Frieren – Beyond the end of the journey, drawn by Tsukasa Abe and scripted by Kanehito Yamada, winner of the 14th Manga Taisho Award and record sales at home. The story differs from the classic shonen manga setting, reversing the process of physical and potential evolution of the character, focusing instead on the psychological and character one after facing a classic adventure in pure fantasy style.
- Original title: Sousou no Frieren
- English title: Frieren – Beyond the end of the journey
- Authors: Tsukasa Abe, Kanehito Yamada
- Japanese release: February 2020
- Italian release: October 13, 2021
- Number of volumes: 6 (in progress)
- Publishing house: J-POP Manga
- Type: fantasy, adventure, slice of life
- Drawings: Tsukasa Abe
- History: Kanehito Yamada
- Format: 12.5 × 18, b / w, paperback with dust jacket
- Number of pages: 192
We reviewed Frieren – Beyond the end of the journey 1 via press volume provided to us by J-POP Manga.
After killing the most powerful Demon King, the hero Himmel and his companions may deservedly enjoy the fame and glory of such a courageous undertaking. Frieren is one of the members of Himmel’s party, an elf of an unspecified age who at the end of the heroic enterprise decides to go on a journey in search of new magic to learn. But, due to the slowness with which her life passes compared to that of human beings, she does not realize that the ephemeral time left to her companions will not allow her to deepen those bonds that she took so much for granted …
The overturning of the concept of adventure
Frieren and the overturning of the narrative canons of pure fantasy, which focuses on the journey of the heroes to reach the goal of revenge and salvation through a linear path typical of genre literature. This manga, on the contrary, focuses on the transposition of what happens after the death of the evil Demon King, killed by the party led by the hero Himmel and of which the elf Frieren was a part. The narrative takes place after what in fantasy literature are considered the main facts, namely the Journey of the Hero (borrowing a meaning from Joseph Campbell) which leads to the final resolution of a story based on the construction of personal and character identity during the journey.
For Frieren, this transformation did not occur during the adventures and the journey with the varied team of heroes: being an elf can live much longer than humans and dwarves, thousands of years that he doesn’t know how to spend except looking for magic around the world. But the possibility of living for so long is not always an advantage, having repercussions and twisting on a character level: Frieren is shy, shy and withdrawn, very often apathetic and lazy. This is due to the awareness of an ephemeral existence of everything around her, leading her not to get attached to anyone and not to enjoy the little things, such as a sunrise or attachment to something. But in the long run, gradually losing all ties, every friend due to the fast passing of time, Frieren realizes that he is missing something, that he wants to live life in a more complete and carefree way. The elf’s regret during the funeral of her friend Himmel is that of not having known him better when he was alive, perhaps regardless of the fact that for him, a mere human, time passed much faster.
This awareness leads her to unconsciously think that she can change her way of being, taking a young student under her wing, Fern, and at least trying to create an emotional and friendly bond with her that can redeem her from the mistakes made in the past. From the beginning of the volume, in fact, there is a very slight hint of change in Frieren’s actions, which he tries, through the journey, to make up for those missed opportunities with his group of friends. This is why, in some ways, the journey in search of magic becomes a pretext to retrace those important stages of the previous journey, trying to honor the memory of his companions now almost all deceased. Lo and behold, travel style fantasy Tolkenian, that of Frieren is transformed from the first chapter into Journey of the Heroine, that is, that backward path of a psychological rather than environmental and diegetic nature that leads the protagonist to rethink her past actions and her mistakes, learning from them and evolving temperamentally and psychologically.
The valiant heroes have finally defeated the evil Demon King for good: now that their adventure is over they can return to their former life and can enjoy all the glory derived from their prowess. Frieren, an elf with hundreds of years behind her, decides to embark on a journey to accumulate as much magic as possible and to spend the thousands of years she still has ahead of her. But during his journey he will understand that he has not enjoyed those little moments that, for those destined for a much shorter life than his own, are so important: Frieren decides to change, and to embark on a journey to discover who they really were. his old companions …
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Narratively speaking, Frieren’s journey is built according to one fairly linear scheme, but which manages to intersect elements of two mirror narratives: the one preceding the killing of the Demon King, through flashbacks recalled when the elf returns to the places previously visited, and that of the current journey with Fern. This subdivision can mislead the reader, above all due to the extreme compression in a few cartoons of the facts preceding the beginning of the manga, but which at the same time can present themselves as a prelude to the developments of the next volumes and as an incipit to understand the characterization of the protagonist. The latter is very static, apathetic and apparently inconsistent, if as well as recalling the flashbacks of the past leads to an inevitable comparison with what it was before, demonstrating how, at least imperceptibly, the character change is taking place in the current journey.
A young elf discovering herself
The designs are very graceful, precise and detailed. The backgrounds are built to recreate a fantasy and medieval atmosphere, but at the same time very bucolic: much of Frieren’s journey takes place in the midst of nature, building together with the drawing a way to connect the intrinsic bond that ideologically exists between the elves and the natural world. The consequentiality of the tables, the compactness of the cartoons and the moderation of the splash page, represent the desire to build a rich and very linear story, which does not exceed on a spectacular level through a total representation of the action, but on the contrary focuses a lot on the particular. visual.
From this point of view, not surprisingly, the inking is concentrated, precise, clear, characterized by shadows and light points given by a moderate use of screens, which are not predominant and invasive, but which are perfectly calibrated with the lines inked.
The maniacal and so detailed inks are supported by an edition J-POP as always, very attentive to print quality, to allow an even more excellent graphic rendering. The paper, in fact, does not allow the ink and the underlying graphics to shine through, thus being able to appreciate even more the graphic details. The whole is embellished with an opaque dust jacket that has two different designs: a regular with the full party, and a variant with only Frieren meditating under a tree. Frieren – Beyond the end of the journey it represents a journey of the soul, a psychological path that leads to rethink one’s life and above all the consequent brevity: something we never think about, but that would make us appreciate even more every little thing and every single moment.
To whom do we recommend Frieren – Beyond the end of the trip?
Frieren is a manga with a strongly fantasy hue, with references to the adventure journeys undertaken by the heroes to kill the villain of the moment. Certainly lovers of this genre will appreciate this story a lot, because of the atmospheres and designs absolutely in line with the general imagination of fantastic adventures. But, as stated earlier, Frieren it is also and above all a psychological, interior and training journey, with interesting implications also at a narrative level and which therefore insert this manga in that vein of diegetic intensity that can also be appreciated by those looking for a slightly more committed story.
The Journey of the Heroin to discover herself
As can be seen, therefore, Frieren – Beyond the end of the journey it cannot be considered exclusively as a classic and linear fantasy-style story, starting from the incipit which is the end of a previous journey that is not mentioned in the manga except through a series of flashbacks. And all this does not pay off Frieren a banal and recycled story, indeed: it stands above all as a reason for renewal in the genre, without neglecting the fact that precisely due to its atypical structure and not very prone to action, the story is proposed as a representation of the protagonist’s journey to remedy her mistakes and to undertake moral growth and inner evolution that could not have been described on the journey to face and defeat the evil Demon King. Frieren – Beyond the end of the journey it is therefore an absolutely valid manga from a narrative point of view, coincident in its intentions and which will probably amaze more and more in subsequent volumes.
A very pleasant inner adventure
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