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4.3 AVERAGE
4.3 AVERAGE
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Warm, thoughtful, and poignant story of what happens AFTER the big fantasy adventure is over: the cool-headed, rather detached elf mage of the hero-group comes to really notice her immortality for the first time as her mortal companions age and fade. Frieren's story is a meditation on life, memory, and how to deal with a changing world and with relationships and regrets once people close to you are going or gone. Recommended for readers who enjoy character development and don't need tons of action.
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
Just about as good as everyone who has been telling me to read it for years has been selling it as. Contemplative, sweet, sad, with brisk but compelling worldbuilding that starts as a bit Generic D&D and starts to widen by the end of this first volume.
I've talked about before, maybe on Legends and Lattes, how surreal it is to me that "D&D Fantasy is like its own subgenre now, in a way. That is, I've read several stories in the past several years that kind of take it for granted that a handful of adventurers--a warrior, a priest, a mage, etc, of different fantasy races, kind of just live through a full D&D game off screen, as prologue. Legends and Lattes, Frieren, Nicholas Eames books, and even actual play podcasts like NADDPOD all kind of assume the reader is familiar with D&D games and the stuff it entails, the whole arc--informed by but separate from the pure Tolkien-esque high fantasy that spawned it, as none of the Fellowship were "adventurers" who traveled the world getting into side quests as a kind of career--which is complete as the story in question begins. The story is now "okay so after that big D&D adventure, this happens..." which is fascinating to me! I've played D&D for most of my life and have watched it boom since 2018 or so, but that we are now witnessing so many interesting stories are kind of deconstructing the subgenre is very cool and a bit odd.
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End does this in a particular way that other stories have flirted with--exploring what life would be like as one of the ubiquitous elves in these stories, ageless and aloof and powerful. In turn, Yamada uses this lens to explore a deeper question, which is the effect that these "adventurers" have on the world. It's a bottom-up problem, as RPGs have the players in need of an episodic quest with all sorts of filler and XP-boosting baddies and villages needing saving, etc., and every table of players is expected to showcase the One True Mission, the main characters who save the world. Soon, however, when this world is examined, it becomes clear that this world is built to service an endless amount of tables full of saviors, with endless quests needing doing, which makes every quest both the focus of the universe while also being somewhat pedestrian in the macro sense.
Frieren examines this deftly, showing that the heroes we meet in the world, with their realm-saving hijinks, were definitely important enough to warrant a heroic parade and some statues here and there, but they aren't Aragorn or Drizzt or Robert Baratheon. They don't blaze their names across the world, for all their good deeds. That idea of making the epic small, but making the small important, is what I think is truly special about this story. Saddling this (ASD-coded?) elf with a young human charge who feels every wasted year with her entire self, is brilliant. I was touched, I was charmed, and I cannot wait to get to the rest of the story. This is the exact kind of thing that I like. That is to say: I love a big adventure as much as the next person, probably more if we're talking about the beloved and begotten capital-A Adventure genre type of thing, BUT what I am truly drawn to is character and relationships and small human moments, the psychology behind adventurers, such as they are.
Recommended!
I've talked about before, maybe on Legends and Lattes, how surreal it is to me that "D&D Fantasy is like its own subgenre now, in a way. That is, I've read several stories in the past several years that kind of take it for granted that a handful of adventurers--a warrior, a priest, a mage, etc, of different fantasy races, kind of just live through a full D&D game off screen, as prologue. Legends and Lattes, Frieren, Nicholas Eames books, and even actual play podcasts like NADDPOD all kind of assume the reader is familiar with D&D games and the stuff it entails, the whole arc--informed by but separate from the pure Tolkien-esque high fantasy that spawned it, as none of the Fellowship were "adventurers" who traveled the world getting into side quests as a kind of career--which is complete as the story in question begins. The story is now "okay so after that big D&D adventure, this happens..." which is fascinating to me! I've played D&D for most of my life and have watched it boom since 2018 or so, but that we are now witnessing so many interesting stories are kind of deconstructing the subgenre is very cool and a bit odd.
Frieren: Beyond Journey's End does this in a particular way that other stories have flirted with--exploring what life would be like as one of the ubiquitous elves in these stories, ageless and aloof and powerful. In turn, Yamada uses this lens to explore a deeper question, which is the effect that these "adventurers" have on the world. It's a bottom-up problem, as RPGs have the players in need of an episodic quest with all sorts of filler and XP-boosting baddies and villages needing saving, etc., and every table of players is expected to showcase the One True Mission, the main characters who save the world. Soon, however, when this world is examined, it becomes clear that this world is built to service an endless amount of tables full of saviors, with endless quests needing doing, which makes every quest both the focus of the universe while also being somewhat pedestrian in the macro sense.
Frieren examines this deftly, showing that the heroes we meet in the world, with their realm-saving hijinks, were definitely important enough to warrant a heroic parade and some statues here and there, but they aren't Aragorn or Drizzt or Robert Baratheon. They don't blaze their names across the world, for all their good deeds. That idea of making the epic small, but making the small important, is what I think is truly special about this story. Saddling this (ASD-coded?) elf with a young human charge who feels every wasted year with her entire self, is brilliant. I was touched, I was charmed, and I cannot wait to get to the rest of the story. This is the exact kind of thing that I like. That is to say: I love a big adventure as much as the next person, probably more if we're talking about the beloved and begotten capital-A Adventure genre type of thing, BUT what I am truly drawn to is character and relationships and small human moments, the psychology behind adventurers, such as they are.
Recommended!
funny
lighthearted
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes