The highly anticipated second season of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End officially unveiled its first teaser trailer during Anime Expo 2025 in Los Angeles. The trailer offers a first glimpse into what fans can expect when the series returns in January 2026. Studio MADHOUSE returns for the animation, with streaming confirmed on Crunchyroll.
In addition to the trailer, the production team announced key staff changes for Season 2. Tomoya Kitagawa, who previously served as storyboard artist and episode director in Season 1, will step into the role of director. Keiichiro Saito, who directed the first season, will now serve as supervising director.
Confirmed Staff and Production Details
The confirmed staff for Season 2 includes:
- Director: Tomoya Kitagawa
- Supervising Director: Keiichiro Saito
- Assistant Director: Daiki Harashina
- Series Composition: Tomohiro Suzuki
- Character Design: Takasemaru, Keisuke Kojima, Yuri Fujinaka
- Concept Art: Seiko Yoshioka
- Music Composer: Evan Call (returning)
In addition to the main season, a new mini-anime episode featuring Denken, Richter, and Lawine was also showcased during the panel.
Frieren Season 1 Recap
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Season 1 aired from September 29, 2024, and ran for 28 episodes. The first season was praised for its emotional storytelling, world-building, and stunning animation.
Let’s get this straight: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is not your typical fantasy romp. It doesn’t start with the journey—it starts after the big bad is already dead and buried. The demon lord is toast, the hero’s party disbanded, and Frieren, our centuries-old elf mage, is suddenly staring down the slow, painful truth that she barely knew the humans she traveled with for ten whole years. Ten years is nothing for someone who’s lived for a thousand. But for them? It was everything.
This anime leans hard into that existential melancholy: the ache of outliving everyone you care about, the regret of time poorly spent, and the quiet yearning to understand people before it’s too late. It’s about grief, memory, and the slow, almost imperceptible evolution of someone who was never supposed to change.
The pacing? Deliberate. Sometimes meditative. It’s not here to wow you with explosive battles every five minutes (though when the fights hit, they hit). Instead, it’s here to make you feel things, sometimes with just a glance, a silence, or a softly plucked string on the lute. And speaking of music—oh my god, the soundtrack is ethereal. Haunting. Emotional. Think medieval lullabies with the emotional weight of a Pixar film’s final scene. Yes, it’s that good.
Character-wise, Frieren carries the show with her stoic grace and gradually unraveling vulnerability. Her party members—old and new—aren’t just window dressing. There’s an organic warmth to their dynamics, and the way they grow together feels earned. But yeah, not gonna lie, the second half gets a bit sidetracked. The story starts throwing in new characters and side arcs, and while some hit, others feel like distractions from the core emotional journey. It’s not deal-breaking, but it did dilute some of that perfect early-season pacing.
Despite that dip, Frieren holds strong. It’s got depth without being preachy, magic without being bombastic, and heart without drowning in melodrama. It’s the kind of show that sneaks up on you, gentle but unrelenting, until you realize you’ve been thinking about mortality and memory way more than you planned on a random Tuesday night.
In short, Frieren Season 1 isn’t just a good anime—it’s a quietly brilliant one. Don’t let the cozy visuals fool you. Beneath that soft fantasy aesthetic is something timeless, sad, and strangely hopeful. Definitely worth the watch, and I’ll be first in line when Season 2 drops.
It received multiple accolades at Anime Corner’s 2024 Anime of the Year Awards, including:
- Best Adaptation
- Best Fantasy
- Best Adventure
- Best Voice Cast
- Best World Building
(Runner-up for Best Anime of the Year)
The main cast includes:
- Atsumi Tanezaki as Frieren
- Kana Ichinose as Fern
- Chiaki Kobayashi as Stark
- Nobuhiko Okamoto as Himmel
- Yoji Ueda as Eisen
- Atsuko Tanaka as Flamme
- Hiroki Tochi as Heiter
- Ayana Taketatsu as Aura
About the Series
Written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe, the Frieren manga has been serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday since April 2020. The series explores the emotional aftermath of a completed heroic journey, following Frieren, an elven mage grappling with time, loss, and legacy.
The manga is officially available in English through Viz Media and Sunday Webry, and the anime is streamed globally by Crunchyroll.
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