Frieren: Beyond Journey's End vol 2 by Kanehito Yamada

Illustrated by Tsukasa Abe

Frieren and her apprentice, Fern, set off to travel to the Demon King's castle in the northernmost part of the kingdom. Frieren’s dwarf friend from her first adventure tells her she should recruit his apprentice, a warrior named Stark who ran out on him in cowardice. Stark is waiting around in a village to the North where he stopped a dragon from destroying the village. Stark is a really strong warrior, but he is extremely afraid of fighting, and he lacks any sort of confidence in his skills. In another city on their journey, Frieren runs into a peace envoy of demons and tries to attack them, saying that demons only know human language in order to dupe them. She is put in prison for the attack, but the peace envoy soon breaks down. Frieren leaves Fern and Stark to take care of the demons in the city, while she goes after a much stronger aura: one of the Sages of Destruction, and an incredibly powerful demon ready to lay siege to the city.

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While this story started out after the main adventure quest that most stories would use as their main focus, Frieren doesn’t waste too much time getting involved in another quest with new companions. She seems to have learned a few things about valuing human life and respecting those who aren’t as long-lived as she, but she still often acts first and then thinks about how her actions look to those with less understanding than her. She doesn’t often explain her expertise in the moment, but she does open up to Fern and Stark a lot more than she did on her previous adventure with those companions. There is still plenty of reminiscing and connecting this journey to her previous one for Frieren, and the parallels of the previous journey develop a second set of characters for readers to connect to and care about, albeit with a tinge of sadness at their departure from the mortal plane.

Sara's Rating: 8/10
Suitability Level: Grades 7-12

Reviews of previous volumes in this series: vol 1

This review was made possible with an advanced reader copy from the publisher through Net Galley.

Publisher: VIZ Media
Publication Date: January 11, 2022
ISBN: 9781974727230 (Paperback)

​Tags: Rating: 8/10, Suitability: Middle School, Suitability: High School, Manga, Fantasy, Iyashikei, VIZ Media