Frieren: How Time Breeds Complacency

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is an anime that plays with numerous philosophical ideas, one of which is how time breeds complacency. This anime begins as the hero’s party returns from having defeated the biggest evil in the land, the Demon King. The story then truly begins as Frieren, a powerful elven mage and former member of the hero’s party, says goodbye to her friends who have aged in the blink of an eye. She sets off in search of understanding of herself and her time with them. Along the way, she encounters complacency from her past and complacency brought about by this time of peace.

Complacency is best described as a feeling of satisfaction or calm even in the face of danger or needed change. It is where the saying “ignorance is bliss” takes root. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End addresses time and complacency by expanding time such that it is seemingly not a factor. Frieren’s lifespan is long enough that the ten-year journey she went on to save the world was akin to a Tuesday for everyone else. This allows the show to pose its question of how short a moment needs to feel before it could be considered irrelevant to one’s life as a whole.

How Time Plays A Factor in Frieren

Complacency settles in over time due to two main factors working in tandem. The lack of an outside force or threat demanding change, and a fear of change tend to be the biggest culprits behind complacency. Being able to carry on with no necessitated change brings on a feeling of comfort, as needs are seemingly met. When change is then required, it becomes difficult to accept that something has come along to upset that comfort. Thus, it is easier to ignore the problem at hand. Complacency has taken root.

This trap of complacency is what Frieren’s entire arc is built around. After living such a long life and knowing how many years she has ahead of her, she had grown complacent and began going through the motions. Despite there being the ever-looming threat of the Demon King, Frieren never concerned herself with the future of a world she knew she would outlive. She lived alone out in the woods until the hero’s party approached her and requested her help. Those ten years she spent with them allowed her to see the value of even the relatively smallest moment, as a moment can’t be brought back once it has passed.

This show’s view of the importance of a moment and the long-lasting effects of an experience also brings to mind how one could view the show itself. With episodes running roughly 23 minutes, they are a relatively small part of one’s day. However, that doesn’t necessarily limit the impact they can have. These philosophical ideas surrounding complacency and the importance of a moment can have a profound and lasting impact.

Complacency being an undercurrent of the show, there are also examples of where it was never allowed to settle. While Frieren had fallen into complacency, the rest of humanity’s mages marched on. Following the defeat of the Demon King, top mages went to work analyzing and engineering the magic of demons. By the time the main storyline of the show picks up, humanity has intensely studied magic for more than 80 years.

This is best showcased when Frieren goes to confront the demon Qual. In his time, he had an ultimate attack that killed all in its path. Through the march of time, this attack became the basis of human magic development, and since Qual was unable to evolve with it due to being sealed away by Frieren, his attacks had become equivalent to the basic attacks a modern mage learns early on to use and defend against. Humanity continually felt the pressure and fear of magic, and thus never settled into the complacency found by those who were more practiced in it. Humanity as a whole, at least in the realm of this show, never seems to encounter complacency. They continue striving for more, their magic studies advancing such that, as Flamme predicted, a human mage came forth that stood ahead of even the elves.

Another example of going against complacency can also come from Frieren herself. While she found complacency in her life, the titular mage never stops practicing magic, nor seeking it out. This at first seems like just a funny quirk of her’s, but it becomes clear that through this she has become an extraordinarily powerful mage. This dichotomy shows that complacency isn’t necessarily an all-consuming force, and can instead have control of different, specific aspects of one’s life.

A deadline raises the stakes, and time lowers them. But the stakes aren’t always life or death. Sometimes it can be as simple as whether or not an experience will lead to the ability to help someone, or even just a smile down the road. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End shows that even the smallest moment could, and likely should, hold as much import as the biggest. Time ticks away, and shouldn’t be wasted.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is now available to stream on Crunchyroll.

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Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is an animated adventure-drama series based on the manga series created by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe. Following her parties’ victory against an all-powerful demon king that threatened to destroy their world, Frieren, an elf, attempts to find her place in a new world with an undetermined future fifty years later.

Release Date

September 29, 2023

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Seasons

1

Studio

Madhouse

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Number of Episodes

28

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