Monthly Archives: September 2023

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 1×01 and 1×02

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So far Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 葬送 のフリーレン is excellent.  Beautiful, smart and kind.

Unexpectedly the first four episodes all dropped on September 29, 2023, so I’ve watched the first two.

It’s not isekai, it’s a pure fantasy story.  The premise of “Beyond Journey’s End” is that we meet the adventurers party at the end of their adventure, after they’ve spent ten years together and finally defeated the Demon King.

The titular Frieren フリーレン is an elf, and so fated to outlive the rest of the party.

The show is basically about her journey to connect and reconnect with the world of short-lived humans, although that oversimplifies what is a very touching reflection on relationships and the brief time we all have together.

On Crunchyroll.  New episodes Fridays.

The Fall 2023 Anime Season

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Japanese anime has four seasons a year, of three months each.

The year-ending fall season runs October through December.

Crunchroll has posted its lineup and only a couple jump out at me.

  • September 29, 2023 – Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 葬送のフリーレン (just a maybe, based on the description)
  • October 7, 2023 – The Faraway Paladin: The Lord of Rust Mountains (something like 最果てのパラディン : 鉄錆の山の王 ) as I enjoyed the first season

UPDATE 2023-09-30: So far Frieren is excellent.  END UPDATE

UPDATE 2023-10-28: Faraway Paladin season 2 is ok, and there is an interesting set of common themes between the two shows.  END UPDATE

There are other potential shows, but I’ll have to watch the offerings first, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few episodes before I decide a show is working (or more commonly, when various tropes deter me from continuing to watch).

There is still way, way too much isekai 異世界 .

I would at least like to see more subversion of the genre, ideally with the return of Ningen Fushin and with a few other shows of that ilk.  But much better would be to have some more science fiction, real world adventures, and other genres.

The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses – season 1

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The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses 好きな子がめがねを忘れた is a silly shōnen rom-com, but it made me laugh.

The season finale 1×13 was good except stop watching after they say “Bye”.  There’s a twist second ending that detracts from the story.

Across 13 episodes it manages to sustain pretty much the identical premise episode by episode.  Mei-san forgets her glasses.  Komura-kun helps her but is embarrassed for multiple reasons, many of which are entirely in his head.  Most of the class except for Mei-san and Komura-kun themselves can see their obvious attraction to each other.

They don’t really need a second season, the show basically told its full story of awkward attraction.

Overall definitely watchable in a very thin summer 2023 season.

I only blogged a couple times along the way:

SIDEBAR:  If you want a much better rom-com, I definitely recommend Insomniacs After School 君は放課後インソムニア , which in fairness has the advantage of being set in high school, allowing for a much wider variety of storylines than the middle-school setting of Glasses.