Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Anime's Key Visual Recreates Manga's 1st Volume Cover

The official Twitter account for the television anime of Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe's Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Sōsō no Frieren) manga revealed its key visual on Wednesday. Character designer Reiko Nagasawa and concept artist Seiko Yoshioka created the anime's key visual, which recreates the cover of the manga's first compiled book volume.

Anime's key visual

© 山田鐘人・アベツカサ／小学館／「葬送のフリーレン」製作委員会

Manga's first volume cover

© 山田鐘人・アベツカサ／小学館

The anime will premiere with a two-hour special on September 29 at 9:00 p.m. JST (8:00 a.m. EDT). It will be the first ever television anime series to premiere in NTV's "Kinyō Roadshow," a Friday evening programming block usually reserved for feature films. The anime will then air later episodes in October in NTV's new anime timeslot.

© 山田鐘人・アベツカサ／小学館／「葬送のフリーレン」製作委員会

Viz Media has licensed the manga, and it describes the story:

The adventure is over but life goes on for an elf mage just beginning to learn what living is all about. Elf mage Frieren and her courageous fellow adventurers have defeated the Demon King and brought peace to the land. But Frieren will long outlive the rest of her former party. How will she come to understand what life means to the people around her? Decades after their victory, the funeral of one her friends confronts Frieren with her own near immortality. Frieren sets out to fulfill the last wishes of her comrades and finds herself beginning a new adventure…

Atsumi Tanezaki plays the protagonist and titular character Frieren.

The other cast members include:

• Nobuhiko Okamoto as Himmel
• Hiroki Touchi as Heiter
• Yōji Ueda as Eisen

Keiichirō Saitō (Bocchi the Rock!) is directing the anime at Madhouse. Tomohiro Suzuki (ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept., One-Punch Man, Boogiepop and Others) is in charge of series scripts. Reiko Nagasawa (takt op. Destiny) is designing the characters. Evan Call (Violet Evergarden, Josee, The Tiger and the Fish, Muv-Luv Alternative) is composing the music.

Additional staff members include:

• Chief Animation Director: Reiko Nagasawa
• Concept Art: Seiko Yoshioka
• Mamono Design: Daiki Harashina
• Action Director: Toru Iwasawa
• Art Director: Sawako Takagi
• Art Setting: Shinji Sugiyama
• Color Key Artist: Harue Ono
• 3D CG Director: Shigenori Hirozumi
• Compositing Director of Photography: Akane Fushihara
• Editing: Kashiko Kimura
• Sound Director: Shōji Hata

Yamada and Abe launched the manga in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine in April 2020. The 11th volume will ship on September 15. Viz Media published the eighth volume on June 20, and it will publish its ninth volume on October 17. The manga went on hiatus from January 18 and resumed serialization on March 22.

The manga has won several awards, including the New Creator Prize for the 25th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2021 and the 14th Manga Taisho Award in 2021. In addition, the manga was nominated for Best Shōnen Manga for Kodansha's 45th annual Manga Awards in 2021 and the 46th awards in May 2022. The American Library Association's Graphic Novels & Comics Round Table (GNCRT) included the manga in its top ten list of 2022 Best Graphic Novels for Adults Reading List.

Sources: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End anime's Twitter account, MoCa News