Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End volume 2, written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe, was very strong from start to finish. It continues directly after volume one with Frieren, Fern and Eisen speaking about going to the Demon Kings castle. This volume’s first half focuses on the start of this journey to Aureole in a seemingly episodic structure. They eventually add Stark to their journey, Eisen’s apprentice who first appears cowardly, but this belays his underlying bravery. The second half of the volume shows their first encounter with what seems to be the main antagonists of the manga, demons.

The art style has grown on me. I enjoyed it in this volume far more than the last. I think I noted some improvement. The double pages continue to be very impactful. Abe’s facial expressions continue to be somewhat inexpressive, but I increasingly begin to think of this as intentional, so that characters would be able to convey emotions via slight smile, minute facial expressions. I think that this matches with the melancholic tone I noted in the last review. The panel layouts are good with easy flow while reading, and I find that the character designs, while not being particularly loud, are very distinct.

The story is very good. The episodic nature at the start has several incredibly well-done short stories. The second chapter focusing on the phantoms really stood out due to how well it keeps in tone with the overall theme of grief and focus on the characters’ relationships with those who have passed. The entire manga holds true to this theme and it all the better for it. Even the newly introduced Stark’s motivations play into the focus on after death with his goal of carrying his stories of the journey to his master before he dies. The dialogue is excellent, and the characters remain very consistent. The worldbuilding is done well as well. I enjoyed the drip-fed bits of the world and what I think is future set up.

The latter half of the volume, being a longer arc is also done very well. The demons are set up in an interesting way that I have not seen in other media, them being like a Venus fly trap, similar to humans, using mimicry of emotions and social competence to trick and devour people. Their general lack of emotiveness is similar enough to be reminiscent of the main characters, but contrasts with their moments of humanity. The character-driven focus up to this arc, really highlights this, which makes the artist’s decision to keep the general emotiveness down be very well thought out. I personally expect that further on this contrast will be highlighted.

Due to the above the main weakness of the lack of emotions being shown in the characters’ faces has gone for me and become a strength. The story, and characters remain very impressive, and I’ve grown to enjoy the art more. It feels like everything contributes to the overall melancholic tone with great intentionality, Yamada and Abe are very in synch.

To conclude, this volume was more enjoyable for me than the first. It was very good. Spending more time with the story has remedied a lot of the issues I had and given me what I think is more understanding of what the author intends to do with this story. I’d give it a 5/5.

You can check out Frieren volume 2 on Amazon via my affiliate link here