A single falling snowflake and the first aching notes of milet’s new ending theme The Story of Us greeted viewers today as the official YouTube channel for Frieren: Beyond Journey's End quietly released the long-awaited teaser trailer for Season 2, confirming a January 2026 return that already feels steeped in the series’ signature melancholy.
The understated 75-second trailer offers fleeting glimpses of snow-swept journeys, tense magical confrontations, and quiet moments between Frieren, Fern, and Stark, while introducing a mysterious new silver-haired mage voiced by Yūki Kaji. It concludes with the premiere date—January 16, 2026, at 11:30 p.m. JST on TV Asahi’s ANiMAZiNG!!! block—and the full ending theme The Story of Us performed by milet.
The series is adapted from the award-winning manga by Kanehito Yamada (story) and Tsukasa Abe (art), which began serialization in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shōnen Sunday in April 2020. What started as a modest fantasy about an immortal elf reflecting on the brevity of human life quickly became a cultural phenomenon in Japan, winning the 14th Manga Taisho grand prize in 2021 and the 69th Shogakukan Manga Award (Shōnen category) in 2023.
By November 2025, the series has surpassed 22 million copies in circulation worldwide, with 19 tankōbon volumes released to date. Its slow-paced, deeply emotional storytelling—focusing on regret, memory, and the small gestures that outlast lifetimes—has been credited with revitalizing interest in contemplative fantasy within the shōnen demographic and beyond. The manga remains ongoing, with the upcoming anime arcs (including the First Class Mage Exam and the journey to the Northern Plateau) widely regarded as the story’s most ambitious yet.
Production reunites the celebrated first-season team at Madhouse: director Keiichirō Saitō, scriptwriter Tomohiro Suzuki, character designer Reiko Nagasawa, and composer Evan Call. The principal voice cast, led by Atsumi Tanezaki, Kana Ichinose, and Chiaki Kobayashi, returns in full.
Crunchyroll, the global anime streaming leader, offers this poignant synopsis of the series:
After the party of heroes defeated the Demon King, they restored peace to the land and returned to lives of solitude. Generations pass, and the elven mage Frieren comes face to face with humanity’s mortality. She takes on a new apprentice and promises to fulfill old friends’ dying wishes. Can an elven mind make peace with the nature of life and death? Frieren embarks on her quest to find out.
Eighteen months after its devastatingly beautiful finale, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End prepares to resume its quiet revolution—one irreplaceable moment at a time. Winter 2026 cannot come soon enough.
Source: Official YouTube channel of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
