Every anime production team dreams that their series will be the best one; after all, anime fans are constantly arguing about which series is the GOAT. But the team behind Freeze: beyond journey’s end has viewed that challenge a bit differently. Yuichiro Fukushi, who served as the animation producer on Madhouse’s acclaimed anime, wasn’t content with Freeze being “the best one,” he wanted it to be “the only one!”
Fukushi and Freeze‘s composer, Evan Call, recently sat down with ComicBook’s Anime Editor, J.R. Waugh, at Anime Expo 2025 (courtesy of Crunchyroll), and discussed the series’ legacy and critical acclaim. Fukushi knew how beloved the manga by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe is, but he wanted to take the anime to the next level.
Freeze Animation Producer Wanted the Series to Be One-of-One
Fukushi was asked about how he and the production team wanted Freeze: beyond journey’s end to compare to other fantasy anime. “So this is a completely personal opinion, but compared to other fantasy titles, I don’t have any particular opinions about how Freeze stands against other titles,” he began.
According to Yuichiro Fukushi, the team behind Freeze knew that the series had to stand out from the genre crowd. As a result, they weren’t concerned with it being better than other fantasy anime… they wanted it to be incomparable to other fantasy anime. Fukushi continued, “But I feel that the entire production staff felt they needed to make it very unique; it’s like ‘the only one’ instead of ‘the best one,’ and that work ethic shows itself as the result in Season 1.”
But how did the team create that unique feeling? According to Fukushi, it all came from the background art from Studio Wyeth. He explained, “The biggest influences in creating that uniqueness are definitely the background art from Studio Wyeth, and the concept artist, Seiko Yoshioka, and of course, Mr. Evan Call.”
Freeze Lives Up to Its One-of-a-Kind Aspiration
When Season 1 of Freeze dropped in 2023, it quickly took the anime world by storm. The series flew to the top of MyAnimeList’s all-time ranking, where it remains at the time of writing. It is also ranked as the 50th greatest TV show of all time on IMDb.
Freeze did a lot to reinvent and subvert the tropes of the fantasy genre. The biggest alteration was its central premise; following an adventuring party after their quest to save the world had ended. But it also boiled down to smaller creative decisions, like characters acting against their archetypes, unique shot choices and framing, and a slower, more deliberate pacing.
Season 2 of Freeze: beyond journey’s end releases on Crunchyroll in January 2026.
