Frieren: How Long Do Elves and Dwarves Live?

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is a manga and anime series currently among the most popular anime airing. Written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is a truly lovely fantasy series with great characters. A blend of Western tropes and Japanese aesthetics, Frieren is a majestic fantasy story that combines the best of both worlds. In that aspect, we are going to discuss a race present in the series, which is a common Western fantasy trope – the Elves. The question that interests us here is – how long do the Elves live in Frieren? Interested? Keep reading to find out!

The Elves live for thousands of years, but the exact dates are unknown

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End is a fantasy series. Such series are relatively common in modern times, although they weren’t as common a decade ago. The unique combination of Japanese beauty and well-known Western tropes makes Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End a truly beautiful work. The many Western tropes are also embodied through the characters and the races they represent, so we have Elves, Dwarves, Humans, and others. In this article, we will talk about the Elves in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End.

Since we don’t know much about them specifically, we presume that the authors meant for them to be more or less like other fictional Elves, as seen in Western fiction. If they were special in any way, though, the authors would have most likely told us more about them or these specific traits. As far as we know, the Elves are the rarest race in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, if not the rarest one overall. They are frequently Mages due to their extraordinary talent and enormous, potent mana reserves. Because Frieren is also a Mage and is regarded as one of the best, even by Elven standards, she was the strongest in her village when she was born a millennium ago.

A millennium ago? Yes, Frieren – the little, white-haired girl is more than 1,000 years old! What does this tell us about the Elves and their lifespan, then? Since Frieren is over a millennium old and still appears to be in his teen years, we know that Elves may live for a very long time, but the precise length of their life span is unknown because so few of them have been shown in the series. The authors simply never revealed the precise numbers. So far, only four Elves have been introduced in the series (two in the anime and two in the manga), and all of them look quite young; just remember Frieren and Kraft – one looks like a teenage girl, and the other looks like a young man in his 20s or 30s. Yet, both of them are 1,000+ years old, and Kraft is significantly older than Frieren, actually.

So, what does this tell us? Based on their appearances and their known ages, we assume that Elves can live for several thousand years naturally. Sadly, we don’t have any details for you here, as we’ve never seen an old Elf in the series, but based on everything – we assume we’re not far off. Decades, even centuries, are nothing to an Elf, only a speck in time, as she stated. Other characters, especially humans, also confirmed this, but even the Dwarf Eisen – and Dwarfs are known to live for several hundred years – kept saying that Frieren’s relationship with time (or the passing of time, to be more precise) is unique. And that is, more or less it. Do we have anything else to add about them?

They are also renowned for being extremely reticent and chilly, and the series has often stated that their inability to appropriately communicate their feelings has driven them to the verge of extinction. Frieren’s tears upon Himmel’s passing led us to believe that she is unique. And with this, we’ll end this little expose.

The Dwarves don’t live as long as Elves, but they do live significantly longer than humans

As far as Dwarves are concerned, they are the second race in Frieren that has a longer-than-usual lifespan. As it is the case with Elves, the authors haven’t revealed any precise ages, but from what we know about the Dwarves introduced in the series, we can deduce some things.

Based on what we know, we can assume that an average Dwarf lives for around 300 years, which is significantly longer than the average human lifespan but also significantly shorter than an average Elven lifespan; it is possible that older ones might even come close to 400 years. As far as Eisen is concerned, we know that he’s been around for several hundred years, and Old Man Voll seems to be even older, thus confirming that Dwarves really do live for centuries.

This is most likely due to the special build of their bodies, as well as their association with Mana. Dwarves in Frieren are the physically strongest of all the races; they are sturdy, durable, and exceptionally strong, which is why they are the strongmen of each party. Of course, while they do retain their physique, their strength decreases with age, as Eisen confirmed; he was still stronger than most, but he wasn’t as sturdy as he was when he was a century younger.

They also seem to age much slower than other races, although not as slow as Elves; Eisen has retained his appearance for more than a century, and while Old Man Voll did grow old, we assume that he was really really old, much older than Eisen, in fact, which explains why he had the appearance of such an old man. And that is more or less it, as far as the Dwarves of Frieren are concerned. We don’t really have any more information about them, and this is all that we managed to gather.

Like it is the case with other races, we don’t have much information. We assume that the authors really intended for traditional Western fantasy tropes to be applied here, so that is why we don’t have such detailed information here – it doesn’t seem to be necessary. The tropes we are talking about are more than known, so it wouldn’t have made sense if the authors explained everything in detail – it would’ve been redundant. And that is why we had to explore a bit to provide you with the answers you wanted.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments below!