IMHO. 'Frieren'

What happens after the journey ends?

Nothing.

That's why all adventure stories are about journeys, not about ever after. Even if some ever after is described, it's usually only to accentuate the main plot. 

So basically you need to create another journey so that the viewers have... something to view.

And here we have the result - trying to sit on two stools and falling somewhere in the middle. Neither of these two timelines is developed enough to create a fully immersive story. 

The flashbacks to the past journey are so short and out of context that they create little to no atmosphere. Well, if one side of the story is short, the other must be long, right? Nope. The current journey is an RPG-turned-anime involving your usual fighting monsters and/or rivals, with some slice-of-life in-between, but all of this is depicted so poorly I could memorize neither the characters nor the places, despite obvious attempts to create personal or regional differences. Most of the towns and villages leave no impression, and aloof fighters whose only reaction to events is 

don't really add any charm to the story. I didn't recognize a single voice actor apart from Taniyama, nor could I, because they're all new and flat to me. 

The idea of aristocratic villains sipping red wine, or senior mages sipping tea, was probably impressive some decades ago. Special thanks to those who created monsters who can speak and have the concept for victory through deception, but can't understand the word "family". And wear cravat. As if. 

As for jokes about 

and typically Japanese elements in a fantasy world 

I'm amazed how lazy the authors were if they couldn't think of anything else to bring fun into this otherwise gloomy story. 

The animators were clearly trying to keep us busy with finding tiny details in some frames, but it's not like I felt much gratification after doing so. It's not a game of "finding all the cats". 

Pair all this with an entirely forgettable soundtrack and theme songs I couldn't distinguish for the life of me, and you get "Frieren".

Maybe next time if you want to make a game, make a game. Don't make it into an anime, Madhouse.