Building upon the previous episode’s lesson from Kraft the Monk, this episode builds upon the value of people knowing and acknowledging your life’s work.

Recap & Reaction

This episode looks to take into account what Kraft the Monk’s warnings was about his life story without detailing what his life story specifically entails. It’s important to be around people that acknowledge you and for your work to be recognized. One of the major themes of this episode centers around warning people about romanticizing a person’s great accomplishments. Then, it takes into account Stark’s traumatic backstory that led him to act so cowardly. All the while, revealing just how far Frieren has grown as a character. I would consider this episode to be the heart of what Frieren is all about at its core. If you like this kind of episode, then you’ll love this series.

No Scenes Before Opening Theme?

The episode starts off after the opening theme. It’s always noteworthy to mention this because opening scenes before the opening theme can drive how a particular narrative can be told. It can vastly change the mood and build anticipation for something significant. Knowing that the episode starts after the theme, there likely isn’t anything that the creators want us to keep in mind.

The Journey Continues..

After the previous episode ended with the winter snow clearing up a bit, all three: Frieren, Stark and Fern are still dragging their way through a terrible winter storm. They are continually prodding north to the magical city of AuBerst, so Frieren can gain a certificate to have access to an area so they can go even further north to find heaven or Aureole.

Frieren falls asleep while walking through the snow. Fern catches her falling asleep and decides to carry her. Stark offers to carry her, but Fern mentions of the dangers of him carrying his axe. Fern is very skeptical of having Stark carry her and denies Stark of his offer. Like how she assumed of Kraft the Monk being a pervert, she cannot trust in Stark either. Her loving sensei and attachment to her tells a lot of about Fern. She literally doesn’t want to let go of her one true friend and teacher. Maybe, even go as far as not wanting to ‘share.’ This is one of the few running funny themes of the show of Fern’s overprotectiveness against ‘perverts.’

Forreal though. Fern is the type of friend we want all of our daughters to have!

Reminding Us of Frieren’s Search of Purpose.

Here, we have a very important flashback scene to remind the audience of Frieren’s overarching journey. The relevance of her 10 year journey with Himmel, Heiter and Eisen with Himmel being at the center of it.

In the flashback, the king only gives the Hero’s Party only 10 copper coins to try to kill the Demon King. There is a little bit of banter amongst the group after and it get to Himmel explaining that he has a replica “Hero’s Sword.” A merchant gave this replica to Himmel for saving him from a monster. “For the future hero,” the merchant said. Himmel goes on to mention of some “bratty kid” named “Heiter,” who said that he will only be a fake hero with a fake sword. To this this drunkard fake priest, he wants to prove that he’ll be a real hero someday. One day, he’ll obtain the real Hero’s Sword and take down the Demon King.

This scene was incredibly self-revealing about Frieren. She marvels at Himmel’s “hero’s journey” we all so often see in these fantasy world. What makes this different includes many different perspectives the creators want to lead on. There is a question of the very least of Frieren’s admiration for Himmel. This could be because of his brazenness and the qualities of what we all love about shounen protagonists. There isn’t too much of a love interest set up yet, but there are hints that this could ultimately be a route towards Frieren finding love. Not only in a love interest, but the love of life. We know that Himmel’s hometown of the blue-moon weed flower and flowers in journey are a theme of the show, that was also referenced by Flamme in episode 10. Flowers are a significant symbol of the show as it explains many of life’s beauty that Frieren is being hinted at enjoying more of.

The vibe of this entire opening scene opens up Frieren’s entire heart to what she wants to find next in life and Himmel is still the key to help Frieren find out what she wants in life.

Waking Up to Reality

Frieren wakes up. Momentarily coming out of her dreary state of mind, she realizes that she was just dreaming. Fern asks if she’s able to walk herself, but Frieren says she isn’t able to. After going quite a ways with Fern carrying her sensei, Stark acts like a gentleman again by offering to carry her. Fern, with a very sensitive anti-perv radar denies him again, even calling him a ‘perv.’ In everyone’s disbelief, Stark asks, “what makes him a perv?”

These beginning scenes really set up the mood and reiterates what the purpose of Frieren’s journey is. In these self-reflective slow paced scenes, there is kind of a need for comedic relief. It doesn’t need to be heavy in your face comedy that throws off the mood. But having this scene with Fern without any animated goofiness with weird sound effects really fits for this kind of moment.

The Village of the Sword

It time-skips ahead just a bit with Frieren fully awake and all party members approaching a village. All of the sudden, the frame switches to a Frieren’s first-person perspective as she greets a little pip-squeak village chief girl. The first things out of her mouth were, “we were waiting for you Frieren.”

Everyone goes on a stroll through the village as Frieren questions why there was a demolished cabin nearby. The village chief goes on to explain that the “lord of the mountains” obliterated it. As it pertains to Frieren’s earlier flashback about the Hero’s Sword, this village was once tasked with protecting it. Building upon this “Hero’s Sword” lore, Stark reveals that the sword was stationed at a sanctuary nearby the village stuck inside a stone. Going for the “Excalibur pulled from the ground” trope. 80 years prior, it was Himmel that pulled this sword from the ground.

The village continues the “Hero’s Sword” lore to reveal that the only person that can lift this sword out of the ground is “by a hero that will drive off the world’s most catastrophic threat.”

This sword “being stuck in the ground” is quite a staple trope in a lot of fantasy. Of course, it goes on theme with the episodes intentions to reveal and possible revel in Himmel’s quest to be that worthy hero.

The Fireplace

Whether it’s a campfire or a fireplace, you can bet your ass there is some backstory or character development going on. Finding themselves in another cabin, the village chief girl explains that her grandmother was angry that Frieren didn’t come back 50 years later, instead of the 80 that Frieren preferred. Frieren further elaborates that the village that has been protecting the sword for so long would be absolutely fine protecting it without her. It is then revealed that Frieren’s ‘duty’ is to destroy all the monsters appearing around the village.

The Truth Behind Hero’s Sword

The village chief explains that the monsters nearby, including the “lord of the mountain” have been an issue. Frieren in her nonchalant, “I should just get this over with” attitude decides to go defeat these monsters as soon as possible. The scene quickly shifts Frieren, Fern and Stark easily taking down some white wolf looking monsters. Fern asks why the village chief couldn’t have asked anyone else to take down these monsters? Frieren answers that because “Himmel is the hero.”

Stark stumbles upon the cave where the Hero’s Sword is likely placed; when out of the blue, a gigantic white wolf monster engulfs Stark. Unsurprisingly, this is the “lord of the mountain.” Frieren flies down to hint that this ‘lord’ is a monster that she remembers from 80 years prior, not impressed by what she sees. The multi-freaky eyed monster raises its arm to take a swipe at Frieren, when she calls out to Stark that he can actually still move. After being caught by surprise, Stark catches the ‘lord’ by surprise by axing off one of its arms. Fern comes down to prop up a shield to protect Frieren, as she loads up her attack. In one gigantic blast, the monster was no more.

Stark sits on the ground and questions Frieren why the Hero’s Sword still sits stuck to the ground? Frieren responds that that is what keeps drawing monsters to this particular area. Given that a barrier protects the sword and cave area, the monsters continue to wander around it.

The Hero’s Sword’s True Lesson

Given the cliche nature of “swords being pulled out of the ground” trope, this directly takes us to the next big learning lesson this series has to offer. Himmel did not pull the sword out of the ground. Still, Himmel can still be a “fake hero” that accomplishes all the pursuits of peace by taking down the Demon King.

As we all already know, Himmel did just that. So, that begs the question of “why live and tell a fake story?” Frieren concludes that people made that story up to help prop Himmel up. She goes on to explain that essentially the ‘real’ or ‘original’ Himmel will eventually be forgotten. As everyone walks away, the scene flashes a few frames of what looks to be Stark’s past of someone related to him, while a village is in flames in the background.

What’s interesting about this episode’s lesson is that it comes from Frieren herself. That she learned of this nature of ‘romanticizing’ heroes. No one wants a hero marred by “embarrassing stories.” This ties in the previous episode’s lesson from Kraft the Monk. To have done great deeds and have huge accomplishments be forgotten is a shame. Humanity loses the inspiration and lessons that might have came from it. This scene in particular, attacks the downside of a great lore. You lose the authenticity from what and who Himmel actually was. He’s still a hero, but not the kind of hero that everything thought he was. The perception of Himmel becomes warped.

Side Quest Done.. Journey Onwards!

Another running gag seems to be what the village chief’s grandma left to say to Frieren, like she knew how everything was going to turn out. Nevertheless, the village chief thanks Frieren for killing all the monsters. Frieren says that it’ll be another half century, before she comes back.

The climax to the joke

Finally able to relax after almost being frozen, they stop at an inn at the next town. It doesn’t get more slice of life than this as Frieren lays on the bed reading a grimoire and Fern asks her if “she would like to take a look around the town’s shops?” Fern decides that she would go alone since Frieren passes up the offer. There is no more bigger red flag to what Frieren’s journey about “experiencing the beauty of life” has been than Frieren just nonchalantly mentioning of Stark’s 18th birthday being the current day. We’ve already had a moment like this with Frieren recognizing and making an effort to connect with Fern on her birthday in an earlier episode.

It’s all about the misdirection!

Fern asks why Frieren didn’t mention of such a significant event and what Stark would actually want. Frieren tells her that she could just buy something for him while she’s out in about. Using that typical nonchalant attitude Frieren brings against the viewers, she kicks around in bed like it’s no biggie and condescendingly tells Fern that “she just ain’t prepared.” Fern asks what Frieren has cooked up for Stark’s gift?

It was in this moment, we’ve truly seen the growth in Frieren. Not only is she excited about what she got for Stark, she’s really experiencing life’s peak of the satisfaction of helping others experience life in all its glory. In this moment, Frieren jumps out of bed like she got plug for something out of this world amazing and pulls out a potion. This isn’t any kind of potion. This is a potion that has been set up from the previous episode’s notion of Fern’s displeasure for the ‘pervy’ anime trope and was referenced at the beginning of this episode. It was the perfect setup for the perfect punchline here. Frieren got Stark a potion that “makes clothes dissolve.”

Don’t underestimate the animation here with Frieren just rocking her legs back and forth and then jumping out of bed in excitement! It’s a deliberately humorous animated scene to hit you with the potion punchline. It’s a totally different shot and perspective that adds to the experience of the punchline. I also want to commend the creators from actually keeping all of the potentially pervy parts out of this scene. This could have been the focus for the foot freaks and one for the panty freaks, but it wasn’t. It was for the punchline and I respect that!

The scene does a great job in momentarily building the anticipation for what gift is by adding the comedic effect of her saying that “it’s special” with that most funny grinning face that Frieren can make. Going even further into this bit, Frieren gives off the most satisfying look on her face, as she has what she thinks is the most incredible gift for Stark. She even refers to Flamme giving her this important knowledge about men.

That’s right Frieren! Men like women with less clothing, but.. you might be a bit off here (that’s what makes it funny).

Like I said in the previous scenes with episodes like these, you need that comedic relief in between all of that world building, character development and backstory. The setup earlier in the episode was fine without any of the added effects that so many animes do to emphasize the humor. In this case, Frieren got the “troll face Anya” treatment. Making the right face changes the delivery the of the humor.

Fern, being the bearer of all things pure that she learned from the fake priest himself, vehemently takes the potion and proceeds to pour it onto Frieren. Disappointed by this punchline’s reveal, Fern responds with her own patronizing look upon Frieren. As Frieren is steaming and her clothes melting from the potion, Fern tells her that she told her to return something so crude. In Fern’s absolute purity and ethics, she leaves the room in disappointment of her sensei. As Frieren now stands naked, she laments at the value of the potion.

Once again, going against our perverted minds, the scene stays tamed with any real nudity. If you really want to take it a step further behind the meaning of why Fern poured the potion onto Frieren; it’s not only to get rid of such a vulgar item. From a purity perspective, white represents that purity in which, Frieren always end up wearing a white gown. This scene acts as a metaphor for Frieren having such a dirty mind, removing her purity.

This scene was amazing for many different reasons! Using Frieren’s personality against the viewers to eventually show that she truly is valuing her relationships more and more. Not only was that part woven into this scene, it absolutely tied in incredibly well the pervy punchline that so many animes love using for humor. This scene has its unique twist in delivering a classic pervy gag.

A New Gift

Since Fern got rid of the gift for Stark, who doesn’t seem to have anything pervy associated with him, Frieren must think of another gift to give to Stark. In the suitcase from where she pulled the potion from, she notices a ring, a note and has a revelation.

With Frieren being of no help in finding out what Stark’s interests are, she goes to his room to find a way to get intel out of him. Once she arrived at Stark’s room, he was surprisingly gone. In the search for Stark, Fern goes out to find him, questioning all the villagers about his whereabouts, except all the answers are all so pure like you just walked an old lady across the street.

Within the day, Stark helped a lady push a cart, played with some kids, helped a cat from out of a tree and stopped a cow from taking over the world. This pure-hearted redhead boy becoming a man stays true to how Frieren and Fern first met him with wanting to save the village from the dragon.

Hearing just about every amazing deed that Stark has done, Fern can’t fathom that such a respectable person would be happy about the naked potion. On theme with the episode’s gag and the setup being superb, Fern finally finds Stark. As she approaches Stark sitting down looking at clouds, Stark sees some “boob-shaped” clouds.

If there is one thing you ladies need to understand, it’s that a man testosterone is absolute!

To Stark’s surprise, he notices a poo shaped cloud too. In his amazement, he thought of Fern first to tell these incredible findings to. Before Fern can announce that she’s literally behind him, she hides behind a bricked wall to ponder what this redheaded Zenitsu is thinking. Instead of thinking of Stark as a pervert, he might just be juvenile-minded instead.

Fern walks up to Stark and Stark gets excited to tell her about the clouds, but Fern has the face of a disappointed mother looking down on her son. Stark senses her discontent with what Stark is about to say and he abruptly cuts his excitement. Fern asks Stark to go for a walk together. In Fern’s heart, she wants to find out a way to get him to spill the beans about what he wants, but her face says, “I’m angry.”

C’mon ladies, just be direct. And out of everything in this entire show that we know about Stark, he loves ice cream.

Another gag that goes on theme with the “anime pervy joke,” which is a trope within anime since probably the existence of anime. The setup was perfect with all the NPCs explain just how upstanding a person Stark is. Usually, Stark’s character ends up being an actual pervert. In this case, the joke is flipped in that Fern is assuming everyone is a pervert when they are not. These are subtle differences that make the jokes not so cliche.

Stark’s Backstory

Showing that Fern not only has a warm heart, she has a man’s logical sensibilities and just asks what Stark wants for his birthday. Stark responds to Fern’s irritation, that she would get him such a thing. Then, he reveals something that was supposed to be nice and warm to dark and sad. Calling upon those few frames from earlier in the episode of what was likely his dead relative with the village burning in the background, it was revealed that Stark never received a birthday present before. Not even from Eisen. It’s hard to wrap your head around something you never actually built context for. In this case, Stark never received that special warmth from his loved ones before.

In a revealing flashback scene, Stark goes on to explain that he comes from a village of warriors. All of these damaged warriors surround their sensei, as he talks down to them for being so weak in comparison to this other character named, “Stoltz.” Taking in no damage and having no drip of blood on him, Stoltz has clearly displayed himself to be the strongest warrior of the village.

Directly going into the trauma of being compared to your sibling, the man that talked down to all of those warriors ended up being Stark’s father with Stoltz being the talented older brother. Stoltz is the successful son, while Stark is the failed one. Despite Stark doing the most that he can to eventually take down a monster, he failed. As they both walk by Stark doing some training in the rain, Stoltz decides on whim to help train him. Their father has pretty much given up on Stark and displays his disappointment further by telling Stoltz that “he’s wasting his time.”

Stoltz accidentally scares Stark and he swings dirt onto Stoltz’s clean white robe. In a scene that sets up the “evil older brother bullying his younger brother,” Stoltz actually praises his focus and proceeds to help him improve; even giving Stark words of encouragement. At some point Stark’s village got attacked and Stark abandoned his village.

This backstory had a lot of missing context. It might have hinted at Lugner being the one that attack his village as well. While this presents many more questions regarding the specific’s of Stark’s past, the biggest takeaway is that no one ended up caring for him, besides his brother.

I can always appreciate how stories can develop something quick in very short scenes, which this episode proved has fast it can get you thinking one way, before they lead you to another conclusion. In this example, it would be the older brother.

A New Future

After hearing what Stark had to say about his past. Like Fern said, “the past is the past.” The Stark that we all know now is the one that has never ran away. Even when Stark feels like he might just ditch Frieren and Fern, Fern is not about to let that happen. Fern goes on to take Stark to go pick out a gift, even if he himself can’t decide on one. Very quickly for the humor, Stark picks out this gold bracelet, but Fern reveals that it is indeed too expensive. Fast forward once more, Fern and Stark are walking back to the inn during the night with Stark sporting a silver bracelet instead.

Fern shows how honorable she really is as a friend, while maintaining that cold-blooded nature about her. It’s a great dynamic to counter with Stark’s weaknesses as a character. In the end, these scenes just prove what we already know about Fern as a character, while still maintaining some questions about Stark’s past.

Once Fern and Stark got back inside the inn, Frieren in her apron, whipped up gigantic sized burgers. Stark states that he never got any presents from his master, but always got to receive birthday hamburgers. In another quick flash back scene, Frieren details the origin of these “birthday hamburgers.” Where Eisen is from, these giant birthday hamburgers are customary for honored warriors. Even though all of these burgers are usually made to honor warriors, Eisen considers “everyone that works hard,” to be a warrior.

Due to this revelation of knowing why Eisen made huge hamburgers on his birthday, this sparks another flashback scene of Stoltz making a hamburger for Stark. If it wasn’t already implied, the context for why Stark ran away from his village is because Stoltz told him to. With what looks like Lugner in the background, Stoltz and all the other warriors likely met their demise as Stark made his escape.

This is where as an audience, the story connected the dots to the origin of Stark’s cowardice. Likely because of this traumatic event, Stark’s survival’s guilt of running away from his loved one as his brother and village members perished must have created this coping mechanism of running away when he needs to brave. As far as we all know up until that traumatic event, Stark was legitimately working hard to be brave the entire time like he is now. Stark’s entire character development becomes clear now that we have source of the trauma that helped created it.

Frieren shows Stark a note that was the recipe to the gigantic birthday hamburgers that Eisen gave to her. Before she had a naughty grin in regards to her previous gift, now she has the grin of a proud mother. Like a proud grinning comedian, Frieren pulls out the magical naked potion, as she always had extra. Fern threatens to pour this one over Frieren too. Stark gets curious about the contents of the point and Fern just accuses Stark of being perverted to Stark’s vehement denial!

Last Thought

Perfect Timing of the Comedic Relief

At this point in the show, there hasn’t been any real focus on the humor of the story. You can only do so many life lessons revolving around dead characters until everything just becomes stale and formulaic. Like with filler and down time needed between very intense climatic moments in a plot, humor is needed to relieve the audience from beating its head over with some life lesson. That incredible comedic pervy bit with Frieren and Fern in the middle of the episode was a tremendous segue into Stark’s backstory. The delivery, including how it was animated and storyboarded of that whole naked potion punch line scene, might just be the best highlight of the episode. Frieren legitimately got the Anya Forger treatment. It’s even more hilarious when you realize that Frieren and Anya are voiced by the same Japanese voice actress!

Major Lessons from the Backstories

In the first half of the episode, it taught us all about the “Hero’s Sword” trope that stems from that Excalibur reference in many fantasies where someone pulls a sword out of the ground because “you are the one.” In reality, the sword doesn’t make the man, the man does. And tying in the necessary value of being remembered and known from Kraft the Monk’s lesson, it’s important to note that romanticizing heroes with fake stories takes away the true value of knowing who the hero really was.

After a tremendous delivery of the “potion that melts clothes away” bit from the middle of the episode, we are informed of the heartfelt backstory of Stark. We all knew of what Stark’s character development entails as being a coward, but was never informed about why he ended up being so cowardly. In a heartwarming backstory that revealed an older brother to be viewed negatively initially, he ends up being the loving caring brother that saved his life. By the episode’s end, it was revealed that Stark’s trauma of survival’s guilt of running away to be the source of his cowardice.

It’s All About the details of the delivery

In the end, it’s about the nuances and details in the way the story is delivered that makes the entire show so endearing. Delivery is everything. Everything you see is meant to lead you to think one way. All of those misdirections in the story’s narrative, shown visually by the storyboard, conveys one thing to ultimately surprise you with something else. We are led to believe that Himmel pulled the sword, but there are lessons behind knowing that he didn’t. We expect Frieren to be one way as kind of nonchalant and cold, but in the end it becomes funny punchlines, while at the same time revealing how much further she’s come as a loving friend & teacher. We expect Stark to be just a coward, but in reality it was due to his loving older brother looking out for him. At the end of the day, he was always working hard to be brave. Like with what the flowers represented early in this series as enjoying life’s beauty, representing Frieren’s journey. Now, we have this gigantic birthday hamburger steak as the literal reward to celebrate all the hard work you put in.

In this episode, there was a lot more literal meanings behind the lessons of the backstories. This episode is the bread of butter of what makes this show heartwarming and endearing. If this show can keep that comedic balance with all of those wonderful life lessons derived from the characters’ journey and have Frieren kill Demon Anya Forger every once in a while, then the sky is the limit with this anime.