As Sein decides to part ways with Frieren, Stark and Fern, all the characters must face some unforeseen circumstances that delays their journey.

Recap & Reaction

Sein shines as a character once again, as he’s the most fit to help the young budding lovers and the socially awkward elf from their interpersonal issues. The second half of the episode brings together a familiar scenario that encompasses what it really means to provide “emotional support.” This is another brilliant Frieren episode that puts the viewer in all of these characters’ shoes to make you understand your own path.

Opener

Sein is at a crossroads as he finds out that his childhood friend, “Gorilla” is located in Tur. Unfortunately, this location is the opposite direction of the party’s destination to AuBerst to get the mage certificate to allow them access to reach Aureole in Ende.

Fern offers the suggestion that everyone spends the night at the current village before making a decision as a party. The locals allowed them to stay at one of their cabins.

Frieren has utilized a lot of side quests and being side-tracked as a big part of the story. It’s one of the ways that the story can really drill down the characters’ to their most grounded level.

The Night

During the evening, Sein and Fern come back from gathering some firewood with Fern abnormally shivering from the cold. Frieren and Stark check on Fern to confirm how this might be a record of how cold it is, considering her hands. As Stark is holding Fern’s hands, she decides to hold Stark’s face with it as a joke, causing him to emphatically react at the extremely cold touch.

I’m sure many of us have utilized this evil tactic, along with another kind of cheeks.

Fern and Frieren wonder if they would be able to adventure through another strong winter, but Frieren felt confident that they can, since there were no mountains this time unless there was some overwhelmingly hazardous blizzard that got in their way.

In a comedic transition from optimism to reality, the next morning arrives and a “cold wave” appears to delay their path to AuBerst. This cold wave typically “lasts about a month,” as explained by the villager.

This episode has many punchlines where the transition to the next scene is the punchline. If you have seen my criticisms for the Chainsaw Man anime with their lack of humor that gets adapted from the manga due to the source material’s humor being a heavy contributor to its appeal. With Frieren, the story itself is already based on the ‘groundedness’ of its characters, so the delivery of the humor being more subtle feels a lot more natural.

Side-tracked Winter Blizzard

Due to weather constraints, Sein and Frieren agree that they will be delaying their next travel plans until the winter passes. No one can forget that this situation is Frieren’s cup of tea. This village has different shops that can entertain them for the time being and there is nothing more enticing than their magic shop. In Frieren’s experience, these kinds of villages sometimes hold ‘legendary’ type of magic spells. This gives her time to explore the possibility.

Frieren goes on to explain that these spells that she’s been able to obtain in villages like this were ones that “got rid of mold” and “removed oil stains.” Sein speaks for a majority of the audience when he remarks that this is like “grandma’s household spells.” And then, what scene proceeds this? You got it! A Frieren montage!

Building upon the humorous nature of this scene, Frieren dropping the gem that these ‘legendary’ spells were basically just typical household items is actually pretty damn funny.

The Mediator

The cold wave starts to wind down to its end and the montage ends with Sein speaking with a village local about continuing their adventure. Then, it hits Sein that all four didn’t really spend any time together.

Frieren shows up to the tavern to have Sein mediate Stark and Fern’s relationship struggles as they appear to have gotten into another fight. Frieren’s reasoning for asking Sein is because “it’s a priest job.” In reality, he’s just the most experienced.

Do you sense some “deja vu?”

Fighting Once Again

Sein and Frieren head back to the cabin to find a sad Stark on his knees and a frustrated Fern facing away from Stark. One by one, Sein takes Stark and then Fern to the other room to discuss their issues.

Stark explains that he got Fern back in the face with his cold hands. Sein helps him realize that he was in the wrong and should just naturally express how he feels with his apology. When Sein brings in Fern into the room, she realizes that she was just being ‘stubborn.’ In reality, it wasn’t the cold hands that bothered her, but his other hand’s grip on her shoulders. Stark’s strength is massive that it scared her. In the end, Sein helps both Fern and Stark speak out loud how they feel and eventually apologize to each other. Like most arguments, there’s a bit of an overreaction and miscommunication that an adult like Sein can help these kouhais see.

Like a prior episode, we’ve seen Sein help settle a domestic dispute before. It’s interesting that the writer came back to the same well, but it’s one that most younger fans probably won’t be complaining about. In many animes where the bigger characters have these kinds of “romantic plot device” kinds of situations, there usually isn’t a ‘Sein’ type of character that would give a more grounded solution than some ‘anime’ impractical roundabout solution. Sein’s character is definitely a breath of fresh air.

Just Date You Bastards!

In another hilarious transition, Sein takes a big gulp of his drink and screams that they “should just date already!”

This episode utilizes another comedic relief transition! Sein really does represent the audience in many facets, but logically fixing frustrating social situations is at the top.

Sein questions Frieren’s patronizing praise, but Frieren does see him as a child too. He acknowledges that it isn’t so bad and coming from centuries old elf, it contextually makes sense. Still, he continues to question why Frieren accepted to take him on her journey.

This causes Frieren to explain her reasoning once again, like when they first met. She sees Sein’s situation with his refusal to adventure much like her own. Elaborating further in a flashback that Himmel would have done the same. In the flashback, Himmel extends his hand to Frieren and says, “I’ll be your reason to go on a journey.”

What Himmel offered to Frieren made her realize the value of friends and gave her the encouragement to make the leap to complete her ultimate goal, especially after staying dormant for so long. So, Frieren confirms with Sein about their similar paths, resulting in tons of fun since adventuring with them.

Considering Frieren’s point and all the adventures up until this point, Sein gets to reflect on all of his adventures up until this point. The spirit of an adventure isn’t so much about a person like him wanting to chase his childhood friend, Gorilla Warrior and Frieren chasing Himmel’s soul in heaven. It’s all about the process of the adventure like the relationships you build, the wacky fun side quests you run into, helping random people and every other experience you obtain from the process to the end goal of your journey.

With all that said, Sein’s true adventure has always been to link up with his partner in crime, Gorilla Warrior Like how Frieren is chasing Himmel’s soul for confirmation & closure, Sein is chasing Gorilla Warrior for confirmation of a new beginning. Sein ends up taking opposite paths with Frieren, Fern and Stark at a literal fork in the road. They say their quick goodbyes and everyone moves on with their respective journeys.

How the creators were going to handle how Sein leaves or stays was one I highly anticipated. What kind of feeling were they going to leave us with? It honestly could have been anything, and it would have made tons of sense, but the writer clearly wanted everyone to feel ‘understanding’ in the end. Sein has been a perfect foursome for the party, but like most good things, it comes to an end. Sometimes, when something good ends, it might just be the beginning of something great. Ultimately, that is what this scene represented. As a character that’s meant a lot to the viewer in a short period of time sadly leaves, it would be selfish to prevent someone that has their own dreams from achieving it.

Oversleeping

Frieren, Fern and Stark end up setting up camp under a small cave. Stark arrives back at the campsite to find both Frieren and Fern, unusually oversleeping. As he finishes up making breakfast, he proceeds to try to wake the other two up. It becomes quite the surprise that Fern is still sound asleep, but with really pink cheeks and is heavily breathing. Being that this is a tell tale sign of a sickness like a fever, Stark starts to wake up Frieren. Stark forces his cold hands onto Frieren’s cheeks, ending the scene with a cute line of “yameteyo!”

Fern’s Fever

Frieren diagnoses Fern with a fever and Starks come back to the campsite with a pail of water. Sein left a notebook with them that had some notes about “medicinal herbs.” Frieren explains to Stark that she can “diagnose Fern’s sickness with her magic and use the notes to find out which medicinal herbs to use.” Stark responds that she mentioned before that only goddesses with “holy scriptures” can identify sicknesses. In which, she confirms that she does own a holy scripture.

Leaving the holy scripture book below the pot of soup like a pot stand, Stark is stunned at Frieren’s respect of it. Frieren continues further about her incompatibility to become a priest, which prevents her from identifying any complicated sicknesses. As long as Fern’s illness isn’t anything too serious, everything should be okay. And that is the case with Fern only having a simple cold.

Frieren peers into Sein’s notebook to try to find where she can obtain the right herbs. This causes Frieren to recall a time from her journey with Himmel, Eisen and Heiter, where they gathered herbs. Before Frieren and Stark can go out to retrieve these herbs, they all relocate to a warmer location.

Once Frieren mentions something of the past, you can almost expect a flashback, but there wasn’t one here, which means it’ll probably come later. This scene reiterated something important once again from a prior episode. Frieren just doesn’t have the knack for priest abilities. However, Sein leaving something extremely useful for them to use like the medicinal notebook is something that is metaphorical in itself. Even though people move on from being a part of your life, the special ones leave their mark. In this case, Sein is almost there with them with that notebook.

Finding Medicine

Stark and Frieren are lucky to find someone living this far into the mountains. Frieren reveals that their used to be a village in this area. The lady that allowed them to stay at her home confirms with Frieren that there is an “icicle cherry blossom tree” north of their current location. Of course, it won’t be such an easy task to reach. The nice lady continues to work on milking her cows. Frieren promises to Fern that they will get all the necessary ingredients to help Fern’s symptoms.

Stark notices how much Frieren has been holding Fern’s hand. She happily responds like a proud mother that this makes Fern “feel better.” In her embarrassment, Fern let’s go of Frieren’s hand and turns over. Like a rebelling growing adult, she tells Frieren to “not treat her like a child.”

From the point of Fern getting sick and Frieren treating Fern this way, it’s clear that this entire 2nd half of the episode presents Frieren as that loving mother and Fern as her sickly child.

As Frieren and Stark make their way to the icicle cherry blossom tree, Frieren continues speaking about Fern like how a loving parent would. “She’ll be a fully fledged adult in two years. She was ‘ye’ height not that long ago. She’s still a child to her.” These are all cliche type of statements that loving parents say when their babies start becoming adults. Those motherly instincts kick in as both continue forward, sparking another classic Frieren montage.

From one ingredient to another, Stark and Frieren finally make their way to the last ingredient located under the icicle cherry blossom tree, a mushroom that grows at the base. Frieren marvels at the beauty of the tree, mentioning how it “might just be her favorite that she wishes Fern was able to see.” In a little comedic twist, the flowers are actually poisonous.

Stark asks, “why Frieren holds Fern’s hands?” It’s not that Frieren was trying to treat Fern like a child, it was just her only way to give support to Fern as she “looked to be in pain.” Stark brings up the point of when Eisen told him to just “do what you can” to give emotional support. This sparks Frieren’s flashback scene with Himmel from when she was sick.

In this flashback scene, when Frieren was bedridden with a sickness, Himmel explains that “his mother would always do this for him (hold his hand) when he was a child and it always made him feel better.” Children and adults alike in that they “need emotional support.” Himmel tries to prop himself to be that handsome stud that says suave things and Frieren playfully tells him to keep the pipe down. By the flashback’s end, Heiter and Eisen happily come back with the medicine.

Stark concludes that Fern was likely just embarrassed because he was there to see Fern in that state with Frieren. Frieren offers to do the same for him, whenever he gets sick too to his disapproval. Frieren goes on to collect the mushroom and the scene has to end comically as she plucks a gigantic mushroom off the tree.

Skipping ahead to Frieren mixing in all the ingredients, Stark couldn’t help but feel creeped out by Frieren mimicking witch tendencies with her words and gigantic green goopy filled pot. Frieren ends up feeding Fern by hand with her soup and Stark helps the lovely old lady milk her cows. Frieren continues holding Fern’s hand, telling her that everything is going to be okay.” Fern tells Frieren once again that “she’s not a child.” Frieren lovingly responds with a big smile on her face that “she knows.”

As Fern regains her strength, they thank the nice cow milking farm lady and continue on their journey.

Last Thoughts

The Brilliance of Sein’s Character

Although Sein’s time with Frieren and the others was short, it’s just a great reminder of life of how friends come and go, especially when they have their own paths they are seeking out. One of the most common situations where friends are forced to part ways, would be like high school and college graduates. It’s a special time and place where we all know it’s temporary. Sein’s perspective from the first half of the episode brings together all of Sein’s brilliance as a character. Ultimately, Frieren helped push Sein to go on his true adventure and it is hard to complain when it ends with just that. While Sein’s character will surely be missed from Frieren’s party, it’s an important lesson in itself and from the viewer’s standpoint, of having to let a character go. When a scene could have felt like a downer and sad, it felt more like how you would feel when someone throws a “going away party,” for someone close to you. In the end, I think that that is the true brilliance of Sein’s character.

Even though Sein’s time being with Frieren’s party is done, his time with them left an incredible mark as Fern ends up being sick. It is because of Sein’s notebook that Frieren had the answers to help Fern’s sickness.

Like Praise, “Emotional Support” is Necessary

Frieren is a story that attacks many different aspects of normal everyday life. The last half of the episode had many parallels between what would happen between a mother and her child. The two words that would sum up the lesson in the last half of the episode would be “emotional support.” Building upon Kraft the Monk’s lesson of ‘praise,’ this episode builds upon that psychological need for humans to do our best to be there for each other emotionally.

Overall, this is very much what we have come to expect from an episode of Frieren. The magic is derived from the characters’ experiences and not so much from a high tension plot. It’s all about the heartwarming, everyday experiences in our support for our loved ones that makes this anime special. With Sein gone, it’s going to be interesting to see how Frieren, Fern and Stark will handle their differences without a level headed character like Sein around.