Unless you’ve been keeping up with Frieren, only anime viewers and manga readers can truly understand how special “Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End” really is. Look no further than how the story handled Fern’s character by the episode’s end!

Recap & Reaction

On the quest to become First-Class Mages to get access to areas that require those certificates, Frieren & Fern end the 2nd exam with some fireworks. Now, they must get themselves ready for a significantly different kind of test from the two prior.

Opener

The episode opens up with Mr. MIA himself, Stark and the mysterious old man that has been teaching Stark about martial arts. The old man leaves again like their previous encounter that “there’s nothing left to teach you. The path of the warrior is endless.” Stark responds with, “you always say that.”

The old man has to be the closest thing to a parody this show has to offer, right? Stark has been representative of everything shonen and also the vehicle to be the butt of jokes. The old man and Stark are parodies of Frieren & Fern, since they had their special master & student moment without him.

Fern approaches the meditating Stark and as Stark turns around to notice her presence, he is absolutely surprised! Fern is mad.. again.

Master and Student Issues

Frieren and Fern seem to be at odds more than usual after finishing their second exam. The argument this time seems to have extra significance, as it broke during her fight against the replica Frieren. This isn’t any old run-of-the-mill staff to her. It is special due to it being that Heiter gave it to her! Frieren’s terrible ’empathetic-less’ logic strikes again, as she lacks the social awareness to initially see how that would make Fern feel. So, she told Fern to just trash it and replace it.

The author said, “hit the character flaws on repeat before the good stuff happens.”

Stark reassures Fern that Frieren had “no intentions of hurting her feelings.” He also mentioned that Frieren said that, “it might not be fixable due to how piecies it broke into.” However, Fern can’t get over the fact that Frieren wanted to toss away something so sentimentally significant to her..

I miss Sein for these moments, but Stark has to be the swiss army knife for “adulting” now.

Kanne & Lawine

Kanne talks to a sulking Lawine as she mentions that it would be “3 years” before she can retake the First-Class Mage Exam. Lawine is down in the dumps and offers Kanne to get her payback. Kanne plays around that she thinks she should “pat her head” instead. Very uncharacteristically, Lawine gets up and hits next to her for her to comfort her. Kanne kindly pats her head when they notice Frieren walking nearby.

Would you look at that? Bullies are getting a slice of humble pie this episode and it’s a positive for their character development. Here comes the motif of patting on heads for praise, but this time, it’s for encouragement.

With Kanne and Lawine excitedly run up to Frieren and notice her carrying a bag full of Fern’s pieces of her staff.

Is Frieren the only anime where praise and comfort is especially emphasized?

Richter & Denken

The scene shifts to Richter getting annoyed by Denken loitering around in his store. The exams are over, but Denken uses the excuse that “he’s a customer.” Funny enough, Laufen is hanging around the store with Denken as she offers a donut to Richter, in which he sternly denies.

Denken reassures Richter that he really just got “unlucky.” Many of them would not have been able to avoid losing against a surprise attack from replica Sense in that situation. However, Richter stays level-headed practical that “losing is still losing.” Once again, he displays his displeasure for them being in his store as he’s in a bad mood.

Denken brings up the point that Richter still opened up his store regardless. Richter responds back with, “normal people still have to work to earn a living.” Richter continues pouring it on Denken. “He might be better off failing since in 3 years, an old man like him might be dead.”

To be entirely honest, I think a lot of us have a little more Richter in us than we would like to admit. The dynamic between Richter & Denken is too real and in many ways relatable.

Denken explains how “impudent” Richter is. He “mocks authority” and “mistreats the weak” for personal gain. Knowing how Richter is, Denken can’t help but not feel any anger at all against him, as he sees a reflection of his younger self in him. Ultimately, Denken was there to give him encouragement as “3 years from now, he would most definitely be stronger than his present self.” Both Denken & Laufen make their way out of the store.

Before Laufen leaves, she apologizes to Richter that, “the old man just isn’t good with people.” Richter points out how much of a parody Laufen is in relations to Denken. Richter ponders what Denken said and is frustrated by the fact that he didn’t buy anything either.

Many of the new characters from this Mage Academy Arc have expanded beyond the three main characters the story follows with the occasional flashback with the Hero’s Party. This gives the audience a break from the the same-ole’ characters with the same kind of situations the story keeps going back to on repeat. These characters like Denken, Richter, Kanne and Lawine gives us a fresh new perspective from characters that have their own character flaws that they must overcome. Denken & Richter mimic the master & student combination that Frieren & Fern provides, but from a character flaw perspective.

Frieren Tries to Make Amends

Frieren enters Richter’s shop to ask if it is possible to fix Fern’s staff? In Richter tilted fashion, he goes off about how poor his mood got and how this pile of wood might just be “trash.” Frieren hints that it might just be. Richter tells her that “he has a right to refuse service.” Frieren gets up with Fern’s staff and starts to leave, but Richter stops her. Then, Richter says, “I never said I couldn’t fix it.”

Richter begins fixing the staff with his magic as piece by piece, makes its way back into a restorative position. Frieren asks Richter to hurry, as it would be necessary to use by the last exam. In a sign of regret, Richter actually begins to apologize for calling the staff “trash,” since it really is a “well maintained staff.” He continues complementing the staff as that person must have truly cherished it.

The animation of the staff being fixed with magic actually looked kind of cool. It’s the subtle things when it comes to the slice-of-life episodes!

When it comes to Richter, Denken continues to be representative of what Richter can potentially become. There are times when he goes too far and is really inconsiderate. At the same time, there is a bit of humanity and kindness behind his「生意気(なまいき)」。

Fern Continues Venting

In comedic fashion, the scene jump cuts to Fern’s frustrated face, stuffing herself with Stark after Richter complements her staff. It gets late at night as Fern continues venting about Frieren “not understanding her at all.” To Stark’s not so smart agreeable response that “he too does not,” Fern throws another tantrum with fist bumps to his body.

Stark continues to give her level-headed advice that “Frieren is trying to understand her” and is “doing her best.” Isn’t that what matters the most?

It sounds good when it’s not happening to you. It’s like saying, “I’m trying my best to not be annoying.” Except, you’re still annoying though. Alright, alright. I’m sure there’s a happy medium here.

Stark & Fern walk by Richter’s shop and Richter is outside doing some kind of shop maintenance. He mentions to Fern that “she’s Frieren’s kid?” Fern gives no answer with an expressionless face. Stark has to step in to agree for her. Richter goes on to tell them how frustrated he was with what Frieren put him through. Furthermore, he tells her that he would have made more money if she just bought a new staff. In a little further glimpse of Richter’s kindness, he tells Fern to “take care of it.”

This would be a great end to Richter’s little character development as mentioned by Denken, telling him all about his flaws. At the same time, he redeems himself by showing that he has a little bit of heart.

Frieren Tries

Once Fern gets back to the inn, she finds her staff on her bed all back in one piece. She looks over to Frieren sleeping in the other bed and this sparks a flashback with Fern speaking with Heiter on his deathbed.

Heiter tells Fern exactly what we have all come to realize about her personality. She is someone that continually lacks the part of empathy where you would understand why someone feels a particular way. However, this doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care about the person. Fern’s broken staff ends up being the perfect example to exemplify this Frieren trait. Even though she doesn’t understand why Fern is attached to her staff, when she can have a better one—hinted by her basically agreeing with Richter that the staff might be “trash.” Still, she recognizes that Fern is angry about the staff and proceeds to get it fixed for her.

As Heiter explains that there might be “no better master than Frieren,” the scene shifts back to the present of Frieren sleeping. Comedically, Frieren flips around in bed to show her sleepy drooling face. In a heartwarming end to this misunderstanding, Fern fixes Frieren’s sloppy bed as she starts to flip back over.

This is totally a mother-daughter example. The kid gets way too attached to something and the parent tries to throw it away. The daughter throws a fit and the mother brings it back.

The Third Final Exam

The third and final exam commence. Fern mulls over whether to mention to Frieren about the staff, but chooses not to. Then, we are presented with a flashback that shows the arrival of Serie at the Mage Academy. What do we know about Serie? She’s the gatekeeper of “special people with magical talent.” Only those that she deems worthy are allowed to First-Class Mages. While she does approve of Sense’s exam of mages having to work together, she thinks Frieren’s participation ruined it. Frieren’s participation alone, skews the rate of success of all the participants, when all the others that are not actually “worthy,” got to pass.

Serie Taked Over

When Sense apologizes to Serie about the results of the test, Serie puts all the blame on Frieren. “An anomaly calls for anomaly.” Since Frieren’s participation heavily increases the result of allowing unworthy participants through, Serie takes it upon herself to conduct the last exam. She promises it to be a “peaceful exam.” Lernen, the old man that recognized what Frieren’s pendant meant, is usually the proctor behind the third exam. He acknowledges that Serie’s decision is the wiser choice as he can’t truly “test Frieren.” To show how knowledgeable and powerful this “Lernen” is, he can sense that Frieren is suppressing of her mana. Impressively and more specifically, he knows that Frieren’s mana is on par with Serie’s.

Lernen’s character is one of my last favorite parts about this entire arc. Every character has a point to prove for a particular lesson and his is counter to Frieren’s in many respects.

Serie asks Falsch about what Lernen just said in regards to Frieren’s suppression of mana. Falsch cannot confirm this and starts to explain how suppression of mana is so difficult to do. There are certain “fluctuations” in mana that a living body emits. Even if someone can do what Frieren is doing, it’d take a vast amount of time to master such a impractical ability. Serie simply responds back with what we all already know and confirms that Frieren has indeed devoted her life to such a thing to trick demons.

Serie explains more precisely about the time period it would usually take to learn to suppress your mana, “one to two centuries.” Only those with “innate talent” can do it in a shorter time span. She continues to express her displeasure for wasting efforts on something useless, compared to something that could be more useful. However, Serie basically sums up that the use of suppressing your mana can be fatal to those that can’t sense it like in Aura the Guillotine’s case. Furthermore, Frieren’s abilities aren’t even that “polished.” But when it comes down to it, her ability to control her mana more than makes up inefficiencies elsewhere.

The story continues to hint just a little bit more and more about the events that went down during the Hero’s Party versus the Demon King. Serie acknowledges that it might have only been the Demon King to witness Frieren’s true power from the beginning. In this case with Lernen, that makes two now. Lernen downplays the significance of this, as he chops it up to only seeing a “minor fluctuation” of her mana.

This is the another supremely awesome way to show a very shonen aspect like “power levels,” straying away from simplistic fighting—to show just how impressive a character may be. With Kraft the Monk, the dialogue with Stark expressing just how strong Kraft the Monk looks, is a subtle way to convey power differences from character to character. For example, Dragon Ball Z used power levels as represented by numbers early on to simply show the differences in strength between characters. This scene with Lernen and Serie, uses this shonen trope through the exploration and expansion of the story, to essentially convey power levels. In this case, Lernen is quite the monster mage himself.

A bit of Lernen’s background gets fleshed out by Serie. He has been a First-Class Mage for over 50 years and it is to her regret, that he is still just as “timid’ as he was then. Serie gets up as a robe magically fits her like a Queen getting off her throne and concludes that due to his old age, it’s a shame that he may never be able to fight Frieren—even if he was able to defeat her. This makes Serie make the comment that “maybe she shouldn’t take on human apprentices anymore.”

Before Serie leaves, she makes the shocking revelation that she too is suppressing her mana and that Lernen couldn’t sense it.

This scene is incredibly epic, not in the “hiyah” way. It used the trope of “power levels” to show how powerful Frieren and Lernen is, but in the end, it showed how powerful SERIE IS. You can see the expectations of viewers be shattered because Frieren did break Serie’s barrier. Genau said it himself that “no one is powerful enough to break Serie’s barrier.” A huge revelation can immediately become a setup for another big moment. I feel like their is some storytelling technical term, but I’m sure you guys get what I’m saying here!

Sometimes when a particular ability is known and is brought up, the audience can really dismiss it as something we already know. However, this scene set this up really well to deliver something beyond our expectations.

The Third Exam Begins!

The 3rd exam will be simply, Serie interviewing all the remaining test takers. Ultimately, it will be her “intuition,” which is apparently “always right,” by Frieren’s explanation. Initially, Frieren comes to the conclusion that “they will both fail,” as Frieren has never been the type of mage Serie wants her to be.

Kanne is the first interviewee to see Serie and is quickly dismissed due to her “being frightened by her sheer amount of mana.” It is because of Kanne’s recognition of her own limits that failed her—tying in the fundamental aspect of “visualization” that makes a mage more powerful. This immediately ties into Kanne’s backstory that it took Lawine to basically bully the “recognition” of her real abilities out of her.

Oh? So now you like flowers Serie?

One by one, Dunste, Laufen, Scharf and Ehre all fail. It becomes Frieren’s turn and Series brings up the point that “Frieren doesn’t see herself as a First-Class Mage.” Obviously, it is for a far different reason compared to the others. Serie gives her one last chance by asking what particular spell is her favorite. Let’s answer all of this together guys!

“The spell that makes flowers.”

To Serie’s disgust of the uselessness of Flamme’s favorite spell, she fails Frieren. Frieren nonchalantly accepts and proceeds to leave. Serie stops her to question why she won’t try to rebuttal? Also, she questions how someone like Frieren could defeat the almighty Demon King. Frieren’s quick rebut to that was that it was a “team.” She could not have done so without a team that consisted of the Hero’s Party members: Himmel, Heiter, Eisen and herself. Serie says, “how lucky she was since it was because of her strong allies.” To Frieren’s response, she accepts that it was indeed “luck.”

Frieren’s Flashback

This is how the symbol of flowers comes full circle. In Frieren’s flashback, Himmel explains why he specifically picked Frieren to be their mage, when there were plenty of other capable ones. Himmel brings up the first time they met when he got lost from his village as a little boy. It was the first time in his life he felt lonely and literally lost at the same. Frieren found a young Himmel to point him to the direction of his village.

I can’t help but laugh when Himmel mentioned how cold Frieren was. “Does this chick really want to help me or just doing it on a whim?” That sounds exactly like Frieren folks.

In Frieren’s way of encouragement after a semi-cold encounter with a young Himmel, Frieren uses Flamme’s and her favorite spell, creating a field of flowers. In the context of the time period, humans were only starting to use spells, as it has a negative connotation stemmed from the use of magic by demons. It is because of how beautiful these flowers were, that it ignited a positive imagination for magic in the young Himmel.

A New Era!

It flashes back to the present and Frieren explains to Serie that it is due to that field of flowers magic spell that brought the Hero’s Party together. Before Frieren leaves, she tells Serie that she will likely fail Fern too. However, Fern will be way too impressive for Serie to turn her down, as “the new era of humans has arrived.”

At first glance when Fern arrives, seemingly in shock by Serie’s impressive amount of mana, Serie doesn’t see what exactly is so special about Fern. In a moment of silence as Fern stares deeply at Serie, she lets out what Frieren was hinting at. Fern can see the fluctuation in Serie’s mana!

Did you guys feel that?! A series of revelations that sets up another revelation for Fern’s most impressive climatic moment as a character! The story builds up Frieren, building up how impressive Lernen is, to show how impressive Serie is, to show just how special Fern is! Impressive, right?

Serie has her answer from what Frieren hinted at. There is no way the gatekeeper of talented mages can let go of someone that not even one of her most impressive students ever have been able to do—that is to see that Serie is suppressing her magic as well. Serie’s elated state couldn’t stop her from trying to convince Fern from becoming one of her students. Fern asks the most important question, “if this will prevent her from passing?” To Serie’s response, she says, “perhaps.” This sparks a flashback from moments just before Fern’s interview.

Frieren tells Fern that “no matter she says, she will pass her because Serie’s intuition is always right.”

It flashes back to the present and Fern stays vehemently firm that “she is Frieren’s student!” Serie assumes that Fern was likely “coached” by Frieren. Still, just as Frieren said, “Serie isn’t dumb enough to deny her.” The episode ends perfectly with Serie passing Fern.

Last Thoughts

Serie, the Ultimate Gatekeeper

If there is one word to describe what Serie represents, it is “gatekeeper.” While she is not necessarily an antagonist, she believes in her heart of hearts that only certain mages are special. So, it is a very fitting third test that your status and approval of being “heralded” as a First-Class Mage is directly from her accepting you or not.

A Thousand Ways to Show Power!

The scene with Serie and her First-Class Mages showed how to explain power levels by displaying the sheer knowledge of what someone can do without ever having to actually fight, making scenes like this one “a different kind of epic.” All the while, Serie sets up the valuable lesson behind Lernen’s character and how it ultimately connects to Frieren’s view on the world, which will be in the next episode.

The Most Impressive Storytelling Revelations!

The scene with Serie speaking to all of her First-Class Mages and specifically, Lernen is one of the most low-key impressive storytelling scenes in Frieren. These scenes are what makes Frieren so damn special to cover as an anime reviewer because it is very unique and clean how the story is told. Frieren is a technically a shonen, but the story bends many aspects of all shonen tropes to present it in a “Frieren way.” To put one of the biggest aspects of Frieren simply, the “Frieren way” consists of different ways to use flashbacks, especially those epically climatic moments like in Fern’s case during this arc. This episode has opened my eyes to Frieren using previous big revelations as setups to make an even more bigger discovery like with Serie suppressing her mana. Then, all of that buildup is capped off with a perfect ending of Fern’s success and no “pew pews” needed to be shot.

These past three episode might just be the most impressive three episode streak of the entire series. After being immersed into the story, its lore and the buildup of the characters, it’s like we got a redux of payoffs for Fern. The past two episodes showed Fern’s sheer strength and rise to power that would likely pass Frieren one day. This episode proved that there are more ways than one to show a climatic character moment that doesn’t simply involve “pew pews.” I’m blown away by Frieren and I already read this arc in the manga ahead of time with built in expectations. It was still quite simply, perfection.

Manga

This episode covers manga chapters 56 & 57. One thing the anime doesn’t really do is show some of the humorous ending to the chapters. At the end of chapter 57, it shows Frieren’s flashback with Himmel remembering that “Himmel was that brat” when he was little.