What they say:
After dispelling a curse on a village, Frieren and co. come across a village where Fern and Stark need to dance for money! And then the party learns more from a dwarf Frieren met long ago and an old woman who may hold a clue to finding Sein’s friend.
Content (Please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The last two episodes of “Frieren’s” first cour are each broken up into two chapters. In the first of which for episode 15, the party comes across a village with a curse. The spotlight here is mostly on Sein since he’s a priest with a healing ability and can mostly avoid the curse’s effects, unlike his other companions. It stems from a flower monster (pun totally intended) that puts people to sleep and sucks their energy. This leaves Sein as the only one who can fight the flower. He has a spell that can wake someone up, but only for five seconds. What follows is a gorgeously animated action sequence with an equally gorgeous soundtrack from Evan Call. The main takeaway is that Heiter once told Sein when he was a child that he trusted Frieren to do whatever she said. she would do. In this case, before she fell asleep, she said she would defeat the monster. Sein wakes Frieren up and in that five seconds, immediately launches a blast that kills the flower. It’s a nice little vignette that gives us more time with Sein and lets us see him in action, and a little ironic considering the previous episode ended with how romantic flowers can be. I’m glad to see that the flower motif has continued to stick around, and we continue to see more flowers and their meanings (good and bad) used throughout the series. I appreciated this little segment but otherwise, there’s not much else to this chapter. It’s short, sweet, and to the point.
The majority of episode 15 is dedicated to the next chapter, which involves Stark and Fern having to dance. At their next stop, the party comes across a noble named Orden whose dead Wirt son looks a lot like Stark. In order to fool the town into thinking the son is alive, the noble agrees to pay for a lot of expenses. Stark and Fern each learn elegance over the next couple of months to prepare for the big soiree where Stark and Fern will dance. This episode is filled with Stark x Fern (or “Stern”) teasing that no doubt will cause many fans to start raising the sails for the Stern ship, if they haven’t already. Just like in the previous episode with Himmel, Stark gets on one knee to practice his elegance for the soiree. It visually parallels the same shot. In a sense, Stark is also pledging his eternal love for Fern (although neither of them is aware). While Fern initially scoffs at the gesture, her eyes linger on the hand Stark touched. The two of them being connected with their arms is another interesting thread. Fern made a similar gesture when they first met before fighting the dragon, and now the two have matching bracelets. All this is nothing compared to the dance itself, another gorgeous sequence. You can’t go wrong with a good dance sequence that isn’t filled with wonky CGI. While Orden offers Stark a permanent stay at the village, he declines and knows that Mut, Orden’s other son, is in good hands and will have a much better upbringing than he did. It’s a sentimental moment, but not one that goes very deep. It’s a beautiful if somewhat shallow episode, mostly to throw bones to the Stern crowd.
Stark and Fern carry a different vibe now. There’s a little moment in the beginning of episode 16 where Stark helps her down a large log bridge. That’s something Fern would have refused a little while ago. Our babies are growing up. The next set of chapters focuses on memory. Frieren and the party visit a village with another dwarf warrior known as Old Man Voll. It’s a rare opportunity for Frieren to actually meet someone who remembers her from her original quest to defeat the Demon King. He remains protecting a village fulfilling a promise he made many years ago. But his carefree but strict personality hides a somber secret. He made the promise to his wife many years ago but can no longer remember details about her appearance, and then he asks Frieren if she’s on her way to defeat the Demon King. Frieren realizes that Old Man Voll’s memory has deteriorated too much to get the nostalgic conversation she wanted. It’s a painful punch to the gut, more so than I expected initially. Frieren already has very few people left in the world who can reminisce about old times, and she just lost another one. While Voll is still alive, he’s not really himself anymore. He’s more of a shell than he used to be. It also recontextualizes an earlier moment where he asks who Frieren is. She just assumes he’s pretending to be senile, but this later moment makes it a bit more ambiguous, like he really forgot and only remembered after she spoke a few words. Frieren seems happy to indulge an old friend, but this is another stepping stone for her on her personal journey of realizing how much that quest meant to her.
This is only reinforced in the last chapter. The party gets closer to their destination when they come across a clue to Sein’s friend’s whereabouts. Sein’s friend is revealed to have gone by the nickname “Gorilla Warrior.” The woman who remembers where he went has the party do some chores before she tells them. This episode offers a bit of humor with the “Gorilla Warrior” name and “Goatee” name for Sein actually being effective, and Frieren believing Himmel could easily get the woman to tell him where the guy went but Fern reminds them that their party is all socially awkward. I guess the next step is acquiring someone with some social skills. The final chore is to clean a statue of ancient heroes no one remembers anymore. One of them resembles Kraft from episode 11. It’s nice to see that while the people may have all forgotten him or no longer know him, his legacy is still preserved in some way. It also opens up a mystery about his past. If he’s an ancient hero, then presumably he must have become a monk after being a warrior since he wanted to be praised. What made him stop being a warrior? Did he defeat some great evil in the past, maybe more sinister than the Demon King? I hope these questions are answered in the future. The bigger problem now is that the old woman reveals Gorilla Warrior has gone in a completely different direction than where our party is headed, Äußerst. Now Sein is in a dilemma. Does he go after his friend’s trail or continue with Frieren? It’s only been a few episodes, but given the pacing, he’s been with them for many months now, if not close to a year. It makes sense that he’d be attached. I would be sad to see Sein go. It feels like we only just got to know him. Assuming he does decide to go after Gorilla Warrior, I will miss him a lot. He added a fresh perspective to the party. Unfortunately, the episode ends here, giving us a cliffhanger for the second cour.
The second cour is named the “First Class Mage Exam” arc. So it looks like the remaining 12 episodes of the series will focus on one large-scale event as opposed to many vignettes. The trailer hints at more action like what we saw with Aura which is pretty promising given the quality of those episodes. It will mark a change in tone for the series but as I said before, no matter if it’s slice-of-life fantasy or action fantasy, “Frieren” is in more than capable hands. I’m excited to see all the new characters and story beats that await us in the next cour. I’ll also miss the opening and ending songs as well. Particularly milet’s ending “Anytime anywhere” is something I’ve been looping since it debuted. The visuals were creative and fun and while I know the new songs will work well, I can’t help but think these set a high bar.
In summary:
These episodes of “Frieren” were, like the last few, lighter on material. They do offer some poignant moments, but nothing melodramatic. The animation remains solid and Evan Call’s soundtrack never gets tired. While I am sad for Sein’s presumable departure from the party, I’m happy to know that there’s a major clue to Gorilla Warrior still being alive and hope Sein manages to find him. I’ll miss the opening and ending songs too. But I’m also looking forward to this next cour consisting of the mage exam Frieren and Fern will take. I do wonder what Stark will be doing but I’ll have to wait an extra week to find out. Regardless, I’m sure it won’t disappoint.
Grade: B+
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
