Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

[pendell]

Great episode!

Non-spoiler notes.

1) Magic in the world of Frieren is based on visual imagination. If you can imagine it, you can do it. That's what makes it "magic" , I guess. It's not like science which is based on rules and observation and repeatable experiment. This is more like what happens in a dream, where "reality" is whatever the mage wants it to be, provided they can imagine it. Very matrix-like.

They keep hammering this point home over and over. It will be interesting to see how it plays out if we get a season two -- I think we've only got two episodes left in this one.

2) Combat between mages is a form of rock-paper-scissors. Some have extremely good matchups against other mages while being very weak against others.

Mild spoilers but still not going to give away too many of the events ... see for yourself!

Spoiler

Show

1) The test-giver's duplicate is indeed in the maze, and she explains it thus: "First-class mages are supposed to overcome unfair challenges." She knows its unfair, and she expects them to solve it without help from her.

2) Mimics regenerate; they don't stay destroyed permanently. So long as Spiegel is in operation, it will create and re-create duplicates of all people in the maze.

3) Frieren way outclasses everyone else here.

4) I was wrong; the ending of the last episode was somewhat deceptive. Fern did not succeed in one-shotting Frieren's replica, who blocked her attack. What happens next ... well, you'll have to see that.

5) Denken notes they have an advantage in that they, the originals, have a single advantage over the mages, which is that they can think, talk, cooperate and make plans. Thus they can force the duplicate-mages into disadvantageous matchups.

6) Our third-class mage , Ubel, is confirmed to have failed this test last time because she killed a test-giver and thereby disqualified herself.

7) Our test-giver tells us her philosophy behind the test: This is a kind and peaceful test because all you have to do is watch the backs of your fellow mages and you'll be fine. If that wasn't enough, there are the escape golems who will rescue anyone who's in too much trouble. What could be more peaceful than that?

So that confirms something I've been suspecting all along: The point of this test is to weed out the arrogant who are too proud or too untrusting to rely on others. This is the kind of match made for someone like Denken, who is determined from the start to work together with the other mages to overcome this dungeon. Not everyone was willing to go along with this plan at first, but I think that at the end of the day everyone who passed the test did so because they followed the lead of Frieren and Denken, the wisest mages present.

8) ETA: I didn't catch this the first time. There's a scene with a mimic. Count how many other dead mimics there are in the room? Mana detection ain't Frieren's weakness...

All in all, REALLY good. I may just watch it again.

Respectfully,

Brian P.