Sousou no Frieren – Episode 15

Episode Synopsis:

The party comes across a village where all of the inhabitants seem to have suddenly fallen asleep. Deducing the cause to be a curse from some manner of monster, they set out to eliminate it, with their own number of conscious members dwindling along the way. Sein, ultimately the last awake, drags Frieren to the source, which she had vowed to defeat: a variety of chaos flower, which he finds capable of reflecting even the divine magic at his disposal. Remembering an anecdote regarding Frieren’s dependability he heard from her companion Heiter, he uses a spell that can awaken her for a very short period of time, and his trust is rewarded when she assesses the situation and eliminates the threat in only those few seconds.

The party later reaches the mid-point to their mid-point – Vorig (on the way to Äußerst). They are immediately accosted by the local lord, who wishes to use Stark as a stand-in for his recently deceased son – they look similar in part due to a shared ancestry – to maintain morale for long enough to recruit replenishments for the other armed forces who also lost their own lives in the same recent battle. In the absence of meaningful travelling funds, Fern and Frieren pressure Stark into accepting for the payment offered, and he begins a three-month crash course in princely etiquette. Fern is dragged in as his date for a crucial soirée, which goes off without a hitch, fulfilling their obligations.

Episode Review:

Beyond Journey’s End is firing on all cylinders here.  We’ve got Sein & Frieren kicking ass in the first half and Fern & Stark being cute in the second. We’ve got world-building at a fundamental level in the discussion of curses and divine magic, and pathos as Stark and Lord Orden discuss their father-son relationships.

The functionality of divine magic as described by Frieren is particularly interesting. In addition to learning spells from the Goddess’ holy scriptures, you have to have a copy on hand (how very Dungeons & Dragons), but also the “knack” for using them effectively can’t be trained in any way people have thought to try? Is it hereditary or just random? Not only does the knack confer resistance to curses, which is a technical term referring to certain kinds of magic wielded by monsters (and demons) that are otherwise impenetrable to arcane magic, but divine spells themselves (the mechanics of which also evade analysis by arcane magic users) are effective at countering them. It’s enough to make the average citizen believe in the Goddess.

I confess that I wasn’t really sure what to make the very brief flashback to Stark’s childhood, where it looked like Lord Orden and his son were present. It doesn’t seem like either of them lets on that they recognize each other in the present, but I couldn’t tell you whether they actually do – if so, I’d wager they’re each be willing to let bygones be bygones and hoping the other doesn’t feel differently if they remember.

I found the climactic dance scene surprising well done – especially the overhead shot where they’re actually waltzing in time to the music. We’ve come a long way towards making CG unobtrusive.

Summary: