Sousou no Frieren – Episode 26

Episode Synopsis:

Fern and Frieren culminate their fight with Frieren’s clone in an explosive battle. While that is going on, the remaining contestants strategize about how to take down their own clones, which are making their way to the innermost chamber of the dungeon. Elsewhere Übel encounters Sense’s clone and engages it in combat.

Review:

So like Scott, I was under the impression that we had defeated the Frieren clone in Episode 25. Surprise, no! We didn’t, and the battle between Frierens heats up to explosive levels. Finding an opening proves difficult as Frieren goes on the assault and Fern tries to time her attack within that narrow window. Ultimately the duo has to take some serious hits to make the win happen and boy does Mappa pull out the big guns for this fight. I could feel the intensity of Frieren and her clones’ attacks as they erupted on a scale that no other mage has come close to using. Up until this point, we’ve only come to verbally understand how powerful Frieren is. Other characters and she herself state it, and we know she’s lived thousands of years longer than almost any mage, but we don’t really grasp how much power she’s coalesced in all that time.

During this battle the clone Frieren doesn’t hold back so neither can our Frieren. The result of this is incredible magic fight sequences and I honestly wish the fight had gone on longer, just because of how enthralled I was with the spectacle. The music is also appropriately epic for this fight which doubles down on how cool it is. Another very important moment that comes out of this fight is this:

We’re used to loveable, sleepy, grimoire collecting Frieren. The show has lured us into the image of her goofy self being face first in a mimic any dimwit could have identified a mile off. What we forget is that in Episode 08, the demons stared at her in awe, and described her as Frieren the Slayer and that in Episode 10, Frieren’s backstory involved wiping out a whole horde of demons who attacked her village. The weight of and skill bred from those thousands of years is there in that one shot, and it’s a reminder that Frieren is a monumental force to be reckoned with. I understand we need a first class mage certification to move the plot forward, but one look at that face should have the guards getting the hell out of Frieren’s way to the Northern Lands in my opinion.

The battle with everyone else’s clones is interesting enough but as with Episode 22, there’s so many people so we don’t focus enough on any one clone battle for long. The only thing I want to point out for those fights is that it was nice to see more people get knocked out. Prior to Test 2 starting, Lawine commented that Sense’s tests are notoriously difficult and nobody has passed in quite a while. My biggest complaint about this test is just that so many of the major characters have made it through. It’s hard to take the warnings seriously here when the story isn’t supporting that sentiment. Welp…here’s the support.

I do of course enjoy that in all of this serious business we have time for that tiny bit of levity this show is so good at creating.

While almost all of the clone battles are side dressing to the Frieren/Fern battle, I appreciate that everyone can contribute to this battle. It’s nice to see some teamwork on display with a group as a whole. There’s one match up in particular which we need to to talk about here: Übel vs Sense. I feel like I could expound on Übel at this point, but I don’t want to make this write-up too dang long. Suffice to say, damn I have done a 180 and find her character fascinating now. Yes, she’s still the murder mage trope, but I am so interested in her magic-via-psychosis.

I theorized that she basically is so confident that she cannot imagine her Reelseiden not being able to cut through whatever she sets her sights on. My husband had a way more interesting thought; She cannot physically imagine a scenario where the spell does not cut what she wants. She’s a psychopath and the rules we’d apply to common logic simply don’t apply here. THIS is what truly makes her deadly. She possesses a character trait I certainly didn’t see coming within the soft-magic rules of this show. I’m not gonna lie, I have a ton of questions about how magic works now (so…is Sense’s hair self-imbued with magic so thick that she can no longer cut it because she can’t imagine that?! But isn’t the magic in her hair made by her?! What?!?!?), but I am deeply eager to find out more.

Summary:

This episode is fantastic. It’s got worldbuilding, character building, incredible animation, and heck it even got me interested in Murder Mage. I am going to be sad when this show finishes up for the season in two episodes.

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