Back from its brief hiatus, Frieren returns with a more sinister tale of an unusually powerful demon.
Subjugation Request
Today’s episode is quite different from the others, serving as a setup for this new threat’s abilities and motives while also establishing Genau as this arc’s protagonist.
Genau’s subdued sentimentality toward his hometown’s destruction is the most interesting aspect about him. Frieren’s comedic brand is having very subdued characters react to threats in a relaxed manner, but Genau’s feels like it’s making a very distinct point.
Despite Himmel and Frieren’s attitudes on travelling, Frieren’s world is surrounded by a specter of death and never-ending war against an ever-present magical threat. They are the odd ones out compared to the average inhabitants of this world, and even first-class mages might just be numb to the tragedy of it all.
Though the reveal of the demon being a quadruple sword wielder was a bit underwhelming as an episode-long mystery, it was interesting to have a whole episode dedicated to planning out a raid against this alien threat. From the first few minutes, feeling like a completely different show, to Frieren saying that the hero it killed was stronger than Stark and even the collaboration of first-class mages, the episode was effectively unsettling in the way it built up the new demon.
However, there’s something more than just a fight I’m personally looking forward to this time around.
Seriously, Why Do People Live Here
Since Episode 4, Stark’s question on whether people should leave the Northern Plateau feels more and more like an intentional sticking point.
The more we learn about the Northern Plateau, the more it feels as if humans were never meant to make settlements here. Monsters are always a threat in Frieren’s world, but nothing has quite compared to the ones we’ve seen up to this point. Not only are they freakishly strong, but first-class mage barriers and stronger heroes are a requirement for the common person to survive; even the act of burial requires a massive journey to the south because of monsters being attracted to the scent of decay. (And they don’t want to cremate for some reason).
The whole arc smells like a hubris of humanity to colonize even lands of demons and monsters for the sake of expansion. How much can one major company and the first-class mages realistically do when the accommodations to live here are so logistically impossible?
It begs the question of whether there’s more going on with demon killings than we’ve previously thought.
Stray Observations:
- It was kind of strange how the demon initially looked like a Berserk snake monster and shifted to a Zoltar-looking guy afterwards. Is it actively shapeshifting during its fights, or is there more than one demon here?
- I can’t tell if Frieren saying Stark was weaker than the dead hero was shade or not.
- It’s amusing when a creative team clearly knows that they have a marketable character and spends a good 10 seconds just having two people react to how cute they look while eating.
- Do 4 blades really matter that much? We’re dealing with 4 mages who can fire orbital cannons; it doesn’t seem like a big deal.
- I’m happy for the detail that Plateau villages have barriers made and scheduled, it fixes a big issue I had with Ep 4 on the villages looking architectural inconsistent to the environment they’re in… Which makes me wonder even more if humans are just not accommodating properly here at all.
- Is it weird that the inedible bread crunching makes it somehow appetizing to me?
As season two continues, keep up with the episodes on Crunchyroll.
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