And so the second phase of the not-the-hunter exam comes to an end. I wouldn’t quote T.S. Eliot exactly here, as there were certainly some bangs in despatching these hollow men (and women) once and for all. There was an air of whimper to it too though, for reasons I touched on last week. It just felt like this was all made to look a lot harder than it was, for drama’s sake. And that someone was always going to miraculously have exactly the right ability needed to move the plot along when push came to shove.
For all that I certainly thought the second test was better TV than the first, if for no other reason than the relative absence of Lawine and Kanne, easily the most annoying characters (well, them and and Übel) Frieren has introduced in 26 episodes. And the increased presence of Denken of course, who elevates this material quite a bit. I did enjoy seeing he and Frieren being deferred to in the end, once most of their comrades realized how much flailing they were doing. And while Frieren is the stronger mage, Denken is certainly the more natural leader. If they’d listened to him in the first place almost all of the examinees would have made the cut and this would have been over relatively quickly, but of course you don’t have an arc that way…
Of course the main event is Frieren and Fern vs. Fauxrieren, and that can only end one way just by the math of it. But we have to have preliminaries, as there are a lot of replicas out there. Denken essentially exposes the plot hole in all this by pointing out that as long as the candidates get their matchups right they basically can’t lose (and Méthode champenoise conveniently makes that easy to do). The one wild card is – as discussed in this space – Sense. She gets called out for it being “unfair” (which I pointed out) but her response is what I’d have expected – being able to handle this sort of adversity is nothing to ask of one who wishes to be a first-class mage.
Fortunately (and inevitably) there’s someone who’s a perfect matchup for Non-Sense, and that’s Übel. Her magic can cut anything she imagines it can (which is pretty silly as shounen abilities go – even Sense admits it’s basically a superpower). That included Burg, the examiner when she Hisoka’d the previous first-class mage exam. All anyone really had to do was stall for time until Frieren and Fern could take out Fauxrieren, but Non-Sense was the biggest obstacle to doing that. I would have just ignored here, but again – that’s not really narrative fiction.
Madhouse spunked most of the budget on the Frieren-Replica Frieren fight, that’s for sure. It looked great and that spoke for itself, but the mechanics of the fight are sort of interesting too. If you can get past the suspension of disbelief factor given that in practical terms the two of them couldn’t lose, it’s a bit unclear how this went down. It looks like Fern takes advantage of the aforementioned “weakness” and lops off one of Fauxrieren’s arms in a sneak attack as Frieren leaves herself open to elicit an attack on her. Then Frieren launches some kind of weird move against Fern that Fern can’t detect, and using the distraction that causes, finishes off her replica.
I just want to point out that when the manga did its first character poll (long before the anime premiered) Mimic finished third (behind Himmel and Frieren in that order). That’s glorious of course, and it leads me to believe that the whole mimic thing is going to be a running gag, as this was only the second time we’ve seen it and third place is a lot of votes…
Heatth
March 9, 2024 at 9:39 pmThe mimic was actually a running gag from the very first episode. When the Hero Party was reminiscing about their adventures they mention Frieren getting caught and later, on the same episode, during the 50 years pass montage we see a quick shot of her getting caught again. It is clearly positioned as a running gag though weirdly it got ignored until this arc.
Vance
March 10, 2024 at 3:39 amI believe whatever the replica of Frieren used on Fern was most likely a curse. IIRC from that time Sein dispelled a curse that put everybody to sleep, nobody else could clearly tell what had happened aside from Sein, who not only knew it was a curse but could detect and locate the mana of the monster that cast the curse whereas the others couldn’t, which jives with Fern’s experience of not having detected any mana from whatever was being inflicted on her.
Given that Flamme proudly stated that one reason Frieren will defeat the Demon King is her genuine appreciation of magic and that Frieren herself said that she last used this technique 80 years ago, which is when the Demon King was defeated, this is probably something Frieren does as a last resort when things look bleak, and given the replica had lost both its arms, that would qualify as a situation that warranted using it.
Nicc
March 10, 2024 at 2:14 pmThe 2nd exam reaches its climax and conclusion. I thought that the clone Frieren was taken out at the end of the last episode, but it seems that it wouldn’t be that easy. The battle certainly had a lot of pyrotechnics as the both of them pull out their most powerful spells while Fern hovers around to try to find an opening. In the meantime, the others start to do battle against their own clones. Denken has the right idea to go take the battle to them instead of waiting outside of the boss room where it would turn into a free-for-all. Methode conveniently knows where to find most of the clones and now it’s a matter of matchups. She even mentions that mage battles come down to rock, paper, scissors (Frieren adds thermonuclear warhead to that formula). Just like in sports, that makes sense. In an earlier episode, both Frieren and Fern had trouble with the Solar Dragon. If it wasn’t for Stark, they would have to “play tag” with it. She also didn’t have a way to deal with the sleeping curse from the Chaos Flower and needed Sein’s help to take it out.
The plan does seem to be working out well enough and some of the clones are defeated. Unfortunately, Lawine and Richter are taken out by clone Sense, and they are forced to use their golems to escape. Indeed, the others in the group did bring up to Sense that having her being there is unfair, which she counters that this doesn’t even count as adversity. Denken arrives too late to help out Lawine and Richter, but Land and Übel are right there. Übel insists on dealing with clone Sense, and we see why. Right, if she can visualize cutting it, she can cut it. That’s how she was able to kill the proctor who otherwise had perfect magical defenses during the first time she took the test. The real Sense already knew that the battle was over before it begun.
This episode also answered one of my questions regarding the clones. When defeated, are they gone for good or can they respawn? It looks like it was the latter as some of the clones come back. That means that Frieren and Fern better hurry up with their battle. Elsewhere, Wirbel and his group finished their battle and Methode asks them to handle clone Denken. She’ll find a way to deal with clone Fern. The real Fern is still trying to find an opening and Frieren gives her one. It’s enough to damage the clone, but then it does something to Fern. It’s either some kind of telekinesis or a curse, that Vance mentioned. That would make sense and knowing that mages don’t do that well against curses. Fern is injured from that, but that leaves an opening for the real Frieren to finish off the clone. Now, it’s just the matter of taking out the defenseless Spiegel and that was the easiest part of the battle. That’s it and the clones disappear. The clones of Denken and Fern were not factors in this test. The survivors make it down to the boss’ treasure room and they all pass. Of course, Frieren ignores the giant treasure chest in the middle of the room and goes for the mimics instead. So, they do get to keep all of that stuff, right? I wonder if there’s a staff in that pile of treasure because it looks like Fern might need a new one. As for everybody else, it’s two down and one more to go. Lawine is never going to live this down if Kanne becomes a First-Class Mage before she does. After all that has happened, now I’m expecting the third test to be a written one.
DonkeyWan
March 15, 2024 at 5:37 pmTBF it’s not her ability to cut anything that is the superpower, it’s her ability to imagine she can, i.e. her mind rather than her magic. Saying that, while I enjoyed the mage exams I can’t help but feel those were an editorial decision rather than an artistic one. What started out as a pleasant if slow-paced trundle through a fantasy landscape, then introduced the demon threat in an enjoyable if predictable manner, but for no reason other than to attain some random and completely unnecessary badge has now segued into a naruto exam. I had genuinely hoped that they were going to conjure a mimic and the final arc episode would be a replicant trapped in a treasure chest, but no, bam, splat, kablooie. Fine, but an opportunity missed imo.