The fundamental paradox of criticism is the reason many dislike it on principle. Where does someone like me, who could never create anything as good as Sousou no Frieren in a billion years, come off in pointing out its perceived shortcomings? I’ll leave it to others to debate the validity of that. In essence, the validity of criticism itself, because you either believe in it or you don’t. All I can do is do what I do, which is watch and read things and express my opinion on them (and write the odd piece of fiction for others to do the same).
There were a lot of things I liked about this episode. It returned to the measured pace at which, in my opinion, Frieren works most effectively. But in the end I think this whole arc is riddled with internal illogic and narrative cheats. In short I think this represents the series’ reach exceeding its grasp. This sort of storyline is difficult to pull off in an internally consistent manner and not every writer is capable of doing it. In my opinion this writer isn’t; others surely disagree, looking at the sales numbers and aggregator scores. And the hard truth is, even mediocre Sousou no Frieren is still better than most anime.
One of the issues I have with Kimetsu no Yaiba (which is the God-king of narrative convenience) is that the whole selection process for demon slayers makes no sense. Why would you eliminate the bulk of prospective candidates at the infancy of their development? And I ask here – what was the point of this whole exam? By commandeering the final phase Serie effectively made the first two phases of it irrelevant. All she has to do is use her “intuition” and tell everybody who shows up in magic town to go home except for the few she decides to pass. Nobody needs to die, and the whole exam never needs to happen. But then you wouldn’t have your shounen battle arc, would you?
The icing on the cake is that Serie is peeved that too many candidates are still alive. At best, one could argue she doesn’t care whether more of them died or just dropped out, just as long as they’re out. But she doesn’t even present a valid argument for why Sense screwed up. The fact is Frieren (and Fern) had little to do with so many candidates advancing. Frieren did drag her partners along in the first text, with Fern it’s debatable. But they didn’t help anybody in the second round. All Frieren did was take out her own duplicate – who wouldn’t even have been there if she wasn’t.
I think you could argue, in fact, that Frieren made it harder for the others to pass. The one who pulled more through was Denken, because he organised everyone and forced them to cooperate. Which I suppose bodes ill for his chances of surviving Serie’s capricious final cut. Serie’s whole attitude towards cooperation is inconsistent to begin with, but you get the point. In any case for the main party it’s over and done. Frieren fails and Fern passes and it was a fait accompli, nothing either said or did would have mattered to Serie. And it doesn’t matter to the story either, because Frieren doesn’t give a toss and as long as the party has a class one mage, the narrative can continue.
What this ep does well accentuates what a shame it is that so much of this series’ time was wasted on what it doesn’t. The debate between Serie and Frieren about the core philosophy of magic was genuinely interesting, as was Serie’s interchange with her human student Lernen (Miyauchi Atsushi) – who’s teased as being an extremely powerful mage capable of defeating herself or Frieren. The Fern-Stark stuff was hit and miss as it always is, but Denken making the rounds to try and motivate Richter to keep fighting was reflective of his innately giving nature. And the passage with Fern’s staff was a nice throwback to the pre-exam tone of the series.
In the final analysis this is really about getting a stamp on a piece of paper (or a badge or medal or whatever) so Frieren can go talk to Himmel and they can finally admit the truth to each other, so it’s fitting that this relationship had a role in the denouement here. What Serie considers a useless spell means everything to Frieren, for reasons that mean nothing to Serie. Which of them is blinded by their own prejudices from seeing the truth of it? Frieren may be weak with outward emotional but in truth she’s extremely sentimental, for better or worse, and that’s what Sousou no Frieren is really built around.
Vance
March 16, 2024 at 1:55 pmI didn’t see where it was teased that Lernen could defeat Frieren or Serie. In fact, Lernen literally said in the episode that he wouldn’t be able to defeat Frieren because he knew the full extent of Frieren’s mana in spotting a fluctuation in her mana. I’m not ruling out that there are mages that can defeat Serie given Frieren has lost to human mages before, but I doubt that Lernen could do it. This episode’s depiction that Serie’s suppressed mana output is roughly equal to Frieren’s unsuppressed mana output shows that it would take only the very best of the best of mages who happen to have a good match-up against Serie to defeat her.
Vance
March 16, 2024 at 1:59 pmAnd it’s not true that Serie would have passed Fern no matter what she said. Just because Frieren said that was the case didn’t mean it was true. Serie was wholly unimpressed by Fern and was ready to fail her until Fern mentioned that Serie’s mana fluctuated.
Guardian Enzo
March 16, 2024 at 2:21 pmNah, she was never going to fail her. She was just being petulant about it.
Craidon
March 17, 2024 at 9:59 pmI think this is the key moment. She judges Fern as scared because of her reaction to Serie’s overwhelming mana—she is just like the other candidates. But her attitude changes when Fern mentions her surprise at perceiving fluctuations is Serie’s mana. She is awed by Serie because she understands at that moment that Serie is also a man’s suppressor. And that Serie’s true mana is many times greater than Frieren’s. Fern is righted to be awed by Serie and once Serie recalibrates her judgement of Fern’ reaction based on her newfound knowledge of what Fern can perceive, she wants Fern for her own student. Remember mana suppression is supposedly a time wasting strategy that requires a hundred years to master according to Serie. And yet here is a human
mage who has mastered it by her teen years.
Craidon
March 17, 2024 at 10:13 pmAnd one other thought. Serie’s judgements are based primarily on what the candidates can imagine
because this defines the potential of their magic. Fern can perceive the fluctuations is Serie’s mana and this induces awe or fear that Serie in turn perceives in Fern. Fern, however, cannot directly perceive the extent of Serie’s mana, she can only imagine it. The fact that she is awed by Serie is the proof of it. Because she can image the extent of Serie’s mana, does this mean she can image how to defeat her? Or perhaps image how to cultivate her own mana to surpass Serie’s? I think this potential is why Serie becomes a Fern convert and covets her as student.
allen
March 16, 2024 at 7:29 pmYou could say that in normal circunstances Serie wouldnt be bothered seizing up the first mage candidates herself, that’s the job of the examiners and she is actually a good enough teacher to let them handle that.
Some points you bring, which I guess are stuff you’re not making sense with the narrative, are actually on Serie’s fault. She’s most of the time dishonest about her own feelings and what she says about her students isn’t actually how she really feels (for example, she rips Flamme’s request to lead humanity’s mages saying she wont ever do it it yet she’s there doing that). Serie says she’s stepping in to fix Sense’s mistake but you could read it as that she’s actually doing it so she could judge Frieren herself (and fail her out of pettiness). And whatever or not Frieren was actually a deciding factor in making inadequate candidates pass doesn’t matter cause in Serie’s eyes Frieren being there is a disturbance she just won’t allow anymore.
Snowball
March 17, 2024 at 1:46 amA silly conclusion to a very underwhelming arc. The only positive to this was the writer didn’t have the candidates fight a replica Fern.
Collectr
March 17, 2024 at 2:52 amI’m glad the arc is over too, and this episode was much more in form: thoughtful, wistful, a bit melancholy. Serie and Frieren are meant to be a contrast in the approach to magic. Serie sees it as power, Frieren as art. Serie is trying to delay the era of humans, Frieren to observe it, perhaps swim with it. Serie disparages Lernen for lacking a will to power, Frieren nurtures Fern for that very reason. As you say, an episode (at most two) to flesh out some of the other candidates, notably Denken and Richter, and set up the repair of Fern’s staff, then Serie’s “intuitive” selection, and then onward. But a faithful anime adaptation is a prisoner of its mangaka.
steelbound
March 17, 2024 at 5:23 pmIt was remarked by Frieren episodes ago that magic used to be way more common than it is today. There’s probably a variety of reasons, but, Serie is definitely doing her part with these mage tests. I don’t think she wants to completely get rid of all magic, but, she’s indifferent to what won’t help her reach her goals.
I also had a similar reaction to the selection process of Demon Slayers in Kimetsu no Yaiba. It made no sense; but, I think it’s partially explained by the difference in culture. I remember reading about how the pilot schools of Japan pre-WWII would start with these huge classes of recruits and whittle it down to a small handful of exceptional pilots. Which made no sense to me, they knew they were ramping up to fight a big fight and were going to need as many qualified pilots as possible and yet they only wanted the couple of exceptional pilots from each year. The rest, many who maybe could have become exceptional or at least very good with more training, were sent away.
Nicc
March 18, 2024 at 2:01 pmIt’s kind of sneaked up on me, but the season is coming to an end. There’s one more to go until the finale next week. We kick things off with Stark, whom has been doing some more “training” with the old master, but it looks like there’s nothing more from him to learn. He is approached by Fern, who he assumes that she’s mad at him again. Nope, it’s with Frieren, who seems indifferent that Fern’s staff was destroyed during the battle with clone Frieren. It’s the staff that Heiter gave to her and so it’s very significant. However, I’m thinking that Heiter probably never meant for Fern to keep it using it forever and that she would eventually move on to using a staff of her own choice. In the meantime, Denken and Laufen busy themselves in Richter’s shop. Denken gives him another round of encouragement as he’s been there before when he was younger. This time around, Laufen even offers Richter some of the treats (She refused the first time). If only they bought something too… That’s when Frieren steps in and thinks she’s there to annoy him too.
Except she’s coming to his store as a customer as she has Fern’s shattered staff on hand. It’s a lot of work to put it back together and he’d prefer it if Frieren just bought a new one (And he would have made more money that way), but he does the work. He also apologizes for calling it a piece of junk earlier. It’s all fixed up and Fern is reminded that Frieren is still trying to learn about humans, but then it turns out she wouldn’t need it for the last exam.
Serie is meeting with the other proctors and she’s not happy that this many candidates made it this far. Yeah, I don’t see the point in blaming either Sense or Frieren for this. I agree that I don’t really like how the results from the first two exams don’t matter and it all comes down to the sole word of Serie because her intuition is always correct. She also has time to diss the very first candidate she promoted to First Class mage in front of everybody, harsh. I think it’s as simple as she’s got beef with Frieren and just personally wants to fail her. Kanne, the Older Man, Laufen, Ehre and Scharf all fail the interview in short order. Then, it’s Frieren’s turn. Right, that useless, favorite spell of Frieren was everything for that. If she didn’t show that to Himmel, she doesn’t join the Hero’s Party and to meet the others, she doesn’t help to defeat the Demon Lord and to usher in an era of peace (Which is part of Serie’s beef). Frieren isn’t the mage that Serie wanted her to be.
So, she’s out, though it’s not like Frieren ever gave a hoot. Forget about 3 years, she probably wouldn’t mind if she didn’t see Serie again for 3,000 years. Fern is up next, and Serie did seem ready to fail her, until it appears that she could sense the fluctuations on Serie’s mana. Well, that changed her mind quickly. Serie offers her a chance to be her student and she quickly turns it down. Serie isn’t petty enough to fail Fern for that and so she passes and moves on to become a First Class Mage. As far as we know, she’s the first to do so. As for the others… Wirbel and Übel are probably in as Serie gets their ruthlessness. Land’s mastery of clones should be enough to get him in. I’ve been wondering if the Land we’ve been seeing is the actual Land and not just another clone. If Serie was the only one to spot that, it should impress her enough to pass him. As for Methode, we don’t know that much about her. She showed her prowess in helping coordinate the battle against the clones along with Denken and was skilled enough to survive against clone Fern. She’s a maybe, along with Denken. We’ll find out next week as this cour comes to an end.