Sousou no Frieren can be a bit like that old saying about being a soldier in WW I: “Long periods of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror”. Except it’s not boredom but idyll (in narrative terms there’s a big difference). And not (usually) terror but, well- action sometimes. Threat. It’s a seemingly odd approach, but there’s a Methode to its madness so to speak. I think the oddness of Frieren’s narrative style is one of the factors accounting for its popularity, in fact. Though certainly not the only one.

Methode in fact is a character we haven’t seen since the Hunter Mage Exam arc who makes an appearance here. She’s working with Genau, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have to check my old posts to remind me who these two were exactly. But once they began talking with the main trio it started to flash back. She loves cute things, and he was one of the proctors of the exam. Genau is his usual charming self here, but he does have a somewhat more personal side leaking out because it’s his boyhood village that’s been destroyed by demons.

That main trio arrive because they were the ones who received the pigeon – and squirrel – dispatched distress signal from the Chivalric Order of Norm mercenaries who were in charge of guarding the village. Genau and Methode are already there because they’ve been out generally hunting demons, on the order of Serie. Genau plays his usual flatline demeanor to the hilt but it’s obvious he’s personally affronted by what’s happened here. He and Stark have an interesting conversation about the special precautions taken with dead bodies on the Northern Plateau. And more interestingly (with Methode), about why demons leave bodies behind when they destroy villages. I wonder of they “feed” on terror to an extent, and not just human meat – and this is the best means of cultivating it.

One thing the mages are able to determine pretty quickly is that whoever did this is still at large, because the demons Methode and Genau found on arrival were strictly zaku. Also that the villagers were killed by blades. Methode and Stark spend some time trying to recreate the sort of strikes used to determine who the enemy might be, but nothing seems to make sense. That is until a dance floor collision leads Methode to consider the possibility that the attacker was wielding four blades. If one follows the news around this series they know who that might be, but that’s a matter for next week…

These tentpole demon battles in Sousou no Frieren lack a certain dramatic tension, because when Frieren is involved we already know how they’re going to turn out (it’s the basis of the title and premise, pretty much). But they can be interesting in that the demons in this mythology are so starkly removed from any moral ambiguity – they’re just straight-out killing machines with personality but no recognizably human emotion. There are pluses and minuses to that approach, but it is at least distinct. And again, that distinctness  is one of the biggest selling points this series has going for it.