Frieren: Beyond Journey's End! Episode 21 FULL LENGTH Reaction!
Added 2024-05-25 13:00:02 +0000 UTC*CULTURED HEADPHONE WARNINGS*
This episode checked off so many boxes for me: my love for "Daddy Denken" growing, my intrigue at Genau and Serie, my interest in Richter's mindset, and of certainly not least...that our granny Frieren came to DECLARE. WAR. In her own way, of course. ;)
There's a LOT to talk about with this episode, as you may have noticed on the discussion length, and I STILL didn't feel I covered it all! I can't wait to see how the rest of the season shakes out!
LINK TO REACTION: https://streamable.com/x7t2ae
Thank you for watching with me and for all the support!
Comments
I love the talk of ambition and how it affects magic usage and purpose – that’s SO interesting with the Gojo comparison! And that’s SUCH a great callback about the Episode 2 shopkeeper! I hadn’t remembered that, so I’ll have to take notes of that for a future discussion! Ubel’s complexity is SO SO SO good! I really love how she’s defied my expectations of her being more basic! The reveals with her character have been so much fun so far! It’s made her character so much more fun to watch and see what else we’re going to discover about her. And yesssss, Frieren breaking the barrier was an epic “conclusion” to the test! And Genau doubting her so much only to see her break through the “impossible” barrier of Serie – *chef’s kiss* for sure! And yes, Sense is more “open-minded” it seems than Genau, which is a fun detail. It definitely was a great wrap up for the first test. I’ll mention this in a future episode, but I definitely think that while the pacing went from “smaller moments with our few characters and fast time skips” to “smaller moments with more characters over longer amounts of time,” I still appreciate it because it’s about the “journey” and not the destination. I’m down with it! But I see what you’re saying! Thanks for the comment and kind words!
Romaniablack
2024-06-01 18:57:24 +0000 UTCI feel there’s time yet for Serie to be menacing – Frieren seemed like a bump on a log the first episode, and look how much she’s grown! I feel I can’t judge Serie too much, YET. But we shall see. Flamme is the definition of “It’s not the amount of years, it’s how you use it,” in regards to her age! :3 Ooh, I haven’t considered that about the association…hmmm…I think either she was behind all these magic associations and has just let it evolve and change around with her as the head (I’ll talk about it in the Ep 24 intro as that’s the next episode I’ll get to) but that’s an interesting point to bring up! That is a good point about fostering good relations – maybe it’s because they’re human and can be arrogant and aren’t thinking about the “long game?” Maybe it’s because they’re like Ubel and don’t give a care what folks think? *blares Joan Jett* Maybe 3 years is too long for some who might be on borrowed time or are desperate (if things are as bad in the north like Wirbel and Denken seem to think)? There’s lots of reasons for them to be justified – I guess I think of it the same way as AOT – it would be nice if we were all diplomatic and nice to one another…but we see how it is in THAT series. 😛 I LOVE Denken! Him throwing down when he realizes the magic isn’t going to solve the situation – He’s probably in my top three right now in the series. Go Daddy Denken! Thank you for the comment! 😀
Romaniablack
2024-05-31 13:03:01 +0000 UTCI was talking about her saying that she was defeated by 11 individuals who had less mana than her - she told Fern that a few episodes ago. And I'm theorizing that Serie may have been one that defeated her; please don't let me know if I'm right or not; I don't want spoilers. :) Thank you for the comment!
Romaniablack
2024-05-31 01:16:27 +0000 UTCI love Denken and Richter's dynamic so much in this! Thank you for the comment!
Romaniablack
2024-05-30 03:37:30 +0000 UTCI don't know frieren talked about opponent's who had less mana than her. I don't believe that frieren think she is superior then serie
Sergej
2024-05-28 19:28:13 +0000 UTCFrieren's strength / OP-ness vs. her ambition is an interesting aspect of the show for sure for me (outside of killing the Demon King), she's like the opposite of Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen in a lot of ways. This was brought up earlier on, in the second episode by Fern, when they were collecting the blue moon weed flowers, Fern questions the herbalist whether Frieren is being irresponsible, having so much power with the ability to help so many people, win wars, etc, yet spending so many years of her life only pursuing small, odd spells that don't seem to be in pursuit of the greater good. The herbalist kinda just replies to Fern she is too young to understand how Frieren sees the world, having lived for so long, and seen generations and generations of history repeat itself. I also like how Ubel was more nuanced than I initially thought, she came across as a dangerous murderer to me in her introduction, haha. The way Kraft saved the thugs from their death had they tried to steal from Ubel, by pretending to help Ubel and taking them down but letting them run off. Then we see Fern gets paired with Ubel and I was a little worried, thinking it's going to be pretty high stakes for Fern. But we see Ubel interact with others and her personality is developed a bit more, reigning in the craziness a bit, and making her a more interesting character. Frieren breaking the barrier was definitely a highlight of the first test for me. Genau can't envision the barrier breaking, he couldn't break it himself (as he can't envision it), says it as impossible, probably sees Serie as the hand of god, her will is the law and truth. Sense is more open to this impossibility occurring, and ponders why someone would analyze the barrier, thinking maybe it is going to be taken down. Nice wrap up to the final first exam episode, though I am a little at odds with the change of pacing from the first 16 or so episodes of the show to the slower speed of things now, with just the first of multiple exams told over 4 episodes, but you do grow to appreciate all the new characters more this way.
L Freya
2024-05-26 19:21:41 +0000 UTCThe flashbacks were interesting and Serie wasn't what i expected, less menacing perhaps. And Flamme shows that even as a short lived human with only elves around you can be the wisest one in the room, guess it comes down to how you use the years you've been given. Seems this giving one spell away has been Serie's spiel for some time but, correct me if i'm wrong, she didn't create this current magic association until 50 years ago. So having people competing to get the privilege to get that one very special spell seems new... well, Serie might have been behind several (or all) magic associations the last 1000 years and all with similar rules. I'm glad this episode also held back on the deaths but i must question the tactic (used by so many) of intimidating others by making them think you won't mind killing them. In an environment with so many deadly mages, that might have magic you don't know about, this seems ill advised. Probably only makes them more prone to strike first and/or use deadly force in (percieved) kind. If it was me i would be as friendly as possible and try to foster a sense of sportmanship and mutual respect for the process of getting to 1st class. You only need 3 years to try again. Denken continues to be great and i laughed out loud when he threw down for some fisticuffs, but as wise and calculating he seems to be he should have known better than to go after Frieren. We of course know the real reason he did it, so we get to see Frieren put the smackdown on him.
Christopher Pettersson
2024-05-26 16:13:32 +0000 UTCDenken gigachad, also Richter my goat, professional babysitter
AnNaNN
2024-05-25 13:44:45 +0000 UTC
