Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 10
葬送のフリーレン
Sōsō no Frieren 10

Spoiler Summary/Synopsis:

As the demon Lügner dies, he comes to realize Fern tricked him by constantly suppressing her mana. He deplores her tactics, but feels some comfort in the idea that Aura will defeat Frieren. Fern says otherwise and obliterates Lügner.

A thousand years in the past, the human female mage Flamme comes upon a devastated elf village. She finds the demon general Basalt the Throne dissolving in his armor. Flamme addresses the lone, female elf survivor about this. She decides to rescue the girl, Frieren, after Frieren expresses her belief that Flamme is a powerful mage, despite not exhibiting much of a mana footprint.

Three more powerful demons show up, demanding Frieren. Flamme obliterates them with no effort as her first lesson to Frieren. Over the years, Flamme teaches Frieren magic and why deceiving demons is so important, just as demons deceive humans. Before Flamme dies, she has final instructions for Frieren. As such, Frieren travels to a tiny farming village. Over the years, the village becomes the walled capital.

Years later, Himmel, Eisen, and Heiter seek out Frieren. She only joins their party when Himmel expresses his belief that despite appearances, Frieren is the most powerful mage he’s ever encountered.

In the present, Aura cast her spell to weigh her soul against Frieren’s. Aura thinks she’s won since Frieren’s mana signature is small. She’s stunned when Frieren stops suppressing her mana. The scales go in Frieren’s favor, so she orders Aura to kill herself. Aura tearfully complies.

Thoughts/Review

The GIF of Frieren telling Aura to off herself in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 10 is why I got into this series.

Frieren’s Past

The majority of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 10 is dedicated to how Frieren became Flamme’s apprentice. What’s interesting is that Frieren was already a powerful mage when Flamme found her. Indeed, Frieren was the most powerful person in her village. That was something I never expected when I first learned this. I figured Frieren might have been a child, not look as she does today. So in some ways, it is surprising that Frieren became Flamme’s apprentice.

I really appreciated how the episode correlates human mages suppressing their mana with demons deceiving humans. Frieren once described demons as beasts who learned to mimic human speech in order to deceive, kill, and eat them. So it makes sense that demons would want to show off their mana signature to rank higher in a beastly hierarchy.

Thus a human/elf suppressing their mana to deceive demons fools them every time. And since Frieren (and Fern) don’t leave survivors, there’s no one to warn demons about the dangers to come.

That aside, I liked seeing Flamme teaching Frieren, even though we didn’t see any combat training. What I didn’t like is that the anime changed Flamme’s residence from the manga. In episode 4, the anime correctly depicted Flamme’s home. And in the manga, it is that same residence that Flamme takes Frieren to train. So I don’t get why the anime felt the need to give Flamme a much larger, grander place to live.

Death of Demons

The first demon death in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 10 was Lügner’s. Of course, this introduces us to the notion of deceiving the deceivers. I appreciated that even though Lügner could not regenerate, she still obliterated him, just to be safe.

The next demon deaths depicted in the episode came in the past. We didn’t get to see Frieren defeat Basalt or any of his troops. I gather there was quite an army. Then later, we see Flamme effortlessly extinguish three very powerful demons without breaking a sweat. I can’t help but wonder if Frieren used this spell when she was with Himmel.

After that, Flamme annihilates three powerful demons in flash.

We then come to Aura. She’s cunning and a demon lord (dai-mazoku), if you will. She retreated in the face of defeat at Himmel’s party, which included Frieren. She’s able to read Frieren’s mana output and look for deception. However, Frieren’s so good at it, Aura fails to notice the deception. To that end, she thinks she’s won.

Then when Frieren reveals her far superior mana levels, Aura is stunned; the deception is complete. Aura has walked into Frieren’s trap. What happens next is next level and horrifying to be sure. Frieren uses Aura’s own spell to force her to behead herself. The brilliance of the series is that even as evil as Aura is, her tears, fear, and disbelief hit me. Yet if Frieren spared Aura, she’d immediately return to beheading others. So it had to be done.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review with some final thoughts.

• I really liked the time lapse that showed the tiny farming settlement grow over the years until it became a walled city with a castle.
• A question I have is why the demon king went so hard after the elves. They are all but extinct now. I get the feeling that even if all the surviving elves got together to try to repopulate, there wouldn’t be enough of them to do so.
• Another thing I liked in the episode is seeing how Frieren only joined Himmel’s party because he sensed she was WAY more powerful than she appeared.

In the end, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 10 is hardcore and awesome.