Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 14
葬送のフリーレン
Sōsō no Frieren 14

Spoiler Summary/Synopsis:

Fern is angry with Stark for not buying her a gift for her birthday. Stark storms out, leading Sein and Frieren to remark that Fern went too far. Frieren talks Fern into reconciling with Stark. However, when she finds him, she retreats and consults with Sein, who’s trying to buy her a gift. After getting a male perspective, Fern accepts Sein’s gift, then seeks out Stark. The two reconcile and go off to buy a gift together.

Sein finds Frieren on a roof, observing the pair. The two talk, where the conversation steers to Heiter, whom Sein respects. Frieren’s account of the real Heiter surprises Sein. As an old man, Heiter’s adult-like behavior in taking in the orphaned Fern kinda surprised Frieren. To that end, Frieren feels that Sein will become a proper adult despite his various vices.

Frieren’s party accepts a ride from a merchant. Frieren notices the bracelet Stark purchased for Fern, stating the pattern is the same as a ring Himmel gave her. A bird monster grabs the cart and flies off, causing Frieren to lose the ring. She explains the difficulty in using magic to get the cart to the ground. However, she exits the cart, kills the monster, and “lands” the cart, saving the horse and only damaging the underside.

While they work to repair the cart, Sein reveals that the lotus flower design signifies eternal love. This news annoys Fern, but she’s more offended when Stark offers to replace it. After repairing the cart, the merchant gives Frieren a spell to find things. At Fern’s insistence, Frieren uses the spell to find the ring Himmel gave her.

Thoughts/Review

While there were two stories in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 14, they were linked via Fern’s birthday present from Stark. At this point, I don’t see any romantic notions between Fern and Stark. However, they are comrades and friends. As such, it is kind of amusing when they both discovered Stark’s gift was something given to a lover. What was more amusing was Fern getting offended at the mere notion of Stark replacing it.

The other story centered around Frieren’s ring, given to her by Himmel. The interesting element here is that when Fern picked the ring, Himmel clearly understood its significance. Thus he went down on one knee to put it on Frieren’s finger. To me, that suggests he felt some sort of romantic love for Frieren, but never did anything about it. I also got the impression that in the present, Frieren finally understood what Himmel’s actions meant.

In addition to the Himmel flashback, we got a significant flashback for Heiter. I’m glad Madhouse didn’t remove the flashbacks from 80 years prior. They are kinda weird on when they don’t do them and when they do. Regardless, most of the back Heiter stuff centered around Frieren’s time when she lived with Heiter to translate that book. I liked that Frieren saw Heiter in Sein’s character.

Finally, I love how based Frieren is when she took out the monster and managed to save their lives, only causing damage to the cart. Further, I think it is awesome that the story has these moments, such as when they had to repair the cart. That took several days, if not longer. And yet it provides some nice, slice of life moments that I really appreciate.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 14 was a lovely episode. I believe Frieren finally figured out Himmel had feelings for her. At the same time, Stark and Fern are kinda on the edge of moving beyond companions and friends, but haven’t quite figured things out. Good character stuff.