Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 16
葬送のフリーレン
Sōsō no Frieren 16

Spoiler Summary/Synopsis:

Fern agrees to let Frieren visit an old dwarf friend named Voll, but only for one week. They find the nearly 400-year old dwarf outside the tiny village he has protected for centuries. Although he shows some signs of senility, he gives Stark a lesson on dropping one’s guard, sending Stark down. Frieren orders Stark to train with Voll, which he does. During the week, Frieren and Voll chat. Sein and Fern do jobs around the village.

On the last day, Frieren tells Voll that he’s the reason she got to know Himmel, Heiter, and Eisen. It was when Himmel’s party met Voll that Frieren agreed to carry Himmel’s memories into the future. Voll questions whether Frieren remembers. She’s insulted by this. However, Voll concedes that he no longer remembers the face of his human wife, whom he swore to defend the village for.

When Frieren’s party arrive at the next, hillside village, Sein discovers his childhood friend Gorilla had been there. The old lady he spent time with isn’t interested in talking. Instead, she sends the party on various fetch quests. Eventually, she takes them to a hero’s statue to clean it. There, they discover one of the unknown heroes is the elf Kraft along with a forgotten, human priest.

Sein recalls coming to this place as a child with Heiter and Gorilla. After talking to the old lady, Sein decides to follow Gorilla’s path, which will take him east. Thus he leaves Frieren’s party as they go north.

Thoughts/Review

Two stories in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 16, but both with the common theme of memories.

Forgotten Ones

For the first story in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 16, senility becomes the topic. It is clear that the nearly 400 year old dwarf Voll still has skills and such, as Stark learned the hard way. Nevertheless, age has taken its toll on the old dwarf. While the story does try to muddy the waters a bit as to whether he’s joking or not, I don’t think he is. And at the end of the story, I think Frieren comes to understand this as well.

The sad part was Voll admitting he can no longer see his wife’s face. Obviously in this world, photography is all but unheard of. As such, he has no photo of her. And I doubt he had a painting made of her. We don’t learn how old Voll was when he married his human wife. I tend to suspect it was when he was a young man. Three centuries later, and old age has all but robbed him of her image.

In the flashback of the second story, we see that time has caused folks to forget the heroic elf warrior, Kraft. It still frustrates me that we didn’t learn anything about him when he lived with Frieren’s party for six months. So when Frieren’s party has to clean Kraft’s statue, they don’t know his partner in arms. Its true that most folks get forgotten in time. However, Kraft is still alive, and he should have said something.

Still, when Frieren dies, who will remember Flamme? Who will remember the Hero’s party members? Sure, there will be statues. But think about it. Are there statues in your town? If so, do you know who they were without a placard to give a tiny history lesson? It makes you think how time erases everything after a while.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 16 with some final thoughts.

• I suspect Yamada-sensei didn’t know what to do with Sein and thus had him leave the party. I know in the manga, he does return when a story demands a powerful cleric.
• Not going to lie, it felt like a big stretch to have Heiter take Sein and Gorilla to Kraft’s statue as kids.
• Madhouse added the scene at the beginning of the episode. No big deal as it was surely for time.
• On the other hand, Madhouse added some moments that I like, but really make no sense. For example, there was the brief scene where Stark helps Fern off the fallen tree bridge. It is sweet and hearkens back to the bond they formed at the dance. However, Fern could fly over the creek. So I can’t see why she’d have trouble stepping down from the log except to have a “moment”.
• I got a kick out of the old woman making Frieren’s party do fetch quests to get information on Gorilla.

In the end, I really loved Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 16, though I admit there were a few minor issues I had.