January 19th, 2025 
AstroNerdBoy Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 22
葬送のフリーレン
Sōsō no Frieren 22
Spoiler Summary/Synopsis:
Fern and Frieren discover Stark slept the day away. In order to appease the irritated Fern, Frieren offers to take everyone out to the best restaurant from eighty years prior. Elsewhere, Denken and a donut eating Laufen visit Richter at his store. Denken wants to visit the restaurant he took his deceased wife to. Richter agrees after Denken agrees to pay for his meal.
In another part of town, Übel comes upon Land. After walking and talking a bit, she casts Wirbel’s binding spell on him, revealing that she can learn other people’s spells, providing she can relate to them. Now, she wants to get to know Land better. Meanwhile, Denken, Laufen, and Richter come to the restaurant, where they find Frieren’s party already inside.
Stark opts for a large, omurice while Fern gets a Japanese cake, Japanese giant parfait, and a stack of pancakes, Japanese style (dessert). Frieren opts for a stack of steaks, thinking back to when Himmel’s party visited here after helping the owner recover a special knife. The next day, Fern is again in a bad mood. To appease her, Frieren and Stark take her to a bakery.
Lawine and Kanne show up to buy some cookies. Meanwhile, Wirbel and Scharf show up and snag Stark for a job. In Frieren’s and Fern’s hotel room, Lawine and Kanne share their cookies as thanks. A bird shows up, delivering the schedule of the second test and the name of its proctor, Sense.
Thoughts/Review
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 22 is a “take a break” episode, but it is still enjoyable just the same. Pouting Fern always cracks me up. So does accusatory Fern, whom Stark had to face at the beginning of the episode. And the solution to appease Fern is food, which also cracks me up. This also provided an opportunity for a flashback to Himmel’s time, when Frieren last ate here with his party.
The episode also attempts to redeem Richter by changing him from someone who’d kill kids, to a man who runs a magical repair shop, helping old ladies. Didn’t see that coming. In the same vein, we see Wirbel when he’s scouting Stark for a quick mission. Now that the first test is over, he has no ill will toward Fern or Frieren, thus Fern loans out Stark to Wirbel.
On the second day, when appeasing Fern with baked goods, we get Lawine and Kanne providing a thank you to Frieren. Again, we get a flashback where Frieren recalls a conversation with Himmel on why he helped people. It is interesting to see how much influence Himmel apparently had over Frieren, so that the person she is today is very much molded by him. I think that’s neat.
Finally, we get Übel and Land. I find their “relationship” to be amusing. She’s borderline psycho and aggressive. He’s ultra cautious and standoffish. It is only natural that he’d be wary around her, yet he agreed to eat with her. Is her fascination with Land simply to learn his cloning magic, or is it something else? Or both?
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
In the end, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 22 may not have had the action and flash of the previous episodes. Nevertheless, it did have a lot of enjoyable, character elements.
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Once more, you covered it perfectly. Just a couple of side notes:
~ At least for me, the ending wrt the restaurant changing flavors was yet another interesting, unexpected twist. First the flavor did change (the opposite would have been stereotypical, but at least I found myself expecting it)… then a second twist leveled it up when Frieren makes note of it (instead of disapproving that they didn’t take their promise to Himmel seriously, she’s glad).
~ Speaking of that moment, I find myself wondering: Is the impossible giant stack of steaks (like the impossible giant bowls of ramen that someone has to finish) actually an intentional element of Japanese humor, albeit one that I just don’t get? I sorta get when someone literally falls down in surprise (and similar occasions of literally-impossible/unreasonable visual humor to make an exaggerated point), but for some reason the impossibility of anyone but a hamster (who can stretch their cheek pouches to contain impossible amounts of food) consuming that much shatters my suspension of disbelief. (^_^)º
Yes. I expected that too.
Yeah, it does come up frequently. I actually thought back to “The Slayers”, where Gourry and Lina would often stuff themselves with tons of food. In my mind, I always think that warriors and heavy mana users need more calories since they burn more calories. But from what I understand, food is seen in Japan as a symbol of happiness. Heck, food gifts, especially fruit and booze, were highly prized in Japan. So I’m guessing that’s the tie-in.