Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 23
葬送のフリーレン
Sōsō no Frieren 23

Spoiler Summary/Synopsis:

Sense, the proctor of the second mage test, tells the 18 test takers that they have to raid the Ruins of the King’s Tomb and reach the lowest level. Since this is a feat no one has ever done, she provides everyone with a golem in a bottle. When the bottle is smashed, the golem with take the person to safety. Further, Sense will also descend to the lowest level, but she will not aide anyone.

Denken suggests they all work as a team. Ton rejects this since there are no rules that require cooperation. He enters the dungeon and slowly, the mages go in small groups. Frieren and Fern head in, so Sense joins their party. The only people who agree to go with Denken are Richter, Laufen, Methode, and her former teammate, Länge.

Meanwhile, Frieren has Fern magically map out the dungeon. Taking what she learned from Himmel, Frieren relishes the exploration experience. Sense wonders if she joined the wrong party as Fern has to extract Frieren from a mimic. Elsewhere, Denken’s party gets attacked by gargoyles. The timid Länge gets caught in a trap and has to activate her golem to escape death.

Despite a few encounters with mimics, Frieren uncovers lots of treasures. Taking a break so Frieren can enjoy the loot, Sense talks with Fern about her lack of ambition despite her massive abilities and power. Elsewhere, Wirbel, Scharf, and Ehre get attacked by shadow clones of themselves. Denken’s party reach the lowest level, where a shadow clone of Laufen attacks. They defeat it, only to discover a shadow clone of Frieren in the next chamber.

Thoughts/Review

We get an old fashioned dungeon craw in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 23. As I watched, I couldn’t help but remember a video I watched ages ago, where someone pointed out that even in a magical fantasy land, dungeons like this are not practical, even if cool.

Dungeon Crawling

When playing an RPG, there’s nothing like a good old dungeon craw. I have to say, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 23 did a great job depicting this. I laughed when Frieren recalled how Himmel had to 100% any dungeon they found, rather than just do the quest and get on with it. So it was fun watching Frieren enjoying a 100% run of the Ruins of the King’s Tomb. After all, that’s what I do when I play an RPG.

I laughed at how easily Frieren gets tricked by mimics. I have to say, the mimics in this world are rather tame. In RPG’s I’ve played, they are pretty vicious. Regardless, learning how Frieren freed herself from mimics gave me a laugh. Still, despite her greed for more treasure, seeing Frieren get all the loot made me smile. I want her in my party! 😂

I’m glad Sense came with Fern and Frieren. We got to learn a bit more about Fern and why she continues to travel with Frieren. It is just a simple thing to enjoy watching someone else do something that makes them happy.

The episode ends with the shadow clones of everyone in the dungeon. It kinda reminded me of Fate/Grand Order and the shadow Servants there. That said, this is a clever way to depict Frieren battling folks when the real Frieren wouldn’t.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 23 was a delightful episode, more so for me since I’ve played computer RPG games for yonks.