Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 04
葬送のフリーレン
Sōsō no Frieren 04

Spoiler Summary/Synopsis:

Twenty-eight years after Himmel’s death, Frieren and Fern arrive at a seaside town at the Granz Channel. The town elder offers a grimoire from the legendary human mage Flamme as payment to clean up all of the shipwrecks in the channel. Frieren agrees, surprising Fern who believes the book is fake. Frieren confirms it is fake, but she has personal reasons to accept the job.

Months later at dinner, the elder asks if the cleanup job will be done in time for the New Year’s Festival. Frieren decides to participate this time, and the two clean the shore in time. However, on New Year’s, Fern has to force Frieren to get up. Frieren isn’t impressed by the sunrise, but observing Fern’s reaction to the sunrise, she understands why Himmel wanted her to participate decades before.

Frieren and Fern visit the dwarf Eisen. She learns that Eisen and Heiter had kept in communication until Heiter’s death. Heiter had been working on locating a genuine text from Flamme and narrowed it down to the Voll Basin. As such, Frieren decides to take on the task of seeing whether this text is genuine or not. Eisen, Fern, and Frieren search. Eventually, Fern finds a giant tree with a barrier around it.

Frieren realizes that her former master, Flamme, still has her doing things even after 1000 years. After getting through the tree to the cottage inside, Frieren finds a book from Flamme, detailing where Heaven is located and that it is real. However, it means going through the cold country where the Demon King’s castle is. Upon returning to Eisen’s home, Fern talks with Eisen, who believes Frieren is a good master for Fern.

Thoughts/Review

More excellent character stories with Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 04. And I’m all down for it.

Sunrise

One of the neat things about Frieren’s journey is her returning to places she visited with Himmel and party. This continued in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 04. Frieren is on a journey to understand others, primarily the now deceased Himmel. The elf was an important member of Himmel’s party, yet she had no real interest in the party beyond the task at hand.

Himmel had learned a lot about Frieren just from observing her. Previously, we saw that he knew she wanted a pudding without her saying so. And he rightly figured that Frieren would like the New Year’s sunrise, though not for the reasons she thought. So her whole reason to visit this town on a channel was to witness the sunrise she passed on decades earlier.

And that’s what I appreciate about Frieren as a character. While she still has no interest in actually seeing this specific sunrise, she wants to see what Himmel saw in it. And indeed, as the event happened, she was unimpressed and though Himmel didn’t understand her. It was only through her observation of Fern’s reaction that Frieren understood what Himmel meant. Thus we get a really nice moment.

As an aside, there was one small change the anime made that I didn’t like. In the manga, Fern and Frieren salvage all the ship wood and bring it back to town. That makes sense ’cause it could be sold or reused. In the anime, they just burn everything, including the usable barrels.

The Master’s Master

For the second story in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 04, we learn a bit about Frieren’s female, human master Flamme. Even after 1000+ years, Flamme still had a lesson to teach Frieren. Again, we see how Frieren has never had an interest in really getting to know or understand people. She’s still kind and helpful, as seen in her joining Himmel’s party for a ten year adventure that takes less than 1/100 of her lifespan at the time.

Regardless, Flamme understood her apprentice quite well. She knew that in time, Frieren would come to realize the importance of forming relationships and connections with humans, even though human lives are like a vapor to her. Thus Frieren ended up doing the very thing Flamme knew she’d do. What makes this kinda humorous is that Frieren was there when Flamme planted the guardian seedling and set up the barrier. But she didn’t understand then. She does now.

Finally, I really enjoyed Fern’s conversation with Eisen. Fern’s able to open up a bit about her uncertainty when it comes to Frieren. She knows that Frieren only took her as an apprentice because of Heiter. Throughout their journey, Frieren doesn’t seem to show much interest in Fern, and yet gives her a birthday present every year.

Yet Eisen knows Frieren. After the celebration nearly 80 years ago, Frieren said she’d never take on an apprentice. And yet she has, not just because of Heiter, but because she is trying to connect with humans and understand them. And though their new ten year journey will be short for Frieren, Fern will have spent half her life with the elf at the end of the journey.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End 04 was another good character episode. And outside of one small quibble, it is a faithful adaptation of the manga. The episode does cut out the final bits from the manga, but I confirmed those were added at the start of the next episode, so all’s well there.