Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End uses German words as names for its characters. According to my very good friend in Germany, this is a bit cringe. To them, it’s like having a character introduce themselves with a random word – like, “Hello, my name is Supermarket.” Personally, I appreciate the chance to learn a couple of German vocab words, but I can also understand my friend’s perspective.

All that aside, it’s time to continue my episode reviews for Frieren. I’m two weeks behind on this anime, but I’ll endeavor to catch up with it and the other Winter 2024 anime series I chose to review. Let’s get started.

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Episode 23: Conquering the Labyrinth

Sense (pronounced zen-ze) is the pacifistic mage who is giving the second exam for the new generation of first-class mages. It’s said that nobody ever passes her tests, but the exam she explains in this episode sounds easy enough (at first). The test-takers will proceed into a deadly dungeon called the Tomb of the King and reach its lowest floor. Whoever makes it will pass. The student mages are also given “golem bottles” as an emergency escape. When shattered, the glass bottle spawns a strong earth golem who carries away the mage who broke their bottle.

Denken wanted everyone to work together as a group for the highest chance of survival, but few others agreed. Most of the eighteen mages went into the dungeon in small groups of two to three. Frieren and Fern, for example, went together. Sense accompanies them, promising neither to assist them nor hold them back. In the end, four other mages team up with Denken: Laofen, Richter, and two female mages whose names I haven’t yet learned.

Throughout the episode, the groups of mages travel through the dungeons, avoiding traps and fighting gargoyles. One of the female mages in Denken’s group had to use her bottle, barely escaping with her life. Meanwhile, Frieren once again gets caught in a mimic’s mouth, even after using an identification spell to ascertain that it was a mimic. Frieren collects a lot of magical junk as the group continues. She seems to be enjoying herself, and Fern in turn enjoys seeing Frieren happy. Sense was not sure what to think of the oddballs at first, but she ended up appreciating their wholesomeness.

Elsewhere in the dungeon, Denken’s group encounters a nearly perfect replica of Laofen, who fights and behaves in the exact same way as the real girl. Even her mana is the same. The only differences are that she doesn’t speak and that her whole body is a muddy grayish color. After destroying the fake Laofen, Denken and company believe they can handle the replicas. Unfortunately for them, they run into the worst possible enemy: a replica of Frieren.

The episode ends there, but I wanted to comment a bit more on the conversation between Sense and Fern. It’s obvious that Fern trained intensely to become so skilled at so young an age, so Sense is puzzled by her apparent lack of passion and ambition. Fern explains that she became a mage to repay a debt to the man who saved her and gave her a safe, happy life. She didn’t think about what would happen once her goal was accomplished. Maybe, Fern suggests, she used up all her passion on that goal, leaving her empty now.

I was fascinated by this and found myself comparing my experiences to Fern in this case. Growing up, I was always a hard worker, diligent, and driven to learn as much as possible. I became the only one in my religious, home-school family to graduate from a university with a four-year degree. But what do you do after that? Now I’m struggling with agoraphobia and other psych issues that make work nearly impossible. Like Fern, I wonder if I used up all my passion by giving everything to get that science degree.

Sense asks why Fern keeps exploring magic and trying to improve. If she’s truly apathetic, would she be trying at all? Fern explains that she continues learning and adventuring because she loves to see Frieren happy. In other words, Fern is motivated by her desire to accompany a person she loves. This isn’t a bad motivation strategy. Say what you will about how you have to change for your own sake, but sometimes, motivation simply must come from your relationships with others.

~Thanks for reading~

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PATREON