Title: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Vol. 3
Author: Kanehito Yamada (Story), Tsukasa Abe (Art)
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 200
Genre: Shojo, Romance
Publication Date: March 8, 2022
The Story
Volume 3 picks up with Frieren confronting Aura and her army of mind-controlled demons. Lunger returns after seemingly dying in the last volume and confronts Fern while Stark faces off against Linie. We discover the secret behind Aura’s power and her massive army… a spell called the Scales of Obedience. It weighs Aura’s soul (magic power) against her opponent’s. If Aura’s is heavier, she will mind control her opponent for eternity.
Given that information and also given when Lunger suspects about Fern when fighting her, it sets up a painfully obvious conclusion to the fight between Aura and Frieren. After saving the village, she is showered with praise and accepts a fake grimoire of Flamme’s as her reward. After this, it’s off to the Ende; however, they still have quite the distance to travel… and are caught in a blizzard. After a six-month time skip, they survive the winter riding out in a cabin with a new character… a monk by the name of Kraft. Just when you think he will join the party, he leaves at the end of winter, saying that their paths will cross again.
Next stop is the Village of the Sword in the mountain. Here, we get some background story on Himmel as well as the story of a sword that can only be pulled out by a hero. Lastly, the final piece in this volume revolves around stopping off at, yet, another village; however, this time we meet someone who is trapped in a bottomless swamp. After being rescued, he warns them of the poisonous animals on the outskirts of the village.
Stark gets bit. Because he would.
They find the town priest; however, despite knowing Heiter, he doesn’t have the means to stop the poison. That’s when the man, who is the priest’s younger brother, returns and simply touches Stark and instantly heals him. His name turns out to be Sein and the volume ends with Frieren trying to recruit him as the fourth member of their party.
Characters
There was quite a bit of character development in this volume. First, we see a bit more of the backstory between Frieren and Flamme… including how the two of them met and how Flamme began her training as a mage. This training also led right into the painfully obvious conclusion of the fight between Frieren and Aura which I didn’t care for. I love explanations AFTER the battle has been decided… not having a huge flashback leading up to the battle which spoils the ending.
Himmel’s backstory in the village of the sword was nice. We learned that his sword was a fake because he couldn’t pull out the hero’s sword. He had a strong will that believed that he didn’t need the hero’s sword to be a true hero. Even with a fake in hand, he ended up beating the demon lord and becoming a hero anyway. He proved everyone wrong who doubted he could do it!
Kraft was an interesting new character. A monk warrior who is also an elf; however, neither Frieren nor Kraft know of each other. Being older in appearance, it’s apparent that he has lived for a VERY long time. Perhaps, like Frieren, he was simply just wandering and living his life. Since the elves have all but gone extinct, it makes sense that he wouldn’t know who she was. Still, it gave her hope that there might be others out there!
Sein is your typical “leave me alone” character. He has no interest in becoming an adventurer even though he has quite an incredible gift when it comes to healing. Falling into a bottomless swamp (which didn’t really look bottomless at all) shows that he’s a bit clumsy as well. Even though he’s refusing to join them, he’s probably going to end up joining them. I can see him being the counterbalance to the overactive rather stupid personality of Stark’s.
Final Thoughts
I will admit that the action in the beginning of the volume was really good. I enjoyed the fights that were presented but the pacing came to a screeching halt after that. While the stories were nice, there was just a lot of traveling from town to town to do one thing and then leave again. I get that Ende is a pretty decent-sized chunk of land away from where they are and that this is supposed to be a journey but that journey kind of sucked the wind out of this volume.
Granted, it did set up some characters that will play a role in future volumes and did a good job at world-building but it could have used a bit more action to break up the monotony. I don’t exactly count the 1-2 pages we got to get rid of a demon around the hero sword’s cave, either.
The big cliffhanger involves whether or not Sein joins the party but we all know he will, The original group had a priest.. he is a priest. The original group had four people… they have three and need a fourth. It’s another painfully obvious conclusion which is something I am starting to notice. This series doesn’t really leave a lot to the imagination. The “tell then show” approach kind of makes things uneventful vs the “show then tell” approach which actually makes you wonder how things were pulled off. Maybe not everything will be this way throughout the series but despite getting off to a good start, the back half of this volume made this the weakest entry in the series thus far.
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This item was provided for review by VIZ Media
