Sousou no Frieren

[MFauli]

This episode felt rather drawon out, but I'm probably just frustrated that I didn't get to see the Frieren-fight.

With Frieren there, I agree, it shouldn't be an issue anymore, unless the anime intends for some shocking twist a la "FREREN HAS GROWN SO POWERFUL OVER THE CENTURIES THAT ALL OF YOU BEING THERE OR NOT AMOUNTS TO LITERALLY NO DIFFERENCE!!11". I like that Fern is stepping up as the one who thinks she can 1-up Frieren in raw power ,though. We're seen Fern fighting before and raw power was exactly what she was doing. I just wonder why she thinks she can overpower Frieren.

A bit disappointed that Denken won't be the one to outsmart at least-Frieren, imo he deserves such win.

Edel being hit, was that supposed to be a scratch? It look like she got pierced which, erm, would be deadly?

Sense being copied is fucked up, lol.

Also at this point it must be noted: While Denken's original plan of going in there as a group was good, imagine what would have happened had they ALL gone in together LOL.

[DarthEnderX]

as funny as it would be to just push a mimic chest into the room and watch the clone doom itself.

It wouldn't even work though. We know Frieren can just blast her way out of them if she wants.

[Ryllharu]

Sense being copied is fucked up, lol.

Lends credence to the theory that she wants every single person to fail, regardless of what she says about how it is supposed to generate the need to cooperate.

She won't interfere or act, so even if she tells herself that she's tagging along for observation and safety, she knows she's going to be copied and present as an exceptional dangerous wild card.

All the examiners are hypocrites for saying what they do, but then acting in a manner that amplifies the failure rates.

[shinta|hikari]

Did Sense ever say that she wants them to pass? AFAIK she said she doesn't want them to die and lose potentially useful/powerful mages, so she gave them those golems.

[Kraco]

Since the mind isn't copied, those clones won't ever be as good as the original. It's not like the spells and mana pool are the only things making a mage dangerous. That being said, if Sense is a pacifist, the clone would have done nothing to stop the examinees if they hadn't attacked it first. So, yeah, the mind definitely is not copied. But then again, how smart is the monster? If it's really smart, the clone could even be smarter than the original.

It's pretty funny I still don't remember this at all from the manga.

[Buffalobiian]

It wouldn't even work though. We know Frieren can just blast her way out of them if she wants.

It's not that the mimic will kill her or ensnare her for long, but the fact that if she had the mind of a real Frieren then she'd investigate it for a book and be momentarily caught. As Denken said, they're looking for opennings. It's not going to be used as a bear trap.

Did Sense ever say that she wants them to pass? AFAIK she said she doesn't want them to die and lose potentially useful/powerful mages, so she gave them those golems.

She just says that she dislikes fighting, and that they don't need to worry, that the exam was simple, and that everyone who makes it to the bottom will pass. The she says that anyone who is aiming for the pinnacle of magehood should be able to make the impossible possible.

So this is an impossible task, by normal standards. But if you're Jesus, you'll pass.

I like that Fern is stepping up as the one who thinks she can 1-up Frieren in raw power ,though. We're seen Fern fighting before and raw power was exactly what she was doing. I just wonder why she thinks she can overpower Frieren.

They've specifically said that Fern can't beat Frieren in mana capacity or technique. Her advantages are that she's fast, she has great control of magic and she can conceal herself 100% (due to control). Frieren has specifically said that weaker mages than her have beaten her, and this is going to be one of those instances.

Fern has overpowered people because her control and speed allows her to near-instantly barrage people. I don't think her mana pool would be considered small since she overpowered Erhe, but it's certainly smaller than Frieren's. We know that Flamme's was pretty impressive, and Heiter was 5x that of an experienced mage.

[Kraco]

She just says that she dislikes fighting, and that they don't need to worry, that the exam was simple, and that everyone who makes it to the bottom will pass. The she says that anyone who is aiming for the pinnacle of magehood should be able to make the impossible possible.

That one group can actually mock her by telling her that she absolutely loves fighting and is extremely bloodthirsty. They should know, after trying to fight her clone. Better spread the news in the town as well, so that future generations taking the exam won't be fooled by her. Create a legend of Sense the Butcher.

[MFauli]

I mean, "Sense" is German for "Scythe", lol ...

[DarthEnderX]

I mean, "Sense" is German for "Scythe", lol ...

Harvest that wheat, baby!

[Buffalobiian]

E25

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So you can notice whether a mage stops detecting magic by observing at them? (Not anyone can do it since clearly Kanne etc can't) That's... interesting, and to a degree hard to make sense of.

Mana detection would have to work like active sonar for that to make any sense. If it works like passive-listenning, which is how I imagined mana detection to be like, then you can only draw the conclusion that someone isn't paying attention by watching them get caught out.

In the scene that we were show, Fern shoots and Frieren blocks. Supposedly it was observable that she stopped mana detection for a moment when she cast Shield. This also implies that mana detection is on at all times though.



what Frieren said about Zoltraak being a new spell that elves haven't yet learned to reflexively block mostly makes sense. The bit that falls flat a bit is where she says that Fern is supposed to have an advantage. Fern being young would give her in advantage in blocking Zoltraak since recognition causing input lag is what we're talking about. Recognition isn't an issue when you're firing Zoltraak. That's just spell activation time, and that's a Fern-specific advantage rather than a Modern Mage thing.

[MFauli]

Meh, they're stalling now. Just show us the battle, dammit.

[Kraco]

The mirror demon's greatest mistake obviously was to spread out its forces too thin. How could Frieren's clone alone be enough to guard the last chamber when Frieren herself is among the invaders? But maybe the mirror demon is only semi-intelligent and can't actually come up with strategies.

[Ryllharu]

At least I finally remember why I couldn't remember this exam test: It is a big drop in the writing quality of the series or full of terrible contradictions to earlier in the series.

• Gives Frieren a stupid exploitable weakness mostly for the purposes of this corner they've painted themselves into and opt to choose the laziest method to resolve it...they could have at least gone with the mimic for the same kind of distraction
• Claim zoltraak is the fastest activation time spell in existence when we've seen Flamme kill three demons at the speed of light with a much earlier spell when she first adopted Frieren
• Have Lawine arrive with some deus ex machina lore drop for the team to use ("my brother explored this dungeon before!") at exactly the right time before they make a planning error
• Have the other guy show up right on time before they make a planning error
• Have the others strategize matchups when Richter can just...MAKE A WALL to block them in safely while Fern and Frieren do their thing.
• Reveal that Methode can also heal, because her role is apparently to supplement whatever necessary utility their group needs at the moment.

The flashy animation makes up it...a little. No wonder I had no memory of it.

[MFauli]

At least I finally remember why I couldn't remember this exam test: It is a big drop in the writing quality of the series or full of terrible contradictions to earlier in the series.

• Gives Frieren a stupid exploitable weakness mostly for the purposes of this corner they've painted themselves into and opt to choose the laziest method to resolve it...they could have at least gone with the mimic for the same kind of distraction
• Claim zoltraak is the fastest activation time spell in existence when we've seen Flamme kill three demons at the speed of light with a much earlier spell when she first adopted Frieren
• Have Lawine arrive with some deus ex machina lore drop for the team to use ("my brother explored this dungeon before!") at exactly the right time before they make a planning error
• Have the other guy show up right on time before they make a planning error
• Have the others strategize matchups when Richter can just...MAKE A WALL to block them in safely while Fern and Frieren do their thing.
• Reveal that Methode can also heal, because her role is apparently to supplement whatever necessary utility their group needs at the moment.

The flashy animation makes up it...a little. No wonder I had no memory of it.

I'd at least excuse the "people appearing at just the right time" criticism. That's basically all to show how Denken was right and they should have went in as a group from the beginning.

@Kraco: Is it really a mistake? We don't know if the mirror is limited to ONE clone per person. Also whether killing a clone means it cannot just be recreated. For all we know, they managed to defeat the clone and it instantly reappears. Or a 2nd Frieren clone appears >_>

[Ryllharu]

I'd at least excuse the "people appearing at just the right time" criticism. That's basically all to show how Denken was right and they should have went in as a group from the beginning.

Normally, yes.

But they were about to go in and use hypnosis magic right when the guy arrived to tell them it wouldn't.

Then Lawine shows up at exactly the right moment to warn them that they can't wait any longer or they'll be murdered by all the other clones converging right after Sense tells them she won't reveal what she knows (even though her clone is one of the worst ones besides Frieren). Sense knew all along that there was a much stricter and deadlier time limit despite the one she initially gave them. Worse still, having them all now working together is exactly like she hoped is undermined by the fact that she won't warn them they're all about to be killed unless they use the bottles. She is still ensuring their failure despite what she says to her peers. Lawine's perfectly timed arrival counteracts the challenge Sense set up by refusing to operate as a source of knowledge.

The other wasted potential was using zoltraak when the whole arc and explictly the flashback discussion between Serie and Frieren has been about human innovation in magic. It didn't have to be Fern. It didn't have to be an existing spell like zoltraak. They established that Serie and Frieren agreed that Frieren could be killed by innovative human magic. Zoltraak is something that Frieren essential handed to humans to innovate on, where "modern magic" is something human mages have been deriving all along and more thematically appropriate for this arc.

They even added in some bullshit about how zoltraak is "more modern" than elf magic (as if Frieren hasb't been studying magic for 1000 years now) and she's not "attuned" to auto-defending it?

[DarthEnderX]

Man, they are dragging this out.

The other clones showing up should have been a non-issue. Just have Frieren and Fern wipe them out beforehand. But I guess they have to give the other characters SOMETHING to do.


A good twist now would be if the Fern clone was in the room with the Frieren clone the whole time and nobody could detect it.

[Kraco]

A good twist now would be if the Fern clone was in the room with the Frieren clone the whole time and nobody could detect it.

It wouldn't necessarily even be such a twist, considering Frieren and Fern were together all the time. We already have one precedent of three clones facing the exact corresponding three originals. Though at the same time, Sense's clone is totally elsewhere. So, maybe they are random, or maybe some of the clones are sticking together, some wandered off even if they spawned together matching the original group. Not to mention it kind of looks like not all the humans have yet to be cloned. Maybe Fern wasn't.

[MFauli]

A good twist now would be if the Fern clone was in the room with the Frieren clone the whole time and nobody could detect it.

Oh my, now I'm getting the chills, the would be awesome. Or it would be, if this was a different show where main characters could actually die ;>

Man, imagine clone Fern outta nowhere killing real Frieren. It'd be so creepy, the music suddenly faded away, absolute silence, just the sound effect of the attack, and then the camera pans to some far side of the room that's in the shadows, and we see clone Fern, just standing there. And then FINALLY real Fern would actually show some emotions at long last.

[David75]

So we got a simple yet effective strategy and not a mimic meme.
And the other mages do not get to enjoy the fight. It's probably a good idea for Frieren's long term survival that fewer people train to kill her.

Ryll is right, everything is too conveniently written. Worse though: Lawine's brother party didn't clear the dungeon even though they know the spiegel is easy to kill? How do they even know that? Since they didn't kill it, how do they know there isn't another trap or twist?

[DarthEnderX]

Man, imagine clone Fern outta nowhere killing real Frieren.

What I'm picturing instead, since they didn't show the results of Fern's attack, is that the next episode would start with the reveal that clone Fern shielded Fern's killshot. And now it turns into a more desperate battle, because their plan has failed, and now it's 2-on-2.