The Apothecary Diaries – 24 – Beautiful as Balsam

Having lost to Maomao, Lakan goes to Verdigris House to buy out a courtesan. As he waits for the Madame to show him her girls, Lakan thinks about his daughter Maomao. He had met her when he was wee, and always wanted her to be a larger part of his life, but he also understands why she’d hate him. He accepts she outwitted him this time, but he’ll try to connect again someday.

Lakan has his choice of whom to buy out, and money is essentially no object. When all of the courtesans are lined up before him, they all have white go pieces for heads. He’s prepared to choose Meimei, since he knows her and she’s been kind to him, but she defies the madame by opening the way to a courtesan she think will be a better match for him.

As soon as Lakan hears that familiar lullaby, he realizes the meaning of Maomao’s withered rose message, and races to the source of the singing. He’s overwhelmed with emotion upon entering the room to find Fengxian, still alive, if not so well.

After she finishes her song, he draws close to her, ignoring Madame’s warnings, places two go pieces in her bandaged hand, and asks if she’ll play go with him, and she agrees. To his eyes, she’s never looked more radiantm and like him and Meimei, I couldn’t hold back tears at their reunion.

Needless to say, Lakan buys her out, and would pay any price to do so. Hell it’s something he’s wanted to do going on two decades. Upon her return to Jinshi’s home, Maomao is given a hot meal, which she eats while telling Jinshi that her mother surely got pregnant and carried her to term because she wanted to.

Maomao also explains to Jinshi how her father cannot discern faces, except for her own and her adopted father’s (and, as we see, her mother’s as well). She admits that while she dislikes her birth father and is grateful Loumen adopted her, she doesn’t hate Lakan, and urges Jinshi not to make him an enemy.

Meimei sends a letter to Maomao informing her that her father did indeed buy out her mother, and also included a gorgeous sheer shawl. When Meimei is bought out, she wants Maomao to dance for her. Maomao decides to don her dancing outfit and the shawl and climb up to the wall to dance for her mother.

This is the long awaited dance previewed in the first cour’s OP, and it doesn’t disappoint, with a stirring insert song and a beautifully animated and hauntingly beautiful dance sequence. It is so gratifying to see this lovable goofball move so gracefully.

When Jinshi surprises her, she slips on her dress, falls backwards and nearly over the wall, but he catches her before she can. He got a report that “another weird woman” was climbing the wall, and the guard in question recognized Maomao, so Jinshi came to investigate personally.

Maomao explains the custom of courtesans dancing for one of their own when they’re bought out, but doesn’t tell Jinshi who Lakan bought out. And as gorgeous as Maomao looks both in motion and standing still now, she’s still Maomao, so she tells Jinshi that when you chop off the tip of a finger (like her mother did with her as a babe), it will grow back.

Maomao is also extremely nonchalant about the fact that her leg wound reopened again, a testament to her high pain tolerance. She’s ready to stitch it back up right there atop the wall, but Jinshi won’t let her. He gathers her into a princess carry and uses his own physical prowess to elegantly descend the wall and to his house to be treated.

While carrying her, Maomao’s face is quite close to Jinshi’s, something he’s all to aware of. She tells him she has “something very important to say”, really laying on the shoujo vibes thickly. When his eyes are trembling, sweat rolls down his cheeck, and her lips are almost meeting his, she tells him in her most seductive voice: “I’d like that ox bezoar, please.” For that, Jinshi headbutts her.

Once she’s all patched up, Jinshi again invites her to his office from her home in the Jade Pavilion, no doubt with some new palace case to investigate. In this way, we close the book on Jinshi and Maomao, but only for a little while, as the episode ends with the announcement that a second season is in production.

That makes me happier than any other second season announcement this Spring, because whatever incidents she gets mixed up in next, there’s no such thing as too much Maomao, perhaps with a little Jinshi on the side.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – 28 (Fin) – Quick Goodbyes

After passing Fern, Serie passes Denken, because while he’s old, he still has a fire burning within. Übel passes too, as does Land, both of whom only need to show up and be precisely who they are (or in Land’s case, not show up, as he’s drinking tea at home). Wirbel passes, because Serie likes how he says magic is only good for killing. Methode passes because she’s extremely capable and talented … and she thinks Serie is small and cute, which she is!

Serie admits to Sense that she didn’t pass too many mages; it truly was a “bumper crop.” After the final exam, Denken makes sure to tell Frieren and Fern that he only made it as far as he did thanks to them, and now he can finally visit the grave of his wife in his hometown.

While in the bakery with Stark trying to decide what treats to buy, Fern encounters Denken and Laufen once more, and the four have tea and cookies together, on Denken’s dime. His wife passed just before Serie  offered the opportunity to bestow first class mages with the spell of their choosing. He also only became a mage because of Frieren’s deeds in the Hero’s Party, and that encountering her during these exams reminded him that magic could be fun.

Wirbel has a little chat with Frieren, telling her how he was initially drawn to becoming a mage because of the deeds of Himmel’s party. He doubts he or his hometown would exist without that party’s deeds.

But he also doesn’t deny that it wasn’t Himmel’s big bold battles that drew him into this life, but the little things: his quieter and less exciting but still fun and rewarding adventures. It’s why even though he’s a hardened military mage, he’ll still help an old lady pick up a basket of oranges.

That’s the story of Frieren as a whole: I greatly enjoyed the big climactic battles, but they also stressed me out. I enjoyed the quieter moments and the little acts of kindness and beauty that define what it means to be a mage of peace like Frieren.

Now her student is one of less than fifty first class mages in the world. Fern may one day be more famous than her, but she’ll still remember Frieren telling her to stop and smell the roses. Serie childishly barring Frieren from the privilege-bestowing ceremony won’t change that.

Memory and history is foremost on the aged Lernen’s mind when he confronts Frieren outside the Association headquarters, and even picks a fight with her that doesn’t last. His reasoning is that he is one of the few people who remember the great mage Flamme, Serie’s first student, and he doesn’t want her to be alone in the future.

If he can kill Frieren, he’ll go down in infamy, but he’ll be remembered alongside Flamme. Frieren won’t fight him, and tells him something he may not realize: for all her petulance, Serie remembers every one of her students, and she’ll surely remember Lernen as well, even if he never etched his name into history.

Serie is basically a genie for first class mages: any one spell they desire is theirs forever. It is quintessentially Fern, then, that she chooses a spell that keeps clothes sparkling clean and pleasant-smelling. It’s here where I’m reminded that Proud Fern is as endearing as Pouty Fern.

It’s a funny spell to ask for, but also hugely practical, considering how dirty all the traveling they do gets, and how much she dislikes doing laundry. Freiren gives Fern an extra emphatic head pat not just because she chose such a practical spell, but because she chose a weird one, just like Frieren would have.

With their business in Äußerst concluded, Frieren, Fern, and Stark depart from the city to continue their journey north to Ende. We learn that while the mages were busy with their exams, Stark was making friends with virtually every damn person in the city, and receives heartfelt goodbyes from all of them.

Kanne and Lawine wait for Frieren on the bridge out of the city to say their goodbyes, promising her they’ll retake the exam in three years. They exchange matane, or see you later, rather than sayonara, a more permanent goodbye.

Fern notes that this goodbye was rather quick, just as it was with Sein. Stark also notes their goodbye with Kraft was just as fast. This too is something Frieren learned from Himmel, and follows in his footsteps as a means of remembering him and how much he meant to her and changed her.

Himmel always said quick goodbyes too, because odds were he’d see the other person again, and he didn’t want it to be awkward or embarrassing when they did. I’ll also take Himmel’s lesson to heart and trust that I’ll see Stark the warrior, Fern the first-class mage, and Frieren the legendary mage, again at some point.

This isn’t a goodbye, but a see-you-later. If by some misfortune we don’t, I’ll still treasure the time I spent watching their travels and trials. It will be impossible to forget not just the big moments, but the small, quiet, cozy, and kind ones. That desire to treasure and inability to forget can be its own kind of magic.

The Apothecary Diaries – 23 – The Undefeated Courtesan

Maomao, whose face Lakan can see clearly, has a plan to get her father to make things right. She challenges him to a best-of-five chess match, with the winner of each game choosing one of five cups containing “medicine” for the loser to drink in one gulp. Three of the cups contain a poison, and if all three are drunk by one person the poison becomes deadly.

As Jinshi, who promises not to interfere, watches, it becomes clear Maomao is no match for her father in chess, losing the first two games and drinking from two of the five cups. Lakan lets her win the third game, not willing to risk his daughter poisoning herself if the previous two cups she drank were poison.

Maomao doesn’t just use her dad’s paternal protectiveness against him, but his teetotalism as well. When he drinks one of the remaining three cups, he notes the awful taste, which Jinshi believes confirms that it contains poison, since Maomao said the poison affects the taste. But then Lakan turns red, then green, then passes out.

Turns out the “medicine” is very strong alcoholic spirits. Maomao can hold her liquor, but one drink is enough to knock out her father, who has abstained from alcohol as long as Jinshi has known him. And because she got him to agree that one player could not continue the match, he loses, and so rather than her moving in with him, he must buy out a certain aging Verdigris courtesan

We go back in time to Lakan’s circumstances. Turns out the guy doesn’t just “see” everyone as chess or go pieces because he’s a strategist with no other interest in them, but because he has literal clinical face blindness, which cost him his position as his father’s heir in his well-to-do family.

His uncle, who by the sound of his voice is Maomao’s adoptive father, taught Lakan how to discern people not by face, but by other qualities, and his interest in go and chess led to him seeing faces as those game pieces. The first person whose actual face he saw was that of Fengxian, the Verdigris courtesan renowned for her prowess in the games he loved.

Lakan would visit Fengxian to play as often as he could, which became less and less frequent as the price for her time kept rising due to demand from numerous wealthy customers. Fengxian was clearly frustrated she couldn’t see him more, and one day in the middle of a go game, her exquisitely manicured fingers reached out to meet his own.

Their hands clasp, and the next thing you know, they’re making love. Lakan makes clear that neither had sweet or honeyed words for one another, nor did they ask for or need them; it’s just the way the two of them were, as kindred spirits who were able to find pride, comfort, and love through the games they played together.

Then, suddenly, things took a turn. Lakan’s uncle was exiled from the palace and Lakan was sent abroad by his father. He and Fengxian exchanged letters for a time, but a couple of months turned into three years, and by the time he was allowed to return, everything had gone to shit.

Not only had her buyout agreement fallen through, but she had become forced to walk the streets plying her carnal trade, having lost all value to him making her pregnant (with Maomao). That far riskier line of work led to her contracting the wasting disease that has eaten away at both body and mind.

So it turns out Lakan did ruin Fengxian, but doing so was the last thing he wanted. If he hadn’t been so short-sighted about what making love to her meant, or had stood up to his bully of a father, he might’ve been able to avoid her cruel and terrible fate.

But what was done was done, and as he wakes up in Verdigris house, Fengxian’s former servant girl Meimei presents him with two “gifts” from Maomao. The first is an extremely bitter medicine, perhaps a hangover cure but also a message, as the flavor efficiently conveys her feelings towards him. The second is a dried rose, which despite withering and shrinking, still holds its shape.

I imagine this to be a symbol of Maomao’s mother Fengxian, and another message for Lakan to do what he couldn’t do in the past and buy her out. As Maomao holds a dried blue rose bloom of her own while riding in a carriage (presumably back to Jinshi’s), after defeating him in the chess and dictating what he must do following that defeat, I wouldn’t be shocked if she had nothing more to say to her biological father.

Also, while I’m glad we’re finally getting the complete picture of Maomao’s parentage, and I’m happy she was a love-child and not some kind of tactic to tank her mom’s value, with so little time left I’m hoping the focus returns to Maomao herself, along with the still very nebulous and under-defined (at least to her) relationship with Jinshi. He clearly cares about and has affection for her, so hopefully he can make those feelings clear, even if she’s not interested in romance him, or anyone.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – 27 – A Peaceful Selection

No one was killed in Sense’s second exam, but there was a significant casualty: Fern’s staff wasn’t just snapped in the boss fight; it was turned into kindling. When she joins Stark on his meditating promontory pouting and he asks what’s up, she says she and Frieren had another fight. Frieren suggested Fern replace the staff her deceased father gave her with a new one. Stark gravely acknowledges the lack of tact as Frieren being Freiren.

Another casualty was Lawine’s pride, made all the more devastating by the fact she surely hoped that she and Kanne would pass together, just like they do everything together. When Kanne asks if she needs a pat on the head, I was fully prepared for Lawine to put her in a hold and pull her hair, but instead she positions herself for the head pat!

Richter tries to forget his failure get back to the grind of working in his shop, but Denken and Laufen, who passed, make it hard. Before leaving, Denken tells him he’s still an “insolent youngster” in his eyes. When the next exam comes along in three years, Richter will surely be a stronger mage.

While Fern concedes that Frieren probably didn’t mean any harm, more frustrating for her is that Frieren still doesn’t seem to understand her (to this, Stark can only say he doesn’t understand her either). But when Fern happens to pass Richter’s shop, he tells her he’d have made a better profit if she’d just bought a new staff.

Upon returning to their room at the inn, she finds her newly-repaired staff lying on her bed, and Frieren dozing in hers. Frieren saw how her words hurt Fern, and decided to make it up to her by yet again taking the inefficient path she knows so well. Fern smiles as she tucks Frieren in, because her master does understand her better than she thought.

With a highly irregular dozen mages passing the second test, Serie is displeased. But it’s not that Sense’s test was too easy, or that forcing the mages to work together was misguided. The simple fact of the matter is that the Frieren’s anomalous presence was a spectacularly high tide that lifted more boats than ever.

While Serie’s grizzled human student Lernen typically proctors the third exam, she decides to call an audible and proctor it herself. Lernen has no objections, in particular because he wouldn’t be able to properly test Frieren, whom he can tell is suppressing her mana.

Serie praises Lernen for being the only person, other than herself and the Demon King of yore, to notice the ever-so-slight fluctuations in Freiren’s pristine suppression, which took over two centuries for her to master. Then Series scolds Lernen for being so old, yet still every bit the timid boy he was when she first took him on as her student.

Kanne is the first to be interviewed by Serie, and the moment the ancient elf senses that Kanne can’t visualize herself as a first class mage, she fails her. She also fails Dunste, Laufen, Scharf, and Ehre in short order. When it’s Frieren’s turn, Frieren already knows she’s going to be failed, because a mage of her age should be far more skilled than she is.

However, by spending so long learning to suppress her mana, she became uniquely suited to deceiving defeating demons. And Frieren also admits she was lucky because she didn’t defeat the Demon King alone. Without any of Himmel, Heiter, or Eisen, they wouldn’t have beaten him.

As for Frieren having the same “useless” favorite spell as Flamme, creating a field of flowers, it actually had an extremely crucial use: showing a young, lost, and scared Himmel that magic was beautiful, and inspiring him to seek Frieren out specifically when he assembled his party.

Frieren also doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether she passes Serie’s stupid test or not. She was beyond a “First Class Mage” before that term even existed; it’s just a label for her. Only one of her party needs to be First Class to access the northern lands, and Frieren is just as certain Series will pass Fern, for the same reason she and Fern beat her replica in the King’s Tomb.

Fern represents the new Era of Humans, and Frieren vows she’ll exceed even Serie’s expectations. That’s precisely what happens, as Serie initially thinks Fern is standing at a distance out of fear of her ridiculous mana. However, Fern isn’t still out of fear, but awe: she can sense the fluctuation in Serie’s mana. This is something not even Lernen has ever able to do, and thus was always a disappointment to his Master.

Rather than say she passes, Series asks Fern to become her student. Fern, as expected, is like “Um, no.” Serie tells her she can take her magic to new heights. Frieren told Fern that no matter how Fern responded, Serie would pass her. So Fern doesn’t beat around the bush: she’s Frieren’s student, period.

Unable to overlook such a promising mage despite her insolence, Serie turns to leave and tells her she’s passed. Fern is now officially a First Class Mage, baby. With that formality out of the way, their quest can finally proceed, though I presume a future second season will continue that tale. How I will miss this monumental first season once it ends next Friday…

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – 26 – The Ant that Slew the Dragon

So, about that attack Fern launched when Frieren gave her an opening … the replica blocked it. And so the battle continues, with Frieren and her replica flipping to the back of the playbook and executing some awesomely powerful offensive spells at each other while Fern flits around trying to find more openings. It’s stressful, but also gorgeous to behold, and at no point does Frieren seem remotely worried. On the contrary, she’s having a blast.

While she and Fern fight her replica, the others head out to face off agains the other replicas gathering at the bottom of the dungeon. They choose their targets based on how good or bad matchup they are against the replicas. Denken is quite right that their ability to work together and communicate means not only can they win, they should win. Even when Sense’s replica ambushes Richter and Lawine, and both have to break their golem bottles.

Ultimately, the only one who believes she can defeat the replica of Sense is Übel, who just shot up in the official Coolest Frieren Mages Ever ranking in my books for this reason. As Land, Denken, and Sense lament, Übel’s mind simply works differently than most humans. Growing up watching her sister cut cloth with scissors, she developed Reelseiden, a spell that cuts anything she thinks it can.

She could cut the indomitable magic cloak of a first class mage in a past test, killing him, because she saw the cloak as cloth to be cut. In the same vein, she’s able to easily defeat Sense’s replica (and Sense herself if she chose to) because hair can be cut. Reelseiden is the manifestation of her own personal intuition, which is separate from the typical rules of magic and logic. Put simply, she’s one deadly gal!

Methode makes contact with Wirbel, Ehre, and Scharf, asking them to take on Denken’s replica, while she’ll deal with Fern’s. She needs to be alone in order to maximize the sensitivity of her mana detection, plus in an adorable cutaway, we se her successfully testing her binding magic on Fern, complete with a friendly “Take that!”, Fern declaring she can’t move, and Frieren poking her face.

When replicas they’ve already defeated start to appear, it becomes clear the Spiegel can continue re-spawning them indefinitely until it is defeated. Frieren’s replica has to be destroyed soon to allow them access to the Spiegel, or everyone’s going to eventually be carted away by golems.

Rewinding back to before they confront the replica, Frieren tells Fern that she’ll give Fern the opening she needs by showing an opening to her replica, thus making it show an even bigger opening. Everything hinges on Fern being able to exploit that opening, and Frieren tells her if she thinks they can win, they can win.

Not only that, Frieren admits she “underestimates” Fern. This is the Age of Humanity, after all. Even in her relatively short lifespan, Fern can surpass Frieren one day, but again, only if she thinks she can.

Some truly heinous magic is unleashed by Frieren and her replica in the final stage of their battle, with Frieren cutting things so close her jacket is shredded and her shoulder singed. But the big opening works, and Fern is able to pummel the replica with offensive magic, blasting her arms off.

But then Fern is once again surprised by the depths and heights of Frieren’s magical knowledge as demonstrated by her replica. Fern is tossed across the chamber and slammed hard against the wall, her staff shattered … and Fern doesn’t even recognize it as a spell, nor can she detect any mana.

True to Frieren, the most powerful magic whips out is so elegant it isn’t even recognizable as magic. But as the replica prepares to finish Fern off, Frieren slips behind her and finishes her off. Fern had to take a bit of a lickin’ so that everyone could keep on tickin’.

Victory! I loathed the potential for an unaccounted-for replica to be hiding in the treasure chamber where the Spiegel resided, but Frieren’s replica truly was its final line of defense. Frieren shatters it, and all of the replicas vanish as if snapped away by Thanos. And just in the nick of time too, judging by the precarious state of the various battles.

Everyone arrives at the treasure chamber at the very bottom of the dungeon to a smiling, congratulatory Sense, who tells them all of them deserve to be first-class mages. As for the “ladies of the hour”, as Denken calls them, Fern once again watches as Frieren gets nommed by another mimic, shouting that it’s dark and scary.

But you know what? After being as badass as she was, she deserves to act a little goofy before the third and final test, for which only two announced episodes of the series remain to tell. More than anything, I’m already loathing an end to Frieren, even if it’s likely to get another season down the road. Few anime in history have succeeded so thoroughly in making magic look and feel so … magical.

RABUJOI WORLD HERITAGE LIST

The Apothecary Diaries – 21 – Getting a Good Look

With Suirei in the wind, Maomao refocuses her efforts on keeping the apothecary clean with the Quack’s health (I love their cat-and-mouse dynamic), and learns that his family is the purveyor of paper for the emperor, but that may soon come to an end. The quality of the paper has fallen, but she doesn’t know why until the good doctor says they’ve started using oxen for the manual labor.

Whipping up some quick arrowroot gruel for herself and the doc, she tells him to wet his spoon in order to thin the mixture. The same is happening with the paper: oxen secrete a lot of saliva, and if that’s somehow getting into their glue, it’s resulting in less sticky glue and weaker paper. Seven minutes in, Maomao has solved a mini-mystery that might just have saved the doc’s family’s financial future.

From there we shift to Lihaku, who summons Maomao with what she hopes will be some new news on Suirei. Alas, he’s come to her to ask what it would cost to buy out a courtesan at the Verdigris House; specifically Pairin. His is no longer mere puppy love, nor does he consider her a pet or toy; she is the only woman in his world, and he has fallen for her body and soul.

To that end, he, a military officer who makes around 1,000 silver a year, wants to know what it will cost to buy her out, because he’s heard rumors that might happen soon. Maomao identifies two major regulars of hers, none of whom are a good match, then does a quick calculation of the revenue Pairin brings in to Verdigris and doubles it.

Maomao notes that Pairin is not just a graceful dancer, but an “invincible warlord in bed”; even servant girls have to watch out when her “hunger” grows. The ballpark figure Maomao comes up with is 10,000 silver minimum, which makes Lihaku wince, but he still asks whether he has a chance provided he can get that kind of cash together.

Maomao knows Pairin better than anyone; when she was first brought in, Pairin actually nursed her with that prestigious bosom. She was part big sister, part surrogate mom, and she and the other two princesses and the old Madame all took care of her. Maomao knows there’s some maternity in Pairin despite her insatiable appetites.

With all this in mind, she takes anyone wanting to be Pairin’s partner with extremely critical eyes. In order to properly assess if Lihaku is worthy of her, Maomao has him strip. First his shirt, then his pants. The musculature is there, and Maomao has heard from her sources that he also has stamina.

When the time comes to remove “the final garment” for an assessment of his manhood, the sight of Maomao kneeling on one knee right in front of Lihaku’s crotch is what Jinshi encounters when he enters the room. Needless to say, he demands to know just what the heck is going on.

Maomao is extremely matter-of-fact, even clinical in her explanations. Nothing untoward is going on, she’s simply taking a good look at him to see “if his body is good enough.” Even Maomao can tell from Jinshi’s reaction that he’s jealous, but when she further describes Lihaku, he can’t help but be impressed with her ability to assess someone’s personality based on their body, a crucial skill for an apothecary who might have secretive patients.

When Jinshi steers the discussion to his own body, Maomao says there’d “be no point” in learning about that, because he wouldn’t get along … with her sister. Now that he knows Maomao was inspecting Lihaku not for herself but for her sister, he meets with the man in person, and even offers double what he needs to buy her out. Jinshi would be buying Lihaku’s lifetime loyalty.

Lihaku asks how he can make such an offer to someone he barely knows, Jinshi tells him “his cautious cat” considers him a solid candidate. However, Lihaku respectfully declines his generous offer, asking what kind of man he’d be to welcome his wife with someone else’s money. If he’s going to buy her out and make her his, he’s going to do it himself, the way he thinks is right, and with Pairin’s own input on the matter.

Lihaku and Maomao write to Pairin, and she writes back to Maomao that she’s still got some work left in her at Verdigris, and is still “waiting for her prince” to come. That could very well be Lihaku, and for less than 10,000 silver. As for the rumor about someone buying a princess out, Pairin says that was one of the servant girls “getting the wrong idea.”

Maomao deduces that the one talking about buying people out must have been that man, i.e. Lakan. The preview suggests the biological father and daughter will be facing off next week. Perhaps we’ll learn a bit more about what exactly he’s after, and how far he’s willing to go to get it.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – 25 – The Age of Humanity

The assembled mages are pondering how to proceed with so little information, but as others arrive, they gain more intel on the replicas, and with it the confidence to take on the Fake Frieren, who is terrifying in its stillness and patience. Dunste confirms it has no mind, while Lawine learned from her brother’s adventuring that the creature making the replicas is called a Spiegel, and is extremely weak once the replicas are defeated.

The third and most crucial piece of information is not only revealed, but demonstrated by Fern: whenever Frieren casts a spell, she ever so briefly stops detecting mana. I love how sheepish she is about it, as after all it’s a common mistake made by baby mages. But all her other strengths mean only a select few can exploit this weakness.

With sufficient intel to proceed, the group forms a strategy. Fern can tell from her smiles that Frieren is enjoying this, and she confirms that, as it reminds her of when she, Himmel, Eisen, and Heiter (if he wasn’t hung over) coming up with a plan to defeat a dungeon boss. Denken and the others are concerned that Frieren and Fern will be facing off against the replica by themselves, but Frieren has the confidence of someone from the party that conquered the most dungeons in history.

It’s rare for a show to come along that wields such mastery of restraint and elegance in the execution of its battle scenes. Frieren’s battles never last long, but they’re never too short. Instead, they are as long as they need to be. In the battles, Evan Call’s score rings out and time is compressed. So much action and invention and mayhem is conveyed in just a few brief seconds. It can jump from Slow Life to Turbo Chaos in the literal blink of an eye.

It can also make expert use of delayed gratification to lend its battles even more weight. Just as Repli-Frieren is about to zap Real-Frieren in the face with a spell, we cut to however many centuries ago when Flamme passed away and Frieren paid a visit to Serie to present her with her apprentice’s will. Now that the emperor has approved it, any human can now study magic, and Flamme wanted Serie to take over the training of imperial mages once she died.

Serie has no intention of doing so, and is angered by Flamme’s “greed”, but Frieren notes that Flamme predicted her master’s reaction with perfect accuracy. Before Frieren leaves, Serie asks her to take a walk with her. While she does, we have a glimpse of Serie’s headspace. She speaks rather coldly about Flamme, having trained her “on a mere whim”, but her attitude makes sense when you consider that the way Serie perceives time, Flamme’s entire life was equivalent to only a few days, or even hours.

I love how when they walk through a very elvish-looking forest, the spirit of a young Flamme follows Serie along, smiling, holding her master’s hand, showing her her favorite spell: creating a field of flowers. Considering how relatively briefly Flamme was alive, Serie was amazed she was able to bring magic to humanity. She warns Frieren not to neglect her training, as the “era of humans” will be upon them before they know it, and if Frieren is going to be killed, it will either be by the Demon King … or a human.

Knowing all of this entering the battle, Frieren keeps her replica focused on her as they fight to a draw. Fern conceals her mana and stays hidden until Frieren creates an opening. Replica Frieren, who has the same vulnerability as her real counterpart, cannot detect Fern’s mana until it’s too late. All Real Frieren has to do is move out of the way of Fern’s Zoltraak, which she can do because she knows it’s coming. Replica Frieren doesn’t, so it’s game over in a flash.

Elves like her predate Zoltraak, they’re unable to react to it as instinctively as a human like Fern, for whom Zoltraak is just a basic attack spell that existed long before she was born. But at the end of the day the replica lost because Real Frieren is a relic from an ancient time living in the middle of the Age of Humanity, and Fern is her adorable human apprentice who was able to best her.

The Apothecary Diaries – 20 – The Hidden Spare

Maomao’s fine, everyone! If anything, she looks even more like a chuunibyou from the future with her new face and leg bandages. But there’s no rest for the recently beaten and wounded: she must make a full report to Jinshi, Gaoshun, and Basen about just how she knew that pillar would fall.

Maomao lays out Suiren’s conspiracy, much of which I had already inferred last week. Jinshi & Co. having to catch up, combined with Maomao’s subdued reaction to learning how important Jinshi is, kind of takes the air out of the room and feels recappy, even if we needed verbal confirmation. Basen constantly angrily interrupting was also annoying.

Things pick up a bit when Lihaku, who is apparently Maomao’s police informant now, tells her that Suirei was found dead of poison in her room and is scheduled to be cremated. Before that happens, Maomao asks Jinshi to allow her to inspect the corpse, remembering the “resurrection” medicine Suirei mentioned at her hilltop garden.

Maomao opens up the coffin to reveal the corpse of an entirely different woman. The doctor who examined Suirei, and knew her personally, is shocked, but Maomao indulging her curiosity has blown this case wide open: Suirei, the one with the intellect, courage, and cojones to pull off such an intricate conspiracy, is still at large. Maomao wants to catch her so she can teach her that resurrection medicine.

However, the “Suirei incident” is swept under the rug for now, which is probably for the best considering how many people ended up dead. The episode re-focuses on Jinshi, and the revelations continue to trickle out: He’s not a eunuch, nor is he twenty-four. Rather, he’s the nineteen-year-old brother of the current emperor, and he takes drugs to suppress his manhood.

The Empress Dowager gave birth to him the same time Ah-Duo gave birth to the current emperor’s firstborn son, who died soon thereafter and resulted in Ah-Duo being unable to have any more children. The younger brother’s identity was concealed as “Jinshi the eunuch” to run the Inner Palace and ensure the emperor produced a son to replace him as heir apparent to the throne.

Thus far, the emperor has had a son with Lihua, who passed away, and a daughter with Gyokuyou, who can’t be emperor. That said, things may soon be changing: Jinshi informs Maomao that Gyokuyou’s cycle has halted, a sign she’s pregnant again. Perhaps this time the emperor will get his son and heir and Jinshi can get his own life back…maybe a life with the brilliant and cute apothecary??

Jinshi dispatches Maomao, whom he trusts over any other physician, back to the Inner Palace to tend to Gyokuyou. She’s happy to be back in a place where she doesn’t have to worry about bumping into Lakan, and seeing the emperor play with his daughter, her opinion of him as a lewd lecher is starting to soften.

What with Loulan being the daughter of a high-ranking official who is no doubt trying to ascend the ladders of power, and the loss of his longtime friend and most trusted advisor Ah-Duo, even the emperor’s got his problems, and isn’t just an old dude who loves big bazongas.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – 24 – Their Own Worst Enemies

As Denken confirms in his lovely deadpan, fighting a replica of Frieren is going to be a royal pain in the ass. It’s all he, Laufen and Richter can do to escape her wide-area initial attack, presented with the usual Frieren panache with as the three gracefully twisting and dodging the beams of magic, any one of which would be the end of them, escape golem or not.

We check in on Land and Übel after their initial encounter with a replica of Ubel, which slashed Land in the chest and stole his golem. Übel can tell he’s in a bad way, so offers her own golem, which he refuses. She then correctly surmises that this wounded Land is only clone.

She rushes out and faces off against her replica head-on, even allowing it to restrain her. Such is the trust she had in Land’s distaste for allowing anyone—even her—to die because of him. Sassiness and craftiness … I fail to see how Land hasn’t proposed yet!

Watching Übel take down her replica with an assist from Land was cool as hell, but just as enjoyable is watching Frieren continue to skip around the dungeon like she’s a kid in a candy store. Rarely is she without a big goofy grin on her face as she locates an entrance to a secret passage and reveals the best preserved stone mural of its era Sense has ever seen.

Just as they’re nearing the bottom of the dungeon and Fern is thinking things have gone far too smoothly, they encounter Denken’s team outside the main hall where Frieren’s replica is standing guard. As expected, this only heightens Frieren’s enthusiasm, as this is exactly what conquering a dungeon should be … and she should know!

The standard strategy when dealing with a superior mage is to use restraint or hypnosis magic, but when Methode, who is the best of Denken’s group at both, attempts to cast such magic on the real Frieren, she fails; Fern does not like how she hugged Frieren and pulls her away.

But while Frieren is highly resistant, Methode believes a hypnosis specialist could at least buy them some time in a battle with the replica. That specialist is Edel, who along with her party is being cornered by a replica of Sense, who unlike her template is probably not a pacifist.

Edel, who is voiced by Kurosawa Tomoyo with a slightly haughty playfulness, assesses their very bad situation, and decides to try using her hypnosis against the replica, with her two mates giving her the fifteen or so seconds she needs to capture its mind and force it to kneel.

Unfortunately, the coin toss didn’t favor Edel, as the replicas have no minds to be captured. In her moment of vulnerability Edel is stabbed through the chest by the Sense replica’s hair. Her hypnosis wouldn’t have had an effect on the Frieren replica either, even if she’d ever gotten to where Frieren and the others are. Badly wounded, she accepts defeat and breaks her bottle. The golem immediately shields her from further attacks and whisks her back to the surface.

But her two party-mates are able to fall back, and are thus still in the mix. So too are Lawine and Kanne, Land and Übel, and the loner guy who came in first. We check back in on Wirbel, Ehre, and Scharf, who manage to take out the Ehre replica by collapsing the ceiling above it. Wirbel has them working like a well-oiled machine.

That’s the key to this dungeon: teamwork, along with cool-headed analysis. It’s not impossible to clear, even with Frieren and Sense replicas stalking about. Thus far, no one has been able to defeat a replica without the aid of someone else. But when Frieren decides to correctly assume her replica doesn’t have a mind to hypnotize, brute force is the only option.

To that end, Fern volunteers to provide the brute force needed to defeat the Miss Frieren replica, and Frieren smiles with the obvious pride of a master confident her pretty young student has the strength, imagination, and resolve to prevail.

The Apothecary Diaries – 19 – A Ceremony of Importance

One morning while sweeping the yard, Maomao is approached by Lihaku. He has an update about the warehouse fire: it was apparently a distraction to burgle another warehouse of ceremonial tools. The manager of one warehouse was the older man who died of salt poisoning. The current manager got food poisoning. And the expensive pipe? The owner didn’t want it; it was given to him by a tall court lady who smelled of medicine.

Like Maomao, my first thoughts were that all these seemingly disparate mysteries she’s been investigating seem to be connected, and that Suirei may be involved. She reports all of this to Jinshi, who concurs with her theory that it could be a series of traps, and there may be more to come. When Jinshi observes that Maomao doesn’t seem that enthusiastic, he turbocharges her enthusiasm with the promise of a rare ox bezoar.

Thus motivated, Maomao digs deep into the archives, whose administrator is happy to assist her with his knowledge of ceremonial division, of which he was a part until he talked back to his superiors and was demoted. His grievance was the fact that a large, heavy pillar used to carry festive messages in the ceremonial hall didn’t seem the most structurally sound.

The metalwork inherent in the design of the pillar brings the metalworking brothers into this whole web of mysteries. When Maomao hears that there’s a ceremony scheduled for today, she suddenly realizes that this cold be a plot to assassinate the person of high noble birth performing the ceremony.

She runs as fast as her little legs can carry her. Even if she’s totally wrong, it’s worth it if she’s able to save a life and thwart the plot. But when she reaches the entrance to the hall, she’s stopped by a hulking guard. Maomao, who is a servant with no authority, can only hope she can sway the man with her words, but fails.

Then she tries to stir up enough of a commotion that it stops the ceremony in progress. She does so by accusing the guard of being in on the plot. He responds by striking her in the face with a metal club almost as big as she is. She falls down the steps in a heap, and her face immediately swells up as her nose bleeds.

Even so, she gets back to her feet, desperate to save the target of the plot. When the guard still won’t trust her word, he is brought to heel by Lakan, who accuses him of excessive force against a girl, and then vouches for Maomao. He’ll take responsibility for letting her through.

Maomao doesn’t want to turn around to see her apparent benefactor. All she knows is the timing of his arrival is far too neat to be coincidence. It also means she’s in this man’s debt, whoever he is. But for now, she takes the opportunity he gave her and rushes into the hall.

Maomao arrives and dives into the man under the pillar just in time, as one of the cables gives out and it slams to the ground, cracking the floor with its weight. It is only here and now when it is confirmed that the man performing the ceremony, and has likely performed many before, is none other than Jinshi.

He’s not just a eunuch administrator. He probably isn’t even a eunuch. But not only is Maomao punch drunk, but one of the cables badly slashed her leg. Her first thought is that she needs to stich it up, and her second thought is to ask Jinshi, now that she has him here, if he’ll give her the ox bezoar.

She passes out in his arms, and everyone around bows in deference to Jinshi as he gathers her up, carries her out of the hall, down the stairs, through various gates and down various paths to get her medical treatment. He’s not treating her like a mere servant girl under his employ, but as someone precious to him.

Whatever ceremony he was performing can wait, and his carrying of her through the palace grounds has the feeling of a different ceremony entirely. Like Maomao herself, Jinshi may owe Lakan a debt, for it was his authority that granted her access to the hall . But first thing’s first: seeing to Maomao’s safety. She saved his life at great cost to her person; now it’s his turn to save her.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – 23 – Dungeon Raiding, as a Treat

Sense, First Class Mage and proctor, explains the second exam to the eighteen remaining examinees: All they need to do is reach the deepest level of the dungeon of the King’s Tomb.

She’ll accompany them down there, so she’ll know if and when anyone accomplishes this goal. With her prehensile hair she issues everyone a bottle containing a rescue golem, which if broken will return them safely to the surface, but also result in them failing the exam.

Denken urges everyone to work together, but one particularly arrogant young mage forges ahead alone; Wirbel only feels comfortable continuing to work with Scharf and Ehre; Ubel wants Land all to herself, and Lawine and Kanne also head in together.

Naturally, Frieren and Fern pair up, and Sense decides to accompany them, assuring them she’ll neither interfere or assist. This isn’t Fern’s first rodeo, and Frieren has likely been to more dungeons than everyone else put together.

As they proceed with caution, Frieren recalls Himmel loving dungeons, specifically exploring every nook and cranny of them. It wasn’t just completionism, either: he wanted to make the most of the time he had with Frieren, Heiter, and Eisen, while also leaving room to have fun.

Frieren, who last week did what a First Class Mage does on the regular and “made the impossible possible” may be cautious in how the dungeon is explored, but exposes her weakness for suspicious treasure chests and grimoires, and ends up glomped by a mimic.

As Fern tries pulling her out, Sense wonders if she chose the wrong party to accompany. But at no point does Frieren panic; she simply instructs Fern to push her further in so the mimic will cough her up. She avoided using magic to destroy the mimic because it turns her hair into frizzy ringlets.

Besides his First Exam buds Laufen and Richter, Denken is only able to persuade two others to team up with him: Methode and Lange. Unfortunately, when their party comes afoul of some gargoyles, Lange is sealed in a room with moving spiked walls, and has to break the bottle to escape with her life.

Before that, we get some excellent offense, defense, and teamwork from Denken, Laufen, Richter, and Methode. But Lange’s quick exit is a sobering reminder that letting your guard down for only a moment could spell ruin.

Frieren and Fern apparently have so little trouble with the gargoyles the episode doesn’t bother showing them destroying them. Instead, whlie Frieren pores over all the magical junk she’s found and collected, Sense asks Fern what her deal is. For her age, Fern is the most skilled mage Sense has ever met, but “senses” not passion or determination.

Fern wonders if both of those things were used up when she was trying so hard to pay a debt to someone by becoming the mage she is. And yet she keeps going on in search of magic because watching Ms. Frieren smile makes her smile. She likes seeing Frieren happy, and it makes her happy. This changes Sense’s previous doubts about following them.

But while things seem to be going relatively easily so far, it was a given that the dungeon’s difficulty level would rise as everyone descended deeper. Wirbel, Scharf, and Ehre are suddenly ambushed by what look like clay replicas of themselves.

Denken’s party is also attacked by a copy of Laufen. It takes all four of them to defeat it, but Denken notes that he’s never encountered such a perfect copy of a mage, complete with Laufen’s looks, moves, and mana.

Of course, we know where this is headed: Laufen is one thing, but a perfect replica of Frieren? That’s a trickier proposition. Even if Denken, Laufen, Richter, and Methode work as a perfectly oiled machine, I wouldn’t be surprised if the only one who can truly defeat a copy of Frieren is the genuine article.

The Apothecary Diaries – 18 – Garden of Secrets

When Jinshi finds the meeting place, Maomao prepares to leave, and he grabs her arm, almost out of panic, and asks why. She says she’d blow his cover if she accompanied him further, and so their jaunt about town ends suddenly and without, as Maomao puts it, any “apparent emotion” despite Jinshi’s line of questioning cutting so close.

He heads to her pops’ to sleep, but wakes from a nightmare influenced by her talk with Jinshi, where she, a mere babe, is about to be stabbed to death by her own mother. While she ostensibly has the day off, her dad asks her to take some medicine to the Verdigris House.

Turns out the medicine is for a woman in an isolated annex of the house who is suffering from syphilis, and is, judging from her green hair, most likely Maomao’s mother. That’s never confirmed or stated by anyone, but why else would she dream of a similar-looking woman trying to murder her when she was a baby?

Maomao doesn’t show them this week, even when she’s bathing with Meimei and the other two Verdegris princesses, but her arm scarring looks an awful lot like the scarring on the bedridden courtesan I assume to be her mom. Despite that mark, the ladies once again relay the Old Madam’s offer to make her a courtesan, which Meimei considers a good deal.

Back at Jinshi’s, Suiren can see how Maomao’s surface lack of interest in Jinshi is affecting him, and as they share a drink during their break, Suiren tells Maomao that only categorizing people by birth and status can lead to “missed opportunities.” While Maomao is at at the military apothecary for a pick-up, she encounters Suirei, one of the court ladies Maomao believes doesn’t care for her too much.

Jinshi is paid another visit by Lakan, who calls Jinshi a “thief” for snatching up Maomao before he could. Lakan will pay whatever price Jinshi asks, but it’s clear Jinshi has no intention of selling Maomao at any price. That said, he may be hampered by what Lakan knows of his true identity, something he’s managed to keep from Maomao. When Jinshi relays Lakan’s desire to meet with her, he sees a haunting face he’s never seen Maomao make, and assures her he’ll turn him down.

When Maomao happens upon a mound of earth where an ersatz herb garden is growing, she geeks out until she’s confronted by Suirei, who moonlights as an apothecary and has been planting things there. She “jokes” that she’s growing plants to make a medicine that resurrects the dead, but Maomao initially took her dead seriously. If such a medicine exists, Maomao would want it more than anything. The question is, who does she want to resurrect?

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – 22 – Meals Should Be Enjoyed

Fern reunites with Stark to find him napping in the evening, placing her into one of her trademark sour moods. Frieren determines the best remedy is a good meal, and she knows a good restaurant from when she last visited with the Hero’s Party eighty years ago.

When Denken, flanked by a donut scarfing Laufen suggests to an aloof Richter that the three of them have dinner, I just knew they’d end up at the very same restaurant. I love how Laufen acts like his granddaughter, and how Richter folds when Denken mentions his late wife.

As for Fern’s former party members, Übel runs into Land in the street and is pleased to me him and not his clone. She’s intrigued by him and wants to learn more, restraining him with the spell she learned from Wirbel by “sympathizing” with him (and also sparing his life). I guess this is her way of finding and courts men she likes! Land may claim not to like “dimwitted” mages like her, but I’m sure he prefers her to run-of-the-mill women.

When Dunkin Denken, Laufen, and Richter enter the resturant he was looking for, Frieren is already there with Fern and Stark, both of whom are duly impressed by the quality of the food. Frieren chose this place because the chef made a promise not just to her but to Himmel that he’d keep the flavor alive for generations. When she tastes her pile of steaks, the flavor has changed, but for the better.

Frieren leaves the restaurant with a fully belly and a smiling face, but the next morning she’s as mad as ever since Frieren overslept and didn’t do the shopping (Frieren also spent most of her savings on last night’s feast). Stark attempts to mediate, as this time Fern has no quarrel with him, and she comes right out and declares that she wants to eat snacks. Sure, she’s a major pain in the butt, but we love her anyway, don’t we?!

Kanne and a glowed-up Lawine (courtesy of her doting big brothers), who I am now shipping as a couple, are out on the town when they encounter Frieren with Fern and Stark. Then Wirbel passes by, takes a look at Stark, and determines he’s a true warrior who can join him and Scharf for a sanctioned beast hunt. Stark is initially weary, but was just as uncomfortable being “surrounded by girls.”

Lawine and Kanne present Frieren with a basket of cookies to thank her for helping them pass the first test. The four hang out at the inn and have fun telling stories, and though a mention of Frieren oversleeping during the test causes Fern to make a face, they all seem to have fun, and she’s definitely enjoying the snacks.

I appreciated this break between the first and second tests, allowing us to enjoy all the new characters in the more laid-back environment of Äußerst. But if Lawine and Kanne are to be believed, the first test was a cakewalk compared to whatever the proctor Sense has cooked up for them: in the last four exams, she hasn’t passed a single applicant.