Manga / Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

A journey worth remembering...^note From left: Frieren, Fern and Stark.

After a ten-year-long journey, a band of adventurers defeated the Demon King and brought peace to the world. Shortly after returning to a hero's welcome, and before parting ways, the group, consisting of human hero Himmel, dwarven warrior Eisen, human priest Heiter, and elven mage Frieren, watch the Era Meteor Shower which appears only once every fifty years, with the latter promising to meet them again and show them a better view come the next shower.

Come the occasion of the next shower, Frieren, having wandered the world to study magic in the meantime, returns to civilization, only to discover that unlike her, the world has changed and her former comrades have visibly aged, and after one final adventure to see the shower, Himmel passes away. Regretting that she didn't spend more time with her friends, Frieren visits Heiter twenty years later, who, realizing he is not long for the world, entrusts to her Fern, his adopted daughter and promising magical prodigy. Taking the latter under her tutelage, Frieren and Fern travel the world together not only to study magic, but also what it means to be human.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (葬送のフリーレン, Sōsō no Furīren or "Frieren at/of the Funeral") is a manga series written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe, which began serialization in Shogakukan's Weekly Shounen Sunday magazine in April 2020. An English localization by VIZ Media was released under their Shonen Sunday label starting the following year. The manga has an anime adaptation directed by Keiichirō Saitō (Bocchi the Rock!) for Madhouse, which aired on Nippon TV as part of the Fall 2023 anime season.

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Frieren: Beyond Journey's End provides examples of:

• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The anime adds several scenes like in Episode 1 or Episode 12 where Frieren looks longingly at a ring before it's explained in Episode 14 that it was a ring that Himmel gifted to Frieren.
  • The anime expands greatly on several action scenes, such as Fern's and Stark's fights against Lügner and Linie in Episode 9, while Episode 23 vastly expands on Denken's party's fights inside the Ruins of the King's Tomb dungeon—namely, the fight against the gargoyles and Laufen's replica. There's also the highly-regarded fights scattered across episodes 25-26, significantly expanding on the one-panel showcases of the manga.
  • Episode 24 adds a scene where Frieren, Fern and Sense discover a hidden room inside the Ruins of the King's Tomb. Frieren isn't really thrilled about what she found, as she didn't find a grimoire, but seeing Fern smile at their discovery makes her smile as well.
• Adaptational Modesty: The anime tones down some of the bustier characters (such as Fern and Methode) and removes certain suggestive artistic aspects (such as Übel's cleavage), apart from some specific comedic scenes.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Heiter had a habit of showing Frieren affection by patting her head, a gesture she claimed to dislike. In Chapter 29, a flashback shows Frieren patting an elderly Heiter on the head after they talk about who will praise him for acting like a proper adult in this world. In the present, she does the same gesture to others whenever she praises them.
• All for Nothing:
  • Heiter, now an old man, asks Frieren to decipher a grimoire that supposedly contains spells of resurrection and/or immortality, in the hopes of prolonging his life. The process takes Frieren six years (a long time by human standards, but a blink of an eye for her), during which time she also instructs Heiter's adopted daughter Fern in magic. When she finally finishes deciphering the grimoire, she informs Heiter - who by then is at death's door - that it didn't contain any resurrective or life-prolonging spells after all. It's then immediately subverted, as Heiter admits that he knew that all along, and his real objective was to trick Frieren into teaching Fern enough magic that, upon his passing, she'd be strong enough for Frieren to take on as an apprentice. Frieren is not amused by Heiter's deception, but nonetheless agrees to take Fern with her.
  • Wirbel's ambush attack and defeat at the hands of Fern's party becomes this when, returning from that, they find a stille on a tree that he captures with his binding magic.
  • Denken explains in Chapter 59 why he sought power and money. It was needed to find a cure for his sick wife, but when he received the recognition and money he needed, his wife already passed away.
  • Fass, an alcohol connoisseur, spent two hundred years looking for Boshaft, desperately wanting to know how the ancient alcoholic drink renowned throughout the world tasted. Frieren, however, knows that Boshaft was just mass produced swill that was given out during a coronation event (and the ancient inscription claiming the drink was world-renowned was little more than a trolling joke on the part of a very bored elf Frieren had met back then). Instead of despairing after finding out the drink he wasted two hundred years searching for tasted like sewer water, Fass decides to take the many bottles of Boshaft and share them amongst the townspeople to have a good laugh.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Humans see demons and think of them as being another race, like elves or dwarves, because they're humanoid and can speak. However, the fundamental difference between the races is unlike humans, demons are actually just the most intelligent type of magical beasts, and are thus natural predators of humanity. You can talk to them, but anything to do with human values, relationships or emotions is beyond their comprehension. Even when they try to play by human rules, they will always make mistakes (read: murder someone) and out themselves because they do not understand the rules or even the basic principles giving rise to the rules in the first place. For example, a little demon girl was surrounded by a bunch of villagers and managed to save her own life by looking like a pitiful child, but then she killed the kind man who vowed to take her in because she truly thought it was a necessary step to make the village fully accept her.
• Ambiguous Time Period: The series takes place in what appears to be the usual fantastical medieval times; however, upon close inspection the fashion some characters wear, specifically side-characters who aren't dressed as obviously gaudy as the main ones, are clearly from somewhere around the early 20th century, with coats, suits, shirts, pants straight out of the industrial revolution but without any technology from our times, with magic being the analogue to high-tech but society in general function as if it were medieval times, with the architecture and city politics being clear analogues to it.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • Despite the main storyline being based around the High Middle Ages, there's clearly modern cuisine all over the place, such as Fern's beloved hamburger, Eisen's traditional hamburger steaks, the filled pastries sold in Äußerst which are similar to anpan, and modern birthday cakes.
  • The Great Demon King taught Solitär the Darwinian concept of "convergent evolution", hinting he's more than what his followers and enemies viewed him as.
• An Arm and a Leg: Draht's attempts to kill Frieren with his magical wires very quickly end with her blasting both his arms off.
• Ancestor Veneration: Most dwarfs worship their own ancestors instead of the goddess, usually by praying to their humble graves.
• Anchored Ship: Himmel most certainly loved Frieren, and the story hints increasingly often it might have been (or has become) mutual, but the relationship couldn't go anywhere because of how Frieren perceives time. As an elf, she has no sense of urgency the way a human would understand it, and an elf's romantic urges are similarly slow to manifest. It is made repeatedly clear that during Himmel's lifetime even the idea of a romantic relationship with him never crossed Frieren's mind. Himmel seemingly understood this, and apart from some occasional light flirting, never seemed to really try for more, content to love Frieren in his heart for the rest of his life. Given how long elves live, their version of courtship could possibly take centuries before going anywhere, and that is simply time Himmel did not have. Notably, it is only decades after Himmel's death Frieren begins to show signs of recognizing his feelings for her and reciprocating them, as she looks back fondly on her memories of him.
• Arboreal Abode: Flamme turned her normal house into a magical arboreal house by planting a magic seed near it. When Frieren, Eisen, and Fern look for it many years later Frieren tells them they have to find a gigantic magic tree.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • In a flashback in Chapter 11, Eisen complains that they are wasting their time on silly things when they should focus on their journey to defeat the Demon King. Himmel then asks him whether he'd want a painful and stressful journey instead, which makes Eisen rethink his attitude. While he still found their journey rather ridiculous, he ended up enjoying it.
  • In Chapter 16, Frieren tells Fern and Stark that she is leaving the town because her prison guard was killed by magic and she would be blamed and sentenced to death for it. Unlike Frieren, Stark doesn't think he and Fern can handle the remaining demons, to which Frieren asks him if he'd bail just because he is facing a strong opponent.
• Assassin Outclassin': Draht is quite skilled, which makes him think he can just waltz into Frieren's prison cell and eliminate her in Chapter 15. A normal mage would have fallen to his wire trap, but Frieren is far from a normal mage and kills him quickly.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Most monsters and demons are far tougher than humans or other humanoids, so this is usually the best strategy against everything. For example, in Chapter 31, Frieren only needs one direct hit on the chaos flower's core to destroy it.
• Attack Reflector:
  • The chaos flower subspecies Sein fights in Chapter 31 has leaves that shine like mirrors. Magic attacks are reflected back in all directions.
  • In Chapter 93, Macht's memories reveal that he tried to turn Serie into gold, only to have the attack bounced back onto him because she protected herself with Mistilziela, a spell that reflects anything that is perceived as a "curse". However, Macht is able to undo the effects of his magic that is cast on himself. Denken's "privilege" for becoming a first-class mage would later be Serie's Mistilziela to give him the means to defend against Macht's magic.
• Avenging the Villain:
  • In Chapter 5, after Frieren removes Qual's seal, Qual asks Frieren how the Demon King is doing. She tells him that the Demon King is dead, causing Qual to begin his battle with Frieren and Fern to avenge his liege, though he doesn't really sound very upset.
  • When asked in Chapter 78 if Macht intends to avenge the Demon King, he denies it. He never felt any loyalty towards the Demon King and genuinely couldn't care less who killed him.
• Backup Bluff: Inverted. In Chapter 42, Fern comes to Übel's help and tells Wirbel to back away. When Wirbel asks what happened to Ehre, Fern tells him that she killed Ehre. Wirbel then retreats, since his party already failed the exam, and fighting them any further is pointless. He later finds out that Fern was bluffing. She defeated Ehre, but Ehre was left alive.
• Bad Guy Bar: Subverted. When Frieren is searching for a place to celebrate Fern's birthday while being secretly followed by Fern, she enters an underground bar filled with rough-looking men, making Fern assume the place is this. But it turns out the guys just have a Face of a Thug and it's a normal bar where Frieren gets the help she needs.
• Bag of Holding: Implied. The suitcase Frieren brings everywhere holds a lot more than it looks like it should be able to. At one point Fern is shown loading a crate bigger than the suitcase itself into it, and Stark notes in Chapter 68 that it can hold quite a bit, which Frieren comments makes it very convenient. It's also implied that this is where Frieren keeps all her grimoires and all the supplies they need. That said, the actual magic involved has yet to be explained.
• Battle Aura: For those who can detect it, mana is displayed as a coruscating glow around the body of a magic user. The bigger it is, the bigger the person's amount of mana is, although many magic users can suppress it for stealth purposes.
• Beehive Barrier: Basic modern defensive magic takes the form of hexagons tiled in a spherical shape. It can block most magic and monster attacks, but due to the high mana cost of maintaining a full barrier (to the point that even above average mage risks exhausting their mana in seconds), most mages will cast only partial barriers to block attacks as needed at the moment of impact.
• Beyond the Impossible: Some demons can sense the very fabrice of space time, and some can interact with it (via teleporting or seeing the future), but even for them actually travelling through time is regarded as an impossibility, an unbreakable law of magic. Thus when Frieren's mind is sent back in time via the power residing in a monument said to have been left by the Goddess of Creation, the demons can only conclude that the goddess herself was directly involved in facilitating the event, as only a genuine deity could have broken this law of magic. Tellingly, the power vanishes as soon as Frieren gets back to her own time, as if it was only there to begin with to fulfill the purpose of causing her trip.
• Blessing: Priests use Goddess Magic through holy scriptures, and those with natural talent are said to have 'the Blessings of the Goddess,' which also makes them resistant to curses.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Demons don't really grasp human social rules and morals and can only fake them for awhile, before they slip up and show their true natures. This is in large part because demons are not at all a social species and have no understanding of something as basic as a family unit, because they do not care for their children nor do they form groups in order to increase their chances of survival. The closest they have to real social behavior is the meritocracy between a particularly strong demon beating other demons into submission to make them follow them, and said shows of force are often based in magic power comparisons. This is why demons are always caught by surprise by mages who hide their true mana capacity: Doing such a thing would go against the very principles of what little demon society there is.
• Blunt "No": In Chapter 57, when offered to be Serie's apprentice, Fern immediately refuses.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Fern has been taught to only use basic offensive and defensive magic in battle, mostly because those spells are incredibly potent for how simple they are.
  Ehre: Her fighting style is polished and doesn't leave any openings, but it's so old-fashioned. It feels like I'm fighting against my grandpa...
  Ehre: Ordinary offensive and defensive magic. You only use basic spells, huh? Or you just don't want to tip your hand?
  Fern: I've been strictly taught to use basic magic in fights.
  • Despite studying every type of combat magic, Solitär just uses highly concentrated raw mana to create simple projectiles, since they're unblockable by any but the most powerful of mages.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • This is what Frieren does in Chapter 10. Unlike Fern, Frieren knows the solar dragon has strong magic resistances, but she nonetheless lets Fern attack it in the belief that if they do it enough they'll win.
  • The solar dragon notably does not attack the nearby village exactly to avert this. Stark is stronger than the dragon and could easily kill it.
  • In Chapter 15, after the demon Draht learns of his superior, Lügner, that Frieren is the only real threat in Graf Granat's town, he decides to quickly take action and remove her. The fact that his boss views Frieren as a serious threat doesn't caution him regarding her and he goes to Frieren's cell without permission or any real plan beyond "kill her". While trying to behead her, he turns his back to her, which quickly costs him an arm and shortly after his life.
  • Denken challenging Frieren despite being aware who she is could be seen as this. He doesn't just want to stall for time to let Laufen escape, he wants to crush Frieren and utterly fails. Frieren blocks every attack of his with ease until he runs out of mana, at which point she counterattacks and easily defeats him.
• Call-Back:
  • In Chapter 97, after Macht has turned everyone of Frieren's party into gold, Solitär mentions that she investigated the traces of the battle between Aura and Frieren way back in Volume 3. While she found many intriguing things, what most stood out for her was the fact that Frieren dispelled Aura's mind control spell, when the spells of the Sages of Destruction are incomprehensible for humanity. Frieren has already shown she can counter the Sages of Destruction. Shortly after, Frieren frees herself from Diagoldze, having learned how to dispell it after she analyzed Macht's memories.
  • Frieren notes in Chapter 53 that Zoltraak is a very new spell, so even if it's considered ordinary offensive magic for humans, Long-Lived races like elves will have to think for a moment before defending against it. In Chapter 100, Denken remembers that over 50 years ago he managed to land exactly one hit on Macht and now understands why it worked. Macht is a demon who was imprisoned and isolated for 50 years, so Frieren's reason for not being able to defend against Zoltraak reflexively also applies to Macht.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Being already quite stoic, both Fern and Frieren are capable of talking casually, even politely, to the people that are trying to kill them.
• Central Theme: The ephemerality of things and people in the world, and how they still matter regardless or even because of it.
  Stark: I've been in this village for three whole years now.
  Frieren: Not long, then.
  Stark: That's super long.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Aside from races who are stated to have naturally superior physical strength, such as dwarves and demons, humans are seemingly not so far behind them if a hard-working human truly devoted themselves to honing their bodies to become a warrior or knight. While magic users are by far the prominent cast due to two main characters being mages themselves, there are notable human legends then and there who fought purely with their physical capabilities. Himmel being Frieren's companion and former party leader was deemed a great hero for killing the Demon King along with his friends; the man known as Hero of the South was a Magic Knight who faced all Sages of Destruction in a total frontal charge, killing three of the Sages and Schlacht in that confrontation, and there's Stark who has yet to make a legend of himself but his great physical strength is already certified by killing a dragon without assistance, and aiding Frieren and Fern in several demon killings moving forward.
• Chekhov's Army: The first-class mage exam introduces a number of mages that later play much bigger roles in the arcs that follow.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • In Chapter 23, Fern asks Frieren if she has a first-class mage certificate, which they need to walk through the Northern Plateau. Frieren denies this, but she pulls out instead a holy emblem, which is so old that no one seems to recognize it. In Chapter 37, Frieren can't participate in the first-class mage exam, since she is an unlicensed mage, but when First-Class Mage Lernen sees the emblem Frieren carries with her, he lets her participate. At the end of the first exam, Genau and Sense also bring up the emblem, which reinforces their belief that the examinee Frieren is the final Great Mage Frieren.
  • In various flashbacks, Himmel could be seen hauling Frieren away on his shoulders as the Hero Party ran away from something... but currently, Frieren can fly fast enough to dodge most things thrown in her direction. It's revealed flying magic is recently developed, which leads to some trouble when Frieren gets thrown into the past and cannot fly for fear of causing too much of a butterfly effect.
• Chekhov's Skill: When Frieren first meets Fern, she notices that the girl is concealing her true mana level and implies that only high-level mages are able to do this. Frieren later uses this exact same trick to fool Aura into thinking that the Scales of Obedience will work on her, allowing her to beat Aura at her own game.
• Chest Monster: A Running Gag throughout the series is Frieren getting fooled by mimics (who look like ordinary treasure chests, but can be magically scanned to reveal their true nature) and having to be saved from being eaten by them (or at least from ruining her hairdo by getting out herself).
• Children Raise You: Heiter and Frieren were both the most immature members of the Hero's party, yet both ended up becoming parental figures to Fern and both try to act as more mature adults for Fern's sake. As Fern ages over the course of her adventures with Frieren, they develop a Wacky Parent, Serious Child dynamic with Fern acting as Cloudcuckoolander's Minder to Frieren.
• Combat Pragmatist: Hiding your actual level of mana is considered a disgraceful, cowardly technique among demons and something too inefficient to learn by mages, but it's a technique that Flamme, and by extension Frieren and Fern, are all too willing to use to deceive their opponents about their strength.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In Chapter 4, Fern mentions that Frieren frequently buys weird things that no one needs, like the skull of a monster or a clothes-melting drug. The drug appears again in Chapter 26. Frieren intends to gift it to Stark as a birthday present, to the horror of Fern.
  • In Chapter 11, Stark calls Frieren an "old hag". In Chapter 37, when Stark tries to make Fern feel bad for calling Frieren "elderly", Frieren calls Stark out for being a hypocrite, because unlike him she hasn't forgotten that he called her "old hag" once.
  • In Chapter 64, Frieren tramples on a snake while Stark and Fern keep their distance from it out of fear. It's the same kind of snake that almost killed Stark back in Chapter 27.
  • In Chapter 116, it is noted that at the time of the Hero Party's journey, Goddess spells like Three Spears of the Goddess and the curse-dispelling Awakening were only recently discovered. Sein first used both of these spells in the present in Chapter 31.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: At the climax of the Golden Land arc, after Fern is freed from the effects of Macht's curse, she kills Solitär, who had Frieren on the ropes, with an ultra-long range compressed Zoltraak powerful enough to penetrate Solitär's defenses from outside of the demon's mana detection range.
• Crippling Overspecialization
  • Most demons study one type of magic and one type of magic only. Over the long years they become masters at their one spell and are capable of feats too advanced for human mages to truly understand. However, if their one ability happens to not work for whatever reason, they're often kind of screwed: Once Zoltraak was reverse engineered and defense spells improved to deal with it, Qual went from one of the deadliest mages alive to mere fodder while Aura's elite minions similarly ran out of options once their abilities were figured out.
  • Modern offensive magic has slowly been specialized to be more efficient rather than more powerful, such as using surrounding physical materials as projectiles to increase the power without using up as much energy. This contrasts defensive magic genuinely growing more powerful and complex with both approaches being the result of magic evolving in a situation of constant warfare with demons. However, in the absence of suitable materials, a mage can quickly becoming crippled without more flexible attack types, such as Frieren's partners in the first exam being completely useless when there is no large sources of water nearby. This is one reason Frieren has instructed Fern to stick to "basic attack magic" like Zoltraak variants, which are quick, powerful and do not rely on favorable terrain. It may not have the raw power of having a lake dropped on you, but it also doesn't need you to fight next to a lake to use it.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The first-class mages under Serie's tutelage all wear mostly-black uniforms. Incidentally, Fern, having become a first-class mage after the exam, also wears a black dress, but she rejected Serie's offer to be her disciple and usually covers her upper body with a white jacket. Lernen, during his unofficial foray into Weise for Denken's sake (most definitely unsanctioned by Serie), also cast aside his black uniform and wore light-colored clothing instead.
  • The anime changes the uniforms' colour into royal blue.
• Dawn of an Era: This is how the story begins. With the Demon King dead, the other races are living in relative peace, and an Era Meteor Shower happens right after. In a peaceful era, most of the tasks that are given to Frieren and Fern are of mundane nature like helping harvesting vegetables or de-rust statues. Moreover, the events of Frieren's second journey are repeatedly indicated to be the true start of the Age of Humans, wherein the human race will prosper and grow in power to overtake both elves and demons.
• Description Cut: During the second exam, when only a few mages follow Denken's suggestion to take on the dungeon as a group, Richter says that at least the few mages who listened to Denken proved to be the smartest and they won't be dragged down some idiot who would fall for a mimic, with Denken replying that no one that stupid would qualify to take the exam to begin with. Of course, the scene immediately cuts to Frieren about to open a chest while ignoring Fern's warning that the chest it's actually a mimic.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • In Chapter 22, Aura is defeated because she was under the belief that Frieren couldn't possibly have more mana than her. Like many demons before her, she can't fathom that Frieren would suppress her mana her entire life, which ends with Frieren taking control of Aura's body and ordering her to kill herself.
  • In Chapter 109, Zart couldn't possibly expect Frieren to come from the future. All of his attacks are harmless against her and he dies quickly to one well-aimed Zoltraak after she flies up to him.
• Double-Meaning Title:
  • "Sousou no Frieren" can be read as both "Frieren at the Funeral", fitting for the story of a girl who has lost two friends recently, and "Frieren, the Undertaker", the title Frieren has received from the demons for her power and history of defeating demons.
  • One chapter's title is "Draw", which has two notable definitions: an outcome with no clear winner, and the opening action of a Single-Stroke Battle. It turns out that Denken deals a mortal wound to Macht while Fern kills Solitär with a Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind, securing the heroes' victory over the two extremely powerful demons, which makes the first definition a sort of Red Herring (though Denken calls his fight a draw because he was wounded to the point of collapsing, and the dying but still-stand Macht could have easily killed him at this time if he wanted to). "Draw" can also be used to refer the motion of drawing a weapon. In Japanese martial arts, there is a move in which the sword is drawn and used in a blindingly fast strike simultaneously. This "Battoujutsu" is famous for purportedly ending sword duels in a single stroke. So this chapter's title might refer to this, instead.
• Dragon Their Feet: Frieren and Fern defeat Qual and Aura, a powerful demon mage and one of the Demon King's seven generals, respectively, around 80 years after the Demon King has been defeated by the Hero's party. Qual had to be defeated later because at the time the Hero's party fought him, he was too strong for them, so they sealed him. While Aura was also defeated by the Hero's party, she fled and hid herself with her forces, and only returned after Himmel's death. Later on, when they reach the Northern Plateau, they also get rid of Macht, the last and strongest Sage of Destruction.
• Dying Race: Frieren considers elves to very likely be this, due to them lacking reproductive urges and the extermination campaign the Demon King initiated against them a thousand years ago. Though she barely minds it, nor do any of the other elves encountered care enough to try and do anything about it. With how long elves live, it could be tens of thousands of years before the last of them die out anyway, which seems to be part of why none of them can be bothered to care. The process has been going on for a long time as well: The number of elves left alive now is such that centuries can pass without one meeting another, but even a thousand years ago there were only small villages (though these villages not being depicted as rare, unheard of things suggests that back then elves were not considered a dying race). Going back from there, if you read between the lines, at some point in the past it's implied they had a great civilization. However, no one remembers it apart from perhaps a few individuals like Kraft and Serie (the latter of whom is implied to have lived in a time that predated the forming of human civilization).
• Early-Installment Weirdness: A few events from early in the series contradict rules that get established later on.
  • At the start of the series Himmel keeps a shadow dragon's horn in his house for some fifty years. It's later established that dragons, like all other true monsters, dissolve away into mana particles upon death and leave no body parts behind.
  • In one early chapter, Frieren and Fern clean up a beach full of shipwrecks. At points this involves them working together to levitate an entire ship out of the water and onto the beach with no problem. It's later explained that levitation/flight magic is not truly understood by non-demon mages, and that due to this things larger than a human can only be made to fly for several seconds at most.
• Escape Rope: During the second first-class mage exam, each mage is given a jar with a miniature golem inside. Breaking it will make the golem grow and carry its owner to safety out of the dungeon, being strong and fast enough to survive traps and attackers. It can even heal.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: It's not just that demons are fundamentally aggressive or vicious creatures but rather that they simply don't understand the values that humans instinctively recognize, even if they don't follow them. They're not stupid and are capable of parroting emotionally filled words, but they don't actually know why they work.
• Extra-Long Episode: The "first" episode of the anime adaptation is actually the first four episodes put together, as they all make the prologue and set up the premise of the story.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • Most of the continent in the present day is inspired by Germany, with the most obvious sign being the names of most characters, who have a Meaningful Name in German. Other Germanic influences include the naming convention of the various towns and regions, the half-timbered buildings in every town they visit, and even traditional German foods such as pretzels.
  • 1,000 years in the past, however, the world looks like it came straight from Ancient Greece from the togas to the marble architecture.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: The story begins with the Hero's party returning to their homeland after spending 10 years in an adventure where they saved the world by defeating the Demon King. They all went their separate ways, with Frieren not meeting them again for 50 years, due to her Time Dissonance.
• First-Person Dying Perspective: The anime version of Aura's Psychic-Assisted Suicide via decapitation shows her last moments from her severed head's POV.
• Flashback B-Plot: The series constantly has flashbacks to Frieren's adventure with the Hero's Party or her time with her mentor Flamme, with the events often paralleling what's going on at the present.
• Flashback Echo: Esentially every episode there are flashback echos that show Frieren (or another character) that events of their past are just like the events of today. The "nostalgic" variation is particularly prevalent, with Frieren experiencing things that reminds her of her past adventures when Himmel said something similar. This sometimes drifts into the absurd when characters quote exact lines from flashback moments.
• Foreshadowing: Due to her immense knowledge of magic, Frieren usually displays a lot of other characters' signature spells before they're properly introduced.
  • In the anime adaptation, Qual is surprised upon seeing Frieren using magic to fly. Freiren explains much later that Flight magic is a recent discovery that human mage made, as previously only demons knew how to fly via magic, hence Qual's surprise.
  • During the siege of the Granat domain by Aura's forces, Frieren brutally mutilated Draht with close-range cleaving magic, Übel's speciality. Frieren's version was cast without a staff but followed her arms' movements, while Übel only needed to keep her target somewhere in sight without even moving, but needed the assistance of her staff.
  • During the second First-Class Mage exam, Frieren (or more exactly her clone) exhibits a rudimentary form of Mana Blast, Solitär's signature spell, against Fern. The real Frieren later easily copies it. Her clone using this technique shows early on that this is already possible, which Fern can't even categorize as "magic".
  • When Frieren visits the Glück mansion in Weise to meet Macht, she uncharacteristically tries to make him fight her. She then notes that she cannot beat Macht, but also that he isn't perfect. She says this because, as she mentions in that same chapter, she met Macht before and was forced to flee from him. What she doesn't tell everyone is that he turned her right arm solid and she eventually managed to restore it after 100 years. She thus already is capable of dispelling Macht's magic and could come up with measures against it if she could witness him using his magic again.
• Forgotten First Meeting:
  • A flashback in Chapter 57 reveals that Himmel met Frieren already when he was still a small kid. He got lost in the forest and Frieren gave him directions. But what he remembers most about this day was Frieren trying to make Himmel calm down by casting a bed of flowers with her magic. Frieren naturally didn't remember this encounter, but to this day she treasures Flamme and her favorite spell because it allowed her to meet Himmel and her other friends.
  • Frieren once encountered Macht of the Golden Land around 600 years before she would meet him again in Weise. He was one of the four demons that defeated her. However, Macht doesn't recall that this ever happened. And if he had, he would have immediately tried to kill Frieren, because he in their first encounter turned one of her arms into gold with his magic. Frieren's arm being healed would have informed him that she knows how to remove his curse.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In Episode 21, right when Frieren casts her barrier-breaking spell, Serie's silhouette can be seen◊.
• Funeral Cut: Himmel passes away shortly after watching the Era Meteor Shower alongside his companions, with the scene fading to black and then immediately cutting to his funeral.
• Funny Background Event: In Episode 25, while Fern and Frieren are having a strategy meeting, Kanne and Lawine are fighting again, with Lawine pulling off some impressive wrestling moves on Kanne like a Romero Special.
• Giant Flyer: There are a wide range of dragons that can qualify, but the largest are certainly the Sky Range Dragons. These gentle monsters are the size of islands, and spend their entire lives slowly flying at great heights, only descending to the ground when they die (and said deaths are rare, as their lifespans are immense, to the point that whole unique ecosystems end up growing on their backs over the ages). Until humans gained access to flight magic, there was no way to observe living ones up close, and even then most fly too high for flight magic to reach them.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Himmel stopped Frieren from killing a little demon girl after hearing her cry out to her mother, clearly believing that she's just a slightly different looking child who didn't know any better and deserves a chance. Yet the little girl not only murders the man who saved her life, the reason she did it was ironclad proof that demons simply cannot truly live in human society, making her the opposite of this trope. And her mother? Doesn't exist, she just copied the words she heard scared human children say before she ate them. Upset for having some responsibility for the man's death, he doesn't stop Frieren from killing her a second time. He didn't truly understand until then that that's just what a demon is: A human predator who only looks like a person.
• Gratuitous German: Almost all names have a German meaning and sound a bit silly for a native.
• Great Offscreen War: The Demon King waged a war on humanity for at least a thousand years, but his death prior to the story's start ended it. While demons are still attacking, it's not quite to the level of being deemed a war.
• Grim Up North: The further north Frieren travels, the worse the winters get. After her party passes through Graf Granat's domain, they enter the northern lands and almost die in a blizzard. The Demon King's castle is also said to be in Ende, which is at the northernmost point of the continent. Frieren really, really doesn't want to go there, since she hates the cold.
• Hammerspace: Standard issue for most mages, at least to store their staffs and emergency grimoires. Frieren's suitcase also is enchanted like this... mostly so she can put in as many junk and trinkets she finds interesting as possible. Unlike other fantasy-based manga, it's unknown whether there's a limit, if it's an active or passive skill, etc.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • In Chapter 5, Frieren kills the demon Qual with his own magic.
  • In Chapter 22, Aura meets her end by trying to use her Scales of Obedience against Frieren. As Frieren trumps Aura's mana, Aura loses control of her body and Frieren orders her to kill herself.
• Holding Back the Phlebotinum: There's a limit to the extent of magic that humans can pursue, and most mages can only specialize in a single type of magic, though this is less due to some magical limitation and more due to lifespan. Due to the fact that Frieren and Fern stick to a very basic type of offensive magic, they are both more versatile and effective than most other mages.
• Holding Hands: In Chapter 36, a flashback reveals that Himmel used to hold sick people's hands to support them emotionally, like his late mother used to do for him. Frieren does the same for Fern whenever she falls sick.
• Holy City: A city that houses the church of the goddess exists in the central lands, being referred only as "the holy city". Heiter resides there after being promoted to bishop after the Hero's Party adventure.
• Hot Springs Episode: Subverted. In Chapter 65, Frieren's party passes the Etwas mountain range, where a hot springs is supposed to be, but the village Frieren intended to visit has been deserted and the hot springs have been dried for three decades already. There also is a secret hot spring that Stark wants to find after hearing stories about it from Eisen, but the hot spring is at most deep enough for a footbath, so there is no fanservice whatsoever. Later, when they do reach a decently-sized town with a functioning hot spring, Frieren practically has an entire Hot Springs Mini-Arc, visiting it every day like the old woman she actually is.
• Humans Advance Swiftly:
  • Frieren notes in Chapter 5 how quickly humanity can advance despite, or maybe because, their lifespan is so short. Their huge numbers mean their society can make magical advancements quicker than demons and elves can, despite them being Long-Lived. They also learn and adapt in general more quickly.
  • When humanity first made study of magic legal, Serie predicted that humanity would eventually surpass the elves for similar reasons, creating an era of humans in what she considered a markedly short amount of time compared to how long human civilization had existed. A thousand years later (again, not all that long to Serie) Frieren considers this era to have arrived.
• Humans Are Average: Humans are the most populous race in the world by far, and aren't as naturally powerful or Long-Lived as demons, dwarfs, or elves, with the majority of them living simple lives and being easy prey for monsters and demons on their own. But there have also been many formidable humans that are just as strong as demons and elves, such as Flamme, Himmel, and Heiter.
• I Am Not Left-Handed:
  • In Chapter 22, when Aura uses her scales on Frieren (which causes whoever has less mana to be controlled by whoever has more), Frieren reveals that she's been suppressing her mana for hundreds of years and that her actual Battle Aura easily surpasses Aura's.
  • Lernen tells Serie that he was able to detect the fluctuations in Frieren's mana indicating she is suppressing her mana and based on that can sense the two elves have nearly equal mana capacities. While impressed that he detected this, noting that to her knowledge no one aside from the Demon King had done it so quickly, Serie is disappointed that Lernen still hasn't noticed that Serie is also suppressing her mana and easily outdoes Frieren in mana amount.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: In a flashback, the mayor of a town asks Frieren to spare a demon girl after she cries for her mother, since if they kill a defenseless demon, they will be just as bad as them. Despite Frieren's initial protests, Himmel decides to do as the mayor says. Himmel regrets this after the demon kills the mayor, sets his house on fire and takes his daughter hostage.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: Magic in this world has an element of this, but in practice it's usually more of a limitation than a benefit. In short, a mage can't do anything they can't properly visualize. To start with, something very complex, like controlling each individual hair on your head (that's about a 100,000) is something only a very high-level mage could pull off. Also, no matter how much you may want to do something, if you can't completely convince yourself it's possible, then it won't work. For instance, in the face of a high-level defensive spell, any lesser mage be unable to pierce it because they logically understand how powerful it is, like trying to convince yourself pigs can fly. Übel is uniquely gifted at this aspect of magic. Her specialty is a spell which cuts things. It can be easily blocked by normal magic barriers, as she can't imagine cutting something designed to stop magic. However, she was able to effortlessly kill a first-class mage specializing in defense magic, simply because his defenses took the form of a cloak and she can easily imagine cutting cloth due to her upbringing. For all her power, Flamme claims Serie could not kill the Demon King because she can't imagine living in the age of peace that would result from this.
• Immortal Procreation Clause: Elves are the longest living beings in the setting, period, with Kraft considering the thousand plus year old Frieren to be "young" by elf standards, and Serie being old enough to have lived in the Age of Mythology (implied to be thousands of years earlier than that) and implied to have been around before human civilization existed. As a result of their long lives they have very little in the way of sexual interests or reproductive urges (or possibly take a very long time to awaken to such urges). This, along with centuries of genocide by the demons, is why they are slowly going extinct in the present day.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Frieren can cry without stopping for days and will threaten a tantrum if she feels her friends aren't showing her enough respect.
• Instantly Proven Wrong:
  • In Chapter 48, Frieren discovers a chest and surmises that there is a grimoire inside, despite the mimic-detecting spell telling her that it's a trap. Frieren however notes that the spell is only 99% accurate and her experience tells her that there must be grimoire inside. Cue the next panel with Frieren being stuck inside the mimic's mouth.
  • In Chapter 53, Serie angrily tears Flamme's will apart in a flashback, lamenting that they apparently never understood each other. Right after, Frieren notes that Flamme saw this coming, immediately proving that Flamme did understand her master well.
• Instant Runes: Runes typically appear when human or elf mages cast spells, particularly shields. Notably absent in most demonic magic, the main exception being Solitär, who uses a blend of dozens of different types of magic, including human spells.
• Intimate Healing: In Chapter 24, the elf Kraft huddles with Stark for warmth, since Frieren and Fern need to warm him up, but don't seem willing to do so. Stark surprises himself seeing a strange older man sharing a blanket with him when he wakes up.
• It Was a Gift: Fern is beginning to get tired of Frieren hopelessly looking for something that fell out of their carriage when they were attacked by a monster and Frieren is about to just go along with her to make her happy. However, when Frieren lets slip that it was a ring that was gifted to her from Himmel, Fern becomes even more serious about finding it than Frieren.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Frieren is generally described as a cold and a bit heartless woman, but she cares deeply about her comrades and has a sense of responsibility that people like Himmel could count on. He thus knew for instance, that Frieren would one day return to face off the demon they sealed, once his seal was about to break.
• Joke and Receive: In Chapter 48, Richter and Denken are convinced that there is no examinee who would fall for a simple trap like a mimic. Cue Frieren falling for it on the next page.
• Karmic Death:
  • Qual dies to Zoltraak, the spell he created that killed numerous people.
  • Aura was infamous for mind-controlling people and then beheading them to make them absolutely obedient after an incident where one such mind-controlled individual managed to resist her spell enough to almost kill her. In Chapter 22, she plans to do the same with Frieren. Aura dies by beheading herself, after she fails to control Frieren with her magic because Frieren turns out to have far more mana than Aura.
• Libation for the Dead: Frieren pours alcohol on Heiter's grave after he passes away. She doesn't stop at one bottle, because he was a "corrupt priest" who really likes his alcohol.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Zigzagged.
  • Warriors can train to a point where they are outright superhuman, becoming strong enough to split entire cliffsides into canyons and fast enough run across water, but high-end mages can unleash a far wider scope of destruction and can learn a much bigger and varied skillset than a straightforward warrior ever could. A warrior can only really get physically stronger and better at fighting things, whereas a mage might learn how to reshape the landscape, create autonomous spellcasting golems, develop clairvoyance or conjure blackholes.
  • On the other hand, mages are vulnerable in ways that warriors are not due to a near complete reliance on mana. On one notable occasion, when Frieren and Himmel are caught in the illusion spell of a demon, Frieren, for all her power, is left completely helpless even after realizing the trick, because her mana detection has been blocked off and she can't feel the outside world past the illusion, whereas Himmel's Super-Senses can penetrate the illusion and allow him to fight on despite being blind to the outside world. There are also creatures that are resistant to magical attacks, like dragons.
  • In a fight between a warrior and a mage, the determining factor tends to be distance: If the warrior can put themselves within about a ten feet, then the disparity in sheer speed, strength and toughness means they can quickly cut down the mage before they can react with a spell. Shadow Warriors are warriors who have specifically trained to take down mages, and accomplish this by learning how to control and hide their mana, allowing them to sneak past a mage's mana detection into a range where they can blitz the mage before they can react and defend themselves.
  • The existence of the demon Linie's ability copy the techniques of warriors by analyzing the flow of mana in their bodies and copying their movements, alongside things like the ability for Shadow Warriors to hide from mana detection by controlling their mana, or the beam of light created by Stark's Lightning Strike, may also imply that Warriors don't actually lack magic, but rather focus that magic inward to give them their superhuman abilities. Which would technically make them wizards too, if of a different kind than mages.
• Living Forever Is Awesome: Played With in surprising ways, considering how a major theme of the series is the regret elves experience due to their long lives. The opening theme, "YUUSHA", expresses the sentiment that, while immortality can make parting with loved ones painful, and the relentless passage of time can erase the traces of precious moments, it's not all bad. The immortal can ensure that the world doesn't forget the dearly departed or their legacy, carrying the memories in their heart, while going on to make new friends and go on new adventures. In the series itself, it would seem that long-lived races don't feel the crush of time as heavily as others; Frieren makes plans for 50 years hence as easily as next week. In general, elves in this series avoid many of the downsides of semi-immortal lives, and thus are seldom preoccupied with angst over them. Their minds do not decline with age, so they do not ever forget important things or people, and they are accustomed enough to watching shorter-lived beings pass away it doesn't deter them from forming friendships with them. Instead, the focus of the sadness is on how shorter-lived races tend to forget important people and events within a few generations. Further, elves marry and reproduce so rarely that losing a spouse is rarely ever a issue (indeed, it is implied the length of time it takes an elf to even fall in love precludes them from marrying short-lived races to begin with), and the main source of angst an elf may have over losing friends isn't how short their lives were, but rather the risk the elf has of their different perspective on time causing them to not make the most of the time they do have with someone. Lastly, every elf is confident that, however long they may live, they will eventually die, so there is no angst over being an immortal in a world of mortals. In their view, they are as mortal as anyone else, just with a much longer timespan before that mortality is realized.
• Long-Lived: Elves, dwarves, and demons age slowly. Over eighty years pass after a few Time Skips and Frieren hasn't physically changed at all. The flashbacks a thousand years into the past have her look at most couple years younger (and Serie's appearance indicates Frieren may never look much older than she does now). Dwarfs live for an average of 300 years, while demons may reach an age of a couple of millennia (though their violent lives mean even 500 is considered old for a demon). Elves utterly blow them all out of the water however, with the oldest elves being implied to be older than human civilization and demons.
  Qual: It's been a long time, Frieren. How many years have passed?
  Frieren: Eighty.
  Qual: Only eighty, huh?
  Frieren: To us, yes.
• Long Last Look: After Himmel's funeral, Heiter gives a long look to both Eisen and Frieren, as he's also getting old and believes this is the last time he'll see either of them. He turns out to be wrong, as Frieren visits him during his final years.
• Lost in Translation: Since the official English title is not a literal translation from the Japanese, Frieren’s dreaded epithet among demonkind is read differently in English, which would be a Title Drop in Japanese as well. Sousou no Frieren (Frieren at the Funeral or Frieren of the Funeral) is both the series basic initial theme of Frieren being at her important companion’s funeral, Himmel the Hero, to finally understand how important he was to her in retrospect, and it doubles as her infamous title among demons, for the mass instant funerals she caused by killing hordes of them in her wake; in the official English release, however, she is called Frieren the Slayer instead.
• Lost Wedding Ring: In Chapter 30, after a fall from height, Frieren loses a ring Himmel once gave her. The ring's design signifies eternal love, and the way Himmel put it on Frieren's finger is very reminiscent of a wedding, but Frieren was not aware of the meaning.
• Made O' Gold: Macht's curse turns everything within the range of a city to gold, including all the people inside it. Objects (such as the archetypal golden apple) can be picked up and removed from the curse's range, and remain gold, but are indestructible and appear to be a non-gold metal when analyzed with magic.
• Magic A Is Magic A: There are roughly four types of magic used in this world, all with their own rules.
  • Human magic: While not originating from humans (elves use the same kind of magic), it bears this name because they are the most common users of it. This magic is the most diverse and flexible, and the majority of existing spells consist of this type. With some exceptions (such as flight magic), this magic is of a kind which can be understood in a detailed manner and the spells are consistently being added to, as new spells are made or demon spells are copied and adjusted. "Folk magic'" is subcategory of this, being old and rare spells which are often only used and passed down within specific communities or have been lost to time outside of a few grimoires which record them.
  • Demon magic: This is in many ways the same as human magic, but originates from and is only used by demons. It is sometimes of a variety or level that humans are unlikely to be able to replicate. Sometimes, these spells are researched to the point that the human magic system can incorporate them, at which point they cease to be classed as "demon magic" (notable examples of this being flight magic and Zoltraak). Many demon magics are not learned by demons but rather are powers they are born with, with their training consisting of mastering the power rather than learning it in the first place.
  • Curses: These are magics used by demons and monsters which are typically not comprehensible at all to the human magic system. As such, they cannot be used by human magic, nor defended against by it (barring certain exceptions which could be said to prove the rule). Typically, these magics involve some kind of permanent effect being applied on the target's body, such as placing them in a sleep which ends in death, or turning them to stone.
  • Magic of the Goddess: This magic is the most specialized of all in its users and requirements. Unless one is born with the innate ability to become a priest class, they will never be able to use more than weak forms of this magic. For those who do have the ability, though, they are granted strong resistance to curses, as well as the capacity to identify and figure out how to undo them. Using this magic also requires the user have in their possession a "holy scripture," writings likely originating from the Age of Mythology when the Goddess of Creation is said to have walked among humans. Goddess magic has some attack spells, but is most known for its healing abilities, being able to rapidly identify and undo the effects of deadly poisons and serious wounds alike. Another unique aspect of the origin of goddess magic is that it in a sense all already exists, every spell being recorded within the scriptures. However, all these spells are in code, and cannot be used until the code is deciphered. Priests often spend their lives doing just that, and a single spell can take decades or even centuries of work to decode. It is estimated that only around 3% of the spells in the scriptures have been decoded in the fifteen hundred years since they were given to humanity.
• Magic Staff: Quite commonplace, and there's no great distinction shown regarding their qualities beyond that most mages have a staff unique in appearance to them. Mages tend to stay with one staff throughout their entire lives, even the long-lived Frieren, so the standards of quality aren't likely an issue. These staffs appear to assist and enhance the use of magic, but are not necessary to use at least some magic. Mages may carry their staffs much of the time, or only materialize them when needed.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Suffice to say, most characters react with surprising nonchalance to being skewered through the chest, getting a large wound, etc. Usually the only thing they are concerned with is getting to a healer before they bleed out, the pain itself not being mentioned nor impeding them. Pain tolerance seems to be widespread in this world.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: Starting at Serie, a Long-Lived elven Great Mage, who taught Flamme, the first and greatest human mage. Flamme went on to teach Frieren herself, who a thousand years later finally took on her own apprentice, Fern. Serie also has quite a few still living apprentices, humans she taught at different points in their lives, some of which the group meets when they arrive at Serie's domain.
• Meaningful Name: Most of the names are of German origin and have a certain meaning. For examples, see the character page.
• Merlin and Nimue:
  • Fern was Heiter's disciple, who quickly learned that she had a talent in magic, though as a priest he wasn't the appropriate teacher for her. She then becomes Frieren's apprentice, who is at least a thousand years older than Fern.
  • This is the case in the entire Master-Apprentice Chain of Serie-Flamme-Frieren-Fern, though it's inverted in Flamme and Frieren's case.
  • Every human disciple of Serie's is this with her. She is probably one of the oldest living mages, far older than Frieren even.
  • Denken was taught by Macht, a demon, who is hundreds of years old.
• The Middle Ages: From Frieren's memory, we can see the passage of time from roughly one millennium ago. Frieren's earliest memories are of the equivalent of our Greco-Roman period, when wearing togas and buildings with marble are commonplace. Serie, for instance, still dresses this way. Currently, it's obviously based on a Medieval European Fantasy version of High Middle Ages.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Exaggerated. Humans in this world seem to naturally shrink as they grow old, with most old folk barley reaching half the height of Fern or Stark. The best example would have to be Himmel, who goes from being a good head taller than Frieren in his youth to being nearly the same height as Eisen in his old age. Heiter seems to be a rare exception, being the same height on his deathbed as when he was a young man.
• Moment of Weakness: Eisen once hit Stark and injured him so deeply that it left a nasty scar on his face. Stark believes he was hit because Eisen was fed up with Stark's cowardice, but he actually hit Stark because he instinctively perceived Stark as a monster due to his sheer power.
• Monochrome to Color: Chapter 107 signifies Frieren's mind going back in time, by having color radiate out of what starts as a black and white image. The remainer fo the chapter continues to be in color, though not the remainder of her time in the past.
• Mono no Aware: Frieren starts her journey by thinking of the transient nature of human life, how short it is, and how her longevity has changed her perception of time and of humans after Himmel passes away. She starts becoming more respectful of how much humans get done in a short time partly because they live such short lives.
• Never Say Goodbye: A pre-emptive variant. Himmel always kept his farewells to people the party befriended quick and casual, a custom that Frieren later adopted. As Himmel explained it, a long farewell implies you expect to never meet again. Himmel believed he would definitely meet his friends again and felt that remembering such a sappy goodbye would be embarassing when they did.
• Night of the Living Mooks: The majority of Aura's forces are made up of former humans who were enslaved to her will, and then beheaded, thus joining her army as headless, undead soldiers.
• No Full Name Given: The majority of characters are only given one name, and don't appear to have last names. The few that do are characters of noble descent.
• The Nudifier: In Chapter 4, Frieren buys a potion that dissolves any clothes it's poured on to (that's the potion's only effect). In Chapter 24, she tells Fern she's thinking of giving it to Stark for his birthday, to which Fern responds by pouring it over Frieren's head and walking away, with Frieren shown being in the buff from the back afterwards.
• Obliviously Evil: Even when a demon is trying to act good, their inherent inability to understand human values will often trip them up.
  • For example, one little demon girl killed and ate a human child, and when faced by the village just looked sad and said the word "mother", eliciting enough pity to save her life, as the village's kindly mayor believed she simply didn't know better and, if given other choices, could be a better person. And the demon seems to have genuinely tried to integrate with the village for survival, if nothing else. However, she eventually killed the man who adopted her and stole his daughter to give to the family whose original daughter she had killed and eaten before. There was no awareness in her mind that this would upset anyone, and her dying words were an acknowledgement that she simply saw "mother" as a "magical" word that stopped humans from killing her.
  • Even more experienced demons can fall into this. Lügner staves off a conflict when a city lord threatens to kill him in revenge for the death of his son by saying his own father was killed by humans, but Lügner doesn't even understand what a "father" is. His assistant Draht also attempts to kill Frieren in prison, killing a guard before doing so, apparently oblivious to the fact even if he had succeeded, he would have been exposed instantly and the city lord would have attacked them. This wouldn't have been a huge problem for them, but the lack of awareness is telling.
• Off with His Head!: Aura is killed by her own spell backfiring on her leading her to cut her own head off. In the anime, this comes with a twist as far as depicting it goes, as seeing her lose her head would likely not have flown with the broadcasters, so a split second before she fully decapitates herself, her final moments are shown in first person.
• Old Master: Voll, a 400 year old dwarf^note Average lifespan for dwarves is 300 acquaintance of Frieren fools Stark into letting his guard down and knocks him off his feet heavily enough that he can't get back up again for a minute or two. He spends a week training Stark while Frieren catches up with her old friend. Unfortunately, his senility act isn't just an act as he can barely remember his wife and has forgotten that the demon king died long ago.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: Chapter 25 concerns the Hero's Sword, which was stuck in a rock in a village in the North and could only be extracted by the hero that is destined to defeat the Demon King. That hero was Himmel. However, it turns out Himmel was unable to remove the sword from the stone and decided to kill the Demon King anyway. The village and Frieren keep it a secret that Himmel was unable to pull out the sword, which unfortunately means that Frieren has to come every few decades to clean up the monsters that gather around the sword.
• Our Demons Are Different: Demons in this series are a horned humanoid race characterized by their extreme sociopathy, only feigning human emotions like regret and friendship just to more effectively kill later. They're explicitly compared to convergent evolution, a separate species that evolved to resemble humans to better prey on them. Even demons who grow interested in interacting with or getting along with humans prove completely incapable of ever fully understanding how humans interact, or restraining themselves from killing when their efforts fail, they lack any means to ever understand empathy or morality.
• Our Dwarves Are Different: Dwarves in this series are indeed short, stocky, and (for the men) heavily-bearded. But they're currently varied in occupation and births, with very little being born in underground areas and most already settling in cities, holding jobs such as architecture, wine-making, warriors, etc. Only Fass is shown to be outwardly alcoholic (though he's never seen drunk), and most are quite mild-mannered individuals. They're also explained to be staunchly traditional, meaning most don't worship the Goddess or believe in an afterlife, instead venerating their ancestors and believing in the The Nothing After Death. Eisen is shown to be the exception to this due to Heiter's influence.
• Our Elves Are Different: Elves in this series are the typical long-eared beautiful creatures from most fantasy settings, but they're very out of place in human society because they just don't think on the same time scale. Frieren is willing to spend years or even decades over pursuits humans would consider trivial and, here's the twist, she also considers trivial. Because that's how little importance she puts on a mere few years and any relationships formed in that time are often given seemingly little importance in their minds (though the truth is that even if they greatly value someone, they may lose track of time and the person may die of old age before they even realize how much they cared). They're also naturally excellent in magic, but it's rare for them to truly love it enough to train themselves. They notably differ from many other fantasy elves in that they don't consider themselves inherently superior to other races in anything other than lifespan, nor do they have a distinct culture to lord over other peoples (though this may be a product of them having become a Dying Race a thousand years in the past, the survivors all seeming to either be solitary or integrated with human societies). They thus do not generally refrain from befriending other races, though their differing perspectives on time can cause issues.
• Parental Substitute: Since many of the characters lost their parents prematurely, they were raised by other people. Frieren was raised by Flamme, Fern was raised by Heiter and Frieren, and Stark was raised by Eisen.
• Platonic Co-Parenting: Frieren and Heiter never regarded each other as anything more than dear friends, but the last years of Heiter's life are spent with the two of them raising Fern under the same roof.
• Post-Adventure Adventure: As its title implies, it takes place after a group of heroes overcame many perils and eventually vanquished the Demon King and a few of their most powerful generals. Frieren, the Long-Lived elven mage of the group, continues wandering the world in search of Heaven decades later. She is later joined by the apprentices of some of her former companions, and together they help resolve lingering conflicts from her previous adventures.
• Quest for a Wish: The first-class mage exam is basically this for many mages. Every first-class mage as a privilege is granted one spell by the leader of the Continental Magic Association, Serie. She is said to possess nearly every spell known to humanity and some say she is the closest to the omniscient and omnipotent Goddess of the world.
• Really 700 Years Old: Elves age very slowly and look like they don't age at all. Frieren still looks like a teenage girl, even after over 80 years have passed since the Demon King was defeated. She's been around for at least 1000 years judging by her flashback. Other elves like Kraft or Serie also don't seem to have aged at all, even after hundreds or thousands of years have passed.
• Real Men Eat Meat: Chapter 26 features Frieren gifting Stark a giant hamburger patty, which is a tradition amongst warriors.
• Religion is Magic: Priests from the church of the Goddess are the only mages with access to healing magic and are rarely even thought of as being mages. All the magic they use is not invented by humans but rather inherited through the scriptures. These spells are heavily encrypted and take decades to decipher, though once it is deciphered, every priest can cast it. They're much too advanced for normal mages to learn without said scriptures and even the likes of Frieren can't cast them as a result (Methode, the only mage shown to be any good at it, needs the aid of a scripture, too). Priests worshipping her are not only able to heal, but make use of the spells already uncovered, and tend to fill different niches than normal mages as a result.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Almost uniquely to this manga, this trope is all over the place. Even though they start out as abrasive, pushy, or rude towards Frieren and her party, they all have the best interests of the commonfolks at heart, and most of them are veterans of the war against demons instead of just some paper-pushers. It's a bit worse when Himmel was still alive, when the occasional corrupt nobles existed.
• Running Gag:
  • In most chapters, Frieren's butt is sticking out while her upper half is hidden by a mimic, a bush or a mountain of books.
  • Frieren's uncharacteristic love of weird treasure and loot, which frequently makes her a victim of mimics.
  • Stark reacting in fear with tears and all, saying "I'm scared!" or "what's X, it's scary!" to anything he doesn't know or catches him by surprise.
  • Whenever Fern gets upset because Frieren or Stark did something foolish (or when she's just in a bad mood), she starts to make pouting faces. One can often change her mood with some food though.
  • Sein often mentions how much he wants to spend time with a mature lady, and the members of the party mention how Frieren is, probably, the oldest lady in the world so he should be happy, missing the point he likes mature-looking women, while Frieren looks too young.
  • Eisen's ridiculous feats of physical endurance and survivability constantly giving Frieren a Violation of Common Sense of what Stark can and cannot do.
• Sapient Eat Sapient: Demons are an Always Chaotic Evil sapient species capable of human speech, however, they are also a form of monster which preferentially preys on humans. They communicate with humans solely as a means of deceiving them to either escape death or create an opening to attack.
• Scatterbrained Senior: When the group runs across a village protected by a very old dwarf named Voll, at first he seems too senile to remember who Frieren actually is before knocking down Stark and lecturing him. A young villager is happy that she stopped by because he hasn't seen Voll so coherent or happy in a long time, making it seem like he always fakes senility. However, before the end of the visit Frieren realizes that this really is just a relatively good time for him as he cannot remember that she and Himmel's party defeated the demon king nearly a century before on top of remembering very little of his wife, despite deciding to protect the village due to a promise with her.
• Shame If Something Happened: In Chapter 66, Frieren tells Stark that if he keeps bugging her about being "old" that she'd "make him regret it." When pressed, Frieren says she will get very upset and cry. Fern says this is a serious threat, because Frieren can cry nonstop for three days.
• Shout-Out: As the party makes its way up north, they run into a town with a very muscular (and topless) mustachioed town leader, who briefly joins the party and helps them take down a monster with nothing but his bare fists. He's definitely Mayor Mike Haggar in everything but name and genre.
  • Whenever Frieren gets caught by a mimic, she'll occasionally shout "It's dark, I'm scared!" in a manner similar to Mendou from Urusei Yatsura.
• Sick Episode: Fern catches a cold in Chapter 36, and Stark and Frieren gather ingredients to make some cold medicine for her.
• Simple, yet Awesome: What modern magic has become. Because of necessities on the battlefield, most mages only train a select few spells which aren't just suited to their own talents, but also very practical to use and having excellent effects. For example, Frieren only even uses one fire- and lightning-based spell each, because they're that efficient and effective even if it results in her repeatedly spamming these spells. Modern offense and defense magic are also this, so it's rare to see a mage who bothers to learn dozens of different, unrelated spells because they're seen as a waste of time, unless one's from a long-living race like Frieren.
• So Last Season: In-Universe. During the time of the Hero's Party, Qual's Zoltraak spell made him so dangerous they could only seal him away. However, by the time the seal broke, Zoltraak had been reverse-engineered and was now considered basic offensive magic. During the First Class Mage Exam, it's revealed the tactics for magical combat have radically shifted since then, with mages now considering it more efficient to manipulate physical matter to smash through magic shields instead of relying on magical energy attacks. That being said, Frieren and Fern consider the favored spells of modern-day mages to have be weaker in a sense, as Fern, with Frieren's training, is still able to use basic offensive magic to overwhelm her opponents with sheer speed. This is due to it having become popular in recent decades for mages to focus on using physical matter in their attacks, as it costs less mana and is more effective against the defensive magic developed to defend against Zoltraak. However, such spells have their own deficiencies.
• So What Do We Do Now?: This is how the story begins. After the Hero's Party defeated the Demon King and successfully returned, Himmel immediately thinks about what his job would soon be, now that he no longer needed to fight demons. The heroes then split ways. Heiter goes back to the Holy City to work as a priest again, Frieren wanders the world to study magic, Eisen returns home and Himmel stays in the capital.
• Squishy Wizard: While mages are long-range powerhouses, according to Frieren they're very vulnerable in close-quarters, and a sufficiently skilled and agile enough warrior is theoretically capable of dispatching even Serie. However, it's been shown plenty of times those with large amounts of mana, whether elves or demons, are naturally more durable than their weaker counterparts, so they're not that squishy. Frieren, for example, withstood several of Solitär's Mana Strikes, which knocked Fern down in one shot when Frieren's clone attacked her in the same way.
• Stable Time Loop: In Chapter 107, Frieren touches a monument of the Goddess of Creation and is sent back 84 years into the past, when she found the same monument with the Hero's Party. Frieren learns in Chapter 116 that she likely has to recite the words at the monument that she found carved into the monument when she found it again with Fern and Stark, meaning that Himmel, Heiter and Eisen fulfilled the promise to find the time travel spell and leave it on the monument for Frieren to find it.
• Standard Japanese Fantasy Setting: The story takes place in a classic Medieval European Fantasy setting in the High Middle Ages with standard humans, bearded dwarfs, Long-Lived elves, and Always Chaotic Evil demons led by a demon king that threatened the world and was slain by a hero party. Most of the world is also inhabited by classic Always Chaotic Evil monster, even classic ones like dragons. The only "classes" that resist revolve around a Damager, Healer, Tank dynamic, with mages being damage dealers and having utility spells, priests being healers and support casters, and warriors are physical fighters.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Magic used to be a lot weaker. But after Qual was sealed, demon magic was analyzed and integrated into every major facet of human magic. This led to the formerly absurdly dangerous Zoltraak to become something even a mundane mage could defend against. Qual considers it remarkably complex.
• Super Gullible: Frieren is this regarding Mimics. No matter how many times they've attacked her over the years, she still gets easily fooled by mimic chests and has to be saved by others from being eaten by them. There are spells that can determine if a chest is real or a monster; yet every time, Frieren never considers using them and insists the chest is genuine... before a Smash Cut shows her trapped in the mimic's mouth. Even her companions can easily tell that a chest is a mimic, but she ignores them.
• Sword and Sorcerer: A successful team usually consists of both strong spellcasters and a frontliner who engages in physical combat. A frontliner is especially important because monsters are oftentimes either resistant to magic or so aggressive that a physical force needs to hold them off as well as the fact that mages tend to be fairly vulnerable at close-enough distance.
  • In the Hero's Party, both Eisen and Himmel were the frontliners, while Heiter and Frieren supported the party with their magic.
  • After Himmel's death, Frieren sets out for a new journey. She knows she could use the help of a powerful warrior, which is why she asks Eisen to accompany her, but he declines since he's gotten too old to go adventuring. After deciding to go to Ende with Fern, Frieren picks up Eisen's apprentice Stark on her way.
  • In Chapter 47, Stark temporarily joins Wirbel's party to kill an aggressive monster. Lacking a warrior, Wirbel asks Stark again in Chapter 62 if Stark doesn't want to join his party for a few years to fight the demons at the northern front, but Stark declines.
  • Demons are no exception to this. Many demon mages are accompanied by demon warriors who protect their backline from enemy warriors.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Not for Frieren. The moment the demon who tries to execute her gets the tables turned on him he tries to buy time by speaking, but she immediately blows out his throat. As a veteran of fighting demons she knows that demons only ask for mercy so they can make you drop your guard.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The second First-Class Mage exam is a dungeon that needs to be cleared. Unlike the first exam, the examinees are not forced into groups and are free to cooperate in the dungeon. However, since in the previous exam most examinees fought against each other, many of the remaining examinees refuse to cooperate. Working together with other mages, however, is an ability that first-class mages must learn, which is exactly why Proctor Sense sent them to that particular dungeon.
• Tempting Fate: In Chapter 44, First-Mage Proctor Genau declares the barrier that was erected by Great Mage Serie is unbreakable. Guess what Frieren does. He clearly doesn't know Frieren comes from the same Master-Apprentice Chain Serie started, so it's only natural she knows how to break Serie's creations.
• That Cloud Looks Like...: Fern muses that Stark might not be so bad...then she overhears him saying a cloud with two lumps looks like boobs. She is decidedly unimpressed and figures he's a perv after all. She then hears him saying a different cloud looks like poop, and realizes he's not so much perverted as he is childish.
• Theme Naming: Almost all of the characters have German or German-sounding names.
• This Cannot Be!: Aura can’t process Frieren intentionally hid the strength of her mana, because to always hide your mana (like a rich man intentionally dressing poor all the time to hide he’s rich) is a concept unfathomable to demons who use mana to decide their hierarchy.
• Time Abyss: While elves do seem to age, they do so extremely slowly. Frieren is not really an example: She's over a thousand years old, but that's it. She outright refers to the Hero Party's ten year long adventure as less than one one-hundredth of her lifespan, and barely appears to have aged over the course of a millennium. Other elves in the series are substantially older, with Serie referring to elf lives as being close to an eternity. It can be speculated that the lifespan of elves in this world stretches well into the tens of thousands of years.
• Time Dissonance: A general problem with elves. An elf's lifespan is far greater than a human's. Thus Frieren doesn't mind doing nothing but studying magic or searching an object for a few years, to the dismay of her human friends. Her ten-years-long adventure with Himmel was nothing to her, and she only shows up 50 years later as promised without ever visiting Himmel in that time. She sadly realizes too late how fleeting a human's life is after Himmel passes away after one final adventure together and decides to do better. She gets a different sense of time after she starts raising Fern. Serie also lamments that fact that her human apprendices are too short lived for her, and none of them is able to even remotely approach her level. However, she remembers each of them individually, down to their specific likes, dislikes and personality, even after taking hundreds of them over thousands of years. She recalls them all fondly, even those that lived in uneventful times and didn't achieve anything of note.
• Time Skip: Frequently. For instance, after Frieren's party parts ways, 50 years pass, and after Himmel dies another 20 years pass. Fern has grown into a young woman after only a few chapters. This shows that Frieren understands even these big passages of time as brief moments, since the manga is mostly told from her perspective. The party frequently spends several months in a single location, doing research or waiting for the seasons to change. Currently, more than 4 years have passed since Frieren, Fern and Stark set out on their quest. Interestingly, this actually puts the time pacing of the manga to be actually faster than real life publication.
• Time-Passes Montage: Whenever Feiren and her party linger in a town or place we have a montage of scenes showing their everyday activities in the location. The longest of these is right at the beginning of the story, where we have a montage of Freiren living in relative solitude for 50 years. The next is when she's living with Heiter and tutoring Fern, with Fern noticeably growing older. The next montages take place in much less time, usually a few weeks or months at most, since by that point Fern and Stark are already grown.
• Title Drop: In Chapter 17, the demon Lügner mentions Frieren's Red Baron title amongst demonkind: Sousou no Frieren, as in, "Frieren, the Undertaker".
• Toplessness from the Back: When Fern dumps the cloth-dissolving potion on Frieren's head (because she was planning to give it to Stark as a gift) it naturally destroys all of Frieren's clothing, but the audience only sees her topless back and she covers herself with a blanket soon after.
• Tournament Arc: The First-Class Mage Examination Test. Frieren and Fern join an examination to become mages of the highest calibre, since it's required for any party to have one to pass the barrier prohibiting travel to the Northern Continent (Frieren's current goal), leading them into a series of tests and competing with other mages. Since the Continental Magic Association's founding around 50 years ago, and from approximately 2,000 active licensed mages (Frieren is not among them), only 45 are currently first-class. As per the latest edition's conclusion, the aforementioned number rose to 50, though 2 of them are already confirmed dead (one by Übel's hand, the other by Revolte).
• Towering Flower: The confusion flower Frieren's party encounters in Chapter 31 is at least twice as tall as Sein.
• Truce Trickery: Aura, one of the remaining Seven Sages of Destruction, sends three demons to negotiate a peace treaty to the city ruled by Graf Granat. These demons quickly reveal that they're a Trojan Horse with the actual goal of bringing down the magical barrier protecting the city so that Aura can invade.
• Unflinching Walk: A variant of it. At the end of Chapter 22, when Frieren takes control of Aura's body, she turns her back to Aura and walks away after ordering Aura to kill herself.
• Utility Magic: Outside of combat spells, there exists a wide range of spells with highly specialized uses ranging from X-Ray Vision to turning sweet grapes sour. Because of their limited range of applications, these tend to be folk knowledge or only recorded in a few grimoires. Frieren makes it a goal to collect these magics and will accept any request if the reward is a grimoire or spell, no matter how mundane the spell is.
• Villainous Breakdown: The otherwise calm and composed Aura has a very small one of these when Frieren forces her to decapitate herself after revealing her much stronger mana. When Aura has the sword to her own neck, she's whimpering with tears in her eyes, in utter disbelief over being bested by a mage she underestimated.
• We Are as Mayflies: The overarching theme of the series is Frieren outliving all of her loved ones from other races. The story begins with the two human members of her party dying from old age.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 107 begins as one of Frieren's normal moments of reminiscing about a leg of her journey to defeat the Demon Lord, but ends with her getting thrown back in time 84 years ago—back to her journey in progress.
• When Trees Attack: Chapter 31 features a gigantic flowering plant that curses the living and puts them to sleep to slowly drain them of their mana.
• World of Technicolor Hair: The series takes place in a fantasy world where unusual hair colors are never commented on. While Frieren's Mystical White Hair could be justified by the fact that she's an elf, human characters aren't exempt from having odd hair colors either, such as Himmel's bright blue hair, Heiter's green hair, and Fern's purple hair.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: The Holy Emblem once denoted the highest rank a mage could achieve, but it's from such a distant era in the past that it holds no significance for most people of the current time when they're shown it. At most, it allows Frieren and Fern the opportunity to participate in the First Class Mage Exam without any of the conventional credentials. This was only because an old mage just happened to recognize the elf's accolade, and a far cry from the free pass Frieren thought it would get her.
• Year Zero: The series uses Himmel's death to mark the passage of time, by stating how many years have passed since his funeral.
• You Monster!:
  • In Chapter 14, Frieren calls Lügner and demons in general monsters, regardless if they are able to talk. Lügner can't help but smile because he actually agrees with Frieren's assessment: They look like people, but are no more similar to one than a parrot is. Just because the parrot/demon repeats what it's heard before doesn't mean it truly understands it.
  • In Chapter 100, Solitär calls Frieren out for ignoring the pleas of beings with human faces and killing them mercilessly. It's all just empty words to provoke Frieren, but it actually works. Frieren doesn't like being called a monster.

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Ch. 33 (At an inn)

Frieren: (To the innkeeper) I'm gonna be here for the next ten years. You got any jobs available?
Fern: Mistress Frieren. Remember? One week maximum.
Frieren: Fine...