Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End vol. 11

Up until now, Diagoldze has turned everything it was cast on into gold.  Not anymore.  Frieren has cracked its power and is now able to start freeing those who have been imprisoned by it.  Starting with Denke because she’s going to need some back-up now that Macht and Solitar are onto her.  Still, it’s a two-on-two battle here.  Where one of the two are two of the most powerful demon mages to ever have lived, and the other is a clever, powerful, and long-lived elf with an aged human who just became a First-Class Mage.  I’m sure this means both sides are evenly matched and one definitely won’t steamroll the other in the end.

I mentioned that the storytelling in this arc felt more straightforward and workmanlike than in previous ones last time and this remains true here.  While it’s hard to say exactly why this arc didn’t quite work for me, I think it’s down to its focus on Macht and his desire to understand humans.  It never really comes off with the level of depth that the creators want it to have, particularly when Frieren boils it down to how his efforts have just resulted in the death of even more humans and now he has to die for it.  Kind of hard to feel sympathy for someone like that, or a real desire to see his comeuppance since he’s so laid back about his actions.

That makes this the “least good” arc “Frieren” has done yet.  It wasn’t bad because the wrap-up still had some moments that got a chuckle out of me, and the cleverness that’s present in all of this title’s longer stories is still present here.  There’s a lot of powerful magic being thrown around here, but in the end victory comes to those who know how to use it smarter and that’s always good to read.  If nothing else, this arc is still more entertaining than any of the one-off stories that follow it; though, my interest is piqued by the potentially premise-destroying cliffhanger we’re served up with at the end of the volume.