Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End vol. 7

She may be one of the greatest mages of the modern age, but Frieren will never be a First-Class Mage by the Continental Magic Association’s (read:  Serie’s) standards.  So it’s a good thing that Fern has what it takes, along with no lasting enmity between her and her judge.  She’s not alone in passing the test, as it turns out that there’s a bumper crop of graduates this year.  Whether or not they all deserve it, well… we’ll see if we see any of them again in this series.  For now it’s enough to see the end of the title’s best arc so far wrapped up in a satisfying fashion as its cast get a few more moments together before they go their separate ways.  Oh, and maybe someone tries to kill the title character in a fit of pique too.

What follows is more or less standard issue for the series.  We get stories that deal with encounters Frieren had when she was a part of Himmel’s party.  Stories that do a little worldbuilding and show how our protagonists react to it.  Stories that look to foist a romantic relationship on Fern and Stark, which is… fine, I guess.  The best of these involves the Southern Hero, someone who was speculated to be the one to topple the Demon King, but whose gift of clairvoyance had a more tragic destiny in store for him.  Still, it was refreshing to see how he dealt with this and how his actions arguably influenced Frieren’s decision to join the party she did.

As is the case with this series, none of these stories are bad.  They just feel insubstantial and rarely conjure a deeper feeling more than “Isn’t that nice,” for me – with the above exception noted.  More of those would be nice, as they’d help maintain my interest in this series until the next arc starts up in proper fashion.