Mark's Reviews > Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Vol. 9

All that glitters might actually be gold for a change, as adventuring in the North leads to Frieren, Fern, and Stark assisting a familiar face against a demon who rules a cursed city. And this demon has managed to defeat Frieren once before…

How much do I love this series? So very much. Things continue as they have previously, which means they’re absolutely perfect for the lover of reflective fantasy that knows how to both tell a story and have a deeper meaning beneath it.

The first chapters are mostly small nuggets before we get to the golden city portions, but the starting one in particular is a very lovely combination of the usual antics (Frieren’s awful money management is a running gag at this point) plus a moment of connection with the past that turns out to be more moving for our hero than expected.

As usual, the manga knows what jokes to keep hammering - may I never get tired of the useless spells Frieren keeps finding - and remains wonderfully focused on actions and the consequences thereof, and what happens after the decisive battle (I mean, that’s right in the title) as time marches relentlessly forward.

Which leads to the meat of the volume, as Denken the mage returns to try and save a quarantined parcel of land that’s home to the demon Macht and precious little else, as Macht turned the entire area to gold decades ago and was contained when he proved too powerful to defeat.

This arc is about the hubris and, yes, stupidity of men when attempting to subvert power they shouldn’t be mess with to fuel their own endless greed. The worst part of this whole thing is how avoidable Macht’s destruction could have been.

As usual, I’m constantly in awe of how strong this manga is at depicting non-human characters as non-human. It’s some of the best fantasy writing I’ve enjoyed; this entire scheme of a human king falls apart because he does not recognize the failing in what he’s even asking.

And when Macht’s own desires are revealed, only Frieren recognizes that a wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf. The way Macht keeps appearing to be more reasonable than the average demon is well realized because it’s clearly not true based on his actions, but it still makes you stop and think for a second.

Combined with Denken’s backstory and how long it has taken him to come to grips with returning to this area, it makes for powerful stuff. One line from Denken towards the end implies that there’s even more going on here than we’re privy to and I am all for it.

Now, it’s not all perfect. There are a couple of small things, lest you think I have zero ability to appraise this story. They just don’t have any impact on my overall enjoyment.

One, yellow flag for the use of the term ‘bougie’ in a universe where there is very unlikely to be a French royalty to invent the term to begin with. I allow this one because the joke around it is pretty darn funny (both in the story and in omake), but it’s anachronistic as all get out.

Also, and this is mostly annoying to psychology pedants, but the story apparently has absolutely no concept of what hypnosis actually is, or how it works, given that it’s not even doing the more stereotypical mind control stuff. It’s such an odd choice for what amounts to ‘here’s a bunch of memories’. I see the connection, but it’s really tenuous.

5 stars - like that’s going to ruin the story for me though? Heck no. I had a good time with this and I’m dying to see what comes from the inevitable confrontation next volume. Still a cut above anything else out there.