Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Vol. 3 by Kanehito Yamada, Tsukasa Abe
Series Name: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
Genres: Adventure, Elves, Fantasy, Magic
Intended Age Group: Teen
Publisher: Viz/Shonen Sunday
Edition: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-9747-2724-7
Rating: 4/5
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Description from the Book
Elf mage Frieren and her courageous fellow adventurers have defeated the Demon King and brought peace to the land. But Frieren will long outlive the rest of her former party. How will she come to understand what life means to the people around her?
An old enemy returns as Frieren continues her journey north. Decades ago, Frieren and her party defeated a servant of the Demon King called Aura the Guillotine, one of the powerful demons known as the Seven Sages of Destruction. Now Aura is back with a score to settle. But what price did Frieren pay for victory in the past, and how will the choices she made then affect the present?
Personal & Info
I haven’t been to the bookstore in a while due to holidays and various other reasons. I grabbed this on my birthday while going around to a couple different stores. This is definitely a series I intend to read long term.
Characters
Frieren is an elf mage famous for defeating the demon king with her companions around 80 years ago. She’s a bit of a slob and rather lazy. Her hobby is collecting any and all types of magic spells, no matter how useless they may seem.
Fern is Frieren’s mage companion and apprentice. She seems to take a motherly role in caring for Frieren.
Stark is Eisen’s apprentice. He has low self confidence, but great skill as a warrior.
Story & Thoughts
The story here picks up where the previous volume left off dealing with the demons. Those events take up more than half the book. It’s the first really serious battle in the series so far. Not necessarily serious for Frieren, but definitely for Fern and Stark.
There are several flashbacks. The story uses them to show how Frieren originally learns certain skills or advice. They come up frequently for showing what affects her decisions in handling her traveling companions, too. It seems like she had little to no social skills before she became an adventurer.
I love the dramatic moment where Frieren reveals her true strength to Aura. Stark and Fern’s first battle with demons is pretty great, too. The advice Stark applies from Eisen is amusing, but also not wrong.
For an Elf who claims an adventure was only a measly ten years long, that adventure seems to have changed her significantly and drastically affected her thinking and morals.
It looks like the group might be getting a new party member. That will likely be solidified in the next volume.