Translated by Misa ‘Japanese Ammo’
188 pages
Published 2020 (English translation published 2021)
Read from September 20 to September 23
Rating: 3 out of 5
I’m having a bad time in life right now.
I can’t go into specifics, because it all revolves around someone else’s mental health difficulties, but I’m sad and angry about its fallout on my teenage kid, and at having to step in to clean up that someone else’s mess. I’ve been back in Long Island for a chunk of this month — stuck in a place I never expected to have to return to like this. It won’t be permanent, but I am looking at a couple months, maybe even more, of shuttling back and forth and staying on the Island for a week or so at a time. Which wouldn’t sound like a lot, if my mental health weren’t already a fraying string.
Anyway. I need an easy read. I actually bought this tankōbon at the start of the summer, a lifetime ago, when I was fishing for replacements for the then out-of-stock volumes of Delicious in Dungeon. I got hooked on Witch Hat Atelier before I could even open this book. But now I’m all caught up on Atelier, and I can’t obtain any more Dungeon until I have money again, so this is Frieren’s time to shine.
Or at least it’s Frieren’s time to just kind of coast along. This volume didn’t grab me the same way the introductory books of Dungeon and Atelier did. I liked it, don't get me wrong, but it's a contemplative, slow-burn narrative that probably wasn't the best choice for my present moment.
The underlying concept is solid: Frieren is an elf, insulated from the realities of death thanks to her near-immortal lifespan. Before the story begins, she is the mage of an adventuring party that defeats the Demon King and returns to a heroic welcome. Taking time for granted afterward, she journeys alone for decades, honing her magic. One by one, the other members of her party die. Gradually, Frieren settles into a quest of her own: to honor her friends' memory and to better understand her attachment to them. It combines the "what happens after the adventure" trend of the 2010s with the melancholy of immortality.
While the background art is often quite lovely, the character art is flat, much more static than what we get in Dungeon and Atelier. Just about every character panel is framed in profile or head-on, with maybe an occasional three-quarter headshot to spice things up. Frieren isn't an action story, but even in this volume's sole action sequence, Frieren and her apprentice Fern just kind ot stand around with bored expressions. Some dynamic composition would have been appreciated.
By the end of this volume, I found myself moderately interested to continue. I don't know if I'll ever give it the same focus I gave the other fantasy manga that defined my summer, but maybe when I run out of Dungeon I'll give it more of my attention.
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