Fern & Frieren ; Frieren: Beyond Journey's End ☆ elCOCO

Frieren and Fern waiting for the rain to stop! Frieren must be a cat though since she's trying so hard to avoid getting her hair wet...

Also, I am not the happiest with how the background came out so here's an edit of just Frieren and Fern!

★ 【SydusArts】 「 Fern 」 ☆ ✔ republished w/permission ⊳ ⊳ follow me! insta • x • bsky

Frieren - Beyond Journey's End Special Booklet

フリーレン by Okkimon [Twitter/X] ※Illustration shared with permission from the artist. If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source.

watched frieren and fell in love

this dream of mine

A little Frieren poster 💛

High cultural level smol elf by SydusArts@SydusArts

something I love about having read/watched frieren and dungeon meshi concurrently is getting to see that, despite their similar broad genres (fantasy, DND-esque settings, failure op elf girls /lh), they are two very distinct stories that ultimately achieve the same* thematic goal through different narrative means.

like you have frieren's contemplative, almost slice-of-life style storytelling that focuses on how the connections between people make an impact, and how it's beautiful to cherish the memories of those we love, even the small ones (especially the small ones), and that being alive is so, so beautiful because of those things. Then juxtaposing this with the overall narrative of a literal journey to a land beyond in order to meet with the dead, while not losing focus on those that are alive. Frieren as a story takes time to explore the small things that make life beautiful (fields of flowers, the beauty and not the power of magic, stargazing and sunsets with your friends).

and then you have dunmeshi's tight narrative arcs that are built around urgency (saving falin, first from digestion, then from...chimera-ization), but also continually return to the same concept as a core tenet to both the literal narrative structure around meals and the overall story: to eat is a privilege of the living. That there is joy to be found in eating because it means you are alive, that you survived. That taking time to take care of yourself is honoring your life. That death is a part of life through the acts of killing monsters to eat, and that the dungeon's condition where a soul remains tethered to the body is unnatural.

For that last bit, I love how we're just introduced to the concept in the beginning as a bit of world building, something you might just take at face value of, "oh, I guess this is how this works in this story", and over the course of the story the characters start to interrogate that reality, culminating in Marcille's realization at the end that they took death for granted because of the dungeon's condition:

[ID: Manga panel of Marcille looking down in thought and saying "Look, this might sound a little weird, but...I think the entire point of this journey we went on....was learning how to accept death.]

(Panel is from the ehscans version, will update with official eng when the final volume releases)

I also love that the story takes the time to say, look, you can be in a hurry, but you still need to take care of yourself. Eat well, sleep well, What will you achieve in the service of yourself or others if you don't take care of the most basic qualities to survive first? The most recent episode is a good example of that with the focus on shuro vs. laios, and then there's this reinforcement of the idea by the end:

[ID: Dungeon meshi manga page showing Laios, Chilchuck, and Senshi shouting "A balanced diet!!" "R-regulating our daily rhythms!!" "And moderate exercise!!" respectively, followed by the three in various poses in front of the word "VICTORY" and Laios saying "If we watch these three points...we'll naturally work our way to strong bodies!!"]

Anyways this is all very disorganized and I have other things I need to do and I could write a more cohesive, actually organized thought piece on all of this with like, coherent points, but I don't really like to delve into literary analysis on my fandom account. it just lives in my head, rent free. thank you for coming to my ted talk tumblr. don't expect to see more of this, lol.

*I say same goal, which is not to say the only goal. stories can have more than one theme, it's ok if you disagree with me on this, but please bear in mind that I'm speaking very, very broadly.

★ 【Yuuri】 「 フランメとフリーレン　模写 」 ☆ ✔ republished w/permission ⊳ ⊳ follow me! insta • x • bsky

Stark: How would you rate Frieren as a magic teacher?

Fern: She's sousou.

Sousou no Frieren (Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End) - Blu-ray/DVD Volume 6 Illustration. Release: 19 June 2024