Score: B+

The journey continues. In a sense this very much was that kind of episode. It kept up the structure of having a couple stories being told and just keeping the main characters moving in the process. I wouldn’t say this set of stories grabbed me in the same way as the previous ones. But it still told effective stories and builds up the world while moving the characters through it.

3 months!

What really grabs me is the passage of time and truly how long this journey is going to end up being. They seriously spend 3 entire months…unsealing the storage location for some truly awful alcohol. That’s a pretty darn solid amount of time where events continue to unfold in the world around them. At this point even if they ran into some familiar faces next episode…a good amount of time will have passed since seeing them. Thankfully the series does very much keep general track of the passage of time thanks to the death of Himmel. That’s the rock that defines time in this show!

Trolling people in the far future!

Honestly though…this episode was ok. Which I suppose is a step back for a show this good. But I don’t think it really dropped the ball or anything. But maybe the specific focus of these episodes didn’t mean as much to me. I couldn’t help but giving Stark and Fern a sideways glance. They were so obsessed with getting money for traveling expenses…episodes after turning down carrying an anti-magic stone that would have given them enough to buy a mansion!? Suddenly expenses matter to them!? I get that thing was trouble some to travel. But it’s also troublesome to stay in one place for 3 months!

I was left feeling for Frieren who wasn’t exactly excited to do this. She knew the booze was trash and that message was only scribbled by an elf that was utterly bored. Milliarde was basically trolling the future for the heck of it! It’s not even like there was interesting motivations for her doing it. She was just bored. The most interesting thing really is the exploration of the elves and how being basically immortal would leave some people so devastatingly bored.

Just make your offer!

The second part was also fine. I kind of wish the guy just…opened up with his negotiation. He simply could have brought up Hero Party’s debt, offered the deal, and then threatened 300 years in prison. At best I can say he did things that way to show Frieren how terrible things would be if she didn’t take the offer. But he was also risking Fern and Stark bringing a war on him. At a time when he’s fully admitting that his human resources have been devastated. He’s not in a position to have a 1st class mage and an insanely strong warrior wrecking this stuff! He thought ahead enough to offer Frieren a deal, but didn’t think that telling her party what deal he was going to offer wouldn’t be a good idea? What did he think they were going to do?

The episode wanted to say “he’s not so different from his grandfather”, but I don’t get his approach at all. He was basically banking on everyone’s good will for Frieren to turn herself in for a sentence so long she wouldn’t even get to see Fern and Stark’s grandchildren grow old and that no one would oppose him. The end point makes sense. It’s fine for Frieren to help out in terms of finding a silver vein and saving that company. I just don’t quite agree with the process of how the story got there.

At least the mining was spectacular

Nothing will take away from how this season has been great. Even with the show just staying to the path of these characters slowly journeying towards their main goal, it’s great. This is truly a great show that hits so hard on multiple levels. But I just didn’t find this episode all that engaging. Maybe it was just leaning on comedy and that comedy didn’t land for me. That can happen. All I can say is that this was certainly the weakest episode of the new season. Even the best of seasons can afford to have one arguable miss. Thankfully the preview image of the next arc looks fantastic. I can get right back onto the hype train next week without any issue.