DAMN

I love how, much like the confrontation with Qual, this show subverts your expectations of a typical shonen. In the end there is no big bombastic fight, it’s over in minutes. And DAMN that ending, even though Aura is evil, felt cold as fuck.

If I have one criticism of this episode in particular is that it felt like a long wikipedia entry info dump. That’s just a thing anime/manga do from time to time but it felt more pronounced here. Within a minute of Flamme giving her speech about hiding mana you pretty much know exactly how things are gonna go.

Damn if this show can’t still make me tear up, seeing the flowers around Flamme’s grave.

Why is it so good.

Cowardly or not, the only tactic that matters is the one that ends the battle with you alive and your enemy not! Concealing your mana seems like an incredibly useful deception tool that I'm surprised isn't more common in the universe. Then again, it seems like a tactic exclusively meant to deal with demons, and they don't seem like that common a threat (on the other hand, there is apparently an entire branch of study dedicated to reverse-engineering and improving demon made spells like Zoltraak, so who knows.)

This episode was great, maybe even better than the already amazing manga.

1 000 000% better than manga.

I am glad I am alive to witness this episode.

what an intense battle. wow.

Every episode is better than the last one!

Frieren is a badass, trained her whole life just for this moment.

I started this anime because I was bored and I expected nothing. Totally hooked now and very surprised it's this good!

flamme: please plant flowers around my grave

dies

no flowers around grave

I like how there are 100 little details that may or may not become relevant later.