Title: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Vol. 11
Author: Kanehito Yamada (Story), Tsukasa Abe (Art)
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Fantasy
Publication Date: September 10, 2024
The Story
In the last volume of Frieren, we were led to believe that the battles have ended; however, they have not! After Frieren accomplishes something that served as a cliffhanger in the previous volume, the battles resume with Frieren squaring off against Solitar and Denken fighting Macht. Not only were the battles well-choreographed, but we also got some nice dialogue that gave us a glimpse into both some of the history between these characters as well as an attempt at understanding their strategies. These battles took up the majority of the volume.
At their conclusions, we get a nice little epilogue to wrap up the Golden Land arc! The back half of the volume focuses on some episodic adventures. The first deals with Frieren being asked to deal with a creature that’s going around and destroying the town’s crops and livestock but, oddly, isn’t touching or harming humans. Once Frieren gets to the bottom of that, they come across an herbalist who stumbled upon a rather strange acorn that was said to have fallen from the sky! Another mystery to solve!
The last story; however, doesn’t seem like a simple side adventure! In their travels, they stumble upon the monument of a goddess that has seen better days. There was a time when it was whole which Frieren remembers; however, what she doesn’t remember is a small inscription on the bottom corner of it. When she begins to analyze it, something happens that even she can’t believe!
Characters
Even though Frieren and Solitar had a great fight, I can’t say that there was much in the way of character development. Frieren, as one would expect, showed how clever she was while Solitar showed how much she could talk… and talk… and talk… and talk. Of course, that was part of her strategy as demons tend to try and manipulate the emotions of humans to make them easier targets. Again, Frieren is quite clever so, instead, that dialogue was used to learn a bit more about Solitar, her goals, trying to justify Macht’s actions, and more.
The true development came at the end of the battle between Denken and Macht. I would love to go into it but it would spoil a lot of the battle’s outcome and the epilogue but to say that both of them received the closure they were looking for would be a fair statement to make. They are not the only ones who received closure, though. Denken’s entire journey has been masterful in character development and the ending he received was pretty heartwarming yet sad at the same time. All I will say is that it was very well done and helped make the Golden Land arc the best arc in the series bar none.
While Fern and Stark didn’t get much development, there was one moment after the battles had ended that they came a bit closer together to one another. While nothing major truly happened, there was a brief moment where you would think something would have. A nice little tease… just one small enough to make you smile because you know it’s inevitable at this point.
Final Thoughts
Another great volume… although I will say it wasn’t as epic as the last but it was still pretty epic in its own right. While the volume focused mostly on action, the aftermath and epilogue of the battle continued to build upon the epic nature of the Golden Land arc and I felt that the arc received a very satisfying conclusion. I honestly do not know if Kanehito Yamada is going to top this arc but I would love to see an attempt made.
As for the side adventures, after the arc we just went through, we deserved a rest and a cooldown and that is exactly what we received for two whole chapters. The third chapter could be a side adventure but, then again, it could not. With the way it ended, thus giving us a pretty big cliffhanger again, it makes me wonder if this is going to change the adventure any. Once you read it, you’ll draw your own conclusions but to me, it could alter the destination of the adventure or it could serve as motivation to bring them to their destination. Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
While I don’t think the next volume is going to start any sort of new arc, I can safely say that it’s giving us a tender moment to kick things off but with the way Frieren is, I’m sure there will be as many laughs as there are tears! Can’t wait to see how this plays out in volume 12!
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This item was provided for review by VIZ Media
