I was thinking this was a fun little adventure chapter featuring Armstrong from Fullmetal, but then suddenly we had a Flamme flashback that, over the course of two pages, reframes almost everything Frieren has been doing for the entire time we have followed her.

I had always assumed that Frieren’s drive to collect silly, but unique spells was because of Himmel’s praise for them (she mentions this all the way back in chapter 3). Now though, is she doing it as a way to bear witness to the fruits of Flamme’s labor? As a way of preserving and nurturing Flamme’s legacy? Perhaps both things are true at the same time? This short little flashback has added a lot of complexity to Frieren’s motivations.

This series has some outstanding storytelling that I just can’t get enough of. On the other hand though, the action scenes in this series are still not great. However, they are hardly the focus. We just montaged our way through what is essentially a dungeon crawl and killed the boss monster in a single panel.

Frieren will be taking a short break

Pain…