Week 11 葬送のフリーレン ・Frieren 🧝‍♂️ (Beginner Book Club)

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Welcome to Week 11 of 葬送のフリーレン ・Frieren :man_elf:

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Week 11 28 June 2024
Start Page 167
End Page end
Chapters Read Chapter 7
Last week Week 10
Next up Vol 2 starts July 26th!
Home Thread Here

Page numbers are the ones printed on the bottom of the pages. These may differ from the numbering in digital versions.

Last panel: end of chapter

Vocabulary

Vocabulary spreadsheet

Names and places
Many characters have katakana names that derive from German words.

Japanese German English role first appearance
フリーレン Frieren Freeze main character Ch 1 p 3
ヒンメル Himmel Sky or heaven Frieren’s comrade Ch 1 p 3
アイゼン Eisen Iron Frieren’s comrade Ch 1 p 3
ハイター Heiter Cheerful Frieren’s comrade Ch 1 p 3
フェルン Fern far away Frieren’s companion Ch 2 p 42
シュトラール Strahl sunlight holy city Ch 2 p 42
ターク Tag day region Ch 3 p 78
フランメ Flamme flame new character Ch 6
ブレット Brett Board place Ch 7 p 172
フォル voll full place Ch 7 p 174
オレオール aureole (French) halo place (where souls sleep) Ch 7 p 184
エンデ Ende end place Ch 7 p 185

Discussion Guidelines

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

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Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.
  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?
  • I’m reading along
  • I’m still reading but haven’t reached this point yet
  • I’ve already read previously but I’m here for the discussion
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  • I’ve stopped reading this book
0 voters
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End of week spoilers

@mitrac “Ende” (end) and “Aureole” (halo? Maybe) could be put into the names and places table.

Someone asked if the sour grapes magic will come into play. Now it did :joy: in the anime I believe it’s given a bit more of a focus if you could call it that?

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How did I fall behind again :smiling_face_with_tear: and so close to the end too

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it has been a weekend of cake and beer
no one should blame you :wink:

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Today I happened to notice that the translator for the Viz English edition is listed as "Misa ‘Japanese Ammo’ ". Interesting.

Chapter thoughts

Suddenly, a story arc!

Watching the anime, this chapter was the first time I came to understand just how unimaginably old Frieren is. I think I had this vague idea that while she expected to live a long time going forward, right now she’s still comparatively young, but in this chapter, it turns out she’s as old as a tree. She was the apprentice of a woman who lived so long ago that she’s become legend.

The Frieren German glossary points out that オレオール is French - the German would be アオレオーレ.

Other place names this chapter, ブレット = Brett = board on page 172, and フォル = Voll = full on page 174.

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Misa doing translator work? awesome

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P 173 question

Bottom left panel, Frieren’s line

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顔に似合わず律儀だね
Conscientiousness, that doesn’t suit your face (my nonsensical literal translation)

I’m not parsing this correctly somehow. As far as I can tell Frieren shows up and asks Eisen if he needs help with anything, which she also did shortly before Heiter’s death. Eisen says he knows she did something similar to Heiter and its too early (the approach of his death). She asks how do you know, which I wondered which part of his statement, and he answers that he corresponded with Heiter. And Frieren’s response puzzles me! Aside from a wild guess of “you don’t look like that kind of person” (like, your face doesn’t match the kind of conscientious person (who writes letters) I’m not sure what she could be saying. Any insight into the word 律儀 especially?

A good laugh at p 174

Summary

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Nice one. And fun to see Fern and Eisen bonding over Frieren’s sense of time :smile:

p 184-5 question

The way Frieren reacts surprised me. So her teacher Flame left the book open to this page on how to come into contact with the dead 1000 years ago for her. And as far as I understand Frieren says - as ever a disagreeable person. Is that sarcasm, are we supposed to wonder why she speaks so rudely, or did I miss something?

And I take it she’s calling Flame careless on the next page but I also don’t understand why

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Page 173

My understanding is the same as your wild guess. The japanese dictionary has among the possible meanings of 律儀, 「—な働き者」=> a hard working or diligent person.

So I feel that Frieren is simply say “Despite your appearance (lit. your face), you are quite diligent” (as in, he kept in contact with Heiter all these decades)

Page 184-185

I believe future chapters will delve in more detail about how Flamme and Frieren got along, but in general my understanding is that Frieren is somewhat upset by the fact that Flamme has been proven right (and Frieren wrong) even after all this time.

I believe いい加減 in this case is more like irresponsible or half-baked, as in someone you can’t quite be sure are being serious or not (that’s why when Fern asks if what’s written is true, Frieren says さあね). This particular trait of Flamme, if I remember correctly, will also become clearer in future chapters.

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story thoughts

I really liked this chapter! Good art, really nice combination of current events, call-backs and flashbacks. There’s gradually more world-building without too much exposition, and suddenly it seems like there’s a lot of direction for book 2! Great ending to the volume in my regard, and I really look forward to the next volume, and where it takes the story.

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Hooray! First ever manga volume completed! Thank you to all you kind folks for letting me join along and answering my questions. I shared many of the thoughts and questions already asked, but here’s some more:

p.172

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The vibe I’m getting from this is something like “To think it’s been 30 years and that’s how you act” but I’m doubting that it’s correct.

p.178

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Wow @Gorbit99 good call out, I didn’t catch that at all! For whatever reason I thought she was holding up a piece of meat, haha.

last page

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I’m not really sure what Frieren is saying here. Is it something along the lines of that expression “its about the journey (not the destination)”?

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p172

Here 振ぶり is this meaning. “After thirty years”

思えん態度 is “unthinkable behaviour” but that sounds way too serious compared to the reality, so saying it as “weird way to act” does work.

I’d essentially translate it as “That’s a weird way to greet someone after thirty years”, but the more literal translation is something like “That’s a weird way to act after thirty years [of not seeing someone]”. Your interpretation is pretty much spot on.

last page

どうせ - anyways
当てのない - aimless
当てのない旅 - aimless journey

“It’s an aimless journey anyways [so we might as well]”

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congrats to you and everyone else finishing their first manga in Japanese, that’s huge!!!

:star2::partying_face::confetti_ball:

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End of volume 1 thoughts

I had never had exposure to Frieren before. It was really enjoyable, I like Frieren’s personality and the contrast with her age / lifespan and normal people. I don’t love the manga just yet but I can feel it has potential, I am for sure intrigued and want to continue reading the series :slight_smile: (won’t be continuing just now with the club though as I have other reading projects I want to prioritize)

Thanks a lot @mitrac for introducing this book and for leading the club! And thanks to everyone for the comments!

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Congratulations :smiley:
Thank you to everyone - it’s been wonderful reading along with you all. See you in the offshoot club for Volume 2!

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Finished this volume after falling behind from the club!

I was interested to see some story developments, as I don’t know anything about the plot of this series. The peek at Frieren’s teacher was interesting. Still not sure if I want to read along with the next volume club, or just at my own pace later, but I’ll definitely read more. :thinking:

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I fell behind (by quite a bit) but I caught up and finished the volume today.

Thoughts

Overall, I liked it. Don’t quite get what all the hype was about yet, but I liked it. I’m rather intrigued by this オレオール place. Part of that is the kanji it uses. Part of that is because this is the second time I’ve seen that word used in a piece of media, and I’d like to compare this with that.

I hadn’t quite realised just how old Frieren is until I saw just how big the tree was. I don’t think we know how old she was when the tree was planted either. I like Frieren. I like Fern a bit more.

I probably will want to continue reading more volumes, but I won’t be jumping into that immediately as there are other things I want to read first.

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yayy finally done with volume 1!

overall thoughts

I really liked this volume. I’m usually someone who loves worldbuilding and intense action or fight scenes in my adventure/fantasy books, so I’m surprised that I enjoyed something as low-key (?) as this. I’m still not quite sure what exactly I loved about it. It could simply be that I was able to understand the story without needing too many look-ups, or maybe I was drawn to the themes of regret, trying to understand human relationships, and reminiscing.

I want to take a break for a day or two before starting Volume 2! I’m really excited to see how this story unfolds in the following volumes. :sparkles:

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