Week 3 葬送のフリーレン ・Frieren 🧝‍♂️ (Beginner Book Club)

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Welcome to Week 3 of 葬送のフリーレン ・Frieren

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Week 3 3 May 2024
Start Page 30
End Page 40
Chapters Finish Chapter 1
Last week Week 2
Next week Week 4
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

Characters
Many characters have katakana names that derive from German words.

Japanese German English
フリーレン Frieren Freeze
ヒンメル Himmel Sky or heaven
アイゼン Eisen Iron
ハイター Heiter Cheerful

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

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

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
  • I’m reading this after the bookclub has finished
  • I’ve stopped reading this book
0 voters
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And we’ve reached the end of episode one, which means I can post the ending theme for the show.

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Page 34

There is a lot of kana to break down in this panel. So even though it’s not a question, I hope it’s okay I go through the process of parsing out the sentence on here?

「人間の寿命は短いって」

They say that the human lifespan is short.

「わかっていた」

I was understanding. More naturally, I knew.

So the first bubble gives:

Even though I knew that human lifespans are short…

なんで・もっと is not なんでも・っと as I first parsed it

「なんてもっと知ろうと」

Why/How, more, let’s know, conditional(?) と
If I’d known more (? need next bit for context)

「思わなかったんだろう」

Because it seems I did not think

Okay, I actually do have a question. Is this last bit more of a “If only I knew more, but I didn’t think of it” or “I thought I knew more, so I didn’t think of it”? With the implication being, as far as I understand it, she is lamenting how she never made the connection between humans not living long meaning her friends would be dead soon. And now her friend is dead and she’s only just realising.

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34

The last two are one sentence I think - the と particle indicates the first sentence belongs to the second bit (more broadly if you see a と思う you can think of the first half as being quoted). So it’s something like "why didn’t I think 'i want to know more (about himmel)

/Edit actually the first bit is also one sentence - って is the casual form of と quotation particle

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Argh, I KNOW と思う goes together XD why did I separate them?

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page 32-33

I guess middle panel someone (ハイター) is asking if anyone was a friend of ヒンメル
And someone is immediately saying that it is sad that no one is. I don’t get why. I would get it if there is a panel without text indicating that no one is answering. Its clearly packed with people, so why would she immediately say that no comrades show their faces.

And then i don’t get the responses of ハイター
私達もしていません?? Is he saying he doesnt know ヒンメル either? And then he gets shouted by the crowd to be serious.

I clearly don’t get something here as this makes no sense to me

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Those two gossipy ladies at the funeral. At least wait until she’s out of earshot, yeah?

RebBlue

なんで

LarsVader

The conversation is being had by the two ladies in the crowd with their mouths open, and they’re talking about Frieren specifically. Plus, you seem to have skipped over the word 悲しい - it’s not that
she’s not showing her face, it’s that she’s not showing a sad face.

The して in Heiter’s response is する, which directly references the する in the lady’s earlier 悲しい顔一つしない, thus it’s meant to invoke the main clause of that sentence.

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In my defence, I broke my glasses. I don’t think one typo is too bad.

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the women in that panel are pointing out that Frieren doesn’t show emotion for his dead friend. Calling her heartless.

悲しい顔一つしない

not making a sad face

Frieren’s friends try to cheer her up in a way by showing that nor do they grieve.

we(私達) also(も) dont (していない)

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page 32-33

Ah thanks yes i really missed the sad face. And did not get that they talk about フリーレン
And so ヒンメル response is that he also does not make a sad face. And he then gets shouted to be emotionless and should seriously do make a sad face.
Do i get that right?

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That should be the case

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Page 39

人生ってのは衰えてのほうが案外長いもんさ

I want to be sure that i have understood this right.

Is he saying that life in its declining state is unexpectedly longer? is he saying that only to make Frieren feel better?

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Summary

My interpretation is “there’s still (surprisingly) a lot left to life even after you hit your decline” or something like that

Minor spoilers but dwarves are also long lived by human standards, though not to frieren’s extent. (I nearly said tall-man standards …)

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page 32-33

The middle panel text is ”あの子ヒンメル様の仲間なだって?"
あの子 refers to Frieren, and I took it to mean that she’s refered to as “that girl over there”, because she looks very young and short. “That girl, isn’t she supposed to be a companion of Himmel?” The panel is also centered on Frieren, which could be a further clue that she’s the one being refered to.

Note that this is not ヒンメル’s response. The priest’s name is Heiter.
I have a bit of a different interpretation for what’s happening here. First off, he says おやおや、私達もしていませんよ。私達 is plural and refers to both him and Eisen (whose fase is totally covered and who has so far never shown any emotion). Heiter’s tone here also seems really light, as is usual for him. He makes a joke out of pretty much everything. So, probably because Frieren was quite shaken at being called emotionless, she lashes out at him. " You’re a priest, act seriously." And she throws in his face that now he’s the one being insensitive.

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Summary (p.39)

Yeah, he probably says it to console Frieren and reassure her that he’s not going to die anytime soon, just because he’s starting to feel the effects of aging. It’s directly prompted by Frieren’s shock and sad face after he’s told her he’s not young enough anymore to swing his axe around.

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I also spent quite some time on that “sad face” exchange in the church, but I came to the conclusion that it’s just a weird, awkward exchange and not me misunderstanding the Japanese. If somebody has access to the English version, I’d be curious to know how it’s translated.

I found Chapter 1 and especially 2 hard for this, a lot is implied with very few words and it’s a lot of rather abstract dialogue with relatively little action so it’s hard to use the visual context to guide you. I finished reading the first volume yesterday and I found that chapter 3 onward are significantly easier, both because of slightly reduced text density and just easier text overall.

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Viz's translation

Woman A: Look, that’s the girl who traveled with Himmel the Hero…
Woman A: She doesn’t even look sad.
Woman B: So cold-hearted.
Heiter: My, my, none of us look sad.
Bystander A: Aren’t you the bishop? Act like one!
Bystander B: You heartless man!
Heiter: Ha ha ha. You people sure don’t go easy on me.

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Thank you!

Yeah in my opinion it’s still a bit clunky in English, it doesn’t flow very well. I probably wouldn’t have paid it any attention if I read the English version but when you’re dealing with a language you can’t read fluently you’re always left guessing if you’re just missing something.

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p 32-33

I took the church scene pretty literally and I think that works, and I’m more confident in that now, especially with the translations offered by @Belthazar.

So one woman is essentially commenting that Frieren didn’t look sad enough. ハイタ and アイゼン know Frieren well enough that she cared very much about ヒンメル and the comments are offensive. So I took their goofiness as a show of solidarity to take the attention off Frieren.

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I love the humour here - and I wasn’t expecting it from アイゼン as well!

And then Frieren’s outburst shows despite her lack of outward sadness she is sad, and coming to her own bitter realisation.

RIP ヒンメル. I was at an impressive organ concert today in a very ornate baroque Catholic church (Vierzehnheiligen: walk in virtually here) and the power of the organ was so impressive, and gazing at all these ornate statues carved hundreds of years ago to commemorate people’s lives, this will sound funny, but I just had this really surreal moment feeling connected to ヒンメル’s funeral

p 38-39

This was a tough exchange for me but I got there in the end. Although I do have a question. Here’s the exchange first, which has already been discussed a bit:

Frieren: それで一つ相談なんだけど。私魔法職だからさ、強力な前衛がいると助かるんだよね。
(Indirectly considering/asking アイゼン to come along to protect her is how I took that)

アイゼン: もう斧を振れるような歳じゃないんだ。

アイゼン: 人生ってのは衰えてからとほうが案外長いもんさ。

What I don’t understand is if there is a reason アイゼン so uncharacteristically shows his arm etc here
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