While ten years is a huge amount of time for others, it’s but a drop in the bucket in Frieren’s extremely long lifespan of over a thousand in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. Upon disbanding after a decade-long quest to defeat the Demon King and returning to her everlasting hobby of traveling to collect spells, outliving two of her former companions, Frieren realizes how the time spent with them truly impacted her and regrets having taken the bonds and precious memories for granted. So, she journeys beyond what was once a task completed to forge stronger bonds with people and strive to create and understand personal connections. Adapted from the ongoing 14-volume manga written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe, the 28-episode anime series produced by Madhouse, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, made its way to the top of MyAnimeList as one of the most beloved anime of all time.
Although she seems like just a cute elf girl, it becomes clear that Frieren is actually a legendary mage with immense power, even said to have killed the most demons in history and earned the title “Frieren the Slayer”. Enchanting fans with the fantastical viewpoint of an elf mage’s relaxed yet adventurous life, Frieren spends her extensive lifespan collecting a range of spells just as multifaceted as herself, be they frivolously niche like turning sweet grapes into sour ones or saying tongue twisters without tripping over your words, usefully mundane like scratching the itchy parts on your back or preventing eggshells from falling in when cracking eggs, or powerfully offensive spells for battle. But what are the best spells in the series (so far)?
10) A Spell for Survival
There’s a spell for finding lost accessories, a spell to keep your body warm, a spell to make clothes clean, a spell to map a dungeon, a spell to analyze treasure chests (especially for Frieren to avoid constantly being tricked by mimics), and even a spell that allows the user to find a shortcut back to a main road. There are plenty of spells mentioned or demonstrated in either the anime or manga that seem like they would be pretty useful for everyday survival and standard dungeon crawls.
But the most useful for a long, arduous journey filled with unknowns would probably be the highly underrated spell briefly mentioned by Heiter when The Hero Party became trapped in Chapter 97 that allows for survival without food, water, or oxygen for up to two months. Coupled with Ansehelschella (a spell that puts one to sleep and experiences an endless illusion of a happy dream), the combo could even perhaps make for a pleasant way to hibernate during winter.
9) Reelseiden
Being able to slash through almost anything with opponents unable to see its trajectory is what makes Übel’s Reelseiden unassuming yet one of the most dangerous spells in Frieren. While Wirbel is able to deflect Übel’s vicious attack in Episode 26 as entire trees topple, the first-class mage in Episode 20, who was an expert in defense magic and wore a specialized cloak, wasn’t even able to avoid being slashed in two.
The spell may be neither impressive nor complex and limited by five meters, but within those five meters is a space where a target may as well accept their fate. That is, if they even have time to realize they’re doomed before they’re instantly bisected. As a less gruesome and more practical application, imagine how efficient slicing, dicing, and overall prepping would become for use in the kitchen.
8) Unnamed Black Hole Spell
Frieren’s Spiegel clone created a black hole in Episode 26. Which means that Frieren herself knows a spell to create a black hole that pulls in anything and everything in its vicinity and vaporizes them. How is the literal gravity of this spell so brief and glossed over?!
Not only is a spell to create a black hole mind-blowing in itself, but since a black hole the size of a ping pong ball would have enough mass and gravitational pull to be able to destroy the planet, the prospect also implies a great deal of magical exertion to restrain such a chaotic spell.
7) Spatial Transference
While flying magic seems to be an essential and useful spell that’s used often by just about every mage, whether to attain a vantage point, more easily travel rough terrain, or circumvent obstacles, one spell that could outdo or be highly supplemental to such is teleportation magic. The spell was demonstrated by Zart in Chapter 108 when he teleported Frieren into the sky. While the idea of teleportation may seem like it’s overused or even overpowered, there’s too much potential to not include it.
After all, the spell provides such a wide variety of potential uses, both for battle and everyday practicality. Up against an intimidating opponent? Either teleport them or yourself away. Need to travel to a far-off destination, but the trip would be too treacherous, time-consuming, and expensive? Teleport there in an instant. Teleportation may be considered a fairly clichéd or unoriginal power, but there’s no denying its overarching, diverse uses and practicality.
6) Zoltraak
Zoltraak, a blast of concentrated mana, “the great killing magic of legend.” In Episode 3, Frieren explains the story of Qual, a past formidable opponent who developed such a spell, “the first piercing spell in the history of magic” that could pierce defensive spells and magic-resistant armors and absolutely obliterate the body. With such power, forty percent of the adventurers and seventy percent of the mages in the region were killed by the spell. The initial version developed by Qual was also referred to as Human Killing Magic, depicted as black in the anime.
Eventually, after Qual was sealed away, the spell was studied, and more formidable defensive spells were developed. As humans altered Zoltraak to be effective against demons and considered it the basis of humans’ modern offensive magic system, it also became referred to as Demon Killing Magic, inversely depicted as white. Although Zoltraak had eventually been rendered as an offensive spell largely considered average, Frieren admits that she thinks Fern’s Zoltraak could kill her.
5) Defensive Magic
Originally further developed to counter Zoltraak, defensive magic became a staple of mages’ magical prowess, an essential skill known by every non-demon mage who uses a lot of mana and must be precise. As shown in Episode 23, it can evidently even be powerful enough to become reflective, allowing the user to take an opponent’s offensive magic that has made contact with the user’s barrier and reflect the magic back.
As exemplified by Qual’s battle with Fern and Frieren, the progressive history of magical research and development gave a flair of nuance to the fantastical worldbuilding. Heck, before Flamme’s behest of magical research, humans had even previously written off magic as a design of demons. Displaying how the once indomitable Zoltraak spell had eventually been studied and assimilated into commonly understood basic offensive spells, so too had defensive spells been developed to become more widely understood and, inversely to the subdued offensive spell, became stronger with time and development.
4) Dispelling Magic
Along with defensive magic being a good basis to thwart attacks, they say prevention is the best medicine. While cutting off a mage from utilizing their mana can be pivotal, the spell Sorganeil may be useful in restraining an opponent’s mana at the source, the limitations such as requiring the caster to literally keep an eye on their target, only able to cast it on a single target, and failure to be effective in an ambush are too great of risks.
As such, sometimes the best spell is to dispel. With dispelling magic, if the caster is able to analyze an opponent’s spell, they can then cancel the effects of said spell and in turn forcibly stop an attack in its tracks before it can take place, as demonstrated by Frieren herself in Episode 9 against Aura.
3) Spell of Obedience: Auserlese
As displayed by the demon Aura (or, more accurately, Frieren) in Episode 10, Auserlese is a spell in which the Scales of Obedience are used to weigh the mana of the caster and target’s souls and the one deemed to possess the greater mana tips the scale in their favor and forces the other to submit to their will without having to lift a finger. But if the “lesser’s” will is strong enough, it’s possible to break free of subjection or even turn the tables.
As powerful as the spell sounds, especially with the portrayal of weighing mages’ very souls, it seems to be a double-edged sword (double-sided scale?). The spell may be a powerful tool to subdue one’s enemy, but requiring an extra apparatus sounds clunky in practice, and the two-way interaction would be detrimental should a user such as Aura underestimate their target.
2) Fürwehrer
While a century is a doable amount of time for Frieren to learn certain spells that require such, that’s not exactly a possibility for most mages, especially humans. As demonstrated by Serie in Chapter 96 in the manga and possibly implied in episode 21 when Frieren declines Serie’s offer to give Frieren any spell she wished, Fürwehrer is a spell that creates a grimoire that rends the knowledge and practice of a spell from the caster, allowing for a one-way transfer the spell and bestowing it to the recipient of the grimoire.
With this spell, it’s possible to learn such time-consuming, arduous spells without devoting one’s own blood, sweat, tears, and entire life to the single endeavor, ultimately expediting the process from a lengthy tribulation to a comparably jaunty reading session.
1) The Height of Magic
The Height of Magic is an offensive spell that Frieren only seems to utilize on rare occasion as a last resort, such as when Frieren’s Spiegel clone uses it against Fern in Episode 26 and the last time Frieren herself used it was 80 years prior during the Hero Party’s battle with the Demon King. The attack is so quick to telekinetically repel the target; mana cannot be sensed when it’s used, leaving the target unable to recognize it as a spell. Even so, the spell isn’t without flaws, as it leaves the caster’s guard completely down.
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End can be streamed on Netflix and Hulu, and Crunchyroll.
What’s your favorite spell in Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End? Let us know in the comments!
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