Sousou no Frieren - Vol. 5 Ch. 42 - Reason for Fighting

[Roman99]

Oh well, oh well.
Kinda hate to read comment section bashing this arc besides Taisho Award just announced Frieren-sama won it ._.

My opinion,
- if you see the character looks same, it might be due to the laid-back theme of this series. Though, I disagree the character looks same, 2 girls in Frieren-sama's party and Wirbel's party looks quite standout than other. The reason you guys love Stark (well, I love him too), because he break out the laid back theme and play such as most of slice of life-comedy character.
- worst arc? Meh, even its laid back fantasy, but the writer wants to give us great world building. As someone mentioned before I, ya guys might protest if this series end fast, only focus on the main plot, without build its world sett. The writer wants Frieren-sama (and us, reader) learn more about human mage here, not only the matter of Frieren-sama with our beloved Himmel.
- useless exams? So, what did ya think about shounen tournament hold frequently and killed many character in order to make the MC become OP (or sometimes to worn out 'em)? Its different world, different matter, different point of view. Just enjoy it if you love it, ignore it if you hate it.

 

[space_wizard]

best arc

 

[highsky15]

@Narha Please do keep in mind that this is not a highschool test. The test is not mandatory and when you enrolled in it, you already accept the risk. Think of it as a test for SEAL, not normal people.

The test aimed to filter the great out of the good. And what make a person GREAT? It is either absolutely high knowledge, experience, strength, wit, luck, etc. And most of the time, all of that. Who care if you are weak if your luck is absolutely ridiculous and somehow manage to achieve great deeds? Take Frieren for example, in the view of outsiders, she is just a weakling with small amount of mana and is luckily carried by her ridiculously niche spell and 2 others capable mages. Yet, do you believe that, dear reader?

 

[AnotherRat]

I just hope any of them don't die ;-;

 

[Milanin]

Not gonna lie... The floating corrupt priest with fuyofuyo sfx got me...

 

[ikevinz77]

@Roman99
Considering the success this manga is getting, I sure don't mind the author padding out stuff like these in the middle of the story. Some people are just impatient or sick of battle shonen type of arc.
While waiting for the comfy melancholic side of the story, enjoy this cute fern eating a burger

 

[Narha]

@Tearsax

A test based on luck is a bad test.
As a result of a test based on luck, the title of "First class Mage" becomes meaningless as there could be people who truly deserve the title as they earned it properly as well as some bad-to-average mages who just lucked out. Imagine if a group were to head to a dangerous monster extermination, but the First Class Mage they recruited for it was just some average shmuck that lucked out during the test so they all ended up dying because the First Class Mage they relied on was useless.

@Screwd

Yet even if they entered with the necessary knowledge and skills to survive, they can still fail or die because of the other groups ambushing them or setting up a trap beyond their knowledge or particularly tricky because it's based on some odd kind of magic or because they got bad luck and got paired with 2 useless mages while they ended up facing a group of 3 capable mages.
Yes, a test is not meant to teach you. But nowhere did I say that it should have. But a test should stay on point and not be about luck or random variables, nor should it pointlessly make mages fight one another to the death. That's just a massive waste of actual or potential talent.
Not to mention, a person could fail the test because their moral stance would not allow them to steal another teams Stille. Having a test for First Class Mages where murder and stealing not from an "enemy" but simply from "competition", people who could easily become your ally if the demons were to rise again, or if there were a monster stampede or something, is rather silly too.
And yes, in wartime, it's about getting the objective. But in wartime, or really in any setting where people has to get something done right, they would set up a proper team that complement each other to increase the chances of success, they wouldn't just pick a bunch of random people and send them on their way and they would also provide them with all of the information possible, as them completing their objective is vitally important.
And regarding Frieren's party, it just proves my point. They lucked out in that they had some synergy and are being more or less carried by Frieren. But it could also have been the complete opposite. They could've had a dumbass third member who just ran straight into a trap and got killed by a snake monster and instantly failed the test.

An exam is meant to test a persons capabilities for a specific thing. This test does that, but it's heavily reliant on luck and random variables and you could get royally screwed over if there's some very powerful psycho mage who murders you in cold blood.

 

[Yourself]

 

[Narha]

@highsky15

The tests for navy seals is really hard physical activities.

That would have been much more fitting, a rigorous spellcasting test where you need to know a high variety of spells, fast spellcasting and high mana capabilities.

The navy seal test doesn't involve random murder or death and it doesn't rely on a random person that you were paired with for no reason.

Also there is a limit to how far luck can bring you. Winning multiple of fights against strong opponents because of luck is just unrealistic and silly. Like that lucky guy from Donald Duck.

 

[newboi]

How is that priest's horse in that position?!

 

[yoshiii]

lmao that lucky break haha

 

[Ifuudou]

Thank you for the chapter!

 

[Discola]

Oh no, you've piqued her curiosity!

 

[treiral]

@ikevinz77 thank you, cute fern is cute

 

[redmikan]

Hmm. Frieren is so round about hahaha. Well she's laid back like that I guess. She already knew how to capture a stille without doing all the stuff they planned (Fern said it was taught to her, so..). I wouldn't be surprised if she failed because time's almost up haha. They only need 1 first class mage to travel right? Haha

 

[hori_hoe]

Frieren winking at her master was cuteeee.

yah Frieren is prolly just playing around and teaching the other mages

Fern may win this for them

 

[jay_zaah]

Cute

 

[kaychocolate]

Lmao rip Wirbel, it's never a good thing when Frieren has interest in a weird magic. Good luck getting her to leave you alone.

 

[Mentos]

Cute indeed

 

[the_Bear_from_Bearcave]

Agree with Narha that the test is nonsense. To all the posters replying that luck is important - this isn't RPG when you can put character points in luck instead of strength or magic and count on the support of dice gods for the whole game. Just because someone gets lucky in this test doesn't means same mage won't have shitty luck in battle with demons. Which is why, if you want top of the top, you want to eliminate luck from your tests as much as possible, not leave most of the test to it. If you want the test to be realistically dangerous, but you also are sane person that doesn't want to lose very capable mages, you only permit second, maybe top third class mages, and let them take test only after e.g. serving in the army on the demon border (or other dangerous place) for two years so they won't die stupidly like the group that flew up and got destroyed.
The only way these kind of tests make sense i if they either have way to many candidates and want to slim the pool down the lazy way, assuming at least some of the strong poeple will get through - like way you have two open position and get hundred CVs, you start to want to slim them on arbitrary basis , so you interview only candidates with Master degree . It was mentioned there are few mages nowadays, so it doesn't make sense here.
Or, maybe you want to keep the top mages group as small as possible to keep some kind of elite benefits, so you want to prevent people below you with bullshit murdery tests, also keeping them paranoid with test that promote backstabbing to prevent alliances.