Frieren’s battle with Aura was an example of how a strong setup can make for an amazing payoff. At the end of the day, all the fight came down to was the single instance when Aura decided to use the scales and ended in a couple of minutes. Instead of jumping straight into it and ending the episode there, half of the episode was spent justifying why the demons didn’t know how strong Frieren was, and another half hyping up the eventual reveal.

Frieren was already a strong mage a thousand years ago, single-handedly defeating a demon general and being recognized as enough of a threat for 3 stronger demons to gang up on her. Seeing Flamme wipe the 3 mages in an instant set her up to be an overpowered teacher for Frieren. Flamme’s teachings and exposition on demon society provided a justification on how Frieren hid her own power while being able to gauge the strength of her opponents. However, it didn’t end there. Flamme further told Frieren to make use of her long lifespan to prepare herself to overthrow the demon lord, leading up to a thousand years of honing her magic, all while regulating her mana.

Finally, at the end of it all, Frieren appraised Aura’s mana to be that of a demon who trained for half a millennium, setting her foe up to be formidable. However, this was also part of the setup to show how powerful Frieren was. At this point we already know that Frieren has lived for a thousand years. Aura’s despair when seeing Frieren’s mana released revealed the extent of Frieren’s strength, to be able ot take on powerful demons able to lay seige on a fortified city for decades without breaking a sweat. Speaking of which, it reminds me of the overly cautious hero.

Despite having read the manga and knowing what was coming, sitting through 20 minutes of flashbacks and buildups led to the final scene giving me shivers when it finally happened.

On a side note, Frieren’s centuries of being a hermit being the reason why she was unknown until Himmel found her reminded me of the scene where Lügner called Frieren a genius. Putting aside whether or not she is a genius, the demons got the misunderstanding on how long Frieren trained because she was unknown to the world until 100 years ago.

As another aside, I always enjoy the montages showing the passage of time in Frieren.