That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 2 [Blue Mage Feast]

Episode 2 of slime focuses in on the conceptual execution of our reincarnated protagonist. What do his abilities as a slime really cover, how can he utilize those abilities, and even how his personality shifts now after becoming a new entity. It feels strange to refer to the protagonist as ‘he’ because the slime is more of a generic ‘it’ or ‘they’, but it’s also hard to shake the existence of the protagonist’s former life and refer to the slime as ‘he’ because of it. To start, the protagonist is unable to simply eat his new dragon friend’s imprisoning seal. This, of course, would have been too easy for us as viewers to watch, but at first, I was sure this problem was going to be solved by eating. My thoughts were proven right as the slime and Velora agree that it should eat Velora and the imprisonment whole, in hopes of learning how to break the seal. In order to signify that they are now good friends, the slime gives Velora a family name they will share and Velora names the slime. After this, the slime is now known as ‘Rimuru Tempest’ and proceeds to eat Velora, and Velora’s seal, whole.

The show has a slow pace but it’s an enjoyable one. It’s hard to hold it against the show when it succeeds at what it is trying to with so little effort. I think a good way to talk about this episode is to get into what makes shows like this hard to watch and what makes them easy to watch. In Overlord Season 3 I complained that there was so little happening and I eluded to the fact that I felt this was poor storytelling and execution on a storyboarders part. If you look at ‘Slime’ there are some definite examples as of why. Rimuru learns that they can eat enemies after defeating them and gain their abilities and because of this we watch several enemies be defeated by the Slime and be devoured. This was important for us to see because it allowed us to learn all of Rimuru’s newly obtained abilities and how he learns to use them. But this could have very easily been done in a way that was not interesting at all.

The storyboarders of the anime succeeded very well because they made dynamic scenes. The voice actors succeeded because their acting made it interesting to watch Rimuru react to their enemies and their surroundings. He knows water blade and then learned how to effectively use it, he learned poison breath and learned it was too powerful. All of these things could easily be monotonous were it not done with interesting animation, and ‘Slime’ regularly capitalizes on interesting and engaging animation. I normally need to explain why I liked it, but it was simply enjoyable to watch and engage with the show. There is a consistent tone, theme, and idea and I’m interested in it.

The latter portion of the episode introduces Rimuru to a group of monsters who are weak and need to be protected. Rimuru clearly remembers his/their old life and finds themselves helping out the goblins because they remind them of their younger senpai who they died saving, it’s simply hard for Rimuru as a creature to forsake weak people when they need him. Next episode seems like it will focus on how he protects them from a group of direwolves and it will be fun to gauge just what kind of power level Rimuru actually has compared to the one he emits. The show has also started introducing humans who are up to their own machinations, but I’m really excited to see how they react to a simple slime ruining their lives and plans. Lol.

Oki