I’m finally in a place with Slime where I feel excited by every episode. So far the arcs have been coming and going much faster, and I might need to split my biweekly coverage so that the episodes start feeling more appropriate. But since we’re nearing the end of the season, not much to do about it now.
Episode 19 focuses on the fight against Charybdis, the demon that was created when Phobio was duped by the harlequins, and it is hilariously hard. It’s nice to see that the farther we go there are in fact power levels that the village has issues fighting against. None of the ogres or orcs were capable of stopping the gigantic demon, and so Rimuru had to fight it. Of course, he then finds out: woops, the thing wanted to fight Milim the whole time. I wonder how many off screen characters died in the fight against Charybdis because Rimuru ‘didn’t want to involve Milim’?
Who am I kidding this is Slime Isekai. No one died, and everyone is happy. Not that I’m honestly complaining. So honestly, seeing Milim just absolutely crush everything did take some tension away. But because she is absolutely funny I can never be mad at the show. How do I hold anything against her when she has the funniest quips and is so separate from reality it’s fantastic? This show would never work if the dialogue and characters weren’t just so amazing.
The following episode really nails the point home. Rimuru goes on a journey to fulfill Shizue’s wishes, but he does it in the funniest way possible. He meets one of Shizue’s friends and they attack Rimuru, thinking he is an enemy. Nope, they’re both from Japan and Yuki, a student of Shizue’s, befriends Rimuru when he makes infinite copies of all the manga he’s read from actual Japan. I can’t make this shit up: manga is how he solves this problem.
What Rimuru learns is important to the story. While Yuki and Rimuru are otherworlders, the children Shizue wanted to protect are summons who will die from the energy in their bodies within 5 years. Of course, Rimuru decides that he will protect them somehow in order to honor Shizue, so they’re now his problem! And well, they’re sort of impressively powerful kids who don’t seem like they’ll die. Thanks, anime, you’re going to make me cry again, aren’t you?
Even though so far there are things in the episodes that are cheesy, I appreciate them. It’s a bit hard to divest myself in the show. There are things that contradict themselves for me. When I’m watching I just inwardly enjoy the show and get to feel a lot of positive emotions. When I’m done I have to reflect and think about things like a reviewer. As a reviewer, there is much about the show I know is cliché: Milim’s too powerful and disrupts the power of the show. Solving everything with jokes is silly and the world never stays dark for long.
But dangit, I don’t care. I have too many good emotions about the show. If you can watch an anime with these problems and not feel them while you watch, that means the show is being executed well. And it is, gosh dangit. I want everyone to succeed and for everything to be good. So I’m gonna keep watching. And gosh darn my reviewer brain.
Keep kicking ass Rimuru.
Oki
The manga magazine volumes Rimuru conjures up are all Shounen Sirius mags, where Slime’s manga is serialized.
You may notice other titles that Sirius has published over the years in those scenes, like the recent Ride-on King (Buff, martial-artist dictator who looks like Vladimir Putin gets sent to an isekai fantasy world – it’s much better than it sounds.)
Ps. There are fantranslations available for King.