Tensei shitara Slime Datta Ken

When was the last time a light novel adaptation or isekai tried to be straightforward? Nothing fancy, nothing repetitive or self-indulgent, just simple. With the likes of Re:Zero, Akashic Records, Overlord, and Mahouka, it’s become harder and harder to find an LN or isekai show that just wants to entertain (parodies like Konosuba don't count cuz fuck you). Even many of the “simpler”, “safer” anime like The Asterisk War and Isekai wa Smartphone fail to realize that we just want something simple and satisfying. That’s probably why Slime is as popular as it is. It just wants to entertain us with a fun, digestible isekai ... world for an adorable protagonist to build in and explore. Not to mention, it does so with some decent visuals, good music, and the sense of whimsey you’d expect from a show about being in a game-like world. That’s not to say the show never gets violent, that it never indulges in typical LN and isekai cliches, or even that it’s a good show. It’s just that Slime values entertainment above all else, never overindulging to the point of stupidity or alienation. Frankly, this is the first isekai in years to not suck.

Slime’s visuals are honestly strange. It doesn’t really feel like it was made in 2018 or 2019. Something about this odd and inconsistent art style doesn’t feel like something you’d see nowadays. While the art style certainly feels unorthodox, a lot of the facial expressions are priceless and adorable as a result, particularly with Rimuru’s slime form. The sheer liveliness of some of the environments trumps even the likes of No Game No Life, which is arguably the most visually stunning isekai on the market. The show often experiments with different styles, like swapping between anime and photorealistic footage when getting us acquainted with Rimuru’s slime form in episode 1, or when he fantasizes about hot elves and they’re drawn in a 90s aesthetic. Several moments in the show, along with the first ED, also add a sort of digital, VR-like filter to whatever’s happening onscreen. Speaking of the first ED, the visuals for it change 4 times, and each version looks great. Even when they’re not experimenting, some of the action scenes and sequences of Rimuru wandering around in slime form look stunning and fluid. The first OP is a wonderful example of this. Sadly, the visuals are about as inconsistent as everything else. For every moment of smooth or lively visuals, we have moments of typical static shots, and episodes where we don’t get much animation. Some of the background and foreground scrolling tends to look awkward as well, and the rampant CGI tends to be even worse. Still, the character designs are generally great, and the high points in the animation put nearly every other isekai or LN adaptation to shame. Studio 8bit is probably one of the better sources of isekai anime out there.

Even more vibrant is the music. Early on, we’re treated to some fun chiptune pieces, along with some adventurous tracks. Somehow, the amount of more lighthearted and fun tracks, and even the amount of battle themes is completely overshadowed by the sheer volume of great emotional pieces. A track that perfectly exemplifies both sides of this is actually the first ED, "Another colony" by TRUE. The guitars and drums give this energetic vibe that’s both invigorating and a tad emotional, and the violins more than add to the more emotional aspect of the song. Along with the decent vocals, these elements turn this into one of the better EDs of 2018, and a great way to cap off each episode. I don’t care as much for the second ED despite its more sentimental tone. Takuma Terashima does the 2 OPs of this season, and they are both fantastic. The first, “Nameless Story”, is a striking tune, especially with that bombastic usage of the special guitar which gives a more rustic, perhaps 2000s vibe. The visuals accentuate that vibe, as both aspects of the OP meld to create both this sense of adventure and danger. The second OP, “Meguru Mono” is a far calmer, more emotional piece that shows just how far Rimuru and his civilization have come, and how wondrous things will remain in the future.

As expected from an isekai, the writing is a bit of a mess. The show’s pacing is often strange, and it has a ton of pointless and bewildering time skips. Emotional moments often feel rushed or conjured out of thin air, and the show often forgets about its characters until they randomly appear later. Examples of the latter include the time when Gobta’s just left alone in a cell halfway into episode 5 and forgotten about, or when the goblins and wolves are told to wait outside at the beginning of episode 4 and are forgotten about until episode 6, where we see them and a whole new batch of goblins working. The show also tends to resort to time skips, glossing over the progression of the central village Rimuru builds, and making the town’s progression and some of Rimuru’s absences feel utterly ridiculous.

Another problem is that the world-building is sometimes inconsistent and unexplained, like how Rimuru could only name like 50 or so goblins and one wolf before passing out in episode 3 and then 500 goblins in episode 6. The worst case of the latter is in episode 19 where the wolf Ranga suddenly has a strong partnership with Shion and pulls a flying ability out of nowhere, since the characters ask how and when he learned that and became that close with her, and we never get an answer. Granted, the world-building is never indigestible and rarely broken like it is in Mahouka or Smartphone. It’s just that these issues become especially distracting when the narratives are already rather unremarkable and badly paced. It’s even worse when most of the arc conclusions are drawn-out, anticlimactic, or cheesy, with the 4th arc’s finale being the worst example. That said, some of the storylines in this show are genuinely good. The best example of this is the 3-part storyline with Shizue at the end of arc 1, with its intense backstory and a sentimental payoff for Shizue and her ultimately tragic tale. If only more of this show’s arcs and mini-stories were as good as this or even the majority of the second arc, but inconsistency really is Slime’s middle name.

A majority of the characters in this show are actual yes men, often with one defining character trait and only some level of chemistry to make them salvageable. Barring Rimuru (the little asshole), his internal sage assistant, and perhaps the utter dolt that is Gabiru, it seems like the best characters in this show are ones that appear for a short time, like Shizue, Veldora, or the trio of guild adventurers at the end of the first arc. They along with the characters I’ve named often have the most entertaining personalities and chemistry, and the most we get from them are a few gags at Gobta’s, Shion’s, and Rimuru’s expense. Almost none of them have any exceptional personalities or amazing chemistry to rival the GOATs in anime casts, nor do any of them necessarily wring any hype out of me aside from a character introduced in the penultimate episode. However, none of them are insufferable or horribly written. Still, this is probably Slime’s weakest and least entertaining aspect.

The experience of watching this anime at its best is a lot like that of playing a Kirby game. It has an adorable, round, expressive protagonist who absorbs his enemies’ powers while exploring new lands, and a sense of whimsy crafted by the bouncy slime animation and wonderfully varied OST. The experience of watching this anime at its best is a lot like that of playing a Kirby game. It has an adorable, round, expressive protagonist who absorbs his enemies’ powers while exploring new lands, and a sense of whimsy crafted by the bouncy slime animation and wonderfully varied OST. It’s not necessarily well-written, visually stunning, or even consistently entertaining, but it sets a benchmark for isekai that frankly hasn’t been met in half a decade. All it needed to do in order to not suck was just be straightforward and willing to entertain.

With that said, can we finally have a good isekai again, please? I don’t want another isekai ending with a recap episode, as amusing as this one was. (Yes, the recap is listed as its own anime now, but it was still advertised as the final episode by the show itself, and MAL did not list it as its own entry when this review was made. Fuck you, it's my review...you bullies.)

Written and Edited by: CodeBlazeFate
Proofread by: Peregrine

After hearing so much about Reincarnated as a Slime I finally decided to binge the 13 eps that are out to see what the fuss is about. I am pretty disappointed with what I found, not because the show is terrible, but at how over-hyped it has been.

To start, the story so far is pretty boring. Pretty much every conflict that has happened so far has been resolved either by our OP protag, or the OP ability gifted by our protag to his friends (I'll leave it at that for spoilers). This was fine at first but by episode 13 I should have seen our ... characters struggle against SOMETHING- and to be clear this is not One Punch Man. There is no hidden conflict for our MC, and very little humor regarding our MC's easy victories. And just when a plot point get's interesting (around ep 7-8) the show gets rid of it, seemingly to swerve the audience expectations at the expense of creating a fun and interesting character dynamic.

The characters in the show are nothing special either. Our MC is a typical overpowered shounen protag, a pervy incel thrust into a wish-fulfillment fantasy. He has a few funny one liners but there is nothing interesting about him (it?) except that he/it is a slime. Oh and by episode 10 he has a human form because a show about a slime MC didn't want to commit to keeping a slime MC.

The side characters aren't much better. Every time an interesting character is introduced the plot pushes them out of spotlight in one way or another, and replaces them with boring one dimensional anime tropes. I have nothing against anime tropes- but a show has to do something special and when every other aspect of the show is just average, the boring characters really stand out. In all fairness, there is one fun character (Gobta) who is honestly the highlight of the show imo. Maybe he can save the show in the last 11 episodes?

The art and sound in this show are fine, if not above average. a lot of the action looks smooth and the animations are pretty. Unfortunately above-average animation has almost nothing to do with making a show good. On the other, I have found strong musical scores can really add to the emotional impact of a scene, and help mask some messy plot at times. Unfortunately none of the music here was of that quality. Not to say it was bad, but the best way to describe it is that I watched all 13 episodes within 40 hours of writing this and can't recall a single tune.

The enjoyment of this show is the kicker imo. Easily the most subjective category here and while I've bashed the show up til now I can definitely tell this is a show that many enjoy and many reading this would enjoy it as well. It's a "turn your mind off and watch the protag kick ass" kind of show, and even I have a special spot for guilty pleasure shows (looking at you Irregular at Magic High). If you are simply a fan of isekai or need a tropey pick-me-up then this might be for you.

Overall this show is pretty average and I don't understand the hype. Pretty much every other review I've read or heard has glowingly praised the show as "charming" yet this seems to a fairly intangible concept used to cover up a show that really doesn't do anything unique. If you want a "charming" average isekai then this is the show for you, but I would not recommend Reincarnated as a Slime to anyone who has been misled to the idea that this is the next big thing or SAO done right.


**Edit: Through Episode 16 nothing has changed and the show has only doubled down on its flaws. I'm still hopeful for a fun and challenging arc to close out the series though, so I can't write it off just yet.

[Mild Spoilers Alert]

Isekai fan reporting in. I've watched many Isekais so far, including Death March and Isekai Smartphone (that one was pretty fun to be honest), so when I heard we're getting ANOTHER Isekai anime, how can I not check it out?

It was paired with tons of praise (thanks r/anime) which made me think it's some hot stuff.

8 episodes in, and nope. Nothing.
It's not bad, it's not good, it's "Fine I guess".

The pacing is the biggest problem with the anime. I already have one anime to follow which has the pacing of a snail (thanks One Piece), but unlike One Piece which actually has some ... decent stuff going on, Slime has definitely nothing.

Today's episode (8) had 0 content in it (it was 1 page in the manga) yet spread out to 24 minutes, including the MC summarizing what happened in the last few episodes TWICE.

8 Episodes in, and we still have no definite story. Our "super interesting" Slime MC does nothing but wander around and beat some bad guys on the way for no real reason. Then we get introduced to a new, interesting character, and the writer hypes us up. Nope, gone.

So Slime-san is just wandering aimlessly, while showing us some fanservice of huge elf/goblin/whatever boobs (because why not?)


Isekai Smartphone was fun because it didn't take itself seriously, it just shits on everything the Isekai Harem genre presents. But it seems like Slime Datta wants to take itself... seriously?

Oh and I say it has no Harem but everyone love him because he's such a nice guy. Not a Harem of 5 girls, but of many women and men.

Now, we already see from the get go that our Slime-san is OP. That's ok, but instead of showing us some flashy fights with him using his super OP powers, nah, he wins because of some other stupid reason.

[Spoiler] Imagine there's a big fire spirit who is super strong and destroyed a village in a second. Our MC must fight him. Fire spirit makes everything burn, while our MC is thinking of a way of action. Then he gets caught in the flames! Oh what will he do? Will he eat the flames and enhance himself? Will he transform into one of the bigger monsters he just ate? Will he cover himself in water? Oh boy what will he do?! Nah, he's just fire resistant. So fire doesn't affect him at all. Great...[EndSpoiler]

Boring, I might not drop it just yet, but I might soon.

Tensei shitara Slime Datta Ken Review.

I haven't watched allot of isekai animes, mainly because the ones i have watched mostly bored me. i find the genre to be the same story repackaged in different formats, there is often a person wich gets teleported to another world and becomes overpowered and gets a bunch of girls. Now a overpowered character can be funn but seeing it over and over again in the same medival setting gets boring fast. If there was a show wich did something funn with this consept i would gladly watch it. This is where That Time I Got Reincarnated as a ... Slime comes into the picture. It does something new and interesting with the consept of being overpowered.

Story:6
So far the story focuses on a guy living a lonely life, then getting stabbed and getting transported or (Reincarnated) to another world as a slime, im not going into detail so i am just going to say that a Big evil threat apeared and this man/slime now called rimuru tempest is the only one who can stop it! What i will say is what sets this show apart from other shows with overpowered main cahracters. It is how our main character chooses to use his powers, the plot progresses allitlebit like a videogame. think of Civilisation5. Our main character meets different monsters and recruits them to be his fellow comrades, you see them getting stronger and stronger for each episode passing. I found this to be very funn to watch, you see how this small party of people become a little Village.


Art and animation:5
The artstyle is fine and the animation is fine nothing really impressed me but i still cant say its bad. there are moments of cool well done animation and the character designs are fine aswell, some of the cgi looks really bad and some of the cgi looks good. This really just has to do with personal taste so i am just going to say that overall its allright.

Sound and music:7
The soundtrack is actually allright, the songs fit very well to the scenes they where playing over. Now the sound design is very good, the sound of an orc punshing a lizardman in the back of the head might be a bit higher than in real life but very satisfying.
The opening and ending are funn and has a good amount of worldbuilding aswell. Overall its good, i like it and when i think of the series i can hear the soundtrack aswell as the characters.

Characters:4
The characters are possibly the most important aspect of a show in MY humble opinion. The show has very simplistic characters wich isnt a bad thing. The monsters our main characters have become friends with all have their own little arcs some more satisfying than others. most of the characters are just funn to watch, and honestly thats ok for a show wich doesent take itself to serious although there are a few characters wich begin to annoy me. i would like to see more development for the characters in the future and i think the show will make that happen. our main character has many unanswered questions about the world and himself. The story steadily progresses forwards to answer those questions so far and i hope it will continue to.

Enjoyment:6
I am happy i started watching this show. If you are interested in watching it i recommend you do, it is probably the best isekai i have watched although the characters arent perfect there hasnt really been any big tension or gutrenching drama so far i enjoy every episode and look forwards to the next one.

Overall:5
I find the show to be funn and well made, it is better than most isekais and knows what it is. And remember i am only a guy saying my opinion.
Sorry for bad English and grammatical errors :)

NO SPOILERS; MIGHT REVISE AT END OF SERIES

TLDR: Decently animated and voiced but cursed with a mediocre story smothering its own promise, Slime is carried by two strong characters; but these two bright (and perhaps short lived) sparks cannot save the show from a disappointing supportive cast and overly frequent detours into generic trope territory. An experience that may be enjoyed by some, if you're willing to put substance aside and just roll with the ride.

I didn't expect much from this show, but I did consider changing my mind in the first episode. But eventually I've been proven right: I found this show to be ... painfully average. In fact, Slime's criminal flaw is not in a very shaky story or lacklustre characterisation — this show is just simply uninteresting to me when I look at it as a whole.

It's a pretty basic story, reminiscent of Overlord but with more...docile and far less hostile characters. Slime charts the rise of the now reborn protagonist: Rimuru Tempest, a wisecracking and perverted slime that's attempting to build an empire through sweat and steel. What's good about this whole journey is how the show paces itself and how it realistically shows genderless slime creature Rimuru tackle obstacle after obstacle when it comes to forging its kingdom.

That's...pretty much all that's good about the plot.

Like many shows, friendship power is greatly abused in this show. Enemies and characters who have every right to be hostile, roll over easily for Rimuru to (literally and figuratively) scratch their bellies. Slime's opportunism can sit well some times, but it eventually turns the story shallow and despicably loathsome. There's pretty much nothing at stake for Rimuru Tempest, as it gets what it wants, settling issues through a show of immeasurable force or by flaunting the strength of its allies.

Rimuru literally murders a creature BRUTALLY, only to have the creature's own child AND its WHOLE group follow him loyally—with a very half asses explanation after, no questions asked. The son of this murdered creature also fawns over and almost worships Rimuru—the very individual that murders his father, before his very eyes. He encounters powerful kingdoms who just lie down and want to befriend him. He makes two warring groups come to peace with each other and live together; disregarding the fact that they had been spilling each others' blood and intestines just a day or two before. He somehow makes friends with one of the strongest beings in his world (way, WAY stronger than him at that moment) by offering aforementioned being some honey, thus gaining an unbeatable ally that effectively grants Rimuru immunity from the very few things that can actually threaten it in the first place.

It's the way this show completely tosses aside the idea of actions having consequences that irritates me. Things are handled with a couldn't care less attitude in Slime, making it quickly repeat itself again and again...like a broken record. Rimuru could slaughter half of his villagers; yet the remaining half would still flock around the Great Rimuru adoringly, as though he crowned them with roses.

Slime's best arc came in its first few episodes, and ended just as quickly. The show has steadily dipped in terms of quality since then. Perhaps due in great part, to its lack of well written characters.

Rimuru Tempest starts off to me as a pretty good character, even considering that he is exceptionally overpowered. His moments prior to reincarnation as a slime monster highlight the person he is: cynical, somewhat on a high horse and very goal centred; but still deeply loyal and selfless in the end. I was happy with how many layers they added to Rimuru and to a large degree, Rimuru is still a great positive even throughout the show at its lowest points (as in, the time I'm writing this review). His actions and line of thought stay true to the person he is and though he has VERY LITTLE character growth, that element of characterisation is presented very well by the writers. So you have Rimuru with all its flaws and strengths (personality wise), ensuring that this genderless slime is at very least, never a bland slime.

This series' supporting characters are the ones that hurt the show greatly. There's literally nobody of worth except for Shizue Izawa, who has an extremely interesting backstory and character arc. Her involvement in the show marks the best part of the series, as her dynamic with Rimuru is a powerful one—that continues to define the series to this very moment.

The twist in their relationship is especially profound and dare I say, heartbreaking. Such poetic undertones would complement Slime's overall carefree nature very well...add a layer of depth to its happy go lucky gait. Too bad Slime never introduces more ideas like this.

Rimuru's inner circle is filled with the typical trope characters. Blunted yandere, deredere, loli, male kuuderes...you get my point. Characters have no real role but to function as plot devices: they're inserted in such a way that it is IMPOSSIBLE to imagine any of them getting any development at all. Every character you're introduced to ends up being mostly irrelevant, used sparingly after their 10 minutes of fame per season card expires. Except Milim Nava, who just gets showtime EXCLUSIVELY for fan service.And when I say that, you can probably surmise that there's nothing going for this show as of now in the character department.

In fact the words shallow and half assed come quickly to mind.

Animation and art in this show were major strengths at the start of the series. I think many of the initial fights were handled well, from hand to hand combat to the magic battles. I'm also still fond of the character designs here and the colours used, especially in battle. There's some vibrant stuff here. Sad to say that the quality of the animation has...dipped slightly from the explosive start. So you don't have anything really on the level of those first ten episodes, especially since we're in a very much slower arc right now. So as a whole, I could still say that it's pretty decently animated and good to look at. Nothing much to expect here in terms of visual storytelling or cinematography though: expect a lack of depth comparable to Sword Art Online's art here (although some of those Aincrad shots had GREAT cinematography BUT BACK TO POINT).

Show has two great OP and endings, but nothing too great in way of the OST. Voice acting tends to be solid, especially from Rimuru. But in comparison to the other shows that have come out this season, it's clear to see that this show really cannot compete in this category.

So yeah, this show is enjoyable for some amount of time, but I got quickly tired of it. Would I recommend it? Probably not, I've enjoyed other isekai more and I'm not particularly sure that Slime brought anything new or interesting for ME to the table. However, there are SOME really fun parts in this show that may lead to it being enjoyed. I don't know, that's up to you.

I just wish that this show could have kept strong to most of what it started with.

As I get older, I find myself often seeking out novelty when it comes to entertainment. Like with games, I still enjoy epic RPG and RTS games, but these days I'm mostly drawn to ones with unusual concepts like taking on the role of a shop keeper or a passport stamper rather than a world-saving hero.

Anime is no exception, so when I came across one about a slime - that most humble of monsters residing on the bottom rung of the RPG food chain - my immediate reaction was "sign me up, Scotty!"

Novelty concepts can only get you so far though; a lot hinges on ... the execution. The execution of "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime", or TenSura for short, is nothing special. The show is passable, and has moments when it delivers on the novelty premise. But overall it doesn't feel as fresh as I had hoped.

TenSura seems to have its fingers stuck in several popular pies. In case you haven't guessed from the synopsis-style name, the show originates from a series of light novels, set squarely in the trendy isekai game world, where girls are mostly big-breasted moebaits, all drawn to the protagonist like flies to a slimy poo. In addition, TenSura wants to be comedy, drama, action, fantasy adventure amongst other things. As a result of being spread so thinly, large parts of the series comes off as sterile, going through the typical motions of whatever it's trying to be with varying degrees of success, but never quite striking gold.

To start with, TenSura leans too heavily on its JRPG origins. While I can appreciate a few good jokes referencing the sort games the show parodies, the trappings of the settings are so in-your-face that it interferes with the storytelling. One of the main symptoms takes the form of the Great Sage. This is some AI-esq entity residing in the mind of Rimuru, our slimy main character, acting as his guide, his advisor and his analyst all rolled into one. I understand it's the in-story representation of a game's manual/system for easing in a new player, which is actually a pretty good parody idea. But that kind of gimmick can only be played for a quick laugh. TenSura chooses instead to have the Great Sage act as a uncomfortably big plot device, a cheap and deep well of knowledge which can be plumbed for exposition at the leisure of Rimuru, our slimy n00b.

This kick-down-the-barriers approach to storytelling is something TenSura does a lot. Not a single obstacle appear to exist in this fantasy world that Rimuru, our great slimy leader, cannot overcome within a couple of episodes, whether through brains or brawn. To be fair, I do like the fact that Rimuru doesn't just use his overpowered powers to muscle his way to solutions, he also applies the skills and experience of his previous life as a middle management salaryman. In this respect TenSura reminds me a little of Maoyuu. But it also suffers the same problem as Maoyuu, in that Rimuru operates at a level so far above everyone else that the story struggles to build up any tension or drama. With a few powerful attacks, Rimuru can decimate an army; with a few choice words or action, he can sway enemies into loyal allies. Everything feels too easy.

The dramatic elements of TenSura suffers particularly from the shortcuts taken by the writing. The anime's idea of fleshing out the characters consists of crowbarring in a tragic backstory right before they kick the bucket, and then expect you to care, even though you've only known the character for about half an hour. The underwhelming writing also shows itself in the dialogues, where we get treated to regurgitated "classic" lines such as "BAKA BAKA BAKA BAKA BAKA BAKA BAKA BAKA!!"

As an action series, TenSura does serve up some pretty cool battle sequences and flashy special effects. But Rimuru, our overpowered slimy protagonist, tends to drain the tension out of most battles he gets involved in.

Comedy is what TenSura does best, and the show delivers its fair share of amusing jokes. Unfortunately though, TenSura thinks it's funnier than it actually is. The show has a tendency to milk its jokes beyond their worth through over-reaction and repitition. When the jokes are funny, the milking diminishes the humour; when the jokes aren't funny, the anime just comes off as lame. Kind of like being in the presence of an irritating guy who insists on gaffawing at every joke he makes. It only gets worse when he starts telling the same ones over and over.

TenSura is at its most amusing when making good use of the novel premise. Had the show ended after one cour, it would have been better for it. But not content to focus on the one good thing it has, TenSura overextends in order to hit all the popular bases. Predictably, the novelty starts wearing off in the weaker second half, to which TenSura responds by turning to fake novelty, the kind which have become stone wall cliches by this point. For example, TenSura would introduce a demon lord who - get this - takes the form of a pink haired, hyper active moeblob with an annoyingly high pitched voice! Who could possibly have guessed! By this point, female characters in TenSura had become cancerous in general. It's like they were designed to irritate, and the voice actresses duly obliged by turning in a suite of nails-on-chalkboard-worthy performances. Also, The joke about Rimuru, our lecherous slimy harem-lead, nestling against a girl's jiggling jugs and being fawned and fought over by everyone not in possession of a dick may have been funny first time round, but it's certainly not good enough as a running gag.

Hmmm, this review came off harsher than I intended. I guess it's hard to expound on TenSura's strengths when it doesn't really have any outstanding points. Much like a slime, it mostly ambles along in an cutesy, inoffensive, mildly amusing kind of manner. "Jack of all trades" is another way of describing the show except labelling it as "jack" flatters it - it's more like an eight of all trades and certainly master of none.

Personal rating: +0.5 (decent)

Great first half, disappointing latter half.

When the otaku mc who had no girlfriend and questionable content in his PC died by the stab of a passerby robber, I thought this was going to be a parody. Turns out it is not. I have always disliked stories where mc dies and gets reincarnated again because the significance of death is lost from that moment. This makes any life threatening situations meaningless - why would you care about someone's death if they might just get reincarnated again? But surprisingly, the story hooks you on despite the cliched start because the struggle of the characters is not merely ... to survive, but to build a country where everyone exists peacefully via diplomacy and talk.

The main character changes his personality by about 180 degrees once he becomes a slime. He is no longer brooding over his past, no regrets in his previous life and becomes a very cheerful character. But that is for the best because his cheerful mood and how he takes most of the things lightly makes the show enjoyable.

But there are many problems that become evident as the story goes on. The characters of this show come off as very superficial. There is a character that serves as the main motivation for the actions of Rimuru. This character gets the most development in the story so far. Rimuru lacks any backstory or personal developments to make him interesting. There is nothing really special about any other characters. The character interactions are interesting but very predictable. They are directly taken from your typical RPG setting with stiff roles. Most of the characters lose all relevence soon after they are introduced.

Somehow all the female monsters in this series end up becoming very cute (even if they aren't initially when they are introduced) - it is as if the anime thinks that we can't like them if they look different. There is also some fanservice thrown around for good measure. Whether that is good or bad is upto the viewers and how they like their anime. But there is no forced romance or harem elements allowing this to be one of the better isekai out there.

**Spoilers from here onwards**

The first half of the season introduces the world Rimuru is in and gives an idea about the various species, their kingdoms and the relationships between them. The Orc Lord story is honestly well done. It tells how some demon lords manipulate entire races for their personal gains. This is what made the show interesting. But once the second half of the season starts, it feels more like filler.
There is Milim - far stronger than Rimuru, but immediately becomes his ally because he gave her some honey and tasty food?! She is in there for so long and has never tasted honey before? It would work as comedy but when her friendship with Rimuru has far reaching consequences for the main plot, it just looks bad. Also how come no other demon lords, known for evil haven't manipulated her till now?
There is the half dragon thing originated from Veldora - only accounting for an unnecessary fight just to show how strong Milim is. But soon after we go to another arc where Milim is not relevent anymore. So till she or the demon lord of animal kingdom become relevent again, it only feels like pointless filler. They could have interchanged these arcs for better continuity.
There is the sky dragon which appeared from nowhere and was defeated even faster than it appeared. All the fights Rimuru was involved till then had some foreshadowing or preparations behind the curtain. This however feels like a disconnected event entirely there for the merchant to like Rimuru.

**Spoilers End Here**

The ending for the season skips some plot points and instead includes a flashback styled AMV and uses two episodes for content that should have been OVA's. The last episode is another recap episode when we already got a recap in 23rd episode. They should have used that episode for better adaptation of main story.

The animation most of the time is good looking and action scenes are great. But sometimes they start using CGI and it really looks bad. The CGI score I would give is a 5/10, barely serviceable. (For reference, 10 would be ufotable or production IG's CGI and 1 would be the berserk CGI)

There are a few memorable ost's, but most of them do not stand out. The openings and endings were good enough that I didn't skip them.

The anime is an above average adaptation. The pacing was great till 8th episode. But the adaptation is slightly rushed beyond that point.

Overall I still find it enjoyable to watch despite the obvious shortcomings. There seems to be a good underlying plot that the author has just started. Season 2 has been announced and it should be better because of all the setups in this season. It is similar to Overlord in many aspects, but far better than watching an emotionless mc slowly and inevitably take over the world.
Overall 6.5/10

Tensei shitara Slime Datta Ken may be one of the most decent isekai recently released… But please, can we stop pretending this serie is perfect?


The premise of this serie is pretty much the same as other isekais: MC dies and gets transported to a fantasy/RPG game world, but in this case he reincarnates as a slime. Slimes are well recognized to be the most basic and weak creatures in fantasy worlds, but sometimes they have some traits like broken skills, elemental resistances or ailments inmunity, that may make them powerful creatures which shouldn’t be underestimated (Dragon Quest is a well-known example).


Slimes in this world ... are pretty much like that, but since they don't have intellect enough they are not considered as a threat. Here is when our MC appears. MC, subsequently named Rimuru Tempest, wakes up in a cave in this amorphous and gummy body, after a quick review he is informed about his condition by a kind of inner voice just called Daikenja (think of her like those pop ups tutorials in videogames) and without much else to do, Rimuru starts to explore the cave.


Now talking about the serie in general, one of the best aspects about TenSura is the worldbuilding. Yes, this isekai actually HAS worldbuilding. The serie basically explains everything, the current situation, the world and its creatures, terminology, skills, magic effects, you name it. Of course this means there is a lot of exposition, sometimes too much (like in the first chapter), but it is presented in straightforward and concise sentences instead of walls of texts, so it doesn't end up being overwhelming. Most of this exposition comes from Daikenja to Rimuru and hence the viewer, but sometimes Rimuru himself explains the situation.


Slimes have an unique skill called Predator that allows them to absorb, keep and analyze materials and enemies, so Rimuru spends like a month in the cave farming materials and gaining experience, stats and skills, becoming very powerful in the process. Soon he meets a sealed dragon named Veldora, and after a cringe but funny conversation, Veldora helps him to see, gives him a name and they become friends. Rimuru is also told more about the world and how he is not the only person transported from another world. That’s how, after absorbing Veldora in order to eliminate the seal, Rimuru leaves the cave with a new objective: to find more people from his world.


Now Rimuru and the viewer are facing a new world, a… pretty common fantasy world. The serie is honest and doesn’t hesitate to show a normal and lighthearted fantasy enviroment with its typical creatures like goblins, dwarfs, orcs and of course humans. Helped with a decent palette of colors and nice backgrounds, this world feels alive and charming. TenSura is self-conscious about what it’s showing, without pretensions of being what it’s not, the plot is not supposed to be taken so seriously so you can get in the mood pretty easily.


From this point the plot can be summarized in Rimuru getting involved in some races’ problems and helping them solving those problems, either by meritocracy or by force, and in the end making these creatures his subordinates and building a big “family”. Pacing is another positive point, every arc lasts enough to introduce new characters and main problem, it handles to explain all the important information and resolves the situation without rushing or lengthening.


Even so, there is a big issue this series has: Rimuru gets so OP that he gets basically everything with little to no effort at all, even when the serie justifies everything. Predator and Daikenja are very broken tools, not only Rimuru can use all the skills he absorbs to beat all enemies he faces with ease, not only he can stock almost infinite materials and use them without caution when it’s necessary, but he also gets convenient explanations of what he doesn’t know via Daikenja. All of this breaks the tension and makes the serie predictable.


But major issues around the serie are not just because of Rimuru’s powers, it’s the way the plot is too convenient to him that it puts the perfect situation so that Rimuru can solve it very easily. Just look at the first chapters, for example: He CONVENIENTLY appears in a place full of materials and monsters he CONVENIENTLY can absorb with his OP skill, then he CONVENIENTLY meets a powerful dragon that helps him to escape, and after that he CONVENIENTLY finds a goblin village with a problem he can easily solve because of his absorbed skills. Now he has a village of goblins and wolves which revere him, but he needs blacksmiths so he goes to a city to get them, he CONVENIENTLY meets the best blacksmith dwarfs in the city which have a big problem that Rimuru can CONVENIENTLY solve by just absorb a sword, analyze it and make a lot of copies with all the materials he CONVENIENTLY kept from the cave, so now the dwarfs are happy to revere him… Again, the serie at least explains the basics about every individual situation so it’s possible to justify them (like how he was able to make sword copies because he had enough saved materials), this is enough to put TenSura above others of the genre, but it’s not enough justification for all the plot conveniences surrounding Rimuru. This is just a mediocre writting.


This is a big problem especially for action moments because no matter how powerful the enemy is, you know Rimuru and his gang can easily get rid of it without much complication. You know the good guys are going to win against the bad guys, like a shounen, but unlike shounen or actions series in general, here tensión is non-existent because how OP good guys are. Actions scenes are not always supposed to be good because of the sometimes obvious outcome, but the scene by itself, to see how good guys handle to beat bad guys against all the problems they might go through (and even they may lose). Here nothing of that happens, making actions scenes pretty dull and uninterested in the long run.


Since there’s an overall lighthearted mood around, there are comedy moments too, but comedy is a pretty weak aspect of the serie. Most comedic scenes are summarized in dull boke-tsukkomi gags and plain jokes using cliches LNs are plagued of, making comedy in general feel very forced and fail to be funny. This serie is also overwhelmingly cliche, almost every trope of the manual can be found here: lolis, onee-sans, fanservice, bishounens, bouncing boobs, harem elements, and going through typical situations like OP characters wrecking everyone and everything easily, bullying the ineptest guy, harem chicks arguing each other, mortal cooking, onsen, etc. All of those issues aren’t bad per se, but in this case they are just flatly placed onscreen with no subtlety and with the vague intention of being funny. Tropes that have been heavily used and are no longer funny. Even when there are scenes with gags, situations or jokes that at least can make you smile, in regards of purely comedic scenes there’s not creativity, there’s not enough wit to make a genuinely funny scene, just the same well-known cliches reused.


Characters are by far the weakest part of the serie. Rimuru as a character is just ok, at least he has personality unlike other Light Novels MCs, but it’s a pretty basic one. That’s not entirely bad because it fits with the lighthearted mood the serie has and makes Rimuru easy to relate with. Actually the main issue with that is the lack of any depth, making the character plain, and for a MC this is bad because it might make the viewer get bored or lose interest, also limits a lot the character’s potential. It doesn’t have to be a big depth, but something that says Rimuru is more than just your average MC. Also, it’s really hard to believe how someone that basic and limited apparently has so much charm as the serie puts it; just some kind words and a demostration of his powers are enough to convince people that Rimuru “is such a very nice and reliable slime” and instantly they are willing to be part of his family and revere him… That’s the kind of things that make Rimuru look more like your typical Gary Stu light novel MC.


Even all said before, Rimuru is maybe the best character in the serie, but that’s because the rest of the cast are just stereotypical characters who barely have personality (and some of them mainly for “comedy” purposes). Actually there are pretty interesting characters there, but the main problem is that they revere Rimuru so much that they lose any hint of characterization or development they might have:

-Ok, goblins and wolves were just simple monsters so initially they didn’t need characterization at all, but after they evolved some of them were shown with actual personality, but they just kept there as background characters revering Rimuru, with no evolution or something that would make viewer get interesed on them as individual characters, like Gobuta, Rigur or Rigurd. This may also apply to Kaijin or Gabiru who had characterization before becoming Rimuru’s subordinate.

-Ranga actually started with personality, doubts about his father and former leader, but after this latter were defeated and killed by Rimuru he just… accepted him, and became one of his most loyal subordinates, losing basically any trace of personality. I mean, for real? He saw how his father was brutally killed in front of him and he didn’t get mad, sad or decided to take the leadership, he just forgot everything and became so affective with his new leader in a way you can’t believe it. You may blame the fear of see how someone that strong easily kills his leader as a reason to surrender to him, and in fact it is a reasonable justification to that, but not to become so affective and losing any personality in order to be just a guardian dog.

-Onis are where the serie wasted a lot of potential. When I said that there were pretty interesting characters I was referring mostly to them. They are more than simple monsters unlike goblins or wolves, each one of them have different personalities that were kept after becoming Rimuru’s subordinates, and actually they had a goal before that, since they lost their village. So… what happened after they reached their goal and decided to stay as Rimuru’s subordinates? Were their personalities and pasts developed or even exploited? Of course not! Well, they are treated as more than just NPCs unlike goblins and wolves, but most of their interventions are very shallow, like if they weren’t so important as characters. We have the proud leader, the wise old man, the mysterious silent man and the big quiet one just fulfiling those roles, some “comedic” moment and nothing more. The two girls are worse, they are just waifu baits with opposite personalities that the serie uses for the classic “harem chicks arguing about MC attention”, even worse, they are kind of like Ranga when they suddenly became so affective towards Rimuru that you can’t believe it, losing any posibility of individual characterization thanks to that extreme loyality.

-Millim is the loli factor in this equation and your typical “ridiculously powerful but kawaii brainless chick” who allied with Rimuru because plot said so (really, she didn’t have a reason at all) and we need another waifu bait for the weebs. Nothing more worth mentioning.

-You may have noticed I haven’t talked about Shizu yet even when she’s supposed to be important for the main plot, that’s because her characterization was so shallowly shown she can’t even count as proper character, and it’s the main proof this serie is terrible in characterization. This girl is, like Rimuru, another person invoked from his world, and when they met she established their situation is not so uncommon, potentially making this a pillar for the main plot and for Rimuru and Shizu’s development and relation. So what the serie did after that? Instead of giving Shizu an important role and time to develop her, the serie just showed her cruel past when she arrived with excesive victimization, then she “unleashed” her power CONVENIENTLY after meet Rimuru so he could “help her” absorbing her power (becoming more OP) finishing her life in the process and then giving him her “last will” by allowing Rimuru to absorb her body and appearance… All in an attempt to create cheap drama around Shizu, trying to make the viewer empathize with her but in the wrong way because at the end there’s nothing important left to bond with, all that just makes Shizu more a plot device than a proper character. That was actually one of the worst arcs of the show, and it evidences that the serie is bad at dealing with dramas and serious issues, which also affects narrative of those serious arcs.

-Veldora is in a similar situation. After he got absorbed by Rimuru he just stopped existing as a character and more as a plot device, because his absence just worked as a reason to move the plot.

Of course the serie can’t be expected to develop all characters since there are a lot, but at least it should pick the most important ones and give them some depth (especially for story purposes) instead of just treat them like walking tropes.


Then we get to the final arc, which it’s about the other invoked people Shizu talked about, and which I said it might be a pillar for the main plot and for Rimuru’s characterization, so it’s supposed to be a pretty important arc… And what did we get? This arc sums up basically everything that is wrong with this anime: Rimuru’s skills and OPness killing any tensión (now he can assemble spirits too? Are you kidding me?), wasted characters with tiny to no characterization (none of the supposedly important kids’ personalities or pasts were explored, they were just mere plot devices), A LOT of plot conveniences (in just one chapter Rimuru got kids’ respect by killing a dragon that CONVENIENTLY appeared from nowhere, that was seen CONVENIENTLY by a merchant that accepted to do business with Rimuru, and one of his girls CONVENIENTLY knew where Spirit Queen can be found) and otaku pandering. On top of that, a new problem the serie hadn’t faced up to this point: the pacing was very rushed (several weeks of bonding between Rimuru and the kids passed in just a few minutes, for example), making the plot even more convenient than the rest of the serie, and the introduced characters were forgettable. This arc makes clear that this serie isn’t going to improve in any way. It’s a shame.


With everything said above, I just can ask: why is this serie, full of those issues commonly criticized in most LN adaptations, getting a free pass? Why is getting too much praise and high scores even when it falls under the same tropes that mediocre and much more criticized LNs also fall?


But please don’t get me wrong, with all its ups and downs TenSura is a decent serie I pretty enjoyed. But the serie is far from being perfect, and I thought it would be good bringing some criticism to the table pointing out all the good and bad things the serie did instead of just say shallow claims like “it’s good because I liked it and characters made me laugh” or “this is utter crap because Rimuru is so OP and nothing happens”. So yeah, the reason this serie stands out as one of the most decent isekais recently released is more because most of those isekais are pretty bad rather than by its own merits. But hey! It actually HAS merits.


tl;dr: Interesting premise, charming mood and decent worldbuilding, but terrible characters and bad handling of serious issues when tries to be more ambitious. This serie is fine but it’s not a masterpiece or even something close. Please stop overrating and overhyping things, THAT is the real cancer of the community.

Im going to keep this review simple. If you dont want spoilers stop reading reviews.

Story: 8/10
Generic adult working for generic unnamed company gets stabbed randomly by generic person with a knife. before the reincarnation this anime has absolutely no substance and this is not expanded upon aside from "IM DYING PERSON A, DESTROY MYHARD DRIVE" because ahuehuehuehue delete my browser history.

Aside from this, the story is great, reincarnated slime, goes in depth to learn about things of the world and make a nation without racism and friendliness, does a good job

Art 9/10
Not much to say, the anime adaptation clearly had a large budget reflecting in ... background details.

Sound 7/10
Captivating, well done, nothing EPIC and memorable but nothing bad at all, suited the motions and goings on. can't fault it.

Character: 7/10
This goes for the MC, he has decent development and removing all the tits tropes and generic "im a virgin waaaah" "let me get laid waaah" "blushy blushy $5" crap that gets forced into the mouth of ever MC in ever anime ever, this MC is good and decent, thinks things through opts out of the whole "i have a human form so im going to squeeze my breasts" so credit where credit is due, good job.

Enjoyment 4/10.
now i can separate this by episode as episode 16 was the point at which this anime goes from 8-9/10 to a 2.

Before episode 16,
This is amazing, so much depth vibrant world, lots of characters and growth, in character and literal i loved it, only critique was when the goblins evolve the males go from scrawny to buff and the females go from... generic females to tits mcgee with jiggly tits everywhere and nothing else. this and EVERYTHING to do with elfs being basically red light district fetish fodder (actually thats for every female in this anime without exception) is the only flaws pre episode 16.

After episode 16,
Oh boy fuuuuuuck this anime after episode 16, quality drops to that of Tokyo Ghoul:Re. Every female becomes insuffereable tropes, Full on lizardmen evolve wings, but the female lizardmen become human ENTIRELY, with wings. i had to pause and rewind because i had no idea who the fuck these new people were and then i realised that these once lizard-looking species upon getting names decided "i'm not going to even try and hide my fetish porn in this anime" and split the males from females entirely, the men look like more defined stronger and larger lizardmen, what you'd expect from a evolved lizardman right? the women however become nothing but revealing clothes, human skin coloured human shaped sex toys without the sex. Not only this but we get introduced to the worst character in the entire anime, Milim (or lilim? subs werent clear and sounds the same). She is a cesspool of the worst anime tropes. She is a Super powerful child, who literally walks around in a thong (did i mention she's a CHILD?) and not just that, her ass is at least 50% sticking out of the fucking thing. Its like her mother handed her down her full adult-sized g-string and she's wearing that as a CHILD. She has no personality other than "HO HO HO I AM GREAT AND STRONG and did i mention IM A CHILD". (yet for some reason upon googling opinions about her everyone is getting off over her existence calling her the best waifu and fawning over her every movement? (spoiler for 2nd season- THANK GOD WE LITERALLY DONT SEE HER IN THIS AT ALL Spoiler end) she is annoying, loud, one note, pedophile fetish porn that needs to be abolished from anime as its too common of a trope. also she gets angry at anyone that insults her FORCED BESTIE.

After episode 16, ignoring the increase in tits, tropes and Milin that just don't go away, any story, any interactions and any development of any kind just drop. the anime as a whole after episode 16 is a 2/10 at best, before that it's a 8/10. so overall score is a 5. It had promise and was well done but couldnt hold back the overwhemling forced sex appeal.

Disclaimer: I have watched many many animes, and yes im a cynic. i HATE the porn ero titts tropes with a passion and they utterly ruin anime because they are in every fucking one. if it happens a few times i ignore it, if its a running joke because the author can't think of anything to do for weeks so they just draw jiggling tits in their offtime and panic print them to meet deadlines, then i dont' forgive this shit. it RUINS the anime and makes it SO hard to be drawn back into the show. This show made me roll my eyes more than i counted.

I may seem biased against this anime but i'm not, this is what happens when you see something great, and something you enjoyed immensely ruined by pretictable tropes.

At first I was excited to watch this isekai called " That time I got reincarnated as a Slime" . Unfortunately it did not live up to my expectations.

The series started off promising enough, but quickly developed into a boring mess. The cause is twofold - once, the main character is incredibly overpowered to the point where nothing is a real threat. None of the battles in the series feel important or in any way exciting.

Secondly, the way the series develops, almost every faction or individual becomes an ally of the main character slime with laughable ease. It's not a very interesting development and took ... away a large piece of my enjoyment of the series.

The story itself seems muddled. What is it about, really? The slime itself does not seem to have particular goals. And while there is a particular goal he pursues in the second half, it's mostly to help someone he knew. He is not as self-motivated like I had hoped.

The artwork and soundtrack are average and ultimately forgettable.

As for enjoyment, I still felt compelled to follow it to the end and see where it went, but that is more because I wanted something to watch and enjoy isekai in general, not because the series is that good. It was enjoyable enough to watch and not drop it, but that's about it.

This anime is a bit of a disappointment. Don't get me wrong, it started off quite strong, and got me really excited for a interesting and in depth story. I suspect all of us took the bait. However, as the anime progressed, the story took a noticeable divebomb in quality. Fights become less dynamic, and are usually ended with Rimuru just eating the boss. Dialogue slows down, and reaches almost Pokemon levels of complexity. Tension in episodes slacken to limp noodle levels. I wish things turned out better, as the anime did look very promising, but alas, this ... will go down as just another anime merch machine.

On the bright side, the one thing this anime did very well is add a whole host of top tier waifus for you to add to your collection. Whether it be oni girls, demon lolis, or even.... goblin onee-sans???? There's bound to be one you will claim to be best girl.

I am going to go ahead and be the dissenting opinion on this one, and I am usually quite a lenient judge, maybe too much so.

One word describes this show: slow. Everything in this show is drawn out and made to take excessively long despite knowing the conclusion minutes before it happening. The ogres for example... That just bored me to tears because the plot was so overwhelmingly predictable.

If the pace of this show was doubled and the filler removed it could be excellent, but when so many episodes are wasted on camp time and there isn't enough intelligent plot to keep the ... show entertaining with the lack of combat, for example, the show just comes up feeling like something integral is missing.

I thought surely with over an 8 average I would be dying to watch each episode, but as it is now, I wonder how slow and uneventful this next episode will be, and it usually is as bad or worse than I think.

Some complain about a show moving too fast, I am complaining that this show moves too slow, is painfully obvious, and is just rather boring compared to the latent potential it showed within the first few episodes. It's still only 10 episodes in, but so far I'm underwhelmed. I look forward to the next episode of goblin slayer much more than this show, despite starting it later and it's early and rather distasteful shock value of the first episode.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Snoozefest

The first handful of episodes actually set up a really promising start to a potentially groundbreaking isekai. It's also the only anime where a tsundere dragon gets vored by a slime, so I definitely have to give it credit for that.

However, as the show enters the 10+ episode mark, a critical issue becomes apparent. This issue is the fact that the show's writers don't care about the new side characters that are introduced for Rimuru to help with, yet at the same time expect us to care. For some unexplainable reason, the show decides to have some generic ... shonen fights, perhaps in an attempt to get some free publicity from "Epic Anime Fight Scene Complication #12 2019" on YouTube. Yet nothing about these fights is epic. There are no stakes, no "wow" moments, no memorable punches...they're just sort of there.

By the end of the series, I really didn't care about what Rimuru was going to do to save the day this time. The fun that was present in the beginning of the series had pretty much diminished as it churned out tropes that could probably be found done better in fantasy shonen from a decade ago.

Despite my harsh criticism over the overall atmosphere/my enjoyment of the series, there are redeemable elements that belonged in a better series. Rimuru is a bit overpowered, but overall a good character. Shizue, the goblins, the wolves, Millim - all of them could've set the ground for a really good fantasy series.

The best way to describe Slime overall is "so close, yet so far." In the development of the series, an essential checkmark was clearly missed before releasing it: "isn't freaking boring."

A number of years ago, a friend at work recommended me the light novel this anime is based on, but I never got around to reading it.
There have been so many poor isekai anime over the past few years, that I have gotten to the point where I typically just ignore them. But I remember being recommended this, so that when it started airing I decided to watch it.

The story starts off pretty similar to many recent isekai stories. The bland protagonist who just goes day by day, with nothing eventful, no romantic life, etc suddenly finds himself transported (after he dies in this case) ... to another world. This time we have a twist though. He is reincarnated as a slime!

Some people will try to trick you into thinking this is different from all the other poorly written, OP protagonist, isekai stories. But it isn't. Even as a slime, he is OP as all hell. Everything just seems to work out for our protagonist. And what's more, after the beginning he gets a human form, and the slime bit becomes entirely irrelevant to the story. Oh, and of course, there is a cast of attractive female characters who are devoted to our protagonist.

There are no stakes. There is no tension. It falls into the same trap as all these rubbish isekai stories. That is, there is no reason for it to be an isekai story. The fact that the protagonist is a late 30s Japanese salary man, doesn't matter. It doesn't add anything to the story. The protagonist could've been a slime who had just so happened to be born in that cave, met that dragon, and gained some powers, and nothing would change. His personality when he was in our world, his name, his appearance, everything has changed. So why does it need to be isekai? The isekai here only serves as poorly written wish fulfillment and nothing else.

Here is an example of an isekai done well, before this recent isekai boom. Zero no Tsukaima. Don't get me wrong, I am not going to say that that is a good series, merely talking in regards to the isekai. The protagonist in Zero no Tsukaima, Saitou, is a guy from our world who suddenly finds himself summoned to an isekai. His goal, is to return back to our world. He doesn't want to be stuck in this isekai. He struggles with the cultural differences between the isekai and our world. He doesn't agree with/understand the class divisions. He acts differently from the characters in the world he goes to, he acts more like one of us.

There is none of that in Slime. It's just, hey watch me be OP in this world, and do whatever I want. So really, in terms of story it isn't that far removed from smartphone isekai or Death March.

Now with all that being said, what does set it apart from the other trashy isekai stories, is this anime actually has pretty good production values. The sound is good. The animation is good. The fights can be pretty entertaining.
If you don't want to think, and just want to watch a generic isekai anime, then this could be a good choice. It isn't doing anything unique or impressive, but it isn't overly offensive, and you could certainly do worse in isekai choices. If you watched Death March or one of those smartphone isekais, or are thinking about it (please don't), then you may as well watch this.

Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken: an anime with monsters, but all of good vibes



What happens when an office worker almost in his forties, of good character and full of common sense, is transported to a fantasy world turned into an almost almighty monster? Well, this anime series from last fall season offers us a version of these events. The result: some very relaxed adventures to pass the time.

In October of last year, another anime was released on Japanese television of a genre that has been in vogue there for a few years now: the Isekai. And what is the Isekai? In short, someone -a teenager, ... a university student, a middle-aged character ... - is transported or reincarnated in another world ("isekai": another world). Normally he does it with some kind of special superpower and with a mission to undertake - the reason why he is in that new world - but it is not an indispensable trope.

What usually happens one hundred percent of the time is that the world is fantastic and contains magical creatures -what would be an epic adventure without monsters to shoot down?-. And since the rise of novels such as Sword Art Online -which, paradoxically, is not strictly speaking of this genre- the way in which the protagonists of these stories explore, interact and experience these fantastic worlds blatantly resembles the mechanics behind a MMORPG.


Well: Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken (translated to English as "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime”) is an isekai of the new ones, with its multiplayer roleplay mechanics , level ups, information interface, and even evolution of monsters. But what story does it really tell us? The synopsis is the following.

One day, Satoru Mikami, 37, an ordinary worker who lives in Tokyo and has no girlfriend or commitment, saves the life of Tamura, his workmate, and dies on the spot. But his story does not end there, because as his last thoughts leave his head, a strange entity is configuring the characteristics of his new body to reincarnate in another world.

So, to his surprise, Satoru will wake up again from the sweet dream, fully aware of his previous life, but as a slime: the classic video game slime monster like Dragon Quest. Full of optimism and ready to live a fuller life, Satoru, renamed Rimuru Tempest by a whole dragon, sets off to explore this new world, in which he will undo wrongs of all kinds thanks to his peculiar set of skills and, on the way, He will make friends with all kinds of monsters.


It is not a very original plot, and having a protagonist with a series of extraordinary skills and abilities that save him from almost any situation can cause you to lose interest by eliminating a source of conflicts. But the truth is that the series does not focus much on the conflicts that Rimuru lives: the problems are almost always solved in a practical or peaceful way, and the battles are usually an excuse for his friends to shine.

Our protagonist is a deus ex machina who sometimes saves the situation at the last moment in a very convenient way, but the story that it is telling us is not really about people fighting with superpowers. It does not matter that Rimuru ends the monster of turn in one or two movements, what really keeps us interested in the series is how these characters get to know each other and establish alliances and friendships.


In general, it is a series of very calm adventures, of slow pace and without compulsion. In fact, the moments of dramatic tension can be resolved quickly and although they are not forgotten, they do not creep beyond the resolution. It is a series designed to invoke pleasant, happy and warm feelings in who is seeing it. It is so relaxed and cheerful that, in fact, it could be considered a weakness.

It is missing more dramatic tension, some conflict that is difficult to resolve or with an unsatisfactory resolution. The series is a little naive: the problems are always resolved, there is no sense of danger at any time and everyone is in the end very friendly. If the characters -which, in all honesty, are very archetypal: the cool guy with bad attitude, the hypercompetent assistant with generous breasts, the short and funny friend, the Yamato Nadeshiko, etc.- were not so nice and sympathetic, the interest of the series in this first season would have been off very soon.

Another weakness of the series has to do with the rhythm of it. The first half has a slow progress: it details the adventures of Rimuru very much, but it is a constant rhythm and although it is slow, it engages. The second half breaks that constant rhythm: it goes to the bone of the story, cutting off superfluous details, but losing the charm that hooked you in the first half and, with it, part of the interest. Sometimes the cuts are such that they liquidate a whole fight or solve a problem with a narrative line.

From a more technical point of view, the series -animated by the 8-Bit studio- is in the average of the anime of 24 episodes for television. There are not many pirouettes in the direction, and the designs are quite generic; but the drawing is regular, consistent, and some battles are pretty fun to watch. The casting of voices is correct and the simple and environmental music helps to give an air of RPG of the Super Nintendo.

In the end, it would not be too crazy to claim that Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken is a nice anime to watch. It does not stand out in any section nor is it among the best of the last six months, but it can give us a few afternoons of entertainment and relaxation for those who like adventures. The series has been well received and will have a second season -and who knows if more, seeing that the manga that adapts the same novels, currently in publication, is being a success-. It seems we will have this "good slime" for a while.

‘That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime’ is simply put just an average isekai show - with nothing special to offer. Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t terrible, in fact I did enjoy moments throughout the show but in the end it didn’t really leave an impact on me nor did I enjoy it all too well overall.

The main plot revolves around Rimuru: a middle-aged neet who ends up dying and in turn is given a ‘second chance’ at life in another world as a slime - a common trope within isekai shows. At the beginning of the show, Rimuru easily adapts to ... his surroundings and his form as being a slime - he learns of his abilities and what is needed for him to grow stronger. His character is refreshing: he’s a powerful & a strong slime who helps people with the power he gains & proves all those who doubt his strength wrong - it’s fun and enticing for the audience. But, within the first arc or so his character started to become boring, everything started to become repetitive: his actions, dialogue, reactions etc. and it seemed like no actual character development happened throughout, he’s the same slime as he was at the beginning stages of the show, it seemed like none of the events had affected him or built him up as a character in any way really. That’s not necessarily a problem but it in turn makes Rimuru kind of boring to watch which affects the overall story - I mean he is the main character after all. Now, throughout the story we’re introduced to several side characters: the goblins, Shizue, Verudora and so on; the side characters within the show, in all honesty, don’t really add much to the story for me. They all fit the basic archetypes (e.g Millim, a half-naked loli who, of course, is 500+ years old & is a dragon) that we tend to see in most isekais’ - it’s nothing new. The fact that I cared more for a dragon that appeared in literally one episode compared to any of the other characters is kinda sad honestly; a character I actually liked within the show, Shizue, was introduced and somehow ended up as an ‘important’ character for Rimuru’s ‘development’ despite not appearing for all that long, maybe I just misinterpreted things but I honestly don’t see how she became an important character. It felt really forced like they just needed a character that’ll be Rimuru’s driving support & someone he thinks about for motivation or whatever - I liked her character so in my opinion it’s kind of a waste to only see her for a while - I feel like they could’ve done a lot more with her.

In terms of animation, it was average: the settings and character design wasn’t anything too special and it wasn’t really all too aesthetically pleasing but the action scenes flowed well visually and in turn made it more exciting and thrilling. The animation isn’t something that is anything bad nor do I think it affected the show - it’s the story & characters that I have problems with.

The plot, to me, was an utter mess: some episodes had almost no progression while others just threw everything into your face leaving you unsatisfied and disappointed - especially some of the action episodes e.g episode 19. I enjoyed the beginning arc along with the orc arc but after that I became disinterested - I’m just not a fan of messy progression. I do understand the show revolves around action and therefore requires a few episodes of ‘down-time’ before picking up the pace again but in all honesty it wasn’t well executed: each slower episode of info-dumping felt more like fillers rather than setting up for what's to come while the action episodes started to become more and more repetitive. After a while the episodes just left a bad taste in my mouth.

The sound design & sound track weren’t anything all too special. I’m not a big fan of the OP or the ED - I do think they’re good songs and compliment the show well, but they’re just not for me - and none of the OST really stood out to me at all. I’m not an expert in sound design so I’m not going to really comment on it.

Overall, it was an OK experience - nothing more than average. It had fun moments but also messier moments too (which, for me, seemed to outweigh the good moments) and, to add to that, I wasn’t the biggest fan of any of the characters. It left me feeling unsatisfied and I just ended up feeling disappointed with the show - after all it has a lot of hype surrounding it and at the beginning it was an interesting concept. Would I recommend it? If you’re an isekai fan go ahead and watch it: I feel like fans of isekai will enjoy this show a lot more than I did. But if you’re not a fan of isekai, I don’t really suggest this show as an ‘ultimate go-to must watch’, I think it’s a show that you can avoid and you won’t really be missing much by doing so.

My score: 5/10

(to emphasise, since I know there are plentiful fans of this show: this is purely my opinion - feel free to disagree).

Never thought I'd be defending the seasonal Isekai, but some of you dorks are savage - and unfairly so, in this case. "That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime" (or "Slime Time Live" for short) is by no means a perfect show, or a particularly deep piece of fiction, or necessarily the best at anything it does, but there are strong positives and touches of craft that I think are being glossed over.

Slime Time Live is set-up as the typical Isekai power fantasy, where an audience stand in dies so he can be reincarnated into a magical land where his total loserdom is actually ... a source of immense power (along with his literal immense power). I've seen a few criticisms of this show just stop at this description, as if that alone is damning, and I think that's the wrong way to approach this enterprise. To paraphrase Roger Ebert, "A show is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it."

And the how is the crucial thing, because Slime Time Live (at least in the beginning) uses the basic Isekai foundations and hits the beats well without taking itself too seriously. While the show dips its toes in the drama well (to admittedly so-so results), it generally keeps its tone light and even tongue-in-cheek. This is greatly communicated by the visuals. Not only is the animation consistently well-done (and well above par compared to most of its contemporaries), but Studio 8Bit continually includes great little visual touches and artstyle shifts. The studio's efforts reflect what seems to be genuine enthusiasm for the source material, and it really gives the whole production a big boost.

Another of the show's boons comes from its main character. Where a lot of these protagonists come off as vapid husks, Rimuru has enough personality to make him a decently compelling lead, and I think part of that comes from the smart decision to make him a decidedly older man (and not just deaging him either, a la Death March). His manager-like approach to problem solving whatever issue happens to be in front of him, and the way it attracts an increasing load of responsibilities like any real workplace, is a fun twist on the aimlessness often exhibited by Isekai protagonists. It's my understanding that Rimuru's VA is a relative newcomer to the industry, but she manages to infuse a lot of personality into the character through her performance. It's hopefully an auspicious start to a great career.

Slime Time Live also benefits from its supporting cast. No one here is particularly deep or original, but the show puts in the work of developing the side characters enough to keep them from feeling one-note. Take a personal favorite, Gabiru. The incompetent blowhard is a well-worn character archetype, but I really appreciated the little touches (how his well-meaning yet sycophantic soldiers build up his ego across the arc, how he justifies his coup of the kingdom, how the strategy he employs against the orcs is actually sound and he is undone because no one informed him of their ability to assimilate the dead, etc.). None of this was necessary to tell the story, but there's still a level of thought that is just missing from most other seasonal Isekai cash-ins, and if we're being honest, a lot of other seasonal anime in general.

Now, all this being said, the show is certainly strongest in its first cour. As Slime Time Live goes on and the plot starts to expand, its tongue-in-cheek sensibilities start to get a little drowned out under the escalating world-building and increasingly perfunctory threats. That's a fair issue to take umbrage with. However, I also think it would be unfair to say that the show's charm is lost entirely, or that the gradual regression to the genre mold completely counteracts the strengths of its first half. Heck, even as just another entry in the Isekai genre, Slime Time Live is still better crafted than most of the cheap, effortless, and disposable trash heaps that are its contemporaries.

Seriously, if you want to see what a "1" looks like, go watch Death March. Or better yet, don't do that at all, and just take my word for it.

I love dunking on trash, especially of the Isekai-variety, so it's not like I don't get the appeal. However, I think there's also a zealousness to be the first to dunk, and to dunk the hardest, so much so that it can tempt us to not really contemplate the show right in front of us. Complaints about elements like, say, Ranga quickly getting over the death of his father at Rimuru's hands might have more merit in a self-serious dramatic series (like Overlord), but that's not what Slime Time Live is. Watching anime isn't a Space Jam; you shouldn't have to stretch so hard to get your dunks. It's a very easy way to miss out on the better qualities of what you're watching.

Overall, Slime Time Live is a capably-executed entry in the Isekai genre and a perfectly enjoyable show on its own merits. If you don't have any fondness for this type of story, the show probably won't convince you, but it at least has enough personality and fun touches to give it some charm. Give it a watch; if you're not careful, you might just enjoy it.

And so ends my review, aka "That Time I Wrote 1000 Words Defending A Show I Thought Was Just Fine."

I'm going to be honest, the more I watched this show, the less I liked it. It definitely had me at the start; I liked the concept of an Isekai where the MC basically just nice guys his way to having his own kingdom, and the brisk pace made the show relatively easy to watch, but the father along I got into this show, more and more problems popped up that were too much of a distraction for me to really enjoy "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime" as a whole.

Story is a 6 for me, and I think i'm being pretty ... generous here if i'm going to be honest. The story is split into multiple separate arcs (which i'm guessing make up each of the various light novels) in which our protagonist Rimuru Tempest experiences troubles while adjusting to this new world he's been transported to. Like I said earlier, the pace is extremely quick, so by the time we get to the 4th episode, Rimuru has already become the leader of a village of goblins. I can see why so many people would get hooked by these early episodes, as a kind of turn your brain off easy to watch junk food anime. I actually had been enjoying it myself, and if the show had kept to this level during the duration of this show's airtime, but by the score i'm giving here it's pretty obvious that at least to me, it didn't.

Halfway through the first cour, Rimuru meets another person who had been isekai'd into that world named Shizue Izawa, and for some reason, everything that had been previously going on just got dropped to focus on her, but only for two episodes for some reason. Rimuru apparently had been seing her in his dreams and thought they were "destined to be together" or something, but he literally knows nothing about her, until finding out her backstory via an episode long exposition dump, in which she subsequently dies. I seriously did not know what to take of this, with Rimuru for some reason absorbing her body being surrounded by characters we had just met and didn't know anything about crying like this was supposed to be some important landmark event. This event seriously dampened my excitement for the show, and it never really went back up to where it was before; with storylines being dropped just as quickly as they are picked up, resulting in a deflated, boring, power-creeping plot that has no clear path. This can be seen most clearly with the fight with the Charybdis, in which this monster, who was described as being able to destroy kingdoms, gets killed in one hit one episode after it had been brought up. This is when fast pacing becomes a detriment, not a positive.

Don't know where to add this, but I forgot to mention just how jarring the ending was. 16 minutes into the 25th episode, with Rimuru heading back to his town of Rimuru(lol) after being gone for like 5 episodes, the song for the 1st OP begins playing and the rest of the episode just becomes a recap of what had happened so far. I was audibly shocked by this, and I couldn't stop laughing for a few minutes after this had happened.

Art i'm giving a 7. The character designs are inoffensive enough, if a bit crazily sexualized, Rimuru is cute enough as an amorphous blob, and the background art is just the same bland characterless background art that's seen in every fantasy anime nowadays, but hey, at least they didn't use CG. The animation can be pretty good during action scenes, but the character animation is nothing to really write home about, and there are no scenes in particular that i'd really credit as "amazingly animated" , so overall it's just good but really nothing else-- well at least aside from the openings. those were pretty nice.

Sound: I'm going to be honest, I don't remember any of the songs from this show. That's a bit of a shock for me, because I tend to pay a lot of attention to anime OSTs, usually really enjoying their sound palates and composition styles. It's not like I didn't like the OST, but nothing stood out to me at all, except for the aforementioned openings (I loved both of the openings, with the second OP tying for my favorite of the winter season alongside Dororo). So sound wise this is a relatively harmless show, with nothing that will really wow you, as well as nothing all that grating or unenjoyable. Besides the OPs. 7/10

Character is really the section that bothered me the most, because to be blatantly honest, most characters don't really have that much. As much as I liked Shion and her design, we knew nothing about her besides the fact that she liked Rimuru and carried him around all over the place. The same can be said about basically all of Rimuru's groupies, and this is a huge problem as they are the characters we spend the most time with besides Rimuru himself. Besides that though, even if we were to learn more about these characters, they just get dropped like the stories get as Rimuru meets new people and travels to different places. Now, I 100 percent expect to see these characters again in the recently announced 2nd season, but that doesn't excuse how flimsy and 2 dimensional the characters are right now. Ranga is ok though. 3/10

With how much I ragged on this show so far, it's not liked I HATED it or anything, but it was definitely extremely disappointing to see everything I liked about this show in the beginning kind of just unfold on itself. That being said, the show was an inoffensive enough watch that I was able to kind of just binge the show and forget about it not feeling like i'd wasted my time. i'll give my enjoyment a 6/10

Overall this show is a 6/10 for me, but you have to understand how I rate anime. The only kind of show i'll rate a 5/10 or under is either something i absolutely hate (Akashic Records, SAO, Kino's Journey remake), or something that is just so obviously bad I have to give it a low rating, no matter how much I enjoyed myself while watching it (Ousama game, Hajimete no Gal), so giving Slime a 6/10 really isn't saying much for this show. I know I definitely wouldn't recommend it to anybody, and if I were to grade it I would give it a failing grade, but it's just so middle of the road and forgettable by the end of it's 25 episode run that I didn't really feel anything by the time the credits showed up, except for confusion, and a lot of disappointment.

Slime starts off as a pretty decent Isekai. Season 1 especially started off really strong - it felt kind of like a progression / cultivation / LitRPG, with an incredibly OP character who slowly builds a community. It has levelling up, skill strengthening, ally recruitment, and town building - the kind of storytelling I find oddly compelling! I couldn't put the first 15 episodes down AND it was really funny!

However, the show pretty frustratingly and quickly devolves into totally unnecessary fan service (later with a loli character, which is a hard no / red flag for me), and the plot becomes way less interesting ... over the last few arcs. I'm hopeful that S3 will better.

Welcome to TenSura, one of the latest additions to the niche and undersaturated genre known as "isekai" *laugh track plays*. Since there are about 17 isekais produced every anime season, studios have realized that in order to produce a truly successful isekai, they need to grab the viewer's attention in the first couple episodes. What happens after that? Eh, who cares. The show's already popular.

Story (4/10): I believe one of the greatest flaws of TenSura is the concept itself. The idea of a light-hearted Overlord may sound good on paper, but it fails in execution. Overlord works as a show because Ainz is cool. The ... problem with TenSura is that Rimuru really... isn't cool. He's OP in a Kirito-like, boring way, in that he lacks any personality other than being an average, nice person. After the pretty good first few episodes (up through the establishment of the goblin village) Rimuru just doesn't do anything interesting. I'm struggling to recall what actually happened in the arcs because there's not really anything connecting them. Rimuru just goes to some random place and gets more allies for his village by talking to them. Personally, I don't find that this makes for a very entertaining show. There's no overarching plot, no "cool factor," and no tension since Rimuru can easily defeat any enemy with his OP isekai protagonist skills. Oh yeah, apparently there was a comedy aspect here? I didn't find it funny, and apparently MAL didn't either since this show doesn't have a comedy tag.

Characters (5/10): Who? The only character listed as a "main" in TenSura is Rimuru, who, as discussed above, I do not like. The other characters include a harem of personality-less dolls, some side characters like Souei who attempt to compensate for Rimuru's lack of coolness, and random characters that appear once and are never brought up again. Shizu, the only character that may be argued to be "well-written" is nothing but a well-disguised MacGuffin. All she does is progress the plot.

I'd like to talk about the random side characters in further detail. The problem here is that this season is pretty much an introduction into the universe. You get all of these characters that are simply introduced and left alone, like demon lord with clown servants, demon lord with blonde hair, knight girl who is hinted to be Shizu's disciple, those adventurers from the guild near the end of the show, and probably others that I've forgotten about. They're probably going to be important in the next season, but what about this season?

Art (8/10): Pretty solid. The character designs are relatively memorable. The color scheme and the overall art help build the comforting, light-hearted atmosphere that the show strives for. The fights are nicely animated.

Sound (8/10): Idk why I'm giving this a high rating. There's this one OST that plays during every battle that's stuck in my head, so apparently that somehow makes the sound good. The OP and ED themes also nicely mirror the quality of the show. Just like the show was good at the start and became a drag, the first OP and ED were good, and the second ones really weren't.

Enjoyment & Overall (6/10): TenSura was extremely bland, but I can't really give it a lower rating since it was decent enough for me to have the desire to watch every new episode. I'm really hoping that this was simply a setup season and that season two will be better, since this season seems to lay the groundwork and nothing else, but only time will tell.