Goblin Slayer

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I can be good manga, with interesing story. But .... rape, rape and more rape. This manga will be much better without rape. I can't read this, becouse it is too brutal because of this. I don't have problem with blood and brutal fight. Some people like this manga and think it must be brutal in this way to show how brutal goblins are, but not me. Characters are good, plot also. But I am disappointed. I thought it will be like Hai to Gensou no Grimgar but more brutal. It is more like berserk. If someone like reading about beautyful women with are rape ... by ugly goblins it is perfect manga for him.

Honestly, Goblin Slayer does not impress me one bit into what it is looking to achieve, and I understand that a lot of people would buy it and praise Goblin Slayer, but I'm not one of those people.


Story: 1/10.

The story is not complicated, and the characters get as much depth as their names, which is none. Like many reviews have said before mine, this story will just follow the revenge story of one dude that "specializes" in killing goblins. His revenge path is justified, but what it isn't is the fact that he is the only one out of all the villagers to react ... in this way to the goblin menace.

In fact, the whole setting can't stand on its own when you stop to think even just a little about it. Just to stick with the villagers, it makes no sense that they wouldn't try to defend themselves on their own when the goblins have been there for more than a generation.

This threat is not new to them and out of all the villagers, the story wants to make the readers believe that only one person was brave enough to defend them against a constant threat. This would be a treated as a nitpick if the tension caused by the battles of the story was actually a good focus to follow instead of boring me to the point I can't even enjoy seeing the Goblin Slayer be a badass. And why is there no tension whatsoever in the story?

The answer is quite simple: the combats will go about the same way over and over again. The Goblin Slayer will always get to a place, he will order people around and then take all the glory. Rinse and repeat. Now, if this repeating sequence was played in a comical fashion like the combats of Saitama in One Punch Man, I might find it quite comical as long as it is used sparingly.

But the series wants to be serious and dark all the time, trying to "light up" by using cheap gags that simply don't work for me instead of creating a lighthearted tone.Therefore, I have to judge it for the kind of dark fantasy it wants to be. When my interest was worn off by the absence of tension, I tried to focus on something else that might be interesting only to find myself further disappointed by the series.

I’ve heard some people praise the world-building of the series, but it honestly is nothing even worth mentioning. As I stated before, the setting is nonsensically dark and there is no progression worthy to be mentioned and here's why.

The things we know for certain in chapter twenty-seven are more or less the same we know in the first four chapters: goblins are bad, Goblin Slayer is a certified badass, the rest of the adventurers are either greedy and corrupt or useless. The only thing that changes about the adventurers is that some are only doing something praiseworthy when the Goblin Slayer is around to tell them exactly what to do.

This brings into question their worth as individual adventurers and their personal motivations to put up with the Goblin Slayer's plans. It's like they are unable to have any critical judgement of their own. The only "progression" on a character level that is visible is Goblin Slayer's increasingly greater status among the rest of the adventurers even when he’s paired up with characters of his level of combat.

Which brings me to my next point: The Goblin Slayer is not that different from other self-insert power fantasies found in other LN protagonists. He will always win, he will always be one step ahead of the pack no matter how unlikely it is and he will always be the boss.

Hell, even gods can’t possibly control this character because he has to be a special because of his tragic backstory. We can’t have themes such as predetermination or destiny to ever go against the protagonist, can we?

There can’t be anyone else to rise up like the goblin slayer because that would make him less special and show that his motivation doesn’t differentiate him from other villagers that would most certainly train to become become goblin slayers themselves after surviving a goblin raid.

And of course, no characters can ever show more intellect nor combat abilities than the Goblin Slayer because then he wouldn't have a reason to order them around, right? He would be the one who would perhaps be asked to stay on the sidelines because he’s too reckless.

We can’t have our protagonist ever be in the wrong, can we? After all, what kind of badass faces the disapproval of his actions other than to dismiss it as cheap and recurring gag? I can’t think of a single black swordsman that decided to do something that had real and permanent consequences for everyone involved and marked the turning point of a major arc of any manga.



Art: 4/10.

Nothing impressive about the art. It looks like your run-of-the-mill LN inspired kind of character design. If anything, they make the style work for the monsters, the battles and the shocking scenes which is a use for that kind of style I have not often seen.

However, good battle scene fluidity and good monster design won’t make up for the tedious repetition of the flow of the battles. Nor it will make up for the shock factor the series shamelessly rubs on the reader’s face.

I have read gore manga before, I have seen rape portrayed in fiction before and Goblin Slayer uses both of these things with the tact and understanding of angsty fourteen-year-old trying to make his story interesting by any means.


Enjoyment: 1/10.

I’ve tried to give this manga the chance to prove that it could be enjoyable even if it was just for mindless action.

But it can’t even make that work out and, to compensate, it relies on spamming the shock factor, but that technique is in itself a poor tactic to keep a shallow interest in the story.

I tried to grab onto the world-building, just to find a ridiculous setting and a static world knowledge that reveals the poor thought and care the author put in this story.


Overall rating: 3/10.

I can’t say that Goblin Slayer didn’t try to make its battles somewhat interesting and make its main character different from other fantasy protagonists.

However, it tried to do so by setting up an unnecessarily dark story without even taking the time to make the action varied and interesting nor making the characters more than nameless tropes. This is not the right way to make a story stand out for the right reasons.

If anything, it just highlights the story’s shortcomings when the magic of the badass protagonist and the shocking gore wears off.

I tried to find something to justify the time I put into reading the all the chapters available to me, but I honestly found none.

It was a waste of my time and I don’t plan on continuing losing my time when I can read something a bit more entertaining with its mindless action or its world-building/characters/plot.

This started off with a lot of potential, in that it seemed to be a standard D&D manga that subverted expectations right off the bat. The first dungeon crawl goes sideways, which is immediately engaging. However, this turns out to be the peak of the manga, and everything goes downhill from there.

The world-building seems expansive at first, but we quickly discover that it's limited to this one town and a handful of characters. The main characters we follow are completely one-dimensional. The goblin slayer himself literally never removes his helmet, even when out experiencing a festival, or even when eating and drinking (does he shove ... food through the slits in his face plate?).

There's zero development of either characters or story, and without the halfway decent art (that unfortunately tends to get a bit muddled during fight scenes) and somewhat creative fighting, this would be completely without merit.

Give this one a miss.

Okay the issue I have with this story is the amount of continuity errors the story has. There are multiple points in the story where an issue is brought up and they explain that they have to hinder themselves by doing X thing to solve Y problem. Only for then a chapter or two latter or the next volume the logic to be undermined.

The best example I have which is the reason a lot of people think the main character is "cool" is the fact he uses rundown garbage gear. Latter it's shown that it's not run down just that he buys the worst ... gear possible, even though he can afford significantly better gear. Anyway the claim is he uses it because better gear would have a strong metal smell.

The only problem is he then in latter chapters of the volume covers himself in goblin blood so the metal smell is covered up. He also is shown in the next arc applying various oils to get the same result. This works so well that when he gets a complete new set of armor fresh from the forge he is immediately able to cover it up. So with that in mind why doesn't he get better armor then Iron. And yes it is iron because steel can take a greater beating then what his glass gear goes through.

There is also the insanity that he doesn't wear chain mail under his leather armor. Which is why he even gets poisoned at one point. What I'm trying to get at here is these ideas were done for "cool" but instead just look dumb since there is no reason for him to be acting this way.

Anyway while the story is terrible and the Main Character is worse random D&D fighter random roll ever. The rest of the party has actual good characters they are a bit tropey but I found the cleric to be a good self insert of the reader in understanding how the world works. And the other 3 to give insight into the politics of their various clans.

To be frank Skip this. if your looking for D&D style fantasy go read The Gamer, Konosuba or Log Horizon.

This a general brush of the main plot of the series and its direction thus far:
The catatonic and autistic protagonist who lives in a Dungeons and Dragons (which I know almost nothing about) style medieval esthetic universe suffered a horrible loss of family and friends when he was a kid at his village by the hands of one of the vilest creatures this universe established the green skin pointy nose lizard eyes goblins who will survive and reproduce by any means and are disgustingly evil and sadistic. From this trauma and hate that he bears he vows to himself that he will become the ... Doomguy exterminator of goblins and make the goblin race extinct from this tabletop game fantasy universe.

Goblins are like an insect pest for example rodents in this world people don't pay much attention to them, they underestimate them and let inexperienced adventurer scrub deal with them and of course much like pest control of our universe people will not pay much attention to the importance of your job and only call you when there is an infestation at their own doorstep.

So pest control slayer guy devotes his life to this one autistic goal (the goal itself isn't autistic its the way he approaches it) to exterminate all goblins and is joined by other adventurers he saved and who were sent to join him by their respective factions in dealing with this grave pest that we are led to believe if not dealt with will cause some bubonic plague level damage to all races in this world or wipe them all out and replace them to be on top of the race hierarchy civilization food chain and dominate this world. There are more characters that have some bonds (if you can call them that) with the MC but their existence from what I can see is so purely for plot driving (Pest control guys company at least have some semblance of a personality and purpose no matter how bland it is) and for having the MC something to do.

And so on their extermination mission, these tabletop nameless characters usually go on goblin quests together usually spouting generic fantasy lines and lore and then in between taking their rest in a generic fantasy medieval small towns, villages, and cities where they meet more tabletop figures that need them for or tell them about the stuff I said above and of course adventurer birocratic stuff and rankings that serves almost no point in this manga beside for forcing characters to talk on another (the guild birocracy in the story which encompasses a big portion of itis draining and serves no purpose besides for telling people about quests and forcing character interactions and plot in an unengaging and boring way).

So the plot moves on the note of this pest control fantasy group maybe bonding in the future and not doing this extermination business like mindless drones or maybe dying in the line of job duty who knows and Pest Control-san maybe overcoming his autism and catatonia and becoming a healthy emotional human being if possible who knows how to interact with people on some emotional level or maybe bonding with someone on a deeper level himself, whilst saving the world from a doomsday goblin infestation or conquest and exterminating all of them or not and him getting some crazy revelation about them or him or the world or something-something (like gee what happens when I exterminate a species from an ecosystem does that have repercussions on other lifeforms or crap I'm not a pawn of this tabletop game I am me and I will continue working in fantasy pest control for a living) which I think is a slim chance and will be added in only to justify the actions he has taken thus far because of the prohibitions the story and the way it was written imposed.

Somewhat SPOILERy from here if you haven't read anything yet:

The intellectual appeal of this universe (and its narrow and not very engaging by the narrative fact of it being constrained as a tabletop game manifestation since its attachment quality to the fate of the characters and the plot is lost being viewed through that prism) on some level is the system of dice tossing that is an unofficial hinted physical law of the universe which is in the continuous war between the Gods of Chaos, Chance, and Destruction and Gods of Order, Fate, and Creation that are the creators and govern the universe (I think that their properties correct if not) which is manifested through the dice toss that determines what will each entity in the world do. The Dice is sorta like their compromise on what will happen next however it is hinted that Goblin Slayer sorry Pest Control guy defied the toss of the dice in few instances when he and his companions should have died (I haven't found any explanation how besides he's special in his slaying autism and MC and it will amount to something) and he turned it around miraculously wow since you can't have one of the companions dying yet. It is hinted that he is defying the physical law of causality that the dice toss has in his slaying autism and care of, not anyone dying by the hands of goblins and in his vengeance and pure hatred for them which eh doesn't make a lot of sense nor is that engaging as reason or motivation.

Overall the enjoyment part will be the crafty ways in which goblins will be slain and using some fantasy items in clever nuanced ways to outsmart even stronger foes or big hordes, brief military tactics on how to fight goblins which are valid, bright and make sense, the appeal of the exterminator aura which the Pest Control guy gives off and his unusual look Doomguy look that comes with it and the skills his companions have and few of their interactions and that's about it for them (I couldn't get myself to give the characters a higher grade since even a few moments when they escape from their generic role and personality and act somewhat human it's still so alien because of the rules of the world and mission they are doing (the talk revolves about arguments about goblins, goblin slaying or about the husk of the personality of the MC or his robotic responses that are intended for comedy but are boring and annoying than funny in my opinion and reaction to them, or giving advice on boring out of nowhere romantic interests which in the way hanldle serves for the Pest Control Guy to have girls feeling for him harem conflict or some crap which in the way so far handeled added nothing for the story and gave a possible bland motivation rather than a personality to the MC so far). They are trapped literally trapped in their role as the main MC backup and tools it like he is playing a tabletop with their lives destroying their character development in the process and the possibility of them forming an interesting group that's relatable and which fate you care about.
To conclude this dark fantasy is drawn very good and the battles, gore, and fighting is fairly well done and is enjoying to look at, the military tactics make sense and are interesting and there is some minuscule discussion about determinism and free will. Other than that the characters are reduced to tabletop figurines constrained by the aforementioned stuff about the narrative and the goblins are pure evil pests and thus far I'm not seeing more of them of trying to be bubonic plague rodents or trying to become the dominant aha you taught we were weak but we are the main threat race that will try to torture and subjugate others in this world. So the main plot is reduced to being driven by this extermination mission that may at some point impose some moral or universal balance questions rather than simple necessity which I would have given a higher grade for the story if it handled it better and more belivebly and not constraining in this tabletop DnD format in my opinion.
Overall I couldn't give it a higher grade than 3 which is poor since the manga, in my opinion, isn't decent enough with its way of storytelling, universe construction decisions, characters and their development (which is one of the main reasons for me for grading it this despite it being rationalized of being a tabletop game that is not at all for having uninspiringly and boringly written characters) and the plot which is centered around isekai pest control thus far.