This season is a mix of half disappointment with half satisfaction. Half disappointment because the pacing has been absolutely terrible for more than half of the episodes, and half satisfaction because they redeemed everything with the last 2 episodes.
5 out of 12 episodes are Rimuru doing Rimuru things, just like in the previous season. And then, the story suddenly takes a 180. Half of the episodes are just boring. It’s so boring that the first few episodes feel like fillers. We should’ve gotten the entire Rimuru becoming Demon Lord thing way before, yet it took this many episodes. If you’ve read the manga or the light novel, the pacing will be a huge issue to you. The biggest problem with this season is the terrible pacing. I don’t know what went wrong, but the pacing was so horrible, that even though I’ve read the manga once, I went back to re-read it.
Shion was killed in the process of all the chaos, but of course, she wasn’t killed because there ‘happens’ to be some way to bring her back. I think this death was completely meaningless if they were gonna be alive again through some kind of magic.
And of course, for some unknown reason, the anime decided to make Rimuru less badass than he was in the manga.
“In other words, because you valued your own pitiful life more you’ve decided to damn my people.”
This was the line that made me think that Rimuru finally had a change in his attitude, which of course, he didn’t. Because first, it was left out in the anime, second, moments after that he forgives Myulan. I don’t know why 8bit decided to do this, but it definitely wasn’t the right call.
And don’t you think that it’s a bit ironic, how Rimuru is apparently ‘merciless’ towards the soldier who marched on Tempest, but then again, he simply forgives Myulan. The soldiers were in worse position than Myulan, if they didn’t follow orders, their family back home might’ve been killed. Some of them weren’t even involved in the killing of Shion and others, some of them were simply following orders. But of course, Rimuru is allowed to mercilessly kill all of them. Why? Because they aren’t cute anime girls. Why did Rimuru forgive Myulan so easily, without literally ANY FORM of punishment? Well, because she’s a cute anime girl. Isn’t it rule no. 1 to never hurt a cute anime girl no matter what kind of evil shit they do?
And then the author tries to justify this shit cause by saying that he forgave Myulan because he needed Youm’s cooperation. It’s honestly such a laughable reason, I always get a big laugh when people try to defend Myulan or Rimuru for forgiving Myulan. Who cares about Youm? Who cares about Falmuth? Rimuru can be friends with Dwargon and all other countries while not giving a shit about what happens to Falmuth, but no, for some reason he needed Youm.
Even Gabiru is more useful and important that Youm. This guy literally fell in love with a woman he barely knows, after staying with her for a few days. He loves her so much that he can even go against his master that he knew longer than he knew Myulan. He loves her so much that he can lay down his life for her or atone for sins she committed. It’s almost like he’s never been with another woman. And yes there’s some other beastman which I don’t give a shit about, that also likes her and will lay down his life for her. So she got 2 people in her harem within a few god damn days.
Rimuru is the protagonist and the sole MC of this anime, yet side characters get more screen time than him. Good side characters like Benimaru and Souei barely get any screen time, side characters like Gabiru and Geld get too much screen time. The characters are a mess. The newly introduced ones are even worse, especially the antagonists. The antagonists are laughable. Every bad guy has a motivation or a goal, but these new antagonists don’t have any of them. The bad guys are terribly written, it came off as the author miserably trying to portray these bad guys as truly evil and annoying. Did the author succeed? Only partially. They are still horribly written. The king of Falmuth is a king, but he’s probably the most braindead character in the entire series. Almost makes you wonder, how did he become a king of an entire country?
The animation is an upgrade since last season. It’s probably the most impressive thing about this season. But yeah, it’s okay, it’s nothing impeccable or remarkable enough to talk about.
The soundtracks may be the second most redeeming thing, some time they decide to put some cool soundtrack over fights, which I can appreciate. Other than that, the opening is absolutely remarkable. It perfectly fits Tensura’s theme.
I admit, this season has been lackluster and final 2 episodes could only do much to save the entire anime. Every other episode, other than the final 2 episodes, felt unimaginably boring. There were less fights last season yet it managed to stay more interesting than this season. Since I’ve read ahead into the source, does it get any better? Yes, probably..? I can only hope that the next season won’t have this pacing.
Do we have something to look forward to? Yes, and that is Tensura Nikki. Unlike this season, Tensura Nikki will stay true to it’s core. If you want a wholesome, light-hearted side story, this is god damn it. Dare I say, it’s even better than the original. It feels less like a filler than the first 4 episodes of this season.
As for this season, since it still has those key elements of Tensura and also a proper plot that works.. somehow.. a 6.90 will be the most accurate rating I can give to this.
