Reviews

Jan 4, 2024
Ever since I watched the first season of Goblin Slayer, I knew I heavily disliked it, but the exact reasoning behind it kind of eluded me. I obviously had some grounds for this strong distaste towards it, but only now, after finishing the second season, I attempted to fully understand this repulsion and list all the things that bother me. It was easier to do so as this season showcases all the faults with the series way more jarringly, as well as introduces some new ones.

- In the 2nd season, it is already made implicit that goblins are the biggest evil in the universe because the 1st season presented it so much that it doesn't need any further explanation. We know that goblins bad and our main guy wants to slay them. And a few years ago when the 1st season came out, I've already found this aspect of worldbuilding very cheap and one-dimensional; it was enough to prevent me from immersing myself in the story because of how shallowly the main focus of it was treated. Goblins harm people simply because it is in their nature to do so, and they devise many devious tricks to ruthlessly carry out their vicious deeds. We have seen multiple times that they are not weak creatures and their minds are fully capable of well-planned, dangerous attacks. There is more than enough ground for everyone in the world to realise that, and yet, there is still this continuous pattern of people underestimating goblins and thinking of them as weak creatures who you just laugh at and look down upon. How the hell has no one else besides the main party and some other individual characters come to the conclusion that goblins are the real shit? Especially after them straight up invading villages and injuring or killing so many adventurers in plain sight? It's very easy to just blame that on people's misguided prejudice, making everyone aside from the main cast ignorant of reality when it comes to this one aspect for some reason. If the problem in question was approached reasonably, the anime would lose its main driving force - an autistic dude and his friends who are the only ones who know the truth about the goblins and try to get rid of them - because it didn't give two fucks about carefully establishing it in the first place.

- Another problem I had with the anime even while watching the 1st season was the emptiness and the lack of personality of the characters. They seem to possess a few traits only, and literally everyone feels like a caricature without any depth. I think I can describe the main party with a few words for each of its members - Goblin Slayer is a cool loner who wants to carry out his revenge and eradicate goblins while being inept at social interaction; the Elf is playful, impulsive, and adventure-seeking; the Priestess is shy, naively kind-hearted, and she looks up to Goblin Slayer, wanting to better herself based on her high opinion of him; the Lizard is a polite Stoic who loves cheese and his religion; the Dwarf is a cheerful old man who likes to drink. There is very little to them besides that, seriously. There is a small arc at the elven village, but no further information about the Elf came out of that.

- Speaking of the elven village, I really wished for the anime to focus on how their lives and perspectives differ from other races, which would build on the fantasy world it is set in. I wanted it to say something actually interesting and informative, and expand upon its setting. But unfortunately, Goblin Slayer didn't do that, and the elven village ended up being used simply as a background for the goblin slaying. The things we are told about the elves are superficial, and the anime does not delve into the subject but merely scrapes it instead and calls it a day. Apart from learning virtually nothing about them, and certainly nothing worthwhile, we are also left with having no idea what part they play in the entire scope of things. And I feel like the same thing happens with every single character or place introduced - we get a surface-level exposition treated with no care which only purpose is to somehow connect them with goblins. No insight into the geopolitical and biological landscape, no effort in establishing the relations between the characters, nothing. I don't understand it, what's the point of any attempts at constructing plot elements when they are only used as a vapid stage for an epic Call of Duty montage or a cringy and lifeless slice of life?

- Complaining about the story a bit more, it is fragmented and doesn't feel like a continuous experience. The characters do one thing, there is a short conclusion of an arc, and then they just start doing something else. I know some shows like to have it episodical, but I don't think this was the aim of Goblin Slayer, at least it doesn't seem to be that way for me - I think it's just awkwardly glued together without enough content to link the events. Shit just happens, but I don't find it connected; something might as well be taking place years before or after. It's like everything was haphazardly placed without any thought behind it.

- When it comes to the atmosphere of Goblin Slayer, I still find it hilarious that the controversial sexual assault at the very beginning of the 1st season tricked everyone into thinking that this was going to be the most brutal and realistically (for the presented setting and its intrinsic rules) dark anime out there with a cruel and unforgiving world that doesn't care about your feelings. After that tasteless introduction made purely for shock value, the series began to show its true colours - dullness, repetitiveness stemming from the lack of ideas, and an overall subpar uninspired fantasy anime shit. Another thing I also found very irritating was this almost mechanical division between the happy-go-lucky moments, with the main characters engaging in the most unnatural and unfunny banter you'll ever hear, and the precarious battles.

- With the studio change from White Fox to LIDENFILMS, the animation quality takes a dive. A lot of the sequences look very cheap, with, for example, repeated, unnatural movements to lazily fill the space when characters talk. The backgrounds are very simple, but in a bland, underdeveloped, and uninteresting way. I particularly remember this one scene where the gang arrives at a big city near the end of the season and the priestess is in absolute awe of the place, but when I saw it, I thought it looked like shit - Steam Workshop-like textures of bare-bones and boring buildings without any style to them make up the entirety of this city's random ass and ugly urban planning.

- The attempt at introspectiveness at the end was a laughable icing on the cake. It provided no insight whatsoever and amounted only to a dumbed-down reiteration of the premise, making the caricatural Goblin Slayer look like an even bigger caricature of himself. The last words uttered in this season are "I go on adventures and slay goblins. That's what I chose to do. And then... Nothing will change.", and I think this is very fitting in regard to the whole series.

With even so many of the fans disliking it, the second season of Goblin Slayer is an even more unlikeable creature devoid of any substance, the initial popularity of which I completely fail to understand.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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