______________________________________________________________ This has been one of my favorite anime of
this year.
And as someone who gets off talking about deep characters and complex story telling
for a living, I have to admit I'm a bit ashamed of that.
That time I got reincarnated as a slime has so many things that should irritate me, starting
with that stupid - fitting title.
The main character effortlessly gets more and more powers, with practically no stakes.
There is a sea of side characters introduced, that I can't and won't all care about, and
there is no clear overarching narrative that seems to tie the story together.
Being a gourmet to the exquisite writing in stories like One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen or
Hunter x Hunter, I feel like I should be loathing this piece of feel-good, escapist Isekai.
And yet I god damn love it.
I loved the first season and what's even worse, I loved the second one even more.
So whether you love or hate him, let me tell you why I think that Rimuru Tempest is such
a fantastic character and why the blue slime makes for such a refreshing story for me.
By the way if you want this copy of the manga, subscribe, as you already should be and I'll
pick one random comment to send this to.
Now that the anime is over I just have to know what happens, so I'm gonna read the manga.
Now sadly, if you're not living in japan, you probably cant just quickly get any manga
you like whenever you want.
Or can you?
I have partnered up with Bookwalker an online bookstore and app for reading Manga & Light
Novels digitally worldwide.
They have a ridiculously awesome selection of manga and light novels for you to explore.
Of course 'that time I got reincarnated as slime' is part of their selection, and right
now with the end of season 2, they have a special offer for you with up to 30% off the
manga including the entire set, coin back and even some bonus items until the 18th of
October.
Link is in the description below, so once we have discussed the story so far, make sure
to check it out!
There are two main things that make this anime so great to me.
The set-up of the story overall as well as its main character Rimuru Tempest.
The
big strength of this story, is that it doesn't try to be clever or pretends to be something
it is not.
It doesn't try to preach any deep messages, nor does it forcefully avert expectations
and tropes for the sake of it.
It doesn't go out of its way to be creative, but simply follows the rules of good writing.
Characters are developed, the world is built and everything that happens gets clean set-up
and foreshadowing.
It doesn't try to break the rules, but follows
them with a lot of discipline.
In other words, the anime knows what it is and what it is not.
And absurdly enough, I think that it's exactly this authenticity alone that makes it already
stand out.
The premise is as simple as the title suggests.
A young man dies in our normal world and is reborn as a slime in another world, only of
course that he gets ridiculous powers right from the get-go.
Classic Isekai escapism.
From there on out, we basically follow our slime hero, who shares our modern 21st century
perspective, as he discovers this new world, gets stronger and stronger and starts building
a small nation.
Like, maybe it's just me, but that premise kind of hits a nerve with me.
I've always loved strategic development games, like Age of Empires, harvest moon or hell
even Minecraft.
Yes, getting strong is part of the fun, but the real struggle is in building something
big.
So, as a kid, or even today sometimes, I like to daydream about how it would be like to
be put into one of my favorite stories with the best set of powers and how you could build
your own small comfortable place with it.
Does that make any sense?
And I think Fuse, the author of slime, I'm just gonna call it slime from now on, it's
exactly what Fuse did when he created this story.
Rimuru is not a shouen hero, who has to get stronger, or even a hero like Saitama, who
needs to grow on the inside.
Rimuru already was a pretty decent leader even as a human.
His junior seems to like and respect him, and while his character does have a dark side
to it sometimes, I think it's nothing that has to be changed.
Rimuru's character arc is not about growing from a boy into a man or from a man into a
leader.
It's about growing from a leader into a visionary, that can change or form a whole society.
So it's not about him getting stronger or dealing with his emotions that we see, to
me it's about Rimuru growing to be the leader not of a small team in his company, but that
of a whole nation.
Learning about diplomacy and infrastructure and the politics of the world, with the necessary
power to back it up.
[Gazel saying that Rimuru is still naive] That's what the story is about and why it's
so much fun.
It doesn't pretend to be anything more than that.
A major factor in this context, at least to me, is the fact that Rimuru is a grown man,
that also acts like a grown man.
He's a bit naive, but a quick learner and most importantly, he is emotionally mature,
something that is so incredibly refreshing for a main character.
And it gives the entire story a certain maturity as well when it comes to his actions, decisions
and relationships with other characters.
Even the fan-service in the story, while undoubtedly there, whole cow Shion can you walk with these,
it's not as over the top as I feared at the beginning.
Plus it's surprisingly balanced between male and female characters.
The main themes that were easy to pick out for me include racial equality, helping others,
leading others, individual growth, positive civilization growth, choosing one’s battles,
and being compassionate yet rational.
Those are all incredibly feel-good themes.
But even though I usually prefer darker stories, it works for me, because the Anime compromises
this with some quite graphic imaging, but more importantly a shift in focus between
the seasons.
Season 1 and 2 of slime felt very very coherent when I first watched them, but now that the
season is over, I am shocked to say that this is one of the rare cases where a season two
made the season one better.
Season 1 is all about getting familiar with our main character, a ton of world-building
and the establishment of the nation in Yura forest.
While this is a lot of fun to watch, to me there were some big problems, should the story
have simply continued on like this.
In season one there are are no stakes for Rimuru and no personal challenges.
Also, the focus on our slime made it absolutely impossible to care for most, if any other
of the many characters thrown in with every single season.
At the end, the village is mostly a faceless blob.
Season 2 however, right off the bat I feel did a fantastic job addressing all these potential
pitfalls.
Rimuru loosing loosing Shion and many other of his friends, not only gives him his first
taste of reality and hardship, but also provides some series development for his character,
that pushes the narrative forward.
He now has to deal with the fact, that the 3 rules he came up with on the fly in season
one, were hasty and unsustainable in the face of all the ill intent coming toward his new
nation.
Overall the story and world of slime takes on a darker shade, which immediately satisfied
people like me, who like some more complexity.
Bust because Rimuru is strong doesn't mean he can protect everyone all the time, and
he starts handing off responsibility to more and more of his followers.
This solves the other big issue with season one.
Instead of endlessly adding more no-name characters to the village, we get characterization for
all those form season one, which left me which a much better connection to characters like
Benimaru, Gobta and Shion than in the first season.
These characters now are not only powerful themselves, but also act independently from
Rimuru.
And all the characters that DO get added, all have fantastic or at least interesting
perosnalites.
Ramiris, Diabolo and my boy Veldra all are very easy to relate to, even though we got
very little of them in season 1.
And by the way I cant believe they had Veldra do a Kamehameha.
So, despite a very simple and text-book setup, the story executes the rules of good storytelling
so well, that it's impossible for me not to like it and be excited to see what comes next
for Rimuru and co.
I hope you want to watch a bit more, so check out this video here next.
Thanks for watching.