Once again we watch an Isekai anime. So let’s see, we had a gamer turn into their video game characters twice now, one humanish, one very much not. We had a gamer die and enter a fantasy world dragging a goddess with him. Hmm How about a someone dying and becoming something non human this time, what if they ended up what should be one of the weakest monsters out there? Of note there are plenty of bad Isekais out there but you should know by now I don’t review stuff I don’t like so if something is plain bad I’m unlikely to write about it.

So we open up in modern day Japan with Satoru Mikami (well technically we open up during the firebombing in Japan). He is a 30 something single man, own place good job and, bar lacking a girl friend, living a good life. He is there meeting his friend who is showing him his new girlfriend, when a mugger with a knife runs through the streets. Satoru being a great guy pushes his friend out the way and gets stabbed. His last words begin to destroy his computer before his family can get to it (something a lot of us are going to be saying in the future). Thinking to himself about his past as his life fades before him weird stuff begins to happen and next thing he knows he’s feeling strange sensations. We get a somewhat interesting bit where he describes things without eyes or other major sensory objects while a strange force he refers to as “Sage” explains things to him (also his inner voice gets rather high pitched)

Satoru is rather quick to figure things out, he’s become a slime and starts with the aid of Sage (which is one of his new abilities just it’s semi sentient) begins moving about the cave digesting things and getting stronger, for the cave has a lot of high quality magical stuff. Eventually a strong powerful dragon asks him why he’s intruding. This is Veldora an absolute top tier dragon who was sealed in there by a legendary hero. He’s gotten kind of lonely and he and the as yet unnamed slime become friends, Veldora even giving him the name Rimuru Tempest (this becomes important later). Now all this happens in the first episode so as you can see A LOT happens in this series.

A major part of the show is Rimuru ending up becoming leader of a group of goblins which then results in him also becoming leader of the dire wolves that were attacking them and starting to build their village into a town and later city, to the point it becomes a nation on to itself. This results in him making more friends, political alliances and potential enemies.

The world is slowly fleshed out as Rimuru does this. We sometimes only meet people for a short while but their importance is not under played. Also NO ONE IS STUPID! (Well except maybe Gabiru, but it’s more he lets his ego go to his head and that has repercussions) sorry I cannot forgive plot required stupidity ever. It’s when a plot only works because people are being morons and leaves massive plot holes (looking at you season 3 of rwby). An example of this is when we meet the king of the dwarfs, Rimuru and some blacksmiths are put on trial and their speaker has been bought off. After the trial the king talks to the person bringing the charges and reveals he knew it was faked and casts out the man (the king of the dwarfs is such a great guy).

One of the recurring elements in the show is… well you see as hinted at earlier when monsters get named they become more powerful often taking on a new form, when this happens to a female monster they become waifu material… all of them… even the female lizard man turns into a attractive ninja girl. Not complaining but if you’re wondering where a bunch of cute anime monster girls came from it’s not a sequel to that monster girl anime, it was probably this one.

The first series lasted two cours (a term given to anime season length, 1 cour being around 12/13 episodes) and in that time frame we have the bringing together of a small group of monsters, Rimuru getting his humanoid form (which is in the open so it’s given away very early on that happens). Him uniting all of the monsters of the forest against the threat of an Orc lord and his massive army. Meeting up with a demon lord and facing against another big threat, then going to a city to save some children, all the while building his new nation. And while that is a lot, the last bit felt rather rushed, like they wanted to get that out of the way before the second season (which they have announced just after finishing the first). That does mean that certain things in the second opening seem rather glossed over despite how important they seem in them, then again there is a fight against a group that appeared in the first that is only teased to be happening in season 2.

The series is overall enjoyable. Rimuru is an intelligent and nice little slime and it’s always good to see good things happening to good people. I never understood the mentality of people wanting to see depressing stories, probably why I don’t like soap operas… then again given my hatred of plot required stupidity that makes a lot of sense. And yes if you see a cute monster girl, chances are Rimuru named them.

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