When the first season of Tensura came out I enjoyed it quite a lot. I thought it was a very solid isekai show and I was happy to see it was getting a sequel. What I did not expect was that amongst a season filled with some of the best anime in recent memory, it would still become my favorite. Today I want to take a moment to review the second season for those of you who are still on the fence about it, and explain why I put this show above other shows like Attack on Titan and Jujutsu Kaisen. (Both of which are also amazing by the way). Be aware that this review contains spoilers about the entire second season.
Slime picks off right after the first season. A delegation of beast folk from Eurazania (I kept wanting to write Eurasia) arrives for some lighthearted combat and politics. The first few episodes focus on strengthening the bonds with other nations, as well as introducing some new otherworlders that work for the Kingdom of Falmuth. They’ll come into play later on this season, so they’re important. Rimuru has to finish up his teaching job in the city as well before he’s able to go back home.
Right around when Rimuru is heading back, things start to go wrong. People show up in Tempest and start making trouble in the neighbourhood. With the use of some betrayal and powerful anti-magic barriers, the troublemakers quickly get the upper hand when the Falmuthian army appears and starts slaughtering people.
Rimuru is stuck as Sakaguchi Hinata, Shizu-san’s Senpai treats him as the monster who killed her and tries to kill him. She is not very successful, but she is a dangerous foe and stalls Rimuru for long enough that things go really, really wrong at Tempest. I won’t go into spoilers too much for the few of you who still want to watch this show, but I’m not often this shocked by shonen. Meanwhile Hinata is overpowering Rimuru who has to pull out all the stops to survive her attacks and get away with his life.
The survivors then gather up in Tempest and Rimuru learns of a way to possibly revive the people they lost. Here we get some of Milim’s tragic backstory which I thought was very cool, and we start seeing a darker side of Rimuru. Rimuru definitely started out like every shonen protagonist does. A good guy, who wants to see the good in everyone and give everyone a chance at redemption. That arguably hasn’t changed too much, but what I really appreciate about his character is that he learns. It reminds of the great saying “If you want a tolerant society you can’t tolerate the intolerant.” It fits nicely in this scenario with Falmuth not tolerating the monsters which becomes enough of a problem for Rimuru and his friends that Rimuru decides to fight back properly. No shonen protagonist friendship is magic that we see far too often (yes, even my favorite manga One Piece is guilty of this), but actual consequences. If Rimuru kills 10.000 people he has a chance of bringing his fallen friends back.
I’m not a big fan of bringing back characters from the dead because I think it’s often done poorly. Actions have consequences and to quote everyone’s favorite Fate character: “People die when they are killed.”
That doesn’t mean reviving characters can’t be done well. There needs to be a price paid. In this case, that price is the lives of 10.000 human soldiers as well as Rimuru’s humanity. He still sees himself as a human on the inside, owed to his previous life. Killing 10.000 people will probably lay heavy on his heart. We see a lot of this in episode 10, which I talked about in this post. It is one of my favorite episodes of anime in a long time, and I think it’s a masterclass at show don’t tell. Rimuru’s emotions are very visible to me, even if he’s wearing a mask to cover his face. Kudos to the animators, I’ve seen the episode 3 times now and I still get chills.
To top it off, we have a very satisfying end to the first half of this season with some new enemies making themselves known. The final episode is very funny, with the banter between Rimuru and his newly upgraded great sage: Raphael being top-notch. And finally, the episode caps off with the return of everyone’s favorite tsundere dragon: Veldora. I can’t wait to watch the second half of this season in 3 months from now, as well as rewatch the entire thing when that ends. It’s brought me much joy and I highly, highly recommend all of you to check it out.
But that’s my opinion on this show. Do you have a different opinion, or is there something you would like to add? Please leave a comment down below and don’t forget to like and share.
Opal Kaharis 