So after 7 full episodes of build-up we finally get into the fights themselves. I’ve seen a fair bit of discourse on reddit over the weeks about how this show is taking too long to build up and it’s spent 7 episodes on 1 episode of pay-off. I agree with this sentiment in theory, but not for this particular show. I’m a big fan of good world-building, and I feel like Slime is doing a fairly decent job at this so far. I’m very excited about the political aspect of this show, and less about the fighting. The fights haven’t looked particularly impressive either, which is unfortunate but not surprising. Anyway, moving on to the episode itself. This episode covers three main fights, one of which got me quite excited.
The first fight was by far the least interesting to me. Very quickly it was obvious that this would be resolved through mainly talking, and that is exactly what ended up happening .Gabiru does get the better of Hermes, who is seemingly fairly strong, but the two of them do not seem to be a match of Middray. Having said that, it’s good to remember that despite being a bit of a joke character, Gabiru means business. We do learn some more about the dragon faithful and where their power comes from. They’re a similar species to Gabiru although not quite through the same path. Gabiru mentions that his sister looks more like a human, which I think alludes to her strength. I bet she’s the strongest out of the dragonewts.
To no one’s surprise, Yamza ended up being a pushover. He says he’s on equal footing with Albis, but he’s not really. He has to rely on two powerful items and still gets rolled over like a small fry. Clayman has more plans for him though, and ends up turning him into a smaller version of Charybdis. That looks like a bad way to go. Also, this pretty much confirms that Clayman is fully aware of what is happening on the battlefield. Does his remaining confidence stem from the power he holds over Milim or does he have another ace up his sleeve. Regardless, I couldn’t think about this too much because I was distracted by a certain snake lady. I mean, come on, look at that design, how can you not immediately turn into a degenerate.hat suspected, Yamza ended up being the biggest pushover of the bunch.
When everyone gets ready to deal with the big new threat, Benimaru shows up and deals with it like it’s no problem. I love me some powerful main characters, but it is starting to get slightly ridiculous. One thing I like about Slime is that it has no issue killing off bad guys, but I’d like if there were more serious consequences for the main cast. Everyone on the good guys’ side seems to be surviving. As much as I loved Shion being revived, it did kind of take away the stakes.
Moving on from that, Benimaru threatens to fight father Middray, but luckily Gabiru and Suphia manage to diffuse the situation. We learn a lot about how powerful people are. Middray seems to be the best fighter present in a duel of sorts, but if it’s a fight to the death Benimaru would have the edge. It’s good to know that Milim’s people are strong enough to deal with Rimuru’s people. I expect Milim to be the least likely to have many strong underlings.
Now we move on to the final fight, and it was the one I was most curious about. Ever since I’ve read Tokyo Ghoul (which I highly recommend, just not in the form of the anime) I’ve had a very fair distrust of clowns. I think it’s just smarter to assume that clowns are behind all that’s wrong in the world, just to be safe. It’s the same with these clowns. Laplace has so far been shown to be the most cunning of the three, but I have a feeling all three of them are a step above Clayman. Tear and Footman do manage to deal with Phobio and Geld pretty easily, before taking their leave.
I really thought either Geld or Phobio would be killed or seriously wounded in this fight, and I’m kind of disappointed this didn’t happen. Benimaru seems to think he outsmarted the clowns by tricking them, but I don’t think he did. It feels like someone pretending to be smarter than they are. I hope the clowns end up being big trouble in the future. I am glad Geld is fine though, he was my favorite character in the spin-off. But imagine if he was seriously injured and the young goblin girl took care of him. That would be adorable.
I really hope we’ll get to Walpurgis next episode, that’s what I’ve really been looking forward to. That brings me to the following; I don’t know if there will be an episode review next week. Tensura airs on Tuesday evenings for me, and I’m flying out to the UK early Wednesday. I might do a quick review, but no promises. I hope you understand.
Opal Kaharis 