Dear Island Guests.. Last episode from Slime was a fairly weak one that was very much saved by it’s good first half. The second half of the episode was very bad and bland however and to be honest I half expected this week’s episode to be the same. I was thinking with Milim being introduced this show might have lost his shine for me.. but what is that.. this week brought a glimmer of hope. For this week I found Milim.. quite entertaining.
The Summary
Rimuru city has rathered the attention of several groups of people, this includes the humans of two countries and some of the demon lords. In this episode we see a lord travel to Rimuru to speak with him followed by those three human adventures that fought the Efreet along with Rimura and Shizuna. Like always these adventurers get in trouble but this time they seem to be rescued by the mercenaries of another country! As they prepare for a big battle Gobta steps in wanting to eat the creature that is giving them trouble. He easily defeats it and the surprised humans are invited to join them at the village. Before they arrive though there happens to be a little scuffle in town as a henchman of another demon lord shows up.
Phobio punches the face of Rigurd.. angry that he hurt the minions of her besty Milim beats the living daylight out of him. Rimuru, wanting to prevent war, scolds her for it and she cries as she has to miss lunch! Eventually he allows her to have lunch anyways as negotiations start. They don’t go well as Phobio refuses to believe a slime can be that powerful and he just wants to rule over the village instead. This doesn’t happen of course creating tension between Rimuru and the Demon Lords. Milim gets tricked into telling what she knows about these people in return for a new weapon. A little later the humans arrive and they start negotiations as well seemingly going quite peaceful, talking about establishing trade. Rimuru also wants the mercenaries to become his underlings and pretend like they defeated the Orcling with a friendly monster ally that kind of helped them in order to give him more favourable propaganda. The Merc agrees and joins team Rimuru. We end the episode with a conversation between a demon lord and female clown discussing the release of a creature whose power can rival that of the Demon lords and with an evil grin the episode ends.
The Positives
This was a much better episode than the one that came before and it has to do with a much better pacing. I might have told the story out of order a bit above but that was mostly done to put all events on a kind of similar timeline. However since we are dealing with two events.. three if we count the final scene we have a much more narrative episode. Apparently the creators here can only keep a single plotline interesting for about 10 minutes and that is fine…. because of the comedy element you can not overplay your hand and need to drop a situation faster than you would in a drama situation and this episode does that very nicely. The last episode.. not so much where the first part was the battle with Milim and the second part her settling in.. however the flaws she had were the same source of comedy for both thus it felt stale. While Milim is still that same character, there is more comedy than just her. Gobta one-shotting an immense creature, Rimuru not being able to convince a guy he is so much more powerful, the shock of the humans when they discover a slime is in an alliance with the dwarfs.
The Milim comedy in this episode is pretty nice! Her explosive character and immense power here bring a contribution to the escalation of a situation.. yet in turn also provides usefulness. It’s an exchange.. The character is not just a detriment to the city. I do like how the city advances. I told it before. .and in this episode we do see that happening again. We also see Shuna take a bit of a role as Hostess for guests in town and diplomatic meetings, so it is nice to see her step up. Overall all the characters really progress for the better in this episode and that is where the strength of this show lies. It’s a show about progress, getting stronger and a prettier village better roles. The comedy is there to make it “not boring” the action is there to pick up the pace and make stuff happen.. but by now we are actually watching to see a slime build his little “kingdom” This episode really plays into that and it’s a very good episode because of it .
The Negatives
It is not an excellent episode though! There are some oversights I am willing to forgive but the fact that Eren and her group almost get no attention from Rimuru and kind of act reluctant to go back to him in the first place feels weird. They were on quite good terms, bonded together and they cried over the loss of a mutual friend. Here they are just background sprites and that bothered me quite a bit. The episode is pretty densely packed with content so I get why it happened but at least acknowledge them a bit. Gabiru being fine when he was punched by a Demon Lord seems a bit odd to me as well.. it turns out he is actually hurt and just toughing it out sure, but I am not sure if that is in line with his character or skill level. Then again they do make their potions so okay.. There does seem to be some inconsistent power scaling though. It makes sense since everyone is so powerful, but I wish there was a bit more logic.
Milim is mostly fixed for me in this episode. She loses the skimpy outfit, her behaviour is less obnoxious. She isn’t exactly great though. Her being more powerful then Rimuru is not played into very well, the fear they have for Milim isn’t done very well.. she gets really downplayed in this episode. Sure she is easy to control but basically it is the group sitting on on nuke with a short fuse. Yet here she is just being treated like a spoiled child that can be pacified with a Sandwich.. it kinda takes the tension and the role of the character away. I can get it fading over time but the second episode after her introduction it’s a tad fast. Now she more feels like an exposition bomb. I was also quite annoyed that Eren was glossed over completly! I really like her character and her party.. yet this week they are just means to and end to string other characters together.
The Score
A much better episode, than last week, yet still one that has it flaws. It is however a very feel good episode and this is just such a smile inducing episode. I really love how the village and the little country grows and these new alliances are great and making enemies along the way makes sense. I just feel like there could be a little bit more consistency and care into the details, into the roles characters have. Let Milim be that nuke and seriously mess up things.. don’t half and half it. Let Eren be welcomed back into the village as the adorable klutz that is Rimuru’s link to the human world. Let Gabiru be the loser that constantly gets punched around.. don’t let him though things out.. put him in the hospital.. make it so that they constantly need to use potions on him!
That however is much more a gripe with the series as a whole then with this episode specifically.. on their own these offences aren’t that big. Sure I know it could use a bit more care, but I smile widely still. I loved the clumsy Eren scene , even if she wasn’t talked to by Rimuru, I loved seeing Vesta being so proud of his achievement and growing into another person. I love the small fixes to Milim showing that this really is a show about progress. It all felt satisfying from beginning to end! All those other gripes I have .. just stem from taking the cheap way out just a TAD to much rather than going for the well written option. So it’s a great episode but to cheap to be a star.
Pinkie's Paradise 