Episode 20 – Pinkie's Paradise

Animini: That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime – Episode 20 – Yuuki Kagurazaka

Steamless Salutations, my dear island guests! That is right.. we are out of coals and for the moment are without steam.. This is all a very convoluted way to say that this show itself, for me personally, is quickly running out of steam as well. As this show has since the defeat of the Orc-lord for me personally quickly devolved from a series I really love and have fun with.. to just a series I dislike that I don’t like it enough! While the potential is still there.. and the set up is still great.. I feel the writing talent is really lacking.

The Summary

After turning the Megalodons that accompanied Charbdis into sushi and other amazing foods the town of Rimuru has a great party to celebrate their victory over Charybdis. Or I guess over the Megalodons because Mlim just one shot the monster that is supposed to rival a demon lord.. of course the government officials don’t partake in drinking and show off their boobs in a hot-tub again instead. Rimuru asks Milim why she became a demon lord and tells she can’t remember.. while three episodes before she proclaimed it was to perpetually fight strong people. Maybe it is her being more genuine here.. maybe it is inconsistent writing.. but the scene doesn’t go anywhere. Milim suddenly remembers she has to work.. changes into clothes as the group claps for her and she zooms off. Everyone wishes for her to return soon, though Rimuru is kind of okay she is gone for now or so it seems. That night Rimuru has a nightmare of sorts.. a vision that shows Shizu wants him to train the children she was training. Feeling compelled to do so Rimuru leaves the town of Rimuru behind for a bit and goes to the realms capital to find the school that Shizu worked on.

Now I am pretty sure that this doesn’t make much sense timewise. Rimuru apparently has been in the other world for two years now and I think Shizu trained these kids way before Rimuru came here. But I might have misinterpreted a line or two.. it felt weird to me that these kids were still 10 year old. From what I gathered kids are summoned to this world around the age of 10.. to become powerful warriors but because their body can not hold the power it explodes at one point.. no longer than five years after they arrived. So how are these kids all 10 year olds..still if Shizu thought them 2 years ago?! I am not sure. Regardless Rimuru first visits the headmaster of the school.. who is the kid that taught Shizu the line about Slime.. he is an other-worlder as well.. The two get acquainted, Rimuru makes him some Manga from Memory and the two weeb out for a moment. He then offers Rimuru the job to teach these children to do right by Shizu. The moment Rimuru walks in the classroom he is almost killed by an ultimate attack wondering why these dying kids have so much energy.

The Positives

Milim not being a permanent addition to the group and her going to do her own thing was a welcome change, even though she got adopted into the village it is nice to see that there is at least some form of consistency in the fact that Mlim still is a demon lord and has her tasks to do. In a way it is also nice to see Rimuru leave the village.. even though the building of the city is what at this point had me most invested in this show, the change of scenery to a more urban setting works nice and the machinations of the huge city are compelling, fun and creative. The show is pretty good at world creation.. not world building.. but world creation, as in coming up with new interesting elements to create a fantastical world filled with diverse places.. they don’t connect all that well.. but as far as imagination goes this show really does well. I also like the idea that the concept of Isekai is rather common in this world and there are two ways to do this. It in a way spoofs how many Isekai shows there are and shows how likely it is that you end up in such a world. I personally would have loved to see this concept be taken a bit further as all Other-worlders now come from earth and I would have liked to see them draw people from other worlds as well.. especially since earthlings explode at a certain age.. but I still admire the creativity poured in it all. I also like seeing Rimuru excited about something simple as Glass.. though this is later a bit negated. It makes him feel a bit normal again.

I also very much liked the level of geekism on display. Rimuru and Yuuki , the headmaster person thingy really geek out and they discuss real life geeky things. No Snoka Koala and Peepsie .. Yuuki flat out asks Rimuru how many Final Fantasy Games there are now.. to which he replies.. 19.. which makes me wonder.. does he live in the future or does he kind X2 and 13, 2 and 3.. if so he has to count Crisis core as well to reach 19 but why would you call crisis core?! Or does he count Final Fantasy IV the After years?! Who knows! At one point there even is a Salt Bae Meme I think. The show does know who it’s audience is and pleases them, the people that matter in this world think like us and act like us and that adds a lot of relatability to this episode and gives it some much needed charm.

The Negatives

The writing though… isn’t good! It isn’t good at all. The Milim thing seems like one of the easiest contradictions but like I said.. I don’t get how these kids fit in the timeline of Shizu. With the stories Eren told before it doesn’t seem likely these kids are 10 still? Or is it that they are brought here when they are five and explode around the age of 10?! It could be.. because that is certainly implied at the end.. but Shizu is a summon as well, and she did not die. The logic is that if you are transported to the new world you are given a new body that gathers power.. and eventually it becomes to much and says “pop” sort of speak.. but then why would someone as powerful as a Demon Lord summon Shizu and stuff an Efreet down her body.. would that not make matters worse? If the Demon Lord knows putting a demon in them helps.. why would the countries not know this?! It’s not like they care for the humans they summon, they are intended as weapons so how would that cross a line?! I don’t see it make any sense.

This bad writing also applies to Rimuru in this episode. Does he have a photographic memory now that he can produce all these Manga’s he has ever read? If he has had that perfect memory due to great Sage.. why does he not ask Great Sage why he does not ask school books he read, or maybe to put a documentary he saw on making things to paper. He could ask Great Sage how people in manga would take down a monster like the one he is facing to get a strategy.. it just feels like something he could have used. If he is this impressed by glass.. why doesn’t he make it inside himself.. all he needs is sand. Rimuru gets past a checkpoint showing his ID while masked, which also doesn’t make too much sense. He has a reference from Veldt sure.. but wasn’t it established those types of mask were worn by Majin? Would you really let someone walk through like that? Must have been one hell of a reference. Finally I find it kind of weird that teaching kids, will be the arc you will end season 1 on. Should season one not just be about making the village.. as much as I hated the Charybdis arc… I think it would have been much better if the final four episodes were spend on fleshing that out more. Also what happened to that whole just a helpful slime rumor plotline?! It seems completely overwritten by the fake ID thing.

The Score

While I do see an improvement from the last few episodes I think this show is written super poorly, this arc should have happened before Charbdis at the very least, Probably even before the Orc-Lord arc.. Now so much things so not make sense to me. Even if we say normally these kids die at around of the age of 10, the Shizu arc happend early in RImuru’s time here.. so I will assume.. maybe an half year in or so. That means 1,5 years have passed which is at least a third of the time these kids have spend in this world.. How can they still remember Shizu so fondly, even at best she has been dead for a good year. These are small kids..their first reaction would not be.. this person kind of looks like Shizu. Had they been raised properly I could kind of understand but they are shown to be kind of childish otherwise..so it all just fits together really poorly.

In the end we got is like an artwork of a hobby painter trying to mimic a Picasso. It’s not a masterpiece.. but it is something interesting to look at.. it just does not make a beaverdam lick of sense if you look closer. I will admit I have fun with slime.. sortoff.. during my watch but as soon as the episode passed I feel like.. wait.. but this.. and this.. and this. So perhaps I am watching this show wrongly.. perhaps it is a show to bing a couple of episodes and when you are tired you just go to bed. However I have fallen out of love with this show hard… I feel like the Mangaka really tries to mimic how Oda builds his worlds in One Piece, with stuff happening everywhere in the world .. showing there is more to the world than just our heroes. For what it is worth he shows in this episode he can create interesting locations and interesting elements.. however.. when you pivot them all around the main character.. it doesn’t feel like a living world anymore. Oda’s villlains will act DESPITE of Luffy’s existence and that is why that amazng world building works..once more this episode introduces a new interesting element.. but by letting it revolve around Rimuru it doesn’t stand on it’s own.. and it feels like a way to pad out your Manga,, and that is why this episode is sub-par for me.

Animini: Samurai Flamenco – Episode 20 – Boy From the Past

Joyous Salutations , my dear Island Guests, we have entered Steampunk Month on Paradise.. however just because our palm trees have turned into metal and our pool is now heated by coal and steam vents.. doesn’t mean we will stop with providing you our weekly anime! The Animini shall continue.. however I will immediately admit.. that with this first episode within anime Month.. I am not that pleased. I am not that pleased at all. Where I liked the set up of the villain last week, I think it’s current execution is not something I particularly enjoy.

The Summary

The episode picks up where the last when finished. Masayoshi is greeted by a young boy named Hajii and that explosion we saw last time.. it turns out it was Masayoshi’s apartment. I did not realise it because.. I haven’t really paid much attention to the outside of his apartment building if it even has been shown before. I do try to pay attention to this show so I do feel that explosion at the end of the episode missed a bit of impact. I wanted to see Masayoshi react a bit more. The two have a mexican stand off and the boy tells Masayoshi a tiny bit of his background story before vanishing. He tells Masayoshi he plans to cause misery to Samurai Flamenco. Masayoshi is being taken to a hotel to spend the night where he orders a curry. Hajii calls hims room and tells him he poisoned the curry and will soon treat Masayoshi to a colourful chain of events. Plus offering a lot more backstory. He was the young boy that was part of the group of ruffians.. I even described him there I think.. Apparently he found the word Flamenco to be really funny.. and he decided to be his rival.. long story short he wants to be his complete opposite.. so no justifications he just is pure evil! To offer Samurai Flamenco the best possible foe he can have.

Because of the phone hint Hajii gave Masayoshi the model deduces his first target is the Flamengers.. and this indeed is true. Blue gets his cardboard cutout of Red Axe being torn. Blacks Grandpa gets pushed over, Green gets his book cut to shreds and given to his little sister, Pink gets her hair cut off. and Red Axe gets hit by a truck and put in the hospital. We also see someone get pushed off a stair and ..kind of hurt their ankle I guess. While I do like the power display here.. something feels off in how these are scaled and follow each other up. Masayoshi goes to the police but no one believes a highschool boy can do this. There is no trace of a bomb in Masayoshi’s apartment, no poison in the curry, and the boy is said to have died from a disease over a year ago. Even Goto won’t believe his friend and the two get in a huge fight.. causing Goto to break all ties with Masayoshi and throw him out.. because he found it unfair that Masayoshi called him out for being a hypocrite. Masayoshi sits on a riverbank and waits for Haiji to call who shows up on an island in the river. When Masayoshi swims to him to proof he is real and not a figment of his overworked mind.. he finds no one there.. we see Masayoshi lay there wondering if this villain is hin his head.

The Positives

I do really like how Hajii is set up as the Joker.. he is evil just because he can and he wants to be the opposite of Samurai Flamenco.. being evil just for evil sake is great. I also love the mind game that is being played here.. if that is the route they are going for.. Samurai Flamenco has very much dependent on all his allies, so the way to fight him.. is indeed by taking his friends away from him.. making him seem like a madman.. It will also reduce his chances to be world president.. which I already found dumb.. so I am all for that. Overall Masayoshi’s struggles in this episode have been done really well. I have so much empathy for him.. from simple things as wasting a perfectly good curry due to a tease.. to slowly losing his sanity.

I also like the fact that Moe did not get killed in this episode.. for some reason I had the feeling that she might be killed off and that would have completely ruined the show for me. While I do not like this episode .. they at least managed to keep it salvagable for me.. but given that I mention this as a positive might give you an idea for what is about to come next. To linger in the positives for a little while longer, I do like the idea that this young kid is just to smart for Masayoshi.. if he is not a figment of his imagination and faked his own death.. and is just playing the man I do think that is a really REALLY cool villain concept and probably something that I would see myself as .. as a villain as well.. that would be how I’d work as well. However I do not think the villain works here.. It works along with Masayoshi but not with the show, not with the universe.. not after that episode I should have kept as my final episode. I do love the concept .. but it’s like a concept car.. they all look really cool but if you look a bit closer it makes no sense at all! Still it does look super cool on a photo so that is still a positive.

The Negatives

I am sorry .. I have a LOT of negatives with this episode! I kind of hated it! Not in terms of flow .. but I just found it to have zero credibility and consistency. Let’s immediately drop in with the scene that utterly ruined this episode for me and that is Masayoshi’s fight with Goto. Goto believes Masayoshi is just overworked and is imagining this guy. Masayoshi tells him he is a hypocrite.. because he wants to cling on the illusion that his girlfriend is still alive and will come back.. but he doesn’t believe Masayoshi saw a real guy. That is hypocritical indeed.. and it would have been a super powerful scene.. had it made any sense.. but let’s look at this closer. Goto saw a guy transform into a Guillotine Gorilla while standing next to Masayoshi… he used a pink Hummer to dislodge a Missile made by a man who turned himself into a giant puppet. He has been saved by his favourite Sentai and he has seen an all American Hero turn into an alien. Had he had a telescope.. he could even see his friends IMPRINT on the moon.There in my mind is just NO way that .. a young boy .. flying under the radar is THAT unbelievable to him.. that it results in a friendship ending fight.

Then there is the attacks on the Flamengers.. which are all super petty and silly. It makes Hajii feel more like Butters from Southpark playing Professor Chaos.. ripping a cardboard sign and a book and cutting of someone’s hair.. tipping a grandpa. Then Joji is hit by a truck?! That just feels super inconsistent.. at least build up in gravitas over a bit of time if you do that.. but no everyone was hit almost at the same time..And they are HIT at the same TIME.. same day within minutes of each other. Yet the police and GOTO!!! Explain this as.. You guys go t some weirdo fans that will do weird shit. NO! Had it happened over days.. I could have seen them going that route but there is no way you can make Masayoshi the boy that cried wolf like this. It doesn’t fit into the world building at all.. the entire world wants this guy to be president for Arceus sake.. Even if I would belief Masayoshi himself is turning into a villian so much things would not make sense. The Flamengers fought monsters.. they are highly trained.. yet Red Axe can’t jump away from a vehicle.. Black doesn’t notice an intruder.. while his father is walking on soft soil.. Pink doesn’t chase the guy that cuts her hair and just screams?! They are basically meant to be like Masayoshi so this passive behaviour also is weird. The next two episode better offer me one Distortion World of an explanation because right now this feels SOOO badly written.

The Score

Despite me hating how this episode is written there are a few things going for it that keep it from getting the lowest score in my system. This might still be salvaged..I can see Masayoshi distracting the Flamengers.. to cause the atttack to happen.. if he really is the villain himself.. but then .. Joji makes no sense as he never answered.. So that route is out of the window for me.. I must hope Hajii is at least real.. and he is just tormenting Masayoshi but even if that happens.. everyone else here got the serious short and off the stick. I might be able to justify Goto’s action because he loves his girlfriend so much.. but I still kind of find it bad writing when you know that your friend saved earth from the aliens ..and you fought alongside him twice.. to prevent the end of Japan..that this whole girlfriend thing outweighs that. It doesn’t feel right we always seen Goto as a realist so to weigh this.. THIS heavy.. Eeh..

If you are simply out here to see Masayoshi’s adventures .. this is a good one.. if you are like me and think also from the mindset of the other characters.. this episode made SO little sense to me.. it kind of felt to me as if the show said.. “well this all isn’t relevant anymore lets toss it in the bin shall we” and I do hate this episode for it. For me this is the single most worst episode of the show so far. It doesn’t ruin the show for me but I do feel as if this was very very bad day for the writers. Sometimes a cool concept should just stay a cool concept.. I would have loved this as fan fiction.. but I hate that it’s part of offical Canon.