The Winter 2021 Preview Guide

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2

Champion of monsters Rimuru Tempest ends the orc war and earns the esteemed title as Slime Chancellor. Now that the Jura Tempest Alliance is growing even further, they will now be meeting the animal kingdom of Eurazania, reuniting with King Gazel, rising tensions between monsters and humans, and Rimuru encountering the strongest enemy he's ever faced.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2 is based on Taiki Kawakami's manga, which in turn adapted author Fuse and artist Mitz Vah's light novel series. It streams on Crunchyroll at on Tuesdays and the English dub wll premiere on Funimation.

Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

Of the many, many sequels airing this season, I'm afraid there's a couple I didn't quite do my homework for. I watched all of the first season of Slime Time when it aired around the start of 2019, yes, but much of my memory of the show has faded in the time since. I remember more or less everything up to when the Oni/Kijin joined Rimuru's ranks, and vaguely that he fought an army of orcs before going to play teacher with some real annoying kids, but much of the plot this premiere spends setting up was news to me, and I'm left to assume I just forgot the very important things Youm did before this, or the demon lord Rimuru is trying to negotiate a peace treaty with.

Unfortunately that's all there really is to this premiere. It's rearranging deck chairs for the next arc, reminding us of all the various monsters Rimuru's befriended since then, and then sneaks in the beginning of a potentially cool fight between his underlings and a couple of the Demon Lord's delegation at the end. It's all very matter-of-fact, and while there are some cute gags (and Rimuru's slime form is still eternally delightful to watch in motion) it feels a bit too dry to really get me excited. I'm glad the demonic 10-year-old with the ill-fitting underwear isn't around this episode, at least. We've had enough of that this winter as-is.

Lost as I am, the show still at least looks nice. The bright colors and exuberantly animated action of season 1 both return with gusto, and the show's knack for simple yet striking character design really shines with some of the new additions. Suphia in particular has a quirky design with the snow-leopard aesthetic. This episode hasn't pulled out the big guns yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before we get some more wild, magical slime action in the mix. But for now I can't give this premiere much credit outside of doing its job as competently as can be expected. More dedicated fans are doubtlessly happy to see the series back, but for now I'm biding my time on this slime.

Crunchyroll actually has two episodes listed for the second season of this franchise. Episode 24.9 is mostly a recap episode, though it does show a little more of Shizue's student Hinata. If you do not need the recap then just watch the first two minutes and then skip ahead to the 21:25 mark.

Episode 25, then, is the first true episode of the second season. It shows almost right away that familiarity with the OVA episodes (at least #3-5) is expected; those unfamiliar with the OVAs will be lost on who the other teachers shown are and the incident referred to where the female teacher Tiss traveled with the lids. The events of this episode otherwise seem to be taking place during episode 24, as Rimuru's permanent departure from the academy is still weeks off at this point. Much of this involves efforts to prepare for both sending a delegation to the territory of Demon Lord Carrion and receiving one in turn, all as a feeling-out process to see if formal peace and trade relations can be established between the two nations. The most amusing part of this involved Shuna and Shion's notions about what Rimuru should be wearing for the send-off of JuraTempest Federation's delegation.

The other main part of the episode involves receiving the delegation from Carrion. While Albis, one of Carrion's Beastkeepers, seems quite reasonable and well-chosen for this task, the Second Beastkeeper, the cat-eared Suphia, is the opposite: contrary, denigrating, and looking for a fight. That gives the episode an excuse to insert some action, with Suphia winding up dueling with Shion and a subordinate facing off against Youm.

And that is it for the episode. Neither fight is at all crucial to the negotiations here, as these are more matters of each side establishing itself with a test of strength, so these are not tense or high-stakes affairs. They do not finish by the end of the episode or leave much of a cliffhanger effect, either, so they do not stand among the series' better action scenes; in fact, the only thing significant about them is that Milim – despite how prominent she is in both the opener and closer – is (thankfully!) not present. The animation effort, though in line with what the series has previously done, is also nothing special for those fights. Suphia's tiger-themed design and dress does stand out, though Albis looks more like the designers decided that Shion was not enough to represent those with a taste for big-breasted, cleavage-baring ladies.

In all, the first episode gets a middling rating because the series is returning placidly rather than with a bang. I liked the first season enough that I will continue to follow it this season, but it will have to do more than this to get my enthusiasm up for prioritizing it.