Goblin Slayer II

Episode 9

I've made it apparent that I'm hardly a fan of Goblin Slayer. However, I've at least come to accommodate interacting with the series over the time I've spent with it. I've enjoyed this second season's dissonant dips into irreverence compared to its self-serious beginnings. This week's episode includes a sitcom-tastic sequence wherein the other party members use reverse psychology on the Slayer to sway him into coming along on a quest that doesn't involve goblins. It features the Sword Maiden cheekily using her influence to assign the Slayer as her bodyguard for a mission, on account of her none-too-subtle crush on him. That leads into aside glances at the Priestess and Cow Girl, as Goblin Slayer II threatens to transform into a harem anime. The show is still having fun with itself, I wish it had a laugh track.

This is the early setup phase for the next arc. So it makes sense that it's the stretch most akin to the players in a tabletop RPG session making snarky remarks as the GM lays out all the lore. That sense of campy fun framing things is one way the show could keep things going long-term. Another way is seen in the adventuring styles embraced during this build-up. Goblin Slayer's first season made an oft-reiterated point about how its stories weren't the sort of grand, thrilling adventures that tales were typically told about. This episode of the second season opens with a stylistic flashback to the Sword Maiden's old party having a bombastic battle with a big demon thing. Though this does also serves the purpose of contrast confirming the story's driving ideas, in the way she notes her fear of goblins even after taking down such a supremely stronger threat.

But then there's that goblin-free adventure the party tackles in the present. It is cool to just jump to the bunch using their typically pragmatic approach to bring down a sea serpent. And it's hilarious to watch the Slayer blue-screen as he struggles to comprehend completing a mission that had nothing to do with goblins. Would that the show could always be this purposefully funny. It's tempered with sweeter moments like the Slayer giving Cow Girl a seashell as a gift, or getting to witness him and the Sword Maiden bonding over their trauma. Goblin Slayer can use its established horrific happenings for actual character work, instead of shallow tragedy porn.

Explaining how this all works reasonably well leads to…not a misgiving, but more a curiosity. I mentioned last week how Goblin Slayer had the goblin slaying itself feel mostly perfunctory. Well, it's practically an afterthought here. Despite the escort of Sword Maiden and the concerns about the broader machinations of the goblins being ostensibly the core of this plot, the episode still sees fit to cut mid-battle and skip over to our heroes having killed all of them. That's fine for me, get back to the goofy group comedy and pseudo-harem antics. Those are the parts of this jingle I like. But I'll admit it feels odd to say that if you just want to see little monsters get killed, you are quantifiably getting less of that at this point.

Goblin Slayer is still about as actually deep as a photocopy of a Magic Eye picture. But when what it's built up is put towards watching fantasy classes chat around a metaphorical table, it's briskly watchable. The writing can dispense information about the local politicking of royals via knowledge the Slayer would have picked up being from a farming village. It's a simple, but neat bit that feels like it's there to make the Slayer more interesting, rather than simply more badass. I'm happy to hum along to this little ditty while it also works up to a grander concert number. Maybe there can also be goblins but at this point, I'm as ambivalent about them as the show seems to be.

Rating:

Goblin Slayer II is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

You can just call Chris the Goblin Slayer Slayer. You can check out his other adventures over on his blog, or brave the grungy goblin cave that is Twitter.