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That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
Episode 9

by Paul Jensen,

How would you rate episode 9 of
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime ?
Community score: 3.9

It's not often that a battle against a clan of Ogres qualifies as a “slow” episode, but such is the case for That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime this week. As work on the Goblin village continues, Rimuru tests out some of the new powers he gained from Shizu and Ifrit, including the abilities to mimic a human and make copies of himself. Just as everything seems peaceful, a Goblin hunting party runs into a group of Ogres, and a fight breaks out. When Rimuru arrives on the scene wearing Shizu's mask, the Ogres mistake him for a “majin” who attacked them. It takes some high-caliber magic from Rimuru to stop the battle long enough to clear up the misunderstanding, but he eventually manages to calm things down and make some new allies. Unfortunately for him, he may also have a powerful new enemy.

Compared to last week's emotional fireworks, this is a relatively laid-back episode. This is particularly true in the early scenes, which consist of Rimuru touring the village and taking inventory of his latest set of powers. It's not the most thrilling thing to watch, but there are a few interesting details packed into this bundle of exposition. It makes a certain amount of sense that his human-mimic form has no biological sex, since his base slime body is essentially a featureless blob. At this point, you could argue that the only thing qualifying Rimuru as a guy is the fact that he was one in his previous life. Slime biology lessons aside, it also looks like Shizu's unique skill Degenerate opens the door for some creative variations on Rimuru's existing abilities. It remains to be seen if any of this translates into something compelling later on, but at least the series is showing a reasonable amount of attention to detail as it expands Rimuru's skill list.

Once all that housekeeping is out of the way, the episode is free to get the next story arc rolling. As beginnings go, this one is competent but not especially memorable. The showdown between Rimuru and the Ogres is, perhaps inevitably, a foregone conclusion. We've seen too much of the new folks in the opening and ending credits to believe the series would kill any of them off so soon, and Rimuru is packing far too much magical heat to lose this fight. Without that sense of life-or-death consequences for either side, the battle scene is reduced to the fictional equivalent of an exhibition match; everyone involved gets to show off their abilities, but the results don't count for much. It's a decent-looking sequence, just not an overly compelling one.

On the upside, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime does manage to lay some good narrative groundwork here. The Ogres are an intriguing bunch, with more of an established group dynamic than the Goblins had when they were first introduced. In particular, I'm curious as to why their weapons and clothing have more of a Japanese visual style when everyone else in this world seems to have more of a Western fantasy look. It could just be an arbitrary character design choice, but I'm hoping there's more to it than that. The Ogres' troubles are also noteworthy, as their situation would appear to set up a confrontation between Rimuru and Gelmund, the mysterious magic-user who we saw naming an Orc last week. Aside from the obvious draw of having the protagonist fight a powerful baddie, there are some potentially compelling moral arguments to be had between Rimuru and someone else who recruits and names monsters.

In terms of immediate entertainment, this is one of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime's blander efforts, more or less on par with the opening episodes of earlier story arcs. On the other hand, that may also be cause for optimism; those other arcs all ramped up nicely after their slow starts, so there's good reason to think that this will do the same in the near future. With some interesting new allies and a potentially tough opponent, this plotline has all the ingredients it needs to deliver plenty of entertainment. It's just a shame that we have to wait another week for it to do so.

Rating: B

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.


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