It’s not a surprise to anyone that I’m a big fan of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime franchise.
It was the show that destroyed my Isekai hatred around 2018 as I was about to call it quits. It was the first Isekai that I loved despite its shortcomings and it was the first Isekai that I brought on Blu-Ray. I loved the characters especially, the visuals, English dub, music and story, despite its safe nature.
It was thanks to Slime I started to love other Isekai shows such as Villainess, Bookworm and Mushoku Tensei as well as turning my hate relationship with Re:Zero and KonoSuba into love.
Honestly, it wasn’t for Slime then, I wouldn’t be writing this review today. I would still hate Re:Zero and KonoSuba and I would blacklist other Isekais such as Mushoku Tensei, My Next Life as a Villainess and Ascendance of a Bookworm.
Naturally, I was super excited to watch season 2. I wanted to see where Rimuru’s story would be heading next, and I loved it. It took everything that made season 1 so great and expanded it to new heights for the most part.
The one thing that you notice right away is how the stakes have significantly risen. In retrospect Slime Season 1 had little stakes however I feel like the overall lack of stakes was made internally as Season 1 was about building a nation from the bottom, making new friends as well discovering your power potential. I feel like Season 1 did these elements near perfectly and it ultimately strengths Season 2 as a whole.
Of course, being a show about civilization, you will expect the leader, the executives to through various trials and conflicts to ensure the safety of the citizens of Jura Tempest Federation on top of the status of the nation in check. I’m happy to say that season 2 addresses that perfectly. Throughout this season, it points out that Rimuru isn’t a perfect leader, in fact, he’s a flawed leader that has so much to learn about leadership and this season exposes his shortcomings frequently. For example, leaving the country unprepared for the surprise attack against the Kingdom of Falmuth and Clayman forces is a great example of that.
As a result, he suffers the consequences of his actions. Rimuru seeing the nation that everyone worked on wrecked on his friends and citizens getting hurt or even killed is without question one of the most memorable and chilling moments I’ve seen from the genre. That is saying a lot since most Isekai animes lack the memorability, let alone the competence to create such hard-hitting impactful scenes. The fact they put a line of corpses in the centre of tempest town prior to Rimuru checking out the fallen was heartbreaking as it really showcases the citizens were trying to defend themselves during the surprise attack. It only got worse when one of Rimuru sees one of his closest friends perish.
From the tears showing up on his face to his unleashing raging aura that scared everyone, perfectly captured his anger and guilt. It even got to a point where the moment when he puts his mask as well sending the fallen away to heaven the mask cracks. The level of attention to detail is just remarkable.
Of course, being Rimuru, he will do anything to bring his fallen friends back to life and thus ends up becoming the thing that he originally never wanted to become a Demon Lord.
Now I’m mostly against the concept of bringing back dead characters as it greatly loosens the overall impact, however, Slime is one of the few rare animes I’ve encountered in my lifetime where reviving dead characters actually worked in its favour.
Without going into heavy spoilers one of Rimuru’s closest friends has fallen during the attack of the Kingdom of Falmuth. From the timeframe of that character joining Rimuru to the nation attack, that character didn’t have signally chance in the spotlight as Season 1 was heavily focused on Rimuru. Killing the character would have been a sloppy move as aside from some moments we never got to know that character all that much in Season 1. The best part about this resuscitation is it has a big impact.
Rimuru becomes more cautious and even questions the values that he set up in Season 1 on top of his now Demon Lord status and Rimruru’s closest friends/executives start to become much more than just mindless servants for Rimuru. Sure they did well defending the nation from intruders, but after the revival of the fallen, they truly start to a point where they don’t heavily depend on him. This is great writing as it avoids one of the main issues I have with Isekai anime is that supporting characters from the MC are always dependent on the MC and never grow as characters.
I was truly impressed with characters such as Shion, Shuna, Hakurou, Benimaru, Diablo, Souei, Geld, Gobta and Veldora in this season as not only did they have some fascinating character moments, but I adored their growth.
Heck, some of my favourite moments in this season are just from these characters alone. Benimaru commandeering his tropes while being a badass, Shuna finally coming out of her gentle shell by being a very powerful magic user that is able to hold her own in combat, Geld being capable to fend off some of the human intruders that try to destroy tempest, Shion being the hell of Clayman while being Rimuru personal escort/representative for the Demon Lord meeting, Veldora being a hilarious Otaku freak to a point in his battle against Milim he literally starts calling out these Street Fighter movies which had me laugh my ass off and I could go on.
Of course, Rimuru himself has some memorable moments, my favourite Rimuru moment in this season is him slaughtering the entire Falmuth army as part of the progression of a Demon Lord. Sure it was technically wrong for him just to slaughter an entire army, but given how they caused heavy damage to a nation that didn’t do anything wrong as they were only trying to defend themselves it was flawless justice for the nation. The payoff, in the end, was so satisfying that it made me cry. Honourable mentions go to Rimuru beating and humiliating Clayman in the finale and Rimuru vs Hinata.
Season 1 of Slime briefly introduced its themes, family, leadership, responsibility and mortality, however, I feel like these themes were fully realised in Season 2. It tackles a lot of interesting political subjects that not many anime do. The only show’s that I’ve seen that tackle political subjects in a similar manner is Magi, Shangri-La, Legend Of The Galactic Heroes, Gundam 00, Zeta Gundam and Code Geass.
One common criticism that I heard about Season 2 Part 2 is that are too many of these meetings that go on and while I can understand where they are coming from and I do somewhat agree that these meetings could have been shortened in a few cases, I don’t get the mindset the majority of the time.
People seem to have forgotten that Slime is an isekai about civilization. Of course, a show about civilization will contain politics and meetings, sure Slime has its fair share of action scenes, but these action scenes are made possible by these meetings and political talk.
By saying that it’s are boring, you just admitted that you’re one of those anime fans that have such short attention spans that are only tuning in for the action.
Story build-up should be a priority for show’s like this otherwise, your battles will fall flat not how well animated they are. Look at what happened to Inazuma Eleven Orion and The God of HighSchool for example. Both of these shows prioritize battles more than anything else. Both shows lack coherent build-up, let alone downtime making the battles have no meaning.
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime from the very beginning has understood that in order to have meaning there always should be a plan.
If you don’t like Slime, that’s fine, to each their own, but dismissing one of the show’s main components just because you cannot be bothered to understand the context of the fights that you want is not only drastically insulting to people that slow-paced stories, but it makes you look like an idiot.
Anyway, I adore the political aspects of Slime. I enjoyed every single meeting that Part 2 had to offer as it showcased how detailed the world and lore of Slime was. Not to mention it is written well as the conversation feels natural. Talking about economics, building trust between other nations, forming alliances, planning strategies to defeat a formidable army, I could go on. The world of Slime feels alive, and I hope to see more of it in the upcoming arcs.
I don’t have much to complain about Slime Season 2 as I feel it’s a near-perfect season, although if I had one issue with Season 2 of Slime, it would be how they handled Clayman in the finale.
For a villain that was built up so well since the beginning of Season 1, it’s sad to see that he ended up just being a mediocre villain. He isn’t all that bad, and I do appreciate his motivations of becoming a true demon lord, but the way they meander him into a basic villain in the finale. Just like other shows that I reviewed, I believe that the journey is better than the destination and Slime Season 2 is no different.
Barring Clayman as I already stated had much more to be desired the characters are awesome and well defined.
I already love Rimuru in season 1, but this season, as well as the spinoff, show The Slime Diaries, Rimuru has become one of my favourite anime characters of all time.
Normally I wouldn’t like a power fantasy character, but Rimuru is one of the few characters from his archetype that is done phenomenally well. For starters, Rimuru is a flawed power fantasy lead as despite him being OP he still has personal flaws. Prior to the attack of Tempest City, he was too soft and naive about leadership to a point where some characters in the show call him out for that. I liked how Rimuru in this season realised that in order to retain a strong nation status, there’s always a need for some blood and power.
This is one of the main reasons why I love characters like Lelouch (Code Geass), Kuniko (Shangri-La), Rikuo (Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan) and of course Rimuru.
Sure they may be formidable leaders especially in Rimuru’s case, but they are not flawless leaders. They still have much to learn about leadership and they often face consequences for their wrong actions.
Beyond the incredible character growth in this season, Rimuru is still the same hilarious, compelling and fun character that I know and love.
Rimuru companions old and new are awesome in this season.
Unlike in season 1 where the majority of the companions basically become pawns once they join Tempest, they are given a lot of time to shine in the spotlight. Despite their monster origin status, they generally feel like people that have goals of their own. Sure they still serve Rimuru, but they don’t overly depend on him to function in combat. That within itself is a massive improvement.
Special mention goes to Shion, Shuzu, Veldora, and Benimaru for their strong character development in the season.
There were also some new characters introduced, mainly the other Demon Lord and I found them all fun and compelling in their own ways.
The visuals are just as good if not better than Season 1 in most cases.
Sure the meeting focus episodes have notability less animation due to these episodes being dialogue-heavy by design. I feel like Season 2 is still a technical improvement over season 1 for the most part. The characters are distinctive from one another. The background scenery especially in the Demon Lord meeting rooms were fantastic and well detailed.
The animation is smooth, vibrant and overall consistent. Packing some excellent fight choreography to boot.
The soundtrack composed by Element Gardens (Symphogear, Bodacious Space Pirates, Uta no Prince Sama) is just as excellent and well-composed as in Season 1. I adore the pleasant balance of upbeat, fantasy, epic and serious tracks used in this season as they were not only memorable in their own right, they complement the tone of the respective scenes perfectly.
I love the opening and ending themes. Storytelling and Like Flames are without question one of if not the best opening themes I’ve heard from the Isekai genre. They are both catchy, intense and memorable.
The ending themes are heartwarming and catchy, perfectly capturing the chill side of Slime.
The voice is brilliant in both languages. Each actor from their respective language did an outstanding job at bringing these characters to life.
Brittney Karbowski still does an outstanding job at voicing the chill and quirky Rimuru Tempest, although I grew to prefer Seiyuu Miho Okasaki’s take on Rimuru as it captures the feel of the character slightly more than her dub counterpart.
Either way Slime Season 2 is worthwhile in both languages.
That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2 is the fanaticising follow up that I always wanted. It took everything that was amazing in season 1 and expanded that awesomeness into new heights on top of fixing the majority of the issues from its prequel. I may not be a fan of the Isekai genre all that much, but Slime alongside Mushoku Tensei, Orugss, Bookworm, Re:ZERO, Villainess and Omnipotent prove that you part of a genre that you don’t care for, but still tale fun and intriguing stories.
I’m excited to see my favourite Isekai story is going to go next with the movie and the potential season 3.
Season 2 of Slime was indeed a flawless victory, and I will continue to cherish the franchise as long as I live.
TakaCode Reviews 
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