A young priestess has formed her first adventuring party, but almost immediately they find themselves
in distress. It's the Goblin Slayer who comes to their rescue--a man who's dedicated his life to the
extermination of all goblins, by any means necessary. And when rumors of his feats begin to circulate,
there's no telling who might come calling next...
(Source: Yen Press)
To preface this review, I must say that Goblin Slayer is my favorite anime to come out this year (even if i didn't watch many this year). The way that this anime doesn't feel like a regular fantasy world anime but a tabletop RPG, in which the players roleplay as the characters included in the cast makes this an enjoyable ride. The way this anime works is not a focus on plot (no story to speak of, actually) or the characters individual growth, but instead, the characters growing closer together as friends in an adventuring party through the many adventures that they will go through (all of them including goblins, of course). There are some spoilers throughout the review but nothing major. Story: 5/10 I must admit to being generous with this score because the story and plot are clearly not the main focus here. In fact, they are practically non-existent. The adventures that the cast goes through are very random, and pretty much is just "oh here's a quest, it involves goblins lets go". The quests themselves don't have a story to them, with one exception which is the Sword Maiden's, but even that is scratching the surface of a story. Mentioning the Sword Maiden's quest, I feel there was a huge missed opportunity with the mirror and the goblin world on the other side. They could have used that for a setup to a future arc in which they raid the goblin place in the mirror, but instead, the mirror was just buried under a layer of concrete, probably never to be touched again. Also, for side story/not involved very much with the main cast, is the Hero and the Demon Lord. The Hero is almost considered to be the protagonist of the Goblin Slayer world, and is only briefly mentioned by the main cast and only seen defeating one of the servants of the Demon Lord on screen. The Hero's adventures are what would be considered the main plot of an RPG, with the final boss villain being the Demon Lord. The Hero’s party not appearing very much on screen or being involved at all with the Goblin Slayer party, further emphasizing the point that the cast is not the main focus of the world and rather just a group of adventurers doing quests. This also serves to show that the show tries as hard to deviate from its genre of adventure fantasy, which usually involves the main cast being the Hero vs the Demon Lord (The names are also very telling here). Characters: 9/10 Ladies and gentlemen, the main focus of the show. Now I'm not going to say that the characters are “deep” and “have emotional troubles stemming from their dark past” because that’s just not true (*except for Goblin Slayer*). In fact, the characters are very much what you would see in a fantasy world setting, but that's where it most shines. The callbacks to regular tabletop RPGs are extremely apparent here, where the main cast consists of a High Elf Ranger, a Mage Dwarf, a "Summoner" Lizardman, a Cleric Priestess, and of course Goblin Slayer, not pertaining to a certain class but a high affinity for anything that kills goblins. You might have noticed that I didn’t mention their names and that’s because they don’t actually have names. They are mentioned by the other characters and each other by nicknames and their races, and of course Goblin Slayer as Goblin Slayer. It definitely paints the image of newbie players who have made their generic characters and are new to tabletop RPGs, not getting into the roleplay enough to have a decent backstory or names for their characters. And even the initial awkwardness for being strangers to the other players is present in the beginning, but that’s one of its biggest strengths and why I like this show so much. As they get to know each other through their quests, the _initial awkwardness fades_, making it clear that as the players got to know each other better _the characters also got closer together as a party._ Goblin Slayer himself needs his own paragraph. For being a sort of main character (debatable, the priestess could also be), he is probably the best to be put in the limelight, because he is essentially the _veteran player’s character_. Fully equipped with a designated role designed for gathering the most experience the fastest way possible (further emphasized by how he counts the goblins as he kills them, and his silver rank despite only killing goblins), a backstory that itself has other “minor” characters and depth, and an actual name. Goblin Slayer by himself is incredibly boring as a character __BUT__ that is only in his introduction. After Goblin Slayer joins the party and the priestess, it becomes obvious that the player is starting to enjoy not only playing the game but _playing the game with friends by his side_. And this obviously reflects on Goblin Slayer towards the party that we see in the show, where Goblin Slayer is opening up more to his fellow adventurers. Visual and Sound Design: 7/10 The visuals in this anime are very much grotesque. The goblin’s facial design is a prime example, and very much fitting into the tone of the anime. A LOT of blood is present when damage is done, so you’ve been warned. The character designs are very obviously trying to go for what I previously mentioned in the character section. Goblin Slayer and the Sword Maiden having unique character designs affirms the point that Goblin Slayer (and the Sword Maiden) are the veteran players, having characters with fleshed out backstories, previous adventures, and character designs with unique gear to reflect as much. The other characters look generic, probably on purpose to accentuate how they are new. Good to mention here that there is CGI present, usually when there is a pack of goblins or Goblin Slayer himself is also CG (I don't mind the goblins since I'm used to crowds having CG, but not a fan of Goblin Slayer being CG at times). The art is good at its best, it's not exactly Your Name levels but its passable (though having read the manga I prefer the manga’s). The sound design is pretty good, the music shines where it counts and the blows actually have an impact and you can feel how hard a hit really is (very much like this since its usually a gripe I have with action anime). Enjoyment: 9/10 The pacing in the anime is great, introducing the main characters and cast in the first couple of episodes naturally. No episode felt boring, and as long as the cast was present having adventures or just simply talking about why they wanted to become adventurers it is fun. Conclusion: All in all, this show is a solid 8/10. It's pretty much DnD the anime. It's great; Need season 2.
I think it is fair to say that no other anime has caused such controversy and overwhelming divide amongst anime fans after a single episode like Goblin Slayer has. The pilot almost effortlessly setting a spark across the community that would act as ignition to countless flame wars lasting for weeks on end. A scene lasting around fifteen seconds receiving more vitriol and condemnation than arguably every other anime airing this year. On the surface, the divide seems clear: on one side lies those vocal to their displeasure of even the sheer existence of this series, labelling it as edgy, repugnant and pornographic. Some going even so far as comparing the anime to Nazi propaganda decades ago. And on the opposing side lies the fandom, constantly upset by criticism their beloved show receives and reverting to insults and name-calling them with popular phrases such as the dreaded “SJW” for example. But these are simply gross generalisations of both the series and its viewers, centring upon a small group of outspoken individuals that unfortunately leads any attempt of discourse astray. Instead my aim here is to hopefully bring a more critical view on Goblin Slayer to the discussion; of the series’ perceived intent, as well as numerous faults and issues prevalent throughout its first season. _“The gods of light, order and fate, and the gods of darkness, chaos and coincidence decided to throw dice in order to determine which side would rule the world. The gods threw the dice over and over and over again, until they began to feel faint.”_ Goblin Slayer is a dark fantasy anime adapted from both the manga and light novels of the same name, highly inspired by tabletop role-playing games. Initially the story follows a young woman known as “Priestess” that has recently become an adventurer and joins an upstart party on her first quest. Their naivety and inexperience ultimately lead to their grim demise, ravaged by goblins who commit heinous acts such as rape and dismemberment depicted in much more graphic fashion compared to other fantasy anime of recent years. Before the Priestess can be dispatched however, the actual protagonist appears from the shadows, intent of massacring every goblin in sight. From this point, the series is predominantly focused on this mysterious adventurer commonly referred to as “Goblin Slayer” and his efforts to exterminate the entire goblin species. The beginning to this story gives what I believe to be a clear sense of what Goblin Slayer strives to be. Simplistic, cheerful dialogue to elucidate fundamentals of the adventurer system, a light-hearted tone able to create a strong optimistic mood, even the visuals and audio utilizing light colours for character designs coupled with an upbeat tune all try and convey a presentation akin to the typical fantasy anime of recent memory. The group of upstart adventurers each can be seen representing archetypes one would expect to be present in such a series: tsundere, loli character, main character for a harem, etc. Numerous times before a goblin appears on screen, subtle signs are revealed about the party’s lack of preparation and expectation to indicate this quest will not be as successful as they hope, and then what follows is a shocking realization of what the world of Goblin Slayer truly entails. Essentially these characters were tools for the series to subvert people’s initial expectations of the story, with the tragic events that entail further emphasizing this point. The sickening portrayal and detail of these actions going to further lengths than most anime fans have probably ever experienced previously in the medium. Disgusting to watch even for the short time shown, and from the reception this anime received, it looks to have garnered the initial reaction staff had intended. From this perspective, while many can find these scenes crass and tactless in their depiction, I find it difficult to call this part of Goblin Slayer lazy writing. Shortly followed by the introduction of the titular protagonist reveals a change that strongly contrast to events that just transpired earlier. Compared to the almost wilfully ignorant upstart adventurers that end up decimated to the lowest mob type in the world, Goblin Slayer’s approach to killing goblins is much more tactical. Shown to analyse nearly every time he murders a single goblin, often determining the most effective method for slaughtering the mob step-by-step before executing his strategy in cold, calculated fashion. Through this he not only personifies the kind of badass main character one would expect for a darker fantasy story, but also provides a solid understanding of how a high-level adventurer would be expected to act in battle. Armed with various weapons and antidotes whilst always on the lookout for signs, Goblin Slayer has enough tools at his disposal to face any goblin he would come across. A clear juxtaposition to how many inexperienced adventurers would conduct themselves. Him slaughtering the horde also raises an intriguing question of Goblin Slayer’s morality when intending to murder the child goblins. While the protagonist remains steadfast of his opinion on the species, the Priestess brings forth the possibility of a “good goblin”. Despite going through with eliminating them, he does admit there could be one out there. From this, viewers have a grasp on how this tale could further develop this idea with having both character’s ethics challenged as Goblin Slayer’s quest continues. There is potential in this tale to be more than just the fun schlock of the season. Unfortunately, that potential slowly gets squandered every episode following, and personally even loses the series’ initial appeal. One of the more detrimental choices I find a story can make is following an attempt to create a purposeful, serious tone, and then reverting to what it tried to distance itself from initially. After Goblin Slayer’s shocking start that firmly established the story as a dark fantasy that supposedly takes itself seriously, the anime takes an odd change in tone that is rather baffling to understand. Numerous quests later in the series showcase characters in a way you would never have expected in Goblin Slayer, with an array of playful, trifling scenes one would more commonly associate with a slice-of-life anime than this show. Somehow the series decided to skip on possibly showing some of the effects trauma experienced from death, sexual assault or even just being an adventure can have on a person, instead these scenes barely contribute to the characters on a notable level. The change in tone can lead to breaks in one’s immersion of the story and the protagonist it follows, with transitions feeling awkward and out of place more often than not. A notorious example can be found in episode 2 where the episode cuts to a well-endowed redhead girl waking out of bed and stretching, followed by some of the most prominent jiggle physics to be found this season. I thought this was meant to be a serious tale. For a dark fantasy to work, usually it requires the atmosphere of a series to remain constant enough to a degree where the earnestness and consequences of actions can still be felt through the more cheerful scenes. Berserk, Attack on Titan and Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 are just some examples of dark fantasy anime that constantly have a sombre air about them, constantly felt when witnessing the actions of their characters. Goblin Slayer lacks this air that breezes alongside the narrative and whilst continuing to lack a strong sense of identity in a genre already spoiled by an abundance of generic fantasy, it is more inclined to leave a stale taste in the mouths of those hoping for Goblin Slayer to distance itself further from its contemporaries. This lack of an identity also permeates the narrative and overarching worldbuilding to a degree that I have to address. When a series attempts to be a subversion or even a deconstruction of a genre, normally this would involve acknowledging tropes typically associated with a genre whilst subverting their intentions. Goblin Slayer, at least in its first season, does not do this. Alongside the series constantly switching the tone between dark and nonchalant, the anime seems to never want to take its world very seriously despite the premise. Goblin Slayer is a man who has an unrelenting obsession to kill goblins as they are a species that lingers on as a problem for innocent people. They are weak creature with childlike intelligence individually, but as a mob are a destructive force which can lead to the devastation of entire towns. An interesting yet believable problem in this world. So then, how is it believable to think that there is only one person that acts in response to this problem? Because the anime has mainly taken place around a small town there is a possibility for other adventurers similar to Goblin Slayer to be primarily hunting goblins in their own areas of the world. But thinking on a large scale, if goblin mobs can and already have been a significant cause of wiping out various towns, would someone not think that their effect to agriculture and the overall economy poses a severe threat on a national scale, to where even adventurers seeking glory and fame would end up losing money? I would have at least expected some form of intervention – here is an idea: have some adventurers hired as a form of security for farmers against a potential goblin attack. Or at least have the guild girl not allow novices to take these jobs when it is made apparent how many novices and kidnapped and killed off by goblin mobs! If so many are dying because of this fact, maybe it would be best to intervene, even if with just a simple warning about how dangerous they are, and how prevalent this is. If only Goblin Slayer had more consistency in its world that more people could admire, instead of trying to subvert common fantasy anime tropes and then as if almost contradictory to itself maintaining a level of unbelievability behind how these aspects work in its story. It is upsetting how a show essentially fails at fleshing out the more complex issues the world of Goblin Slayer encompasses, especially when most of the defence for this anime in regards to certain actions and events is derived from insular logic. A common complaint for the series initially was based around why goblins rape, and while it certainly is specified that rape is their only option for reproduction, that does not cover details about their creation. Goblins here are force-of-nature villains that embody evil and chaos, thus not requiring distinct personalities and from this the rape shown can be considered a further way of emphasizing that point thus bringing them to where they can be considered irredeemable, but this only works on a narrative level. All works of fiction are made with intentions from their creator/s and by peeling down the layers of in-universe context is one able to search for the purpose and intentions behind specific scenes, actions, etc. Often termed the Thermian Argument, it claims that pointing to a show’s logic in response to criticism of the subject matter is inherently fallacious. It supports a difference between what is being depicted and why such is being depicted at all; a metanarrative point of view. I stated what I believed to be the main intention behind such shocking acts in the first episode as a way for the show to subvert the audience for what kind of anime they were in store for, but after witnessing the series make that idea almost completely irrelevant through poor direction, tonal dissonance and having such actions repeated onscreen later with similarly crude framing for reasons even I am unsure of, it is hard to defend the series for all these creative choices happening numerous times throughout the anime’s duration from a metanarrative point of view. Characterization is one of Goblin Slayer’s focal points if even only applying to one individual so far. Goblin Slayer is the embodiment of a man who refuses to die before his purpose in life is seen through to the end. Driven by revenge after goblins took away the person most precious to him, he epitomizes the idea of how a badass protagonist should act. His character design is also impressive in certain scenes with a red eye theme glowing in the darkness that oozes a killer instinct rarely found in anime nowadays. Reminder that the in-universe creation of the series was founded on gods rolling dice and playing the game of chance, with all various races and species being birthed purely for their amusement. But with the way Goblin Slayer acts, he can be considered the one character in this world to defy the will and wishes of those who created him. And while there are numerous examples of him conveniently surviving so far due to plot armour, the intent remains – underneath his monotonous voice and implied social awkwardness lies the potential for a metaphorical figure of inspiration. Unfortunately, that is where most of the praise for characters ends at this point in the anime. Every character besides Goblin Slayer receives little attention in the anime, with minimal development bar the Priestess who acts as a rookie slowly growing and learning how to survive as an adventurer in this harsh world, however even this has made little progress this first season. Other characters sprinkled across the story range from other rookies slowly improving and gaining experience to dependable fighters often able to hold their own in battle, which is a striking difference compared to how most typically act away from any battlefield; childish and immature. Honestly, besides Priestess and Goblin Slayer the rest of the cast are easily expendable, but I guess that is to be expected when the supporting cast includes names such as “Dwarf” and “Lizardman”. Hopefully if there is a sequel, they have a better opportunity to leave a lasting impression on the anime. Much like these forgettable characters the production quality for Goblin Slayer also failed to leave a strong impact. The art is not very detailed, with most character designs and backgrounds often appearing plain and generic for most of the season. A mixture of 2D and 3D animation is used to jarring effect, with most action scenes and the occasional panning shot relying on CGI that look more like an eyesore that anything visually pleasing. In fact, most of the better-looking shots involve scenes lacking any sort of movement. Disappointing as the artwork is commonly seen as a key strength to the manga’s popularity. For a series where the most basic appeal comes from a guy mowing down goblins, the action was underwhelming and that kills a show like this. Wish I could say otherwise for the soundtrack, but that also failed to leave a strong impression on me. Voice acting was solid but effectively crippled with a lacklustre script treating half the characters as dense. The opening theme was melancholic but failed to ever have me personally want to listen to it more than once. The ending theme while I certainly enjoyed it more was accompanied by CGI Goblin Slayer with clunky animation. At least the ending track was fun. Goblin Slayer is at its core, an anime about one man slaying goblins. Though it can tempt viewers with ideas of something greater at work, it still boils down to a mere schlocky action show with lacklustre presentation that by the end of its first season has its biggest strengths stemming from potential and a hope that a sequel can further flesh out characters and worldbuilding which at this point cannot hold up to scrutiny. But it does have its appealing qualities no matter how superficial they might be. If you are willing to take a chance on a simple action anime trying to break the trend of generic fantasy released this year, this might be worth your investment. My main hope is that now with the most controversial anime of the year finished, the community at large can learn from this experience. As the old saying goes: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
Parti française C’est quoi l’histoire en résumé ? Goblin slayer est un anime qui nous raconte l’épopée d’un aventurier, Goblin Slayer, et nous raconte au fur et à mesure qui il est réellement. Et en détaille ? Cette animée nous apprennent plusieurs choses dont la première et la plus importante selon moi sont la façon de voir les petites difficultés non pas comme des petites mais justement comme des grandes ce qui nous permet donc de toujours être prêt à tout à peu près, de plus on voit aussi les bienfaits de l'entraide dans un groupe ce qui est beau à voir. Parlons du personnag principale en particulier, LE Goblin Slayer, au tout début de son aventure, il refuse toute aide et travail uniquement en solitaire mais la nonne, Onna Shinkan, parvient à travailler avec lui et de là s’ensuit un groupe d’aventuriers qui tue les goblins ensemble, ce groupe est composé de Yousei Yunde, une elfe archère, Tokage Souryo, un lézard prêtre, et de Kouhito Doushi, un nain chaman. À la toute fin de l'anime, le Goblin Slayer demande de l’aide à toute la guilde d’aventurier pour sauver l’endroit où il vit mais surtout l’endroit ou vit une personne proche de lui, Ushikai Musume, son amie d’enfance. English part What's the story in short? Goblin slayer is an anime that tells us the story of an adventurer, Goblin Slayer, and tells us as we go along who he really is. And details? This animated film teaches us several things, the first and most important of which, in my opinion, are the way we see small difficulties not as small ones but precisely as large ones, which allows us to always be ready for almost everything, and we also see the benefits of mutual aid in a group, which is beautiful to see. Let's talk about the main character in particular, LE Goblin Slayer, at the very beginning of his adventure, he refuses any help and work only alone but the nun, Onna Shinkan, manages to work with him and from there follows a group of adventurers who kill goblins together, this group is composed of Yousei Yunde, an archaic elf, Tokage Souryo, a priest lizard, and Kouhito Doushi, a midget shaman. At the very end of the anime, the Goblin Slayer asks the whole adventurer's guild for help to save the place where he lives but especially the place where a person close to him, Ushikai Musume, his childhood friend, lives.
>#####___This review contains spoilers.___ >#####___This review was originally written on Dec 30, 2018.___ ~~~
Not because of the show's quite questionable and more than broken quality, which I and many others, have been pointing our fingers at since the first episode made its appearance, but rather something... much more bizarre. I find it astonishing how much controversy and heated exchanges a single scene has sparked up among the viewers, even though its importance, in the grand scheme of things, is as insignificant as one can be.
And I will never understand how and why a mind-numbing phenomenon of this calibre came into existence, but I digress.
_Goblin Slayer_ is not a fundamentally weak story, and I want to get it out of the way from the get-go. Sure, it is a notably straightforward one, but a work's extreme simplicity should never, under no circumstances, be considered a bad thing. Frankly, if executed correctly, the anime would be a silly yet moderately delightful experience, I would be willing to even revisit at a certain point in the future. That did not happen though as too many components of this now deformed cake came out as undercooked.
The logic in _Goblin Slayer_ is one of my favourites for all the wrong reasons. [Goblins](https://anilist.co/character/132632/Goblins) are established as a level one mob, a being with the intelligence and strength of a child, which is not worth wasting your time on. Adventurers are reluctant to pick up quests revolving around the little bastards for that reason alone; they will not grant you glory and an excessive amount of gold. That is understandable yet odd at the same time. We learn that goblins, with time, can mutate and become a stronger version of themselves, champions, shamans etc. And no one seems to care about it! Does the government or the military exist? We never hear about the monstrous demons and different abnormalities making their moves in the world since the Demon Lord-esque being mentioned several times was defeated, which would be the priority, so these fellas do not have their hands full. Goblins can, literally, ruin the economy at its very core, destroying villages and crops, kidnapping women and killing farmers, yet, even though people know about it, they choose to overlook it and do not see it as a glaring and alarming problem. Maybe they are waiting for hordes of goblins to knock at their door to remind them of this? Or perhaps they are waiting for the guild to send inadequately qualified rookies to certain death and young girls to help goblins reproduce, like the insensitive folks they are? Who knows; I for one do not.
I do not understand the idea behind implementing a "moral dilemma" as well. In episode one, after [Goblin Slayer](https://anilist.co/character/126458/Goblin-Slayer) slaughters a group of his favourite pesky green creatures, he finds a hole with a few babies hiding inside it. Naturally, he decides to help them meet their end, but for a reason still foreign to me, [Priestess](https://anilist.co/character/126483/Onna-Shinkan), with a face covered in tears, tries to prevent him from doing that by saying:
"What if there are good goblins?"
Here is the problem with this sentence; no one should raise such a question. Goblins use women, murder and destroy on a daily basis, and everyone, even newbies, knows about it, considering Priestess admits that such things often take place in the world. They are inherently evil beings, who hate "those with words" and we are witnessing this very image of them, remarkably black and white monsters with one goal in mind, in every instant throughout the show, making the concept of a good goblin even less probable, to the point of impossibility. Though we can merely bat an eye on this odd situation, the limitations [High Elf Archer](https://anilist.co/character/126457/Yousei-Yunde) put on the main character are not that easy to ignore. The implementation of the "No water, fire or gas." rule was a logical decision during the sewer mission as using any of these methods could potentially cause collateral damage, but other than that, I fail to understand its presence in the story. Goblins are horrendous, so why should they not be treated like filth, which someone has to eliminate from the face of the earth no matter the methods used? Why should they not be killed in nonhumanitarian ways when the series' main goal is showcasing as many gory slaughters as it is possible? I cannot wrap my head around this one. Of course, I might be just a picky bastard for mentioning those, but this attempt at bringing a little bit of "depth" to the story bothers me a lot. It looks as if the series desires you to take it even more seriously, but, in my eyes, both the morals and [Sword Maiden's](https://anilist.co/character/129080/Tsurugi-no-Otome) horrific PTSD cripple the experience rather than enhancing it. Sticking through with the simple schlocky tone would have worked way better.
These pretty irritating problems with the narrative could have been easily avoided or at the very least reduced in intensity if the characters had not been cardboard cutouts. It upsets me to no end that the supporting cast is so fixated on the eponymous character that their goals and ideas seem not to exist at all. In reality, we know nothing about these personages; absolutely nothing. Their names are that of the classes or roles they represent since [the author](https://anilist.co/staff/120145/Kumo-Kagyuu) is not good at coming up with names, we have no idea why they accompany him, and their backstories are nonexistent just like their personalities. Honestly, I could describe the characters one by one using three words at max. Even Goblin Slayer, the "person" who has got the most amount of screen time and development in the entire story, fits the bill perfectly. Despite not having any social skills, redeeming qualities as a person and, overall, being a monotonous walking trash bin with his only quirk being his tragic past, girls flock to him as if he were the most handsome jock they have ever seen, creating a harem full of carboards head over heels with him. You either become a part of the collection or are a nameless component of the background, whose entire existence boils down to making fun of the eponymous character merely to do a 360 and convert into one of his newly found buddies who will praise him at every opportunity.
For a show with such brutal content, it sure as hell does not restrain itself from exhibiting blatant, in-your-face fanservice. I am not against seeing a tit or two, but I believe that displaying an extremely sexualised "morning routine" right at the start of episode 2, which is the polar opposite of the travesty we witnessed a week earlier, is not the most brilliant idea ever. The same goes for the character of Sword Maiden, whose sole reason for existence is to be a fanservice dispenser, shoving her pair everywhere it is possible with an extremely horny attitude and the camera pointing at her immense cleavage whenever it can. We ought to look at her heroic records as a gold-ranked adventurer as an impressive feat, however, that is not possible. Her inadequately handled PTSD, which was hardly communicated at all, instead of doing the character favour, makes Sword Maiden a damsel in distress who relies on Goblin Slayer to save her from the monsters who used her when she was younger. The fact that a mental disorder is utilised for mere wish fulfilment is sickening.
The show does not know what it seeks to be. Its tone is, to put it plainly, all over the place. Like blood and corpses, the slice-of-life moments filled with characterless struggles at comedy and the previously mentioned plethora of tasteless fanservice scenes are regular guests on the screen. In one instance, the cast is having fun, bantering with each other, enjoying food or other activities, and in the next scene, there is blood and gore everywhere. Heck, even moments that are supposed to evoke emotions are immediately squashed by booby shots. Complete tonal dissonance is achieved. Viewers are disengaged.
I wish I could compliment _Goblin Slayer_ a little bit for its overall visuals, but, in all fairness, there is nothing worth praising here. While the art style has that generic oomph to it and does not ooze with any striking manner or personality, for the most part, it looks okay-ish. I cannot deny that; the designs seem decent, and some of the backgrounds are not half-bad. Nothing worth being called good, yet not offensive either. However, the constant, jarring CGI completely ruined one aspect the show had going for it, its appearance. I could count on the fingers of two hands the number of scenes where Goblin Slayer is not 3D while walking or making other movements. I understand the creators' intent, they did not want to draw his somewhat intricate armour piece thus saving some time, but the final result of this overuse of CGI is nothing short of saddening and immersion-breaking for its quality is utter rubbish.
It gets even worse when we have the opportunity to observe a fight scene because, oh boy, the animation in these is something out of this world. I have seen my fair share of battles so dull, linear, poorly thought out and animated that make your insides scream in agony and here, most of the encounters suit this category of a sort quite well. The tension is never present since, in the back of our minds, there is always that certainty that the red, glowing eye of the edge will prevail by the end of the day; his script-reading skills come in handy all the time. Furthermore, every single fight tastes the same, with the door to creativity forcibly sealed because of the abnormally dumb and absurd morals enforced on the cast, which prefers to stick to a handful of spells, occasionally whipping out a new one for the oh-so-fantastic surprise to forgetting about the restrictions and winning without much stress and hardships with distinctive tactics.
Sigh, I wanted to enjoy the show for what it is, but _Goblin Slayer_ is like a patchwork of the worst kind. It tried to be a jack of all trades, yet ultimately became a master of none; implementing a myriad of different elements only to watch them painfully fall flat on their faces. Attempting "depth" which added nothing of substance, having more than an apparent identity crisis, while maintaining the unintentional hilariousness at its highest level; this utterly devoid of motion and emotion series fueled by controversy will soon perish into the unimportance.
_Goblin Slayer_ (ゴブリンスレイヤー) is a seinen, dark fantasy anime adaptation of a light novel series written by Kumo Kagyu and illustrated by Noboru Kannatsuki. It aired during the Fall 2018 simulcast season with twelve total episodes with production from White Fox Studio and direction from Takaharu Ozaki. This is an anime that I was originally hesitant at picking up due to the high influx of controversy it stirred up during its respective season. But, a few months ago, my curiosity got the best of me and I gave it a shot. In the end, I’m happy that I did so, despite its many shortcomings. _Goblin Slayer_ is about a silver-ranked adventurer who steps into a very dangerous situation to save some newbies from being completely decimated by goblins. From here, we learn that he only ever hunts goblins and usually solo. However, a quirky blonde priestess, whom he saved, is so thankful for his heroics that she joins him on quest to protect the realm from the vile monsters that are goblins, working as a healer and offering a helping hand wherever she’s able. As a whole, _Goblin Slayer_ is a generic fantasy series that follows a bunch of adventurers as they take on quests to hunt down goblins and goblin-adjacent creatures. Between the sexualisation of the female characters and the inherently predictable progression, the series would be heavily off-putting to many otaku watchers. I know that I battled the urge to drop it on many occasions. Nevertheless, beyond all the elements that make it so damn hackneyed, I actually loved watching it for one main reason: the focus is placed on Role-Playing Games (RPGs) and what is essentially the foundation for every RPG out there, particularly JRPGs and table-top RPGs. Role-playing games are my favourite genre of video games, whether it’s on a console or a PC, especially JRPGs; they’re even more near-and-dear to my gamer heart and soul. There is something special about them that’s so bloody addicting and satisfying. Even if the some of the tales become repetitive—the needing to save the whole world from doom-and-gloom bit, I’m looking at you Final Fantasy—and the characters are roughly all similar, the pleasure that I get from playing them is almost always so exhilarating and uplifting. _Goblin Slayer_ is, in essence, a giant homage to the genre, specifically table-top RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), which I also fucking adore. There are a couple of distinguishing facets that highlight this tribute. One of the biggest examples are the characters’ names. No one has a typical name, like Shirō, or Hirō, or Takumi, or Rin and Rei, etc. Everyone’s name is their chosen class type. Such as Goblin Slayer, Priestess, Lizard Priest, High Elf Archer, and more. Goblin Slayer’s name is actually even more unique because in a typical TTRPG, he’d be more akin to the class of Fighter. His is the only character with a specialised name, which makes sense given that he’s the protagonist and needs the spotlight to set him apart somewhat. But for anyone who is familiar with the RPG set-up, knowing that name or title provides us with most of the information that we will need to know about that specific individual. For example, when I look at High Elf Archer, I know that she will be phenomenal at ranged attacks, particularly when it comes to utilising a bow-and-arrow or crossbow (depending on their preference and specialisation). Sneak Attacks will be another skill in their repertoire that they will be quite fantastic at executing. Other well-trained skills may include their perception (particularly to traps), having low-light visions, and being extremely nimble or dextrous. Each character has their own set of strengths and weaknesses that complements the rest of the party members. For the High Elf Archer, while’s she a badass motherfucker with a bow-and-arrow, she may not be as great with hand-to-hand combat as her strength (how hard she hits with a sword) and constitution (how many hits she can take before she goes down) may be significantly lower. In that situation, the fighter, or in this case Goblin Slayer, would make up for those shortcomings. Seeing all of these aspects in play for the duration of the anime was quite a lot of fun for me. There are scenes throughout _Goblin Slayer_ where we hear them discuss the amounts of spells that they have available to them for the day, or how they had to save up so much gold to buy a powerful scroll or spell. They drink potions to regain hit-points or renew spiritual energy. All of these are building blocks in a standard role-playing game. Role-playing games took off in Japan in the 1980s. Even though they had been around for years prior to that, it wasn’t until they invented the FamiCom (or the Nintendo Entertainment System in the West) that the generation of console RPGs became a reality. It made the genre more accessible and even more interesting for people who couldn’t engage with table-toppers for whatever reason. With the original Final Fantasy, we received a party that is almost identical to _Goblin Slayer_’s party. I remember that the Monk confused me the most the first time I played FF because he worked best without any gear, even at the highest levels. Everyone else needed gear but putting gear on him actually made him weaker. Even in the modern age of RPGs, we still have these same class systems and basic groundwork for the characters to build off of. Although, crafting that character can become far more intricate with things like specialisations of skills and sub-sub-classes, and contemporary weaponry. In Persona 5, Joker is pretty much a ranger with his dextrous movements and stylish gunplay. The main overarching theme in _Goblin Slayer_ is that you have the ability to roll the dice on your life and choose the number that it lands on rather than waiting around for your luck (or lack thereof) to lead you forward. Our protagonist is always portrayed as pushing the bounds of his fate, or whatever the dice rolls for the day, and surviving a situation that he really shouldn’t have. For example, in one of the episodes as he approaches death, he ends up pulling an Arya Stark and says, “Not today,” refusing to let that be his last battle. For folks needing a bit of context, in D&D, you have a set of dice that you roll and the number determines whether or not you’ll have the strength or skill to successfully complete whatever the hell it is you’re trying to do (like backflip off a balcony onto a dire wolf to chop its head off; oh yeah, I did it and it was fucking awesome). In some cases, you’d need to a roll a 20 on a d20 dice (a Critical Hit) if the task is super fucking hard (I managed to roll two 20s to dance with the dire wolf like I did; which has never happened to me again, at least not yet). Because of all that, _Goblin Slayer_ tries to be an allegory of how life is one gargantuan RPG and that we as individuals with free will don’t need to listen to or follow because of whatever may be laid out for us by this idealised notion of Fate. So long as we have the conviction to do so, we can accomplish anything, even cheating the fuck out of death. We can break away from the expectations and carve out our own path, to keep the dice rolling until we are satisfied with the numbers or end result. It’s really fucking cheesy, and it does come off as being quite on the nose. Nonetheless, it’s a theme that worked for the anime and for more than just the main character. There is so much great stuff in _Goblin Slayer_, however it’s buried very deeply beneath its biggest downfall: the sexualisation of female characters, which is further frustrating when rape is used as a narrative device to incite feelings of discomfort and fear. The series is constantly objectifying its females, to the point where I couldn’t really take any of them seriously, even when they are being attacked, and it’s just such a shitty fucking feeling. Whenever a woman was raped, or the mention of rape occurs, it’s usually promptly followed by a heavily dosed up scene of fan service. Are you trying to tell me that women get raped because they all have big breasts and wear provocative clothing? Because that is precisely the message it sends out, and it pissed me the fuck off on more than one occasion. As someone who was born female and spent too much of their life identifying as one, I felt like _Goblin Slayer_ had no respect for women and treated them as nothing more than tools for comedy, which is morbidly ironic considering they are the ones who faced the worst kind of violence that can be inflicted on a person. Putting all of that together made me feel like those rape scenes were fetishized more often than not, or that it really isn’t as terrible as people make it out to be. The women are shown to be terrified by their expressions of terror and their desperate pleas for the abuse to stop, which when combined with how uncomfortable and disturbing the sequences of rape are, can be used to argue against rape being fetishized. However, when you take all of that and in the very next scene focus on the outrageous size and bounciness of breasts, or the tight-fit clothing around a woman’s hips or arse, it completely defeats the whole fucking point of including that traumatic event to begin with. It basically screams out that these women are effectively asking to be raped because of how sexual they are, and that’s not okay, bro. I’m not a prude, by far, or easily dissuaded by fan service or sex. I actually have an appreciation for it, but when it’s used unnecessarily as nothing but shock value to the point where it completely devalues all of the other brilliant facets of a narrative, including the dark and disturbing atmosphere it’s trying to build, I don’t have any respect for it. Even with all of its other clichéd qualities, I would have adored _Goblin Slayer_ much more if it didn’t have such godawful use of fan service, specifically with its audacity at objectifying females around the sexual violence committed against them. With all of this being said, the one thing I do disagree with that arose during its initial reception was all of the hatred it received for including rape at all. Many people complained that the series was pushing anime too far and it was turning this “wholesome and great medium” into something trashy because it included rape. As someone who reads a shite ton of fantasy in general, I call bullshite. I mean, how many people fucking live and breathe the trash-fire that is Diabolik Lovers? But you can read my musings on this topic in my First Impressions post, if you’d like. Anyway, a long ass fucking novel later, _Goblin Slayer_ is an interesting anime to watch if you are interested in or a fan or role-playing games, or if you just want a basic and visual understanding of what bareroot RPGs look like. It is extremely violent with tons of hacking-and-slashing and sprays of blood galore. Additionally, there is one or two rape scenes and many mentions of rape from beginning to end. So, if those things, along with incessant fan service, aren’t things that you’re okay with watching, I’d stay way from it. But watching Goblin Slayer’s development as a character was fascinating and the camaraderie of the adventurers was also wonderfully endearing and quite charming. Those things alone, combined with the tossback to RPGs, made me enjoy the anime on a decent level. _Goblin Slayer_ isn’t a bad series, but it’s also quite far from being as stellar as it could’ve been. It’s pretty average across the board, yet I did appreciate it for what it tried to accomplish, given that RPGs were my gateway into becoming such an aficionado of video games. **6 shield bashes outta 10!.**
__''Goblin Slayer'' stands on its unique main character and world.__ _''Goblin Slayers'' is a dark fantasy. In this world travelers get picked up by gargoyles and then drop to their death, defensless villages get attacked by goblins and no adventurer come to help because pay is too low. Of course there are demons, evil lords, big bad guys who wants to destroy the world but stopping them is heroes' job and our story isn't about a hero but about a man called Goblin Slayer._ - This isn't a normal fantasy world and I am not talking about ''dark'' part its literaly a TRPG. Characters doesn't have names but referred with their class, rank and race for example: Dwarf Shaman, Priestess, Noble Fencer... And being TRPG is a big part of this world's rules. This is specialy shown in combat with talks about critical strikes and spell slots. - This show doesn't realy have a overarching story, actualy there might be non at all. It goes somewhere of course but it kinda happens in background and our characters aren't even aware of it. Its about main character's changing personality and extermination of goblins. Our beloved Goblin Slayer, only interested in doing his self proclaimed ''duty''. Years of training and years of slaying goblins with little childhood trauma as spice has changed him, he is a soulles man now. Story starts at his 10th year of slaying. after this point we follow him as he keeps slaying with his new found party while his new found party slays his loneliness. Except few side stories there is 2 cycles in this show: killing and kind of a slice of life. There are lots of fight and all of them includes goblins. Kinda sounds boring right? What makes them interesting is our party's way of fighting. Goblin Slayer is just a man, actualy he is less than most man he isn't smart, strong nor agile so he fulfils his shortcomings with strategy,practice and experience. Why should he fight a horde of goblins while he can redirect a small river to their cave and watch them drown? So one hob goblin and some greedy greens are coming my way, let me just oil that big guy then let him slide crushing others in the end.Watch while he uses his party's spell slots in clever ways and kills those bastards in creative ways. He is a professional and watching professionals is always fun. So I saw goblins rape woman and saw Goblin Slayer rape goblins. Talks about smell of burnt flesh and filth of goblins, does this disgusting shit ever end? Yes. Another big part of the show is watching how people live in this actualy nice fantasy world. We see how guild girl worries about her clothes getting wrinkles, we watch as our big old mean Lizardman taste cheese for first time and we witness Goblin Slayer go drinking with his fellow adventurers for first time. This is the slice of life part I am talking about. ____This is what you are getting yourself into.____ I won't talk about anything else because everything else is subjective, in the end only you decide if you like the characters or the world. Its quite perverted in some places I personaly don't like it you might like it you should know that its very pervert in anime and manga. Also its already mentioned in other reviews with more context but ''Goblin Slayer'' can be very inconsistent. # There is anime,manga and light novel series. 1. Anime has its rape scenes that triggered lot of people fortunately they are very few ( And they never should have been animated like that, it felt like glorification instead of showing you the nature of goblins), but that unholy CGI is a real problem. Animation is not very good maybe you shouldn't start with anime if that trouble you. 2. Manga is more gory but better than anime in every other way. 3. Ah the holy light novels. There is no gory art that might disturb you. Also there is more content, toughts of our ~~heroes~~ and more information about his way of thinking. I am not a native speaker so sorry for every error in this review please tell me about them so I can make it better next time. Also if you don't agree with any of these please tell them too I would like to discuss
~~~Goblin Slayer, My Opinion-~~~ I'd like to start this review by saying that A) This is my first time giving an actual review in writing, and B) Goblin Slayer was underrated in my opinion. Spoilers* Underrated- ~!Goblin Slayer was a highly anticipated show after it was announced. It had an interesting fantasy concept that many people were excited for. However, when the first episode aired it was met with mixed reviews. Either people praised it for showing exactly how brutal the nature of the goblins is, or they spit on it for its grotesque displays of violence and rape, (despite the rape not being shown). My issue with people who dislike it for the sole reason of its violence is that they aren't giving the show as a whole a chance. The fact that it makes people uncomfortable means that the goblins were portrayed correctly. !~ Characters- ~!The characters in Goblin Slayer had a good dynamic. This is essential to the story since it is based around a D&D concept. Despite the Elf, Dwarf, Warrior, Priest, and Lizard man being generic classes in a fantasy setting, they are a common choice because of the diversity that is brought to a party. The classes themselves work well together in combat and could really only be enhanced by a mage being added to the party. All the characters had unique characteristics but nothing revolutionary. I'd rate them overall as a 7/10.!~ Story- ~!Goblin Slayer follows the Goblin Slayer. His only goal is to slaughter all goblins in existence. What's interesting about this simple concept is how he got to be the cunning slayer he is. Growing up in a village, one day there's a goblin attack. The Goblin Slayer hides in a closet and has to witness his whole village being slaughtered and his sister raped in front of him. This builds a deep hatred within him naturally and he swears to kill all goblins. Present time, the priest girl goes to kill goblins but is in for a nasty surprise. Just when she thinks she's finished she is saved. Goblin Slayer basically adds her to his party and teaches her how to terminate the pests. He picks up some party members along the way and meets some interesting characters. There are a few other bigger scenes but the story doesn't go super far after he's done helping the Sword Maiden and finding out her abuse from goblins previously. Overall I'd rate the story a 5/10 because it was interesting but average.!~ Sound and Animation- The sound and animation was my favorite aspect of this whole show. The intense music and accurate sound effects for the enemies that were encountered throughout the show truly made me feel as if I was in some gritty D&D play through. For the animation I was satisfied at practically all times. My favorite scene by far though was the ~!goblin champion fight. The part where his eye glows red and he slams a goblins head into the stone tomb was so good.!~ I don't have much else to say because I was satisfied in this department. 8/10 Overall I'd say the show was good but lacking in certain qualities. The story needed better development as a whole. The characters being referred to as elf and priest was kinda quirky but overall was not good for the story other than the D&D aspect. However, the animation, sound, and character dynamics more than make up for it. This show is good but was lacking in potential. I'd recommend this for people who enjoy a darker fantasy with heavy action. Just don't be expecting too much of a story to be honest. Overall I'd give it a 7/10. Give it a chance before judging it based off the first episode! *Side note- If you're trying to get hyped to play D&D with your friends then watch this with them. I guarantee that after watching the ~!Goblin Champion fight, Ogre fight, and the Creature of Chaos fight,!~ (not to mention all the tactics he uses throughout the show), you're D&D crew will be more than excited to start playing.
#~~~__Opinión sin spoiler__~~~ ~~~~~~ "Goblin Slayer" es una serie que se centra en un aventurero que se dedica únicamente a matar goblins (cap. obvious al rescate). En un primer momento, mientras se estaba emitiendo, destacó mucho por la crudeza de ciertos hechos en los primeros capítulos. Dicho esto, es una obra que no pretende conseguir nada nuevo en muchos aspectos (desarrollo de personajes, animación y trama son bastante estándares) pero tiene ciertos puntos refrescantes. Por ponerlo en pocas palabras, es un anime muy típico que te puedes ventilar en una tarde bien aprovechada y te dejará buen sabor de boca. ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ #~~~__Opinión con spoiler__~~~ ~~~~~~ Para hacerle justicia a esta serie, hay que comentar ciertos aspectos para nada típicos que destacan y son precisamente los que la hacen entretenida. En primer lugar, lo estúpidamente malvados que son los goblins. Normalmente los protagonistas de estos animes pasan por algún tipo de trauma, que en este caso es extremadamente violento y le falta poco para ser expresamente gráfico. Me gusta mucho que el anime se tome una licencia tan descarada como poner en el primer capítulo una tribu de goblins literalmente violando todo lo que sea femenino y se mueve. O intentándolo, porque en ese punto de la historia aparece el Goblin Slayer y salva lo salvable del día. Es característico lo lacónico que es en palabras, y me gustó mucho su actitud más directa de lo normal. Aparte, la sensación que provoca de estar no simplemente masacrando goblins con sus habilidades *overpowered*, sino de tomar con cautela cada encuentro y sumergirse completamente en la cultura de los goblins para poder atacarlos de la manera más efectiva se hace muy interesante. En este mundo, los goblins suponen una amenaza real, y es un punto divergente como se hace ver que es intrascendente si el malo final es derrotado, mientras sus esbirros menores sigan causando daños muy reales a las pequeñas poblaciones. Es un caso de desbalanceo muy complicado. Los goblins, por cultura general, no son peligrosos, por lo que no se ofrece mucho oro por derrotarlos y aventureros experimentados no eligen sus misiones. Solo grupos inexpertos las abordan, y suelen tener un alto porcentaje de acabar en tragedia, dato que no es lo suficientemente conocido. Además, la ya comentada crueldad de los goblins (juegan con sus presas, raptan chicas y las mantienen vivas para violarlas y reproducirse, aprenden de anteriores errores con el solo objetivo de poder vengarse) hace que este problema sea más grave si cabe. Es curioso, además, como el objetivo principal no es el que podría ser de un shonen (mejorar hasta acabar con el rey demonio), sino que de eso ya se encargan personajes secundarios muy poderosos que no tienen ninguna interacción con el protagonista y su grupo. Hablando del grupo, es bastante estándar, con el típico personaje enano mayor, el hombre lagarto diplomáico y la elfa tsundere que tiene una cierta actitud juguetona con Goblin Slayer que no aporta mucho. Está claro, además, que la obra utiliza los clásicos estereotipos de personalidad en personajes tanto femeninos como masculinos, pero al menos el fanservice está mas o menos "justificado" por las situaciones en las que se da, aunque tampoco aporta absolutamente nada y se me hace molesto, por ejemplo, con la chica granjera (Musume), la maga (Majo) y la elfa (Yousei). La obra cierra con un arco final no diría que precipitado pero tal vez no lo suficientemente anticipado. Es satisfactorio ver, claro, como el héroe largamente incomprendido finalmente es ayudado por los otros aventureros a derrotar a una gran horda de goblins. Aunque, he de decir que este hecho cae en saco roto moralmente hablando, ya que la mayoría se apunta por la recompensa que ofrece el gremio (y este punto me pareció super tierno por parte de la administradora de misiones). Seguidamente, se desvela la cara del héroe, dándole un cierre decente a este arco, pero no a la historia (hay material adicional de manga y películas). Aun así, es perfectamente razonable parar en este punto si la historia no te daba mucho más Como broche final, tengo que comentar el hecho de las restricciones que le imponen sus compañeras de aventura para matar goblins. No entiendo cómo encaja en esta historia ponerse un hándicap y no utilizar todas las herramientas al alcance para exterminar a esos pequeños bastardos verdes. Si todavía fuese sobrado, y fuese una especie de reto... pero me parece es solo una excusa barata para poner a chicas monas haciendo pucheritos y diciendo cosas monas que el protagonista tiene que hacer solo porque son muy monas. Habiendo hecho un esfuerzo por evitar la palabra *kawaii*, aquí termina mi opinión. ¡Gracias por llegar hasta aquí! Un saludo de SiegmAer, de Catarina.
Our world may be one of fantasy, but that doesn’t make our reality any less harsh. Strange creatures of every variety roam the land, from the mighty Demon Lord to the lowly slime, but there’s one infestation in particular that’s been devastating the human race; Goblins. Too weak for higher level players to pay any attention to, but so devious in their tactics that lower level players quickly find themselves overwhelmed and eviscerated for their efforts. They invade settlements, pillage them for all their worth, and abduct young women to forcibly bear their young. There’s only one man in The Guild who's strong enough to deal with them, and also crazy enough to do something about it... One mysterious, stoic adventurer who is literally named Demon Slayer. And now, my dear young warriors who have chosen to follow him on his quest to rid the world of all Goblin vermin, I implore you... Roll for initiative! Goblin Slayer was produced by White Fox, which is a detail I was definitely not expecting when I set out to write this review. I haven’t seen every one of their titles, but out of the several that I have seen, they all looked leagues better than Goblin Slayer does. I don’t think any of them had particularly high budgets, but they felt like they were managed well enough that it didn’t matter. Even comparing it to Girls Last Tour, the only other title on the list to share a director with it, they barely have a few surface level similarities. Budget saving tactics, for example, are distractingly blatant. It’s not unheard of to animate characters walking through closeups where you just move their model up and down, but this show tends to add extra movements(clothing, hair, etc) that don’t really sync up to the main cycle, creating a very uncanny feeling. What’s even more egregious is that the main character... A walking suit of armor, for all intents and purposes... switches from hand-drawn to CG constantly in-between shots, and that’s just for walking animations. You don’t even see clouds move in the sky, and that shouldn’t be too difficult an effect to pull off. The action scenes are fine, though I suspect that the fact that most of them take place in darkened settings may have allowed the producers free reign to drop the frame rate without anyone noticing. As far as the environment goes, the artwork is more or less fine, despite the flat color palette. The character designs, on the other hand, are kind of an eyesore. They look like they started out as generic, but then just had a ton of extra details dumped on them in a lazy attempt to make them look less so. This makes them look kind of like characters you’ve seen before, but boring. The only exception to this is arguably the Goblins themselves, who’s design is simple, but effective. They’re humanoid creatures, mostly small, but with cold, empty eyes and large, gaping, fang-filled mouths that were made for tearing flesh and then cackling about it. They remind me of a green version of the Falmer from Skyrim, and those fuckers were scary at lower levels. I can definitely see these bastards terrorizing a fantasy civilization. The English dub, which would usually be an exception in cases like these, is honestly pretty awful. The cast is entirely made up of either outsiders who mostly work in music and video games and only occasional dabble in anime, or newcomers who haven’t even been working in the industry a full decade yet. Seriously, there are only two names involved who are prolific enough to have Wikipedia pages. This is usually a sign that an anime has such a poor reputation that any voice actor who’s established enough to turn down roles without slowing the momentum of their careers took one look at it and declined outright. I found myself watching most of this series in Japanese, not just because the subtitle dialogue had more wit and personality to it, but because just about every character sounded more natural in their speech. For one major example, in English, the main character just sounds boring and one note with a metallic twinge that doesn’t even go away when his helmet’s off. He sounds like Lucario from the dubbed Pokemon movies. His register stayed flat in Japanese, but at least there was an undertone of emotion to his voice. He could convey just enough pain, intrigue or whatever else he was feeling to add some actual humanity to his dialogue, subtle as it may have been. I don’t often make a strong recommendation of sub over dub, as I am a hardcore English dub nerd, but this is one case where you’d be seriously better off reading the bottom of the screen. I did not come into this show blindly. I try to go into most anime with as little info as possible when I finally sit down to watch them, normally years after they’ve left the zeitgeist, but if you were on any social media platform in 2018 that had even the most tenuous connection to anime, you heard some kind of shit about Goblin Slayer. It’s a controversial show, and because the first thing anybody hears about is that controversy, that's probably where I should begin. I will now be initiating a trigger warning, as we’re about to talk about rape. Good God, I need to find a new hobby. People are always going to have different opinions about whether or not rape should be used in a story. Some people say it should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Some people say it doesn’t matter because it’s fiction, fiction is fake and your feelings are stupid. Me, I’m somewhere in the middle. I believe any kind of subject matter can be explored in a story, as long as you do it right. My go to example of this has always been Berserk. Spoilers, by the way. There’s a scene towards the (animated) end, where Casca is raped by Griffith while Guts is pinned down and forced to watch. In the nineties series, this scene was quick and to the point, with most of the focus being on Guts as he struggles to get free. In the third movie, however, this scene is not only extended, but the focus is mainly on Griffith and Casca, as the rape is displayed in graphic detail, with every thrust shown to you in all it’s glory. Basically, they turned it into porn. Both versions are disturbing, but only one of them disturbs you on the level that you’re wondering who in the fuckity fuckity fuck fuck FUCK thought one of the most brutal and tragic moments in anime history needed an ahegao. In Goblin Slayer, the Goblins are rapists. They abduct young women to rape them, they rape female adventurers who attack them, and they raped the main character’s sister when they were little. Rape is being used in the narrative to make the villain come off as more evil and deserving of extermination with extreme prejudice. There are definitely problematic elements to this, as will always be the case when you have women harmed in any way to further a male character’s story arc, but at least the show’s heart was in the right place. At least it’s acknowledged that Rape Bad, and Rape Not Porn. Granted it’s a little sus that they didn’t allow any nudity in those scenes, so it’s like sure, a woman got groped and stripped by tiny monsters, bent over and rammed repeatedly from behind by a giant monster who visibly dug its claws into her hips, but because they hid her nipples I guess it’s still TV friendly? I dunno, anime’s weird sometimes. My problem with it goes a bit deeper into the lore, towards a detail that’s implied in the anime, but outright confirmed in the manga; The Goblins have a good reason to rape. I feel dirty typing out that sentence. There are no female Goblins, so they rape humans to reproduce and survive. Not only does this not make any sense from a biological perspective, as a species that evolved to survive off of the unwilling reproductive help of another species would be totally nonviable, but you DO NOT give someone a reason to rape. You can explore the motive and mindset of a rapist, but rape should never be seen as a necessity. You know all those anime, like Shiki, who explore the idea of humans no longer being on the top of the food chain, and how predators need to eat? You can’t do that with rape. But oh well, at least they didn’t write a story arc where one of the Goblins’ rape victims decided to cope with her trauma by helping the Goblins rape more people so more people would understand what she went through OH WAIT THEY DID! Even with all that aside, though, it’s obvious what kind of show this is. The show wastes no time establishing the fact that Goblins are a clear and present threat to humanity, and yet it seems like everyone in The Guild aside from Goblin Slayer... Can I just call him Orcbolg from here on? I know that’s not his actual name, but it feels weird to keep calling him the title of the show. Anyway, aside from Orcblog, everyone in The Guild is either too weak to deal with Goblins without getting killed, or too high level to care, which wouldn’t be such a huge problem if they weren’t so over-the-top obvious and unsubtle about it. The rookies talk themselves up like the future saviors of humanity, only to get torn to shreds and violated. The veterans are obnoxious, entitled douchebags who mock Orcbolg for dedicating his life to such an easy target. Hey, buddy, you should be going after money and glory like we are! What a loser! This whole scenario was designed to prop Orcbolg up and make him look like a badass. He talks in meaningless platitudes, always knows exactly what’s going to happen next, and he doesn’t speak any more than necessary unless he’s dropping huge exposition dumps about his backstory and personal beliefs regarding Goblins, and yet despite the fact that his primary motivation is the fact that Goblins killed his family and raped his big sister to death when he was a child, he seems far more concerned with exterminating Goblins than he does with actually saving or protecting their female victims, implying there’s nothing actually altruistic or pure about his campaign of vengeance. He is every single middle school edgelord who’s ever exorcised his loneliness by roleplaying a tortured lone wolf antihero power fantasy. Orcbolg is completely socially inept to the point that he seems to lack basic self-awareness outside of combat. He’s dedicated his life to the subject of Goblins, to the point that he pays little attention to anything else, and his cadence is consistently one-note and uninflected. He comes off, to me at least, as a neuro-divergent individual, and before anybody calls me out on that, I’m on the autism spectrum myself. I know what I’m talking about. His main story arc is about opening up and accepting other people into his life, and he’s constantly AND I MEAN CONSTANTLY having basic social interactions explained to him, and yet based on the way he’s presented in contrast to other characters, I seriously doubt any of this was intentional. The rest of the cast is just as strange. Priestess(yes, everyone’s name is just a description of their role in the story, don’t ask me why) is a young maiden whose life Orcbolg saves once, so she dedicates her life to following him. She’s not useless, thankfully, and she contributes to the story in meaningful ways, but she also spends a ton of dialogue either singing Orcbolg’s praises or describing to the audience in detail whatever he’s going through at any given time. He also meets an Elf, who despite being over 2000 years old is extra as hell and over-reacts to literally everything, showing no signs of the experience, wisdom or maturity that a character who’s that old should have; A Dwarf who I’m pretty sure was supposed to have the same kind of bickering dynamic with the Elf that Gimli had with Legolas in Lord of the Rings, but it just comes off as annoying; And a lizard priest who has a somewhat Native American design, talks with over-exaggerated importance like a phony wiseman and calls upon his velociraptor ancestors in battle. The less said about Sword Maiden the better. In his peripheral, you have a large-breasted childhood friend whose purpose is to spend half of her screen time in a state of TV-safe nudity, exposit about Orcbolg’s backstory and be in danger in the story’s climax, and a receptionist at the Guild’s front desk who, like literally every female character who survives long enough to do so, falls madly in love with Orcbolg. If you’re not seeing the problem with all this, these are the kind of characters who could only work in the realm of satire. They’re vicious unintentional parodies of popular fantasy anime tropes, and they wouldn’t stick out as badly as they do if the series they were in wasn’t so damn gritty and grim-dark in it’s presentation. In theory, Orcbolg does have a pretty good character arc... As I mentioned above, he starts out as a loner, but over time is forced to open up and accept the help of others, and his arc does pay off in a two episode finale that is, I will admit, pretty damn fun to watch. The last two episodes are easily the highlight of the series, even though they start with Orcbolg confronting a weakness he has that... I’m pretty sure was never set up or foreshadowed before that moment? A much bigger problem with his arc, however, is that more than half of it is delivered to us through exposition over the course of the series, and that’s not a unique issue. This series is loaded with exposition. I wouldn’t be surprised in more than eighty percent of the spoken dialogue in this show wasn’t explanations of why people are who they are, how the world works, how situations work, how Goblins work, what is specifically happening in any given battle, etc. It's extremely tell-over-show, it's inconsistent in tone, and it doesn't feel mature enough to handle the subject matter that it took a risk on. All in all, it's pretty lame. Goblin Slayer is widely available from Funimation. A movie called Goblin’s Crown is also currently available, and a second season has been announced to air in the near future. The manga and translated light novels are available from Yen Press. There's an expectation that Goblin Slayer induces rage or disgust in people, but I can't find that kind of passion in me towards it. Aside from the final two episodes and the design of the Goblins, there’s really nothing I like about it, and some of the story decisions it made were downright reprehensible. So why don’t I hate it? Why doesn’t it boil my blood, like so many similar shows? Well, it boils down to something that's common among creatively minded people. For example, Stephen King basically disowned Rage, a terrible book about a school shooting that wound up allegedly inspiring real world violence, and that’s the kind of story Goblin Slayer strikes me as. I can’t hate it, because it feels genuinely like the product of a novice writer with an itch to challenge himself with dark and edgy material. I don't think there's any consensus on why the creator hides his identity publicly, but I wouldn't be surprised if that had something to do with it. Personally, it’s not the most putrid anime I’ve ever seen by far, but I can't recommend it to anybody. I give Goblin Slayer a 1/10.
**Overview:** Goblin Slayer (GS) in the first ep starts out by setting the tension that will continue throughout the rest of the season without dipping down much at all. The atmosphere is dull in that it captures the way he feels and portrays it as I believe he does. It’s not an exciting world he is part of, its one with loss that is unpredictable and can happen at any time. Onna Shinkan is introduced in the first episode where she initially signs up to become and adventurer and is asked to join a party the moment she is about to look for a quest to begin her journey. This group is also new and due to their lack of experience it is shown throughout and even up to the point they are faced with true combat with goblins. The goblins are as stated, not the smartest but adapt and learn quicker than people would give them credit for. As the group encounters the goblins of course due to their overconfidence meet a terrible fate. Their showing is more to represent all new adventurers since this world is in a time where there are several new adventurers like them that have little to no experience with even the basics. Goblin Slayer happens to go to this cave to kill these goblins and succeeds. The first ep is packed full of information about the world and sets things up very nicely about how terrible goblins actually are even though they are always thought to be nothing more than insects with no power or intelligence. After that entire encounter we are taken on a small quest to take out a goblin encampment where Shinkan is further shown what is essentially the daily life of GS. We get a bit of backstory of reasoning as to why he detests goblins to the extent he does and why he will not let a single one escape the extermination area. We are shown the rest of the main cast that will be with us till the end of the show. You can consider them a group of misfits for reasons that are explained and shown. They have come there with a request for GS’s help. He immediately refuses but as he is told it is about goblins his decision quickly changed to a, yes, I’ll do it. They set out to the ruins where the new cast is shown what goblins truly are and why they are a threat underestimated by most. After the quest they are immediately sent to a faraway city that once they arrive and complete the objective can be a bit complicated as the dialog with the quest giver is very vague and for any who do not completely understand I would highly recommend a brisk through the past couple eps to see the talking points they mention. Also, to rewatch the scene of their conversation. It took me a few minutes to figure it out as I first thought it was her who was somehow involved but I was misunderstanding it first watch of the scene. Keeping the details vague as to not spoil what it’s about but there should be a reddit discussion or comment somebody posts that can help better expand upon their dialog and its true meaning to save time decoding it yourself. It’s not that its complicated but more along the lines of being too vague which is alright imo as its one of many storytelling methods of not directly stating XYZ. The quest givers past that is shown and talked about is sad and the reasoning behind how she was able to get GS recruited to deal with the goblins is smart to say the least. Upon returning home we are greeted with one last quick arc that was apparently shifted to the end of the season instead of prior to the previous arc. I feel the way this was shown flows well and is a good end to the series though. A couple lines of dialog seem out of place though since it was clearly written to make more sense prior rather than after the past arc but that’s a very minor thing all things considered. **Visuals/Music:** The visuals were good enough, they are about average imo. That is not a bad thing though. GS is shown in CGI and to some that is terrible, but CGI is something that takes time to actually cope with. I was able to understand the reasoning for CGI when I watched Knights of Sidonia and am now fine with 95% of it in shows. There is clearly censoring going on but not the white light or black bar type. The censoring here is more convenient in that it blends with the environment. The music fits well and does its job, nothing lackluster or spectacular about it. Its opening song captures the show pretty well with its feeling that gets portrayed with it. **Final Thoughts:** Something that is strange is that there are no character names explicitly given to anybody. They just refer to people as what a person would call a board game piece. Say you are playing a game of monopoly and somebody picks the hat, they would then be referred to as `it’s the hats turn` or `it’s the dogs turn` given somebody chose a dog. A major thing I want to point out is in the first ep how many people were complaining about the rape scene and the shows overall dark theme about a fantasy world revolving around killing goblins. The scene itself was censored with barely anything showing other than enough information to gather what is happening at that time. There was nothing inherently bad about it and I believe it needed to be shown to truly get the point across about goblins and the way they act. Verbally stating or discussing how they act would not have gotten the point across that this world is a dark place and these things actually happen. The scene itself was to show this and to show Shinkan herself how terrible goblins are and that they are not to be taken lightly. If a person takes them lightly it will only end badly for them. Even in the manga it was shown with a bit less censoring, but I do not feel it was to the point of disgust, it showed it to the point that it got the point across about these creatures and made the readers/viewers have feelings towards them that otherwise would not be to the degree they are. Same goes for the meat shields in the final arc, it is censored and shows enough to get the point across. There is a lot that can be said but the outrage regarding the scene was a bit ridiculous. It’s a show for mature audience and the rating specifically states who the show is meant for, R - 17+, which is a mature audience only. Ratings need to be respected and not every show needs to coincide with what people are comfortable with, if a person doesn’t want to see what’s going to be shown then don’t watch as not every show is meant for every person. Little bit of a rant but that is something that I could go on for a while about lol. Ratings are something that people seem to neglect but they are there for a reason, R is not meant for a unmatured audience and as such will not be catered for them. The show in its entirety I already feel had to hold back too much. The content that was to be portrayed felt watered down compared to what it was wanting to show. Is that good or bad? It’s a bit of both and what I mean by that is, they were essentially forced to hold back. If they had not held back it probably would have gotten an, A, for adult audience only rating. Any type of content in that field has a very hard time finding funding let alone a channel to broadcast to which would ultimately lead to its premature failure. They did however give as good a show as they could have, given their restrictions. It’s just sad that due to these restrictions the show was brought down to more of a monotone way of storytelling. Could they have done better? Probably but you could tell they were nearing the edge of what they would be allowed to show and portray to a wide audience and still maintain funding. I do recommend others to watch this show but keep in mind that the rating is a true representation of what you’ll be in for. Its only meant for mature audiences who are alright with subjects and content that is on the darker side. It doesn’t go that dark in all honesty but that’s because it can’t go that dark due to the restrictions it is bound by. The entire story shown though is not grand or anything along those lines. If they did bump the rating to A they could properly show the story as it is meant to be but then funding will be slim if any while also not having a proper way of broadcasting it to a wide audience for it to have the success it currently has. Simply put it’s in a quagmire, it could be better but it also cant and due to that reasoning is why I believe it to be a 3/5. There is a lot to say about the show but it mostly boils down to they have bounds that they are not allowed to feasibly go out of and that will/has ultimately hinder the shows overall quality which is sad to see but completely understandable. ```Overall Rating: 3/5```
Goblin Slayer is a perfect one-shot idea. The first episode could be considered the exact representation of what a one-shot would have been. Even then, it's not without flaws (torture-porn with sexual innuendos used to shock the viewer and make him believe the series is actually deep). As always, since I don't believe it's possible to review a series without spoilers, I will share examples of what I am saying. __ART__ The art of goblin slayer is pretty bad overall, with a few particularly hideous low-points. The pilot is easily the best one, which is a smart thing to do since it hooks the viewers in and lets them give the show a chance. Unfortunately, everything falls apart from the second episode. The character designs are as generic as they get, with the sole exception being the iconic Goblin Slayer. A few of them are barely fanserviceable, like the Sword Maiden and the childhood friend, while the others are lacking in details. The entire cast has a monotonous and generic feeling to it, which is extended to the entirety of the enemies (the few of them that there are, at least), too. The problems don't stop here. The backgrounds are generic, if not outright bad, with no inspirations (even though it might seem like cheating, Mushoku Tensei established the high bar for aesthetic setting in a fantasy, and this show doesn't even come close to looking remotely as good). The animation is terrible all around because of the amount of low-quality CGI models for both the enemies and Goblin Slayer himself. The contrast between 2D and 3D is grating on the eyes, especially with GS. We see him properly animated, and in the next scene, he turns in this low-fps 3D model that glaringly sticks out like a sore thumb. The tightness of the budget was just too restrictive to animate most fights properly, too. The directing ends up being poor, probably as a consequence of the low budget, which causes confusing fights. Lots of pan shots to cover expenses during the filler-y episodes, too. Visual effects are generally horrible, given that most of the blood is rendered in a disgusting 3D jelly-looking red goo. Redo of Healer had a better rendition of blood, somehow. __SOUND__ The OST is surprisingly good. Not only both the Opening and the Ending are captivating and in-tone with the show, but a few of the insert tracks are also on point, and I listened to them even after the show finished. Sound effects are nothing to write home about as they do their fair job. Voice acting is a bit generic and clichè most of the time, as the lines get delivered with this forced enthusiasm from the Priestess, that sassy tone from the Dwarf, the tsundere-y troubled voice from the High Helf, etc. It's not bad, but it doesn't even feel like they are trying to do anything more than the bare minimum. There is, however, one peculiarity: Goblin Slayer. It's pathetically obvious that they were trying to score for the silent hero protag, but he just looks (hideous CGI, terrible writing) and sounds like a socially inept and borderline autistic character. It doesn't sound cool, it just sounds cringe. And given the fact that he's the most important and iconic character in the series, it kind of ruins everything. For this reason alone, I am almost tempted to suggest the viewers watch the English dub, where GS's voice actor sounds better and more pertinent. __STORY__ There is no such thing as a story in Goblin Slayer. The entire premise of GS is that the author wanted to create a novel based on his D&D 4.5 sessions. He's not even subtle in hinting at it, given the number of references around dices, from start to finish. The premise is interesting, but that's about it. A hero entirely fixated around killing low-level monsters because he has a personal vendetta against them, to the point of looking autistic. Given his aesthetic, it captivates the audience to, at least, give it a try. Truthfully, Goblin Slayer's problem is that it doesn't really need a story because everything it has to say, it says during the first episode. There are no plot twists, GS's background is easy to imply from the very first episode (traumatized as a child), and the author doesn't care about it at all (the Demon King is defeated off-screen by 3 Mahou-Shoujo, pajama-wearer little girls). The attempts at a "story" are utterly useless, uninteresting, and add nothing to the narrative, and sound as generic as humanly possible. Even the characters don't agree with the grim setting. There are scenes where innocent women are viciously raped, followed by High Elf ordering GS that she wants to take him on an adventure. I am all for comic relief in a crude setting, but that's not how you do it. And if they are not tonally deaf, some scenes are utterly pathetic in their boredness. World-building is the worst offender of them all, though. It's also kind of pathetic how most reviewers don't even point these giant plot holes and contrivances out, but I digress. There are serious, gigantic flaws in the way the world is conceived. First of all, we are shown a world with no actual governments that can take care of their citizens. Not once do we see guards handling attacks even when there are threats to the cities (episode 8, 12). The security of the world is handled by mercenaries who get their missions from private enterprises (the guilds). Does anyone understand how dumb this sounds? It's all in the greedy hands of random patrons! Not only that, but the low-level goblins that should mostly be a nuisance suffer from a whiplash of exposition. The writer tells us that goblins are an annoyance, low-level threat that should be handled by the lowest-level adventurers, but the anime shows us constantly that goblins are, in fact, a serious threat that should not be underestimated. First of all, they keep killing people left and right and creating nests right outside of cities, or under them, in the sewers. We are told they have an insane, exponential ratio of reproduction (episode 1, Goblin Slayer's speech). Second of all, they are insanely dangerous to porcelain-level adventurers at the very least. Why is that a thing? What's the point of a level system if anyone can take any quest anyway? And what's with that chick over the counter that wants to establish a training program to stop having adventurers killed? You dumb idiot, perhaps stop giving them those quests! And how are the farmers even producing anything if they are constantly attacked by the goblins without anyone batting an eye? It makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever. One might argue that goblins are already the lowest level monster there are, but that's only told to us, whereas we are shown that it's clearly not the case and dozens of people are slaughtered viciously without a pause. Not only this, but the sheer number of goblins is perfectly capable of overwhelming an entire army without proper preparation (episodes 11 and 12). Third of all, there are multiple levels of goblins! Both the shaman and giant ones are incredibly stronger than the lower ones, and there are even domesticated wolves and goblin kings which are capable of using advanced strategies. Take the situation in the Venice-like city. The entire place is infested with goblins and no one does anything, not even the guards. And don't give me that bullshit "my PTDS is making me unable to act, and I don't want adventurers to die (which further proves the point that goblins are strong monsters. Meanwhile, her Aligator familiar is not used to kill the goblins for some reason? Stupid plot is stupid)". Even during the final episodes, the goblins are planning on throwing a large-scale attack on the main city. These creatures are far from being weak because the writer is incapable of creating a valid justification for having Goblin Slayer on one hand and weak creatures on the other. It removes tension from the battle if they are just easily farmable, and if they aren't, then the world should reflect that. The pacing is also all over the place, there are surprisingly few fights overall, a bunch of episodes are reduced to deal with god-awful character development, for some reason. There are also occasional asspulls coming out of nowhere, which are justified as unironical dice intervention ala d&d 4.5 (episode 7, GS resuscitates and kills all the enemies with the power of friendship and hatred). Also, the last battle makes no sense. The Goblin King is smart enough to understand human language. He saw all the mercenaries grouping on GS's farm. Why the fuck did it continue with the attack? By retreating and choosing a better window he would have probably won the stalling war for the farm. Not only that, but he decided to attack with his weakest troops first. The goblin giants would have been way better as vanguard soldiers. This is a textbook case of plot-induced stupidity. There's also a broken teleportation scroll that's capable of one-shotting any enemy because it teleports high-pressure water. I am not going to argue against it that much, given that it was properly foreshadowed and used only once, but what was the point of GS saying "I am not telling, in case the enemies capture you and you reveal its power". Dude, are you dense? The goblins are barely smart enough to throw shit and stones at you and you are going inside a goblin nest. If your allies end up being captured, the chance that they are tortured and asked specific questions about magic trump cards is far outweighed by the fact that perhaps, your allies could use said card if you end up being incapacitated. Extremely stupid reasoning, which only exists to excuse the shock effect. __CHARACTERS__ Probably the weakest part of the show. Let's start with the enemies. As a consequence of what I just said, the goblins are theoretically both low-level, easily killable monsters and at the same time actual challenges for the protagonist and his friends. Goblins as a whole are uninteresting, bland, cardboard cutouts characters. They hate those with words and have nothing good going for them. They are stereotypical malevolent beings. Even then, there is this retarded exchange of dialogue between Priestess and GS where the first one asks if GS needs to kill the little goblins. What kind of question is that? Introducing moral questions is fine and all, but they have to make sense in the first place. We are clearly shown and told repeatedly that goblins are nothing but disgusting raping monsters. Stop treating the viewers & readers like mongoloids. Goblins are overall generic and terrible enemies. They offer no design ideas, no new fighting quirks, and are supposed to be evil because they are evil. What a snorefest. There's also the demon king and their secret sect, but the writer doesn't know how to deal with a big overarching story, so it just goes for satirical subversion (spoiler: it doesn't work and looks goofy). One humongous problem is that... characters don't have names. It might sound stupid at first, but how can you grow attached to people you don't even know? They are entirely defined by the characteristics and archetypes that denote their d&d classes. That's it. Even their personality is dull and void of any kind of novelty. It gets even worse once you realize this is the power fantasy of someone who played d&d. Do you know what's the first thing you do when creating a character through the sheet? Writing down its name. There's also the magic trio composed of the lizardman, the dwarf, and the high elf. They come to ask Goblin Slayer for help against a goblin's nest, in their quest to stop the Demon King Armies, as ambassadors of their respective reigns. But as we already said, the Demon King is pitifully killed off-screen, and after they take care of the goblin nest they somehow decide to remain with GS and form a party with him. Why? They had a way more important job at hand. What about the rest of the demon armies? Why did their reigns not call them back after their quest was completed? It's never explained. And this hurts character backgrounds. It's as if the writer is moving these cardboard pawns on his chessboard. It doesn't feel organic, but artificial. The Sword Maiden arc is cringy and has quite a bit of sexual references thrown around. One of the strongest gold adventurers has PTSD vs goblins, to the point that she'd rather fuck the entire city than tell the guards what is happening downstairs, in the sewers. And don't give me the "oh, but the sect might understand that's her weak point and use it against her" excuse. People are fucking dying! Women are vanishing left and right, the number of goblins is increasing exponentially! Just tell the guards to go kill them all until it's too late. The dark sect will never understand what is happening anyway. Everyone considers goblins to be one of the weakest monsters, the first thing they'd think is that the Sword Maiden just doesn't deal with such petty squabble. And why is there a pseudo-resurrection ritual that makes recently-dead people come back to life by having a virgin rub herself against your body? I wish I was exaggerating, lol. There are also blatant lies coming from the characters, too. Goblin Slayer goes to the guild to get assistance for what is a large-scale attack prepared against the city. For some reason, he even has to offer everything he owns. For some reason, the mercenaries initially ask for gold and change their opinion only once the guild girl offers a broken contract to help her unrequited love, Goblin Slayer (wonderful world-building). And during the last lines of the last episode, Priestess tells Goblin Slayer how everyone wanted to help him from the beginning. There is no way people are gobbling up this shit with a straight face, is there? They wouldn't have pissed on Goblin Slayer if he were on fire moments before getting a guild mission, without even considering the fact that the Goblin King would have massacred the town, a few days down the line. There is also Goblin Slayer. Truthfully, there's not much to say about him. As I already stated, the writer is going for the silent hero protagonist with a tragic past, but his lines are cringe and outright poorly written (50% of them are "yeah"), and his V.A. is awful at his job. Did his background make sense? Yeah, but that's nothing to write home about. It was predictable from the very beginning and does not add depth to the character. It gives him a solid motivation, but it stenches clichè. It again proves my point that Goblin Slayer would have worked better as a one-shot. Because of his "unique personality", he attracts a bunch of girls. Priestess, the Childhood Friend, Guild Girl, High Elf, even Sword Maiden... Another cliché off the list, I guess. There's barely enough content to criticize these characters given how restricted to their own archetypes they are. Also, there are a few citation tertiary characters, such as Guts and Lancer. Yeah, that's about it. If anyone thinks this show is better because of them, please stop. CONCLUSIONS, AND BONUSES. In the end, Goblin Slayer is a victim of the curse most writers suffer from. Interesting idea and premise, dreadful execution. There's also something to be said about shock factors and mature content as a whole.__ I always subscribed to the notion that mature content doesn't imply maturity of the plot, and Goblin Slayer is a perfect example of this. __From the first episode, the anime doesn't spare excruciatingly detailed rape scenes, copious amounts of violence coming from monodimensional, drooling, despicable green monsters. It almost feels like Goblin Slayer's idea got replaced by the copious amount of excused sexual rape scenes. Did they trigger me? Hell no. Were they needed? Not even one bit. Does that make the story more mature? If we consider the age classification, yeah. Otherwise, it's just artificial and thus phony. One key aspect of writers is fineness, violence all over my face to make me empathize with the poor girls getting raped left and right is not treating me with respect, and that doesn't allow me to respect this anime as a whole. A bit off track, but I truly believe the damage Gen Urobutcher did to modern anime is bottomless. He showered the watchers and readers with dark and grim stories, forcing a positive correlation between depth maturity and violence. But there is no such case. __TL;DR A Generic Self-Insert Empowerment Fantasy that tries to pass as a dark and mature story forgetting the importance of good characters and lacking in finesse.__ And now, for some executed scoring ~! ART SECTION 7/20 Direction 1/4 (hideous fights, boring taking scenes (especially Maiden & GS during episode 8) Character Design 1/4 (goblin slayer is iconic, that's about it. And even then, that fucking CGI...) Backgrounds 2/4 (sometimes good, but as generic as possible) Visual Effects 1/4 (the blood looks like jam) Animation 2/4 (mostly nonexistent, and there are surprisingly few fighting scenes) SOUND SECTION 13/20 > Voice Acting 2/6 (GS is so bad that I have to gut a lot of points. The others are okay) > Insert songs 5/6 (good and catchy) > Opening-Ending 4/5 (on point with the show) > Sound Effects 2/3 (solid) STORY SECTION 4/20 Premise-Setting 4/4 (Interesting) Pacing 0/4 (all over the place) Complexity 0/4 (most fights are resolved in a cheap way or with overpowered stuff) Plausibility 0/4 (goblins are a real threat and everyone discounts them as weak) Conclusion 0/4 (lol) CHARACTERS SECTION 2/20 Second Characters Personality 0/4 (doesn't exist) Main Characters Personality 1/4 (autism overload) Backdrop 1/4 (only goblin slayer is justified) Development 0/4 (completely negligible unless we consider developing a harem for GS) Motivations 0/4 (what are those? The characters are moved by the writer like fucking mannequins attached to the strings) BONUS SECTION 8/20 Pilot Quality 3/3 (even with the rapey goblins, very good) Target Audience 1/3 (I am not a teenager anymore and this edgy stuff is geared towards grown-up kids at best) Tonal Whiplash 2/3 (That one sex scene with both Sword Maiden and Priestess is dumb) Historical Value 0/3 (Nihil) Catharsis 0/3 (Nada) Memorability 1/3 (people will remember it for the rape scenes) Originality 1/2 (Goblin Slayer [character] seems interesting as a concept) !~ __VERDICT: 34__