English Dub Review: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime “Meeting the Goblins”

You’ll like this one, vore fans!

Overview (Spoilers!)

Veldora tells the slime that his magicules have been leaking out of him, and he probably only has 100 years left to live. The slime tries to use “predator” on the “unlimited imprisonment” holding Veldora in the cave, but it doesn’t work—so they agree to use predator on Veldora instead. Veldora wants the two friends to give each other names; the slime dubs the dragon “Veldora Tempest,” and Veldora bestows the name “Rimaru Tempest” upon his friend. Rimaru then just straight-up devours him.

In the nearby Kingdom of Blumund, Minister Baron Veryard and Guild Master Fuze talk about Veldora’s disappearance, worrying that other kingdoms are more likely to attack now that they’re not scared of the dragon. Oblivious to the trouble they’ve caused, Rimaru goofs off in the cave some more, acquiring new skills as they attempt to find their way out—until they run into a giant black serpent. Rimaru uses the skill “water blade” to slice off its head. After eating the serpent, Rimaru acquires its skills. They take out and devour several other monsters—an armorsaurus, an evil centipede, a black spider—and gain their skills as well. When they eat a giant bat, Rimaru learns how to speak out loud.

After several weeks, Rimaru finds a door in the cave wall, which opens to reveal three humans. Using the skill “stealth arts,” the humans become invisible and slip into the cave. Rimaru exits into the open air, hoping that Veldora is okay inside them—when they stumble upon a pack of goblins who believe that Rimaru is an exceptionally strong monster. The goblins invite Rimaru back to their humble village and explain that, since their god Veldora disappeared, monsters have been attacking their town. Rimaru doesn’t know why the goblins think a lowly slime is so strong—until they notice their own incredibly powerful magical aura. Sucking it in, Rimaru pretends the whole thing was a test. The goblins ask for Rimaru’s help in defeating the direwolves, who have killed the goblins’ strongest warrior. In exchange for their eternal loyalty, Rimaru agrees to help them.

Our Take 

This is a difficult episode to review, because when it was first posted to the Funimation website—when I first watched it—the audio was not synced to the video. At first, I thought the problem was with my browser, but after reading user comments on the episode, it became clear that the issue was with the video file itself. Funimation has since corrected the mistake, so I’ll try to judge the episode on its own merits, despite the fact that the syncing error initially made certain scenes almost unwatchable (most notably, the exchange between the humans of Blummund).

Fortunately, there isn’t a lot of mouth-flapping in this episode (which is probably why the syncing was so easy to get wrong). We open on Veldora and Rimaru’s telepathic chat, and to be honest, I almost wish we’d gotten to see their mouths move because there isn’t a lot of motion going on the scene at all. The art is pretty successful in general: Veldora’s body is colored with a cool grainy texture, and the animation when Rimaru expands to eat him is pretty amusing to watch. Pretty birds fly by outside the cave, and Rimaru’s eyes widen adorably when they’re surprised. But when the two of them are just talking with their minds, the scene is static and unexpressive.

On the other hand, Rimaru and Veldora’s friendship is so darn uplifting. Their dialogue is fun and silly, especially when they break the fourth wall to look at the audience and let us in on their plans. I love that Rimaru worries about Veldora and promises to go on adventures so that they’ll have cool stories to tell their friend when he returns. And it warms my heart to see how genuinely Rimaru loves their new name, all because their best bud gave it to them: “That moment, I felt something shift deep within my very soul. It was as if the name itself became permanently engraved upon it.” The tone shift is hilariously jarring as they abruptly announce, “Okay, well, I’m gonna eat you now.” I live for weird stuff like this.

Rimaru is so overdramatic and lovable, not least because of their overuse of slang from the 90s and 2000s. Maybe their out-of-date lingo is supposed to indicate their 37-year-oldness, but it also feels like fun pop culture callbacks that fans of this series—which already heavily references fantasy video games and DND—would understand and chuckle at. Some highlights: “Sike!” “I’m going to acquire ALL the skills!” “Predator is the bomb dot com!” “Rimaru used water blade and it was super effective!” Whoever wrote the dialogue for this dub is killing it. (Incidentally: in my review of the last episode, I said that Mallorie Rodak plays Rimaru, and I was unfortunately mistaken. Brittney Karbowski plays Rimaru, and Mallorie Rodak plays the voice that speaks to Rimaru and helps them analyze things. Sorry about that!)

There’s so much to love about this episode. The opening song is really fun. The goblins are charmingly awkward. In a clever nod to the video games, this series is based on, Rimaru changes the perspective on magic sense so that they can see themselves in the third person.

But there are also some moments that don’t quite land. I couldn’t care less about the two powerful humans who are inconvenienced by Rimaru’s actions. Compared to all the hilarious magic hijinks going on around them, their designs are boring, their dialogue is boring, and their problems are the same as the goblins’, except more boring. And as much as I love Rimaru’s carefree nature, at times their insensitivity feels grating and overblown. They never seem to connect that that their actions have consequences, that they directly caused the massacre of these goblins’ town, and they certainly never feel remorse about it. And when the goblins ask them for help, their immediate response of “What’s in it for me?” leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Hopefully, this will be a character flaw that’s addressed in future episodes. Lastly, I rolled my eyes at the goblin clarifying how many fighters they have “including women.” I let Rimaru’s occasional objectification of women slide because it’s infrequent and in-character, but come on. This is a fantasy world with talking dragons, and we still can’t acknowledge that women can be good at fighting?

Unfortunate syncing errors aside, this episode has plenty of wacky shenanigans to offer.