English Dub Review: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime “Demon Lord Milim Attacks”

Jesus, episode title, tag your spoilers!

Overview (Spoilers Below!)

Gazel Dwargo returns with a gift for Rimuru—and it’s Vesta?! He profusely apologizes and vows to start over in Rimuru’s village. Kaijin vouches for him, so Rimuru agrees. Gabiru and his sister appear, asking for a home in the JTF as well. Rimuru names the sister (“Souka”) as well as her and Gabiru’s companions. The newly evolved female dragon newts look almost human, but the males still look like lizards for… some reason. Rimuru puts Gabiru and his men to work foraging for magical herbs while Souei trains Souka and her guard. Vesta works on new methods of producing healing potions.

Clayman and his friends watch videos of Rimuru. Demon Lord Milim is intrigued and wants to play with this new “toy” herself, so she crash-lands outside Rimuru’s village. Milim says that she just wanted to say hi, but the kijin attack her preemptively. Alas, Milim is far stronger than a team of Shion, Souei, and Benimaru.

Milim makes Rimuru promise to serve her if they can’t beat her in a fight. Despite the fact that Milim is ten times stronger, Rimuru agrees. They feed her honey that they found in the forest; Milim squeals over the delicious flavor, and Rimuru promises her more of it if she admits defeat. Milim agrees to call it a draw and promises to never attack the JTF ever again.

Milim asks if Rimuru has any interest in becoming a Demon Lord and describes a boring life of constant battles and bossing majin around. Rimuru says they’ll pass. Milim is sure that they must be having much more fun, so she insists on seeing Rimuru’s village. Rimuru introduces her to the citizens, who are awed by Milim’s fame. Much to Rimuru’s surprise, she announces that she’ll be moving in today—and that Rimuru is her best friend!

Rimuru relaxes in the bath with Shion, Shuna, and Milim. Later, Rimuru’s advisors express their concern—if the other Demon Lords find out that Milim is living in the JTF, they might believe she’s expanded her sphere of influence and retaliate to maintain balance. Everyone’s content to leave everything up to Rimuru, though.

Our Take

This episode is very… anime.

What I mean to say is—it has all the elements I like most about anime, but also all the aspects of the genre that most frustrate me. On the positive end of things, it’s a fun storyline that infuses fantasy with delightfully ridiculous situations. Milim is adorable—her face, her hair, her obsession with honey, her extreme enthusiasm, her tendency to do everything a little over-the-top. Immediately, I knew this was a character who would shake things up, who would bring a much-needed lightheartedness to Rimuru’s world.

On the other hand… Milim wears the fantasy equivalent of a crop top and a thong, with her butt constantly on display for anyone to see. This wouldn’t be so bad if she were, you know, an adult woman making well-informed clothing choices that make her happy, but other characters constantly point out Milim’s youthful nature: Gabiru refers to her as a “little girl,” and Rimuru says she has the “heart of a child.” So… sexualizing children? Very anime, but not going to score this show any points in my book.

More so than previous episodes, this episode is all about the fanservice, often to the determent of coherent worldbuilding. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that the show’s crew decided to make female dragon newts almost human in appearance so that we could ogle over them and view them as potential waifus. But why would that make sense at all from a biological perspective? If a straight lizardman couple fell in love and then evolved, would a humanoid woman have to date an athro lizard? This is getting a little too weird for me.

Of course, there’s also the blatant fanservice scene at the very end, where Shion (who is more a pair of breasts than a character) can’t resist standing up to splash Milim, bearing her hefty chest to the camera. It’s just… so unnecessary. The first bath scene passes blissfully without incident—a non-binary-but-probably-male-leaning-and-definitely-into-women slime takes a bath with three nude girls, and nothing happens! It’s just chill! They’re friends taking a bath! What a pleasant contrast to the unspeakable bath scene in last season’s The Master of Ragnorak & Blesser of Einherjar. And then the show had to go and ruin it. Bummer.

But yeah, there are so many weird things about this episode. Gazel giving Vesta as a gift, referring to him as a “resource” to be shared? That gives me the creeps. Why is Rimuru’s first thought upon meeting Milim that she’s flat-chested? Who cares? She’s an incredibly powerful Demon Lord trying to fight you!

That being said, there’s a lot to love about this episode as well. Milim brings loads of fun to the party, not least because of Kristen McGuire’s charming, spunky voicework. Unfortunate clothing choices aside, I like her character design as a complement to Rimuru—like the slime’s human form, Milim has pastel eyelashes the color of her hair, and her blushes are all too cute. The fight between them may be one of my favorites in Slime—I love when Rimuru figures out fresh and inventive answers to the problems facing them. Finally, we get to see Rimuru squaring off against someone more powerful than they are, and the solution they find is ingenuous: when you can’t possibly win in a battle of physical strength, bribe your way to the top. Milim’s genuine delight over something as a simple as honey is a joy to behold—and it’s pretty funny too.

Rimuru’s modern jargon is once again hilarious in this fantasy setting, slinging phrases like “Sounds legit,” “I get it, but be chill, dude,” “What’s up, my guy?,” and “Besties for resties!” In fact, they get the whole town chanting the latter phrase to immense comedic effect. In the bath, they’re surrounded by rubber ducks in the shape of mini slimes—I thought this was hilarious when I saw it pointed out on Kristen McGuire’s twitter, but it was a bit confusing in the moment. Initially, it almost looks like Rimuru had a bunch of tiny baby slimes.

It’s nice, too, that Rimuru’s actions are shown to have some consequences here. Rushing to befriend Milim could leave the JTF open to attack, just as befriending Veldora brought on a whole host of problems. I like that Rimuru’s style seems to be to forge bonds first, ask questions later, but I do hope they someday get to experience some character development—maybe through learning to think before making political decisions with widespread ramifications? Or everyone could learn that, you know, not everything can be left up to Rimuru all the time, since they’re far from perfect?

All in all, this was an enjoyable episode, but if the show tips much further into fanservice territory, they might have to rename it That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Porn Star.