English Dub Review: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: “The Beauty Makes Her Move”

Overview: Before heading home to Tempest, Rimuru (Brittany Karbowski) is forced to contend with one of Shizu’s (Dawn M. Bennett) past students, Hinata Sakaguchi (Alexis Tipton).

Our Take: Before the main meat and potatoes of “The Beauty Makes Her Move” Tempest continues to deal with the ongoing attack from the Kingdom of Falmuth. Matters are looking to be increasingly dire especially for Shuna, Hakurou and Shion as the princess is in enemy’s crosshairs and the others are weakened from the magic dampening force field. The siege has been slowly picking up steam to the narrative’s benefit. Similar to how well executed it was in the Saiyan saga of DBZ, Slime is off to a strong start as it winds up the tension by showing just how vulnerable without their natural, physical abilities and magic capabilities. Similarly to Goku’s entrance, if it can keep this momentum up, it should make for a satisfying return for Rimuru. 

At long last, the meeting that’s been much anticipated has finally come to pass. Rimuru meets another of Shizu’s disciples, Hinata Sakaguchi. Suffice to say it’s pretty paint-by-numbers and it goes about how you would expect with these types of meetings. Hinata doesn’t understand the context, or even try to, behind why Rimuru killed Shizu and is ignorantly attacking him without seeing the bigger picture. Coming to the conclusion that someone has painted him as a villain to Hinata, Rimuru tries to explain but even worse she doesn’t even try to keep an open mind and therefore conflict ensues. Although, her no nonsense attitude makes for good chemistry with Rimuru’s kinder demeanor and gets the ball rolling in combat well enough. 

The real intriguing bit here is how much of an insane beast Hinata is. Granted, Rimuru is weakened from a barrier she put up, but what makes their battle so damn exciting is how she’s able to top whatever Rimuru dishes out. Not to mention how ridiculously overpowered her abilities, like being able to steal abilities and seventh kill shots. But when dealing with someone equally as broken as Rimuru, it only makes sense to have someone who can match that and maybe even more so. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be all that engaging to watch. The animation is clean too with a focus on the speed and fluidity of their strikes and movement. Another takeaway from this fight is this arc just keeps layering on the threats like an antagonist lasagna. Besides chomping at the bit to see another side of Rimuru’s power at the end, the emphasis on enemies on all sides and battles coming from every direction brings the anticipation to all-time high. Even from potential ones we haven’t seen, like that of Malim. But with only six episodes left this cour, I do wonder if it can be both developed and tied up adequately in the remaining time. Or perhaps it’ll leave some plotlines to be resolved in the second cour? 

Episode six delivers a thrilling-as-hell ride and builds hype for its impending threats, akin to that of a Shonen, that’ll challenge Rimuru and the nation of Tempest in the coming episodes. Hopefully, once the dust settles between Rimuru and Hinata, there’s an interesting new character somewhere in there as well, despite her mixed introduction.