English Dub Review: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: “Putting Everything on the Line”

Overview: Rimuru (Brittany Karbowski) reveals to Shuna (Tia Ballard), Hakuru (Charles Campbell), Benimaru (Ricco Fajardo) and the rest of the gang about who he once was. Also, the plan of attack on Falmuth’s forces is set into motion. 

Our Take: In “Putting Everything on the Line,” Rimuru does just that as he finally reveals his past human life to his monster family. And honestly it goes just about the way you would expect. Which is to say all of them have complete trust in him no matter who he used to be in his former life. Suffice to say this is nothing notably shocking as the revelation played out, more or less, exactly as assumed. I don’t believe anyone, myself included, believed that Rimuru would have been repulsed and alienated from his friends, especially after their shared history. 

Although with that being said, part of me hoped someone would have had some sort of interesting reaction and/or initiated some kind of engaging discussion. The formulaic response from the group as a whole is actually what made it decently underwhelming. Something original to break from the general norm of these types of scenes. But hey there’s nothing wrong with some good ol’ fashioned love and tenderness either, it just could have benefited from a more emotional, heartfelt scene than what was given. It would have been nice if there was payoff from it by building upon the scene in a more meaningful way. 

The other latter half of this episode is Tempest’s pre-planning of the attack on Falmuth soldiers. It sets up all character’s roles in the battle, if you can even call it that, because it’s going to be an absolute massacre. The one slaughter of note that looks especially fun is Hakuru, who just looks raring to go and itching for payback on Kyoya. Then we also got Rimuru who has clearly had enough of the carnage inflicted on his friends and is just about to go ham and eviscerate anything and everything. 

Episode 9 of Slime tries to put its best foot forward, just not quite far as it could have. The isekai struggled to make the most of an important development, falling flat somewhat in the process.  However, at the very least, it was able to build up some much needed excitement for the last three episodes to come.