English Dub Review: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime “Gran, the Hero of Dawn”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Luminous tells Rimuru of Gran’s past as a hero that ended in bloodshed and betrayal. Meanwhile, Gran in the present begins making plans for his next strike against Tempest, while Leon Cromwell makes a move to get Chloe back, all while Yuki watches from the shadows.
OUR TAKE
Since we’re clearly getting ready for Gran to become a more active participant in events, it’s time to learn his backstory of being a reincarnated hero! And as expected for someone who has grown to be so cynical about humans and hateful towards demons, it’s a tale of well meaning optimism and idealism leading to being put on a pedestal and taking the exact wrong lessons when all of that inevitably comes crashing down around him. As mentioned, Gran was the perfect image of a valiant hero, working with Demon Lord Luminous in some capacity, but when one of his associates sold them all out to other demons and then killed his adventuring companion turned wife Maria to futilely hide his betrayal, Gran left the public eye and devoted himself to controlling what he could from the background. And then he expected Mariabel to become the guiding light for humanity in his stead, but we all know how that turned out. So, now it looks like he’s pulling out all the stops to make a big showing against every Demon Lord he can do some damage to, even calling on his dead wife’s corpse to help out, which is a totally healthy thing to just have lying around your house.
But of course he’s not the only one making plans, I just gave him some extra focus since it’s his name in the title of the episode. There’s also Leon Cromwell, who was so subtly informed of the continued existence of Chloe, who exists as a child in Hinata’s care AND a naked body encased in glass in Luminous’ castle, by Yuki’s usual band of literal clowns, so Cromwell is also going to get in on this coming big fight and cause a further ruckus. Naturally Rimuru and Luminous are expecting stuff to happen soon and making their own preparations, all while being aware that Yuki is the one puppeting things behind the scenes here. So yeah, this episode is mostly about providing context for Gran’s past and future actions while also providing further set up in the present as other forces get ready for a massive confrontation And I really and truly don’t mind a lot of set up for something as long as it’s actually going somewhere, I just get annoyed with this show in particular because it has a bad habit of having a long succession of episodes focusing on either tedious board room meetings or spinning their wheels messing around in a dungeon they made. But it looks like we’re actually headed towards something important here…which is probably where we’re going to end up taking a week off because there was a two week break between this and the next episode when they came out in Japanese and Crunchyroll usually adheres to that. So, see you in two weeks, maybe!
