English Dub Review: Goblin Slayer “The Fate of Particular Adventurers”

What time is it? Not Adventure Time. Definitely not Adventure Time.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

A Priestess (Hayden Daviau) finishes the paperwork to become a full-fledged Adventurer, starting out at the lowest rank, Porcelain. Eager to get out in the field, she joins up with a group of Porcelain rankers to take on a seemingly low-level quest: Goblin slaying. Everyone seems gung-ho about the quest at first, but things go south fast as everyone except the Priestess is raped, poisoned, or killed. It’s only thanks to the timely intervention of the Goblin Slayer (Brad Hawkins), an adventurer who only takes missions that deal with the extermination of Goblins. He relentlessly slaughters every single one in front of the Priestess, including the children, much to her shock. The one other survivor of the party is mentally broken and apparently, tragic events like this are common for rookie groups, but the Priestess is still committed to being an Adventurer alongside the Goblin Slayer.

OUR TAKE

When this episode first premiered on Crunchyroll a few weeks ago, it stirred up a lot of controversies, and for good reason. This is a positively brutal introduction to a show that seemed to start off like a more typical fantasy story, with the majority of what might’ve been our main cast slaughtered and assaulted in minutes while the innocent healer watches. It’s not hard to see why this was a major turn off for plenty of viewers who were probably expecting something tense but more light-hearted. In an era of media full of grim and gritty reboots and subversions, many people have learned to write off shows and movies that dip too far into a dark tone as being “edgy” and writing off those stories and those who openly enjoy them.

But the tone, like any other component of a story, is just a tool that can sometimes be used well and sometimes used poorly. In this case, if the intent was to make clear how treacherous and deadly even supposedly minor threats like Goblins are, it definitely pulled that off. It’s a very blatant message that life can be very unforgiving at times, and a lack of preparation can get you killed. Additionally, sometimes the only way to combat the seemingly endless punishment of chaos and misery is to become a single-minded exterminator, as shown with the introduction of the titular Goblin Slayer who efficiently kills off every multiple types of Goblins with calculated planning when the previous Adventurer team could only swing blindly and pick off maybe a couple.

And yet, I think it’s also apparent that we aren’t meant to see the Slayer as an unambiguous hero based his face being covered by armor and his prioritizing Goblin death over human life. This is where the Priestess comes in as a more relatable audience viewpoint character. Like her, we are eager to begin this journey and are horrified when a simple quest turns into such a wholesale slaughter, and so the Goblin Slayer almost seems like someone with a unique knowledge of how to become a proper Adventurer despite knowing he’s very much consumed by his hate for Goblins. Something happened to drive him this far, but what this will have to wait till a future episode.

Though getting back to the polarizing nature of this episode, I can’t help but also understand the strong repulsion of the premise based on what happens here. The difference of treatment in media regarding murder versus rape is…complicated, and not something I feel qualified to get into here, but this series is very much for an audience that is willing and open to seeing this sort of bleakness in their fiction. There is no shame in not being able or not being willing to expose yourself to a series that makes you feel uncomfortable. Luckily for me, at least regarding this show, I’m very interested in seeing the next step in this adventure.