English Dub Review: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime “Hero King, Gazel Dwargo”

Objection!!!

Overview (Spoilers!) 

Rimaru talks and laughs with Kaijin and the elf ladies. An elf offers Rimaru some services, and they think she’s suggesting sex, but she just meant fortunetelling. She decides to tell them who they’ll end up with, and a woman appears on the crystal ball hugging a host of children. Rimaru thinks she looks Japanese, but before they can ask any more questions, the pompous Minister Vesta interrupts the party. He’s shocked that Kaijin finished the swords early and disgusted that a slime is being served as a guest. An elf girl gives Vesta a drink, and he pours it onto Rimaru. Rimaru is pissed, but they don’t want to make trouble for Kaijin. So naturally, Kaijin punches Vesta in the face.

Kaijin offers to travel with Rimaru to the goblin village, but he, the miners, and Rimaru are arrested for assaulting a minister. They end up back in Gobta’s cell, where he’s still peacefully asleep. Kaijin explains his history with Vesta: he was a captain of an order of royal knights and Vesta was his second-in-command. Vesta was furious that he, the son of a marquis, was forced to work as an underling to the son of peasants, so he framed Kaijin for his own failure to complete a military robotics experiment. The miners declare that they’ll come with Rimaru too. As everyone sleeps, Gobta wakes up, but Rimaru gags him with some slime.

At the trial the next morning, the Hero King Gazel Dwargo presides over the case. The defense lawyer has been bribed by Vesta, and he presents only Vesta’s side of the story. Kaijin is sentenced to 20 years of hard labor in the mines; the miners and Rimaru get 10 years. The king halts the proceedings. He offers Kaijin in a position in his ranks again, but Kaijin explains that he’s already promised to work for Rimaru. Gazel exiles the defendants instead. In private, Gazel berates Vesta for lying, and Vesta is overcome with guilt. The king exiles him as a well.

Kaijin, the miners, and Rimaru set off to find the goblins. Gazel punishes the lawyer and tells his spy to keep an eye on Rimaru, who is too powerful for their own good.

Our Take

If I could somehow type out an onomatopoeia evoking the Law & Order noise, I would do so. I’m not sure why this high fantasy anime became a courtroom drama, and I’m not sure I like the result. Frankly, it’s just boring. I loved the early segments of this show because it was fun to watch Rimaru dick around and meet all sorts of weird and wonderful monsters, but this episode has lost the weirdness and the comedy. “Hero King, Gazel Dwargo” reads like it’s trying to be a serious period drama, which of course it will never achieve with a slime as the main character. The storyline is all about Kaijin and Vesta, neither of whom are particularly interesting or well-developed characters (Kaijin is pure goodness and Vesta is nothing but spiteful and jealous). So we’re left with something that’s trying to be Game of Thrones in a pretty tame and uninventive way.

We start the episode off with more fanservice, which certainly isn’t promising. We have to sit through several seconds of Rimaru’s sex fantasy with an elf woman, and, um—sorry, but how exactly would a slime have sex? How would that work, anatomically? And why does this show think there are viewers sitting at home drooling over a slime sex scene? I’m certainly not, let me tell you.

The party sequence is reasonably funny, though. When Vesta pours his drink on Rimaru’s head, Great Sage analyzes the alcohol, warning that viewers under 20 shouldn’t indulge in it and that the container should always be recycled. And I chuckled at the fortunetelling elf saying she’s going to show Rimaru their soulmate and then announcing, “I don’t see anything.” It’s intriguing, too, that Rimaru’s real soulmate appears to be the hero who sealed Veldora away. I really do hope we get to meet her soon!

But, ugh. The scenes with Gobta. I can do a lot of suspension of disbelief when I’m watching anime. I love fantasy and science fiction as much as the next nerd. But what I don’t believe is that Rimaru would ask specifically for Gobta as their tour guide and then just… abandon him in a jail cell for days. And Gobta is apparently fine with this because he’s been sleeping for like 48 hours straight? Rimaru treats him like shit, hanging him from the ceiling and then gagging him just because they don’t feel like dealing with him, and it sours me to Rimaru a lot. What was even the point of including Gobta in these episodes again? His mistreatment certainly isn’t very funny. Rimaru says that they “probably won’t forget to come back” for Gobta, and I just… seriously question their ability as a leader here.

I also don’t get what, exactly, Vesta was working on for the army. Kaijin says it was some sort of “magi-soldier program,” but it looks like Vesta was working on a robot? This is a medieval fantasy world. What is a robot straight out of RErideD doing here? In general, I feel like Vesta had the potential to become an interesting figure—I love pompous aristocrat characters, and it’s intriguing that Kaijin believes he really is a good man. But unless we get more development of Vesta in the future, it seems like Kaijin was honestly just being naïve. And the king? I like that he has the good sense to be worried by Rimaru’s reckless use of power, but he’s certainly not very fleshed-out at this point, either.

So as we wave Dwargon goodbye, I say good riddance. Hopefully, we’ll bid the period soap operas goodbye and head straight back to the goofy magic shenanigans—with fewer elves next time.

Score
6.0/10