English Dub Review: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: “The Scheming Kingdom of Falmuth”

Overview: Myuran (Colleen Clickenbeard) and Youm (David Matranga) arrive at Tempest City as the majin scouts out the territory and gets acquainted with Shion (Michelle Rojas), Shuna (Tia Ballard) and the others. Meanwhile, Rimuru (Brittany Karbowski) finishes his time as a teacher and unbeknownst to him the king of Falmuth hatches a plan to subjugate his nation. 

Our Take: In “The Scheming Kingdom of Falmuth,” you can begin to see the pieces falling into place, as the main driving forces of the narrative come into play. There are multiple components to this episode as it gives us a look at the threats on every side with many new faces introducing themselves.    

For one, we begin to Myuran becoming attached to Youm and Tempest as a whole as she begins getting to know everyone. Her inclusion within the group feels pretty organic due to not only the levity throughout but how you can tell she’s not used to her and her strength being accepted by others and finds it flattering by the refreshing change of pace. However, it does seem to be going down a paint-by-numbers route somewhat. As she becomes more friendly with Tempest, it will obviously be revealed sooner rather than later that she’s a mole. This, in turn, will undoubtedly complicate the friendships she’s started building. Although, when the show does most likely go down this path, hopefully it’ll be executed well with some great voice work and heartbreaking moments as it would surely make up for it’s conventional nature. 

This episode isn’t animation intensive and really doesn’t need to be due to not a lot of action happening on screen. However, the sequence with Hakurou absolutely demolishing Youm, Gobta and Grucius while entertaining is underwhelming because of how stagant it feels and it’s lack of motion, or illusion thereof. 

Like the name of the episode suggests, we do indeed get the scheming kingdom of Falmuth. That’s pretty much how it can be summed up honestly. The king feels Rimuru’s increased business and, in turn, the decreased traffic in his kingdom, is threatening. Speaking of Rimuru, he works as a compelling plot device to grasp the threat that Falmuth represents and it does a good job of increasing anticipation. Other than that, not much else, except for some mad fan appreciation for Parasyte from his students. Parasyte references are always welcome. That made me smile. But back to Falmuth, it honestly made me chuckle quite a bit at how mustache twirly and generic and his council were. The uppity king, the priest who belongs in a looney bin, the list goes on. But truthfully there’s also a charm there too when they inevitably get stomped, or perhaps when they won’t as they seem to have a secret weapon on their side. Humans from modern day Tokyo! So far, I like how they all seem different from one another, personality wise, but at the same time, most of them, seem like they’ll be reduced to high and mighty antagonists, so hopefully they will be fleshed out further later on.  

Lastly, it is teased that Malim is being manipulated somehow by Clayman and with that, offers all the threatening factors (that we know of) that will rear their ugly head as episode 5 closes with new enemies on the horizon.