English Dub Review: The Slime Diaries “Enjoying New Year’s to the Fullest”

Overview: Rimuru (Brittney Karbowski), Shion (Michelle Rojas), Shuna (Tia Ballard), Malim (Kristen McGuire) and the rest of Tempest ring in the new year by praying to their lord and savior slime, writing their wishes for the future, picking fortunes and simply enjoying their time together. 

Our Take: New Year’s day is kicked off well with Rimuru’s joke gift in his “dropping of the ball.” It shows more of the charming cultural disconnect between him and the otherworld natives in the differing celebrations recognized and the practices that are associated with them. However, Rimuru spreading his own traditions is always a joy like him introducing the Japanese practice of a shrine visit, post New Year’s. The punchline being that he is the deity that is prayed too is just more amusing fuel for his discomfort over being hailed. An interesting factoid that never dawned on me was the lack of the money used in the shrine ritual due to there being no currency yet in Tempest, at least in the anime. 

There’s more raging breasts between Shion and Malim. It may be a tired joke but the series manages to make it refreshingly funny with entertaining dialogue, especially with Michelle Rojas and Kristen McGuire’s delivery in their feisty and fired up squabbling. Other fun activities make up the rest of the episode like drawing fortunes and Gabiru getting a joke one or the kids playing a matching game with Rimuru’s slime likeness. It gives Gobta an opportunity to be the prick we all know and love and honestly with how much everyone worships the altar of Rimuru, quite literally this time around, it is a nice change of pace in Gobta being a rambunctious pissant. 

Everyone does some very pretty calligraphy expressing their new year’s resolutions. What was not pleasing to the eye were the lack of subtitles for scenes with Japanese text for the English Dub version of the series. It is a recurring technical issue that forced me to switch to the subbed version to understand the full context and will hopefully be cleared up in the future for better clarity. 

There are other brief cute moments that help round out the episode with some downtime focused on the rest of the cast. Shion and Malim engage in a badminton brawl, Youm, Geld and Hakurou pound out their mochi and Souka and Souei engage in the cute date-like activity of flying kites. 

The unfortunate truth in slimes not being able to dream makes what Rimuru would like to in Shizu, equal parts heartwarming and saddening. There’s Treyni’s warning of the impending Charybdis battle towards the end of the first season that nicely solidifies its placement in the timeline. For all the enjoyable lighthearted affair and lore bits, it’s unfortunately missing the deeper commentary and themes it’s cultivated throughout the various topics it covers. With that said, Malim’s childlike spirit with Rimuru makes for a nice sweet ending as the bustling life of Tempest goes on making for a nice continuation of the city’s status quo. And although he didn’t get around to it this time, hopefully, Rimuru will fill his diary with even more great stories of everyday life in Tempest with more spirited shenanigans and therapeutic relaxation somewhere down the line.