English Dub Review: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime “Nation’s Opening Festival; The Martial Arts Tournament”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Rimiru makes final preparations and stays wary of possible attacks and blah blah blah TOURNAMENT ARC TIME.

OUR TAKE

After another inexplicable break, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is back for the final stretch and a double episode release, which FINALLY gets us to the much hyped tournament. Aaaaaaaaaand…most of the rounds are devoid of much fighting and we’re at the finals within ten minutes. Naturally Masayuki gets through his rounds (one against his friend and another he convinces to forfeit) without any real effort at all, as goes his established ability to make things super convenient for him whenever he needs it, which is how he got this far in the first place. The other fights involve that horse guy and that ox guy fighting and, of all people, Gobta, who manages to land the other finalist spot. Oh, and the boar/ogre guy and a guy in beast mask, to be honest I don’t really care about them and it just goes to show how totally bloated this cast is and how many characters are blurring together at this point. But yeah, the final match is going to be between the invincible cheat code hero and a tiny goblin, so by the rules of narrative irony, it looks like Gobta might actually have a chance here!

And with that, we only have three episodes of this season to go. It’s kinda crazy to think that we’ve been on this ride nearly, or possibly more than, six months, but we only have the antepenultimate (a word I just learned!), the penultimate, and the finale left to watch. Storywise, all that’s left to be resolved is finishing up this tournament, which we’ll get to next time, and finally getting to see the fruits of the labors put into the labyrinth, which it seems like will be the episode after that. Crazy how all of this build up and all of these side stories don’t seem like they’re going to have much impact or significance in the long run of this arc, but to be perfectly honest, I’m just glad this will be over soon. I can pout and whine about having to sit through all of those episodes as much as I like (and boy do I intend to when it comes to the season review), but for the moment, I’m just going to be glad we got this fighting tournament…even though it absolutely should have been a lot longer and a lot earlier in this whole thing.