Goblin Slayer, Episode 1: The Fate of Particular Adventurers
What is it with anime and RPG themes recently? There's Overlord with its third season wrapping up recently, Sword Art Online started a third season, and there's that new anime starring a Slime or whatever. And then there's Goblin Slayer. Like, is there some huge D&D boom in Japan I'm not aware of?
Well, Goblin Slayer is a light novel adapted into a manga adapted into an anime, and it's famous for being... pretty dang gory and rape-y. Where Overlord is the deconstruction of video game and tabletop roleplaying tropes where an overpowered god-like undead walks around in a setting that's woefully under-prepared for him, Goblin Slayer's theme seems to be that even the weakest enemies can do harm if you're inexperienced enough.
As an avid roleplayer myself, I am always a big fan whenever things like goblins and kobolds and all those weaker little monsters end up being subverted, either making them intelligent or heroic or anti-heroic or, in this case, going all-in with the repulsive vermin thing. Goblins are still weak and a lot of them die to single blows, but there's a lot of them, they're vile, they're cruel, and they will kill you and rape you. At that last part might be where things get brought a bit too far. I actually read the first issue of Goblin Slayer -- didn't hate it, but I wouldn't say I loved it either, with there being way too many panels of gratuitous gore and rape. And I think the anime keeps things moving fast enough that while the rape was definitely implied, enough of it is offscreen and it's executed... about as well as rape can be executed in an anime, anyway.
It's definitely a neat little episode with a decent enough animation budget, jumping straight into the point of the series. A bunch of novice adventurers -- a priestess, a warrior, a monk and a wizard -- go into a seemingly simple 'exterminate goblins in a cave' mission, fantasizing about how they're going to quickly advance in rank... only to find that the goblins are far, far more dangerous than they bargained for. And the series basically deconstructs all the flashier, more romanticized aspects of the fantasy genre. You can't really see a whole lot in caves and this whole 'darkvision' thing really gives the goblins a leg up. Just because the goblins are stupid doesn't mean they can't set up ambushes. Simply having healing spells might not cure deep, bleeding, gaping wounds. And swinging a sword around like a jackass in closed quarters not only blocks your other comrades and preventing them from assisting you, but also, y'know, will cause your sword to get trapped and get caught on the cave ceiling and shit.
The party gets wiped out pretty quickly, the warrior stabbed to death, the monk broken and raped, and the wizard dying from a poisoned wound, and mercy-killed by the arrival of the Goblin Slayer, saving the unnamed Priestess in time. And, by god, it's a brutal, brutal scene. That's the whole deal about this anime -- it's aimed for the older ones in the audience, and it does manage to get some pretty brutal scenes thrown in.
Goblin Slayer's methods are brutal and quick, and it's clear that while none of his methods are flashy or heroic, it's effective. Sort of a fight-fire-with-fire thing, and while seeing him firebombing the nasty goblins that killed and raped the young adventurers earlier, it's clear that the Goblin Slayer's not right in the head himself. Mercy-killing the wizard girl might have been the right course of action, but he agrees to it a bit too quickly. He also, very, very brutally murders a bunch of goblin children in such a matter-of-fact way that it's pretty chilling -- evidently, some shit went down in his past. Is he even human, I wonder?
Goblin Slayer's methods are brutal and quick, and it's clear that while none of his methods are flashy or heroic, it's effective. Sort of a fight-fire-with-fire thing, and while seeing him firebombing the nasty goblins that killed and raped the young adventurers earlier, it's clear that the Goblin Slayer's not right in the head himself. Mercy-killing the wizard girl might have been the right course of action, but he agrees to it a bit too quickly. He also, very, very brutally murders a bunch of goblin children in such a matter-of-fact way that it's pretty chilling -- evidently, some shit went down in his past. Is he even human, I wonder?
Overall, it's... it's actually an okay opening episode. The rape's been toned down a little while still keeping in the horror that the goblins' depraved actions mean towards the adventuring party, and the animation's crisp enough. It's a series that, while a bit more... dark'n'edgy compared to most of its contemporaries, does seem to have enough neat concepts in the deconstruction of the adventurer-hunting-goblins thing that I'm curious, if nothing else.
Not sure if I'll review this weekly, but you get this first episode, if nothing else.
Not sure if I'll review this weekly, but you get this first episode, if nothing else.
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