"My grandma keeps a vial with all the kidney stones that she has passed; The biggest one she passed was the size of a pingpong ball, yeah I know! No I've never passed one that big"Amanogawa Shiina

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reinigen

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TKN_Lurker

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Crunchyroll staff are now possibly complicit in mail theft lmao.
 

God's Strongest Dragoon

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Crunchyroll staff are now possibly complicit in mail theft lmao.

Pretty sure that's a felony for every piece of mail. Seeing as how Crunchyroll is headquartered in California, San Francisco specifically, that's automatically prison time just for 3 pieces of mail. This is a nuclear event if they have evidence of this happening.
 

Banana Hammock

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Crunchyroll staff are now possibly complicit in mail theft lmao.

Good going, retards. DEI hires are all fans of crime, so what the fuck were you expecting?
 

TKN_Lurker

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Joined:  Dec 19, 2023
Pretty sure that's a felony for every piece of mail. Seeing as how Crunchyroll is headquartered in California, San Francisco specifically, that's automatically prison time just for 3 pieces of mail. This is a nuclear event if they have evidence of this happening.
The VA in the tweet apparently found out because someone broke confidentiality to inform him about it. He's now contacting his producers and they've given him the cold shoulder. They're absolutely guilty.



Don't feel bad for him btw. He voted for this and got what he deserved. Get fucked.
 

God's Strongest Dragoon

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Joined:  Mar 20, 2023
The VA in the tweet apparently found out because someone broke confidentiality to inform him about it. He's now contacting his producers and they've given him the cold shoulder. They're absolutely guilty.
Oh yeah, they're super fucked.
 

Nenélove

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CONSISTENCY? WHAT IS THIS?!

Yes it is me, the guy who uses this dead thread for things it wasn't meant to be used for because nobody likes to read anymore! Boo-hoo go watch your flavor of the month animu and cry if you don't like it FAGS! We are finally reaching deep into the dumpster with our first truly negative review! So strap in fuckers! Cause this one is a stinker too popular for its own good (many such cases).

Today I have the displeasure of reviewing:
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (Tensei Shitara Suraimu Datta Ken)

Volumes Read:
Up to Volume 15

Original run:
May 30th, 2014 – Present (Complete publishing re-write, original Webnovel run completed from 2013-2016)

Author:
Fuse

Genre:
Isekai (Political Fiction, High Fantasy/Hard Magic, Kingdom Building, Heavy RPG Elements, Cultivation/Powerleveling)

Slime (as I will refer to it from now on) is the story of a dude who gets transported to another world after he gets shanked by some random guy in the street (seeing a pattern here...), its main selling point is that our lead, Rimuru, is not reborn as a human, but instead he becomes the trashiest of trash mobs: the slime.

The book as a whole is an ironic statement about how the weak widdle slimu is actually the strongest of all beings because... irony I guess? I think the writer just found it funny, and even though it gets old and becomes basically irrelevant by end of the first volume, the author finding things funny and then adding them into the story is a recurrent and obnoxious theme.

Slime is, on paper, a fusion of stale as all hell powerleveling nonsense and fun kingdom building antics. One half of it is painfully derivative, confusing, boring and tensionless even though it wants to be taken seriously... while dropping gags every 5 seconds, while the other should've in my opinion been the main focus and would've been absolutely perfect if paired with a more grounded story.

The worldbuilding of Slime is both unoriginal and bizarre at the same time.

The story takes place in an unnamed continent with the most tropey locations ever conceived by man. There's a big forest, a huge colonialist empire, a bunch of micronations loosely based off of Europe but with no distinctive features whatsoever, a Totalitarian Holy state and Big dwarf mountain place among others. The inhabitants of the world are not much better, they're all straight out of the D&D toolbox of bastardized Tolkien races! You got your dwarves, your elves, your dragons, your pig-orcs, your lizardmen, your goblins, your beastmen and many more! There's really nothing that isn't derivative when it comes to the book's worldbuilding.

If locations and inhabitants are a bust, then it isn't much of a surprise that our home location of Tempest is not much better, the culture and descriptions of the place are basically just the usual Japanese self-fellation, describing the entire world as primitive and backwards until OUR LAWD REEEEMURU! comes to enlighten the smelly pagans with the ways of the east! There's little in the way of unique cultural customs anywhere beyond RPG style "Dwarves have tech", "Elves have mystical magic nonsense", the humans are divided into nations but they could all be the same people except for maybe the not-christians at the holy state who are essentially just Vatican communists.

Really there's not that much to say because the story is completely uninterested in worldbuilding and only puts in any effort when it needs it for some setpiece. The world might as well not exist until Rimuru needs a new baddie to effortlessly decimate. Whatever lore does exist with the demon lords, the dragons and the realms of hell or whatever is confusing and convoluted, it's never explained properly and it just serves as a goodie bag of strong warmongering assholes that need to be defeated.

Magic in this world has like 5 different incoherent systems that all exist at the same time, there's elemental magic and spirit magic and abilities and spells and a whole bunch of nonsense that is as confusing as it is meaningless. It doesn't really matter what characters do in a fight because it mostly boils down to "this character is stronger so they win" and that's basically it. You also have your usual deus-ex-machina style attacks and abilities which break the rules of the world because "it's cool" or whatever. You can honestly ignore all of the RPG magic spell babble and number counting because it is never relevant.

If you have read a bad isekai story then you already know Slime's world. Generic, stupid and irrelevant.

Protagonist:
Our Protagonist is Rimuru Tempest (yes his name is that dumb), a wagie who dies and gets turned into a slime. Rimuru is awful, full stop, I honestly freaking hate this twink with a passion.

Rimuru is the pinnacle of isekai main character awfulness: he's hyper-confident, always in the right, everyone who is good in the story loves him, he's somehow aloof and too cool for serious discussions but also a master negotiator and strategist, he's often described as "beautiful", he's kind, caring, magnanimous with those who the story feels deserve it and he always makes the right choices. Also he's overpowered as all hell from the first chapter so he's never in any real danger or looks vulnerable.

Rimuru is basically a Mary Sue on steroids, everyone who loves him is forever good, everyone who hates him gets brutally murdered or put in their place so they learn the error of their ways. He doesn't have any character flaws, any kind of arc and he rarely questions himself or is plagued by insecurities. He's also suuuuuuuper damn passive, Rimuru never moves a damn toe if the story doesn't force him to. His literal. stated. purpose. and wish is, not fucking with you, to be friends with everyone and live in peace and comfort forever. The story has to introduce these hyper-intolerant, warmongering villains for it to even make sense for Rimuru to take any kind of action and for the story to go anywhere.

But my searing hatred for Rimuru mainly comes from the fact that, as a character concept, he's a huge missed opportunity. The whole point and title of the book is that Rimuru is a slime, how interesting would it be for this super weak creature to be infused with the mind of a person and have to cope with the fact he has to live as a weak, disgusting blob for the rest of his life? Maybe he would slowly make friends with other creatures and rise above through his advanced technological knowledge and people skills, being looked down upon but always weathering adversity as a symbol that even the weakest among us can be great rulers...?!

BAHAHAHHAHAHA! IF ONLY! No Fuse basically goes FUCK THAT and Rimuru becomes this androgynous twink at the end of volume one through a nonsensical story beat, him being a slime has absolutely no bearing on the plot whatsoever, he could've been just a regular human from the beginning with ability steal or whatever. He spends the rest of the story as a dude so what the hell was even the point of the slime stuff?

It's embarrassing to me that the title of the book is ultimately just a superficial gimmick to try to distinguish slime from the rest of the isekai trash which gets pumped on a daily basis in writing websites. They should rename it to "Dude becomes super strong by pure chance and builds a resort in the middle of nowhere" and it would reflect the story better.

Main characters:
The characters of slime are all the same character with different cookie-cutter character traits. That's basically all there is to them.

Once characters in this book become allies or friends of Rimuru (aka they become good) they all adopt the same laid-back, self-aware, playful and joking personality which Rimuru has. Rarely do people in this book act seriously or no nonsense unless they're evil or the book decides its drama time and people have to be serious (which only happens once early on and then never again).

Even those who stray from this mold tend to just be tropes: The over obsessed servant, the untouchable lady who is actually like a kid (twice), the tsundere antagonist, the obnoxious fucking freeloader everyone tolerates for no reason (like 5 times). Every character is like an unfunny joke repeated over and over, none of them have any kind of progression apart from leveling up sometimes which just makes them more confident and powerful, and some characters like the dragon, the fairy and Milim are super. FUCKING. annoying, their whole characters are that they're selfish assholes who Rimuru just tolerates and them being obnoxious is the joke HAHAHAHAH.

The only characters with "arcs" in the book are the antagonists who see the light of god (Rimuru) and turn good and become better versions of themselves.

The book also has a ton of characters, the only praise I can give is that they are not forgettable. The ultra-condensed nature of their sole character trait makes them somehow memorable, specially the annoying ones.

Also Fuse literally has an unironic fucking self-insert character with the same name, idk if this fact is admirable or laughable or a bit of both.

Antagonists:
Slime's antagonists are numerous but hardly interesting. Most are given demon slayer-brand pointless backstories to try to convince you that you're supposed to care and they have more depth than they actually do. Of course, this doesn't stop a lot of them from being unceremoniously dispatched like a Ugandan poacher blowing the ever loving shit out of an elephant's brains with a rifle before stealing the ivory to sell to the chinks.

The antagonists in this story are essentially just bumps in Rimuru's powerleveling world tour. They appear ominously in the background, set their eeeeevil plan in motion, wreck some shit up, Rimuru "struggles" to beat them for like 10 seconds and then he has a deus-ex-machina second wind moment and he or his minions beat the ever loving shit out of the baddie. Repeat ad infinitum.

Slime's pacing is all over the place. Events are rarely strung together in any kind of timeline (which lets the writer completely ignore plot holes relating to the time that it takes to do things), things just happen whenever the author decides they should, distances rarely matter and characters are always where they're supposed to be.

The book is loosely divided into two different tonalities or "modes". Action mode; where we are facing some new overpowered foe, and city-building or casual mode, which is a lot less narratively driven and a lot more slice-of-life. I have made no secret in that I despise the powerleveling aspect of the book. It's generic, derivative, repetitive, and only entertaining if you turn off your brain and ignore the nonsense. The city-building aspect however, can be somewhat enjoyable. It is the only part of the book where I could see Fuse being creative and coming up with clever developments in Rimuru's city where everything becomes more complex with time and the monsters innovate using his tech knowhow with unique twist of their own.

The tone of the book is overly casual and almost comical. Tension and heavy stakes are almost non-existent, probably to appeal to a wider/younger audience... which ends up looking ridiculous when the story decides to be serious for once while the characters crack jokes and goof around like frat dorm bros.

The style suffers from a similar issue. The writing and language used is all incredibly casual and simplistic, the characters all talk in a similar swaggery, laidback, self-aware way, which makes the whole thing feel like it doesn't want you to take it seriously... until it does when the villain of the week shows up.

All of these issues work together to make Slime a mixed mess with two conflicting story focuses fighting for dominance. Add to all of this all manner of narrative AIDS like instant portals, time travel, multiple dimensions, plot points which are brought up and then get forgotten about for volumes at a time in an almost anthological fashion and heaps upon heaps of deus-ex-machina plot breaking abilities and characters.

As for themes... slime has none. Because you're not supposed to think when you consume this crap. This is just an easy and quick injection of dopamine, and like dopamine it eventually wears out and you begin realizing that it was never good for you in the first place.

Slime is not very good, in fact it could be described as nothing more than a generic Isekai with a pointless gimmick glued onto it.

Yet a lot of the blame does not lie with it. Slime is a product of a consumer-base which has a standard kind of product they want to consume and the only way to rise above and get published in writing websites is to cater to the lowest denominator. I don't doubt Fuse is capable of good storytelling since even in this flawed work some of his talent shines through.

And that is the saddest part of it all, the amount of wasted potential hidden in this series. I genuinely believe a book about a Slime becoming the king of monsters which are ostracized by the world is a great starting point for a complex and engaging narrative. If only good stories didn't need to rely on cheap, powerleveling trash to get popular.

Positives:
  • The City-building aspects can be enjoyable
  • Really engaging if you recently got a lobotomy
Negatives:
  • Generic World and characters
  • Isekai which throws away it's only distinguishing feature before the first volume even ends
  • Full of narrative cancer of all kinds
  • Tensionless, No character arcs or stakes of any kind, functions like a saturday morning cartoon except the characters all take steroids after every episode
  • Falls into a terrible case of power scaling
  • The aborted offspring of slice-of-life mixed with litrpg garbage
FINAL SCORE:
35/100
Disappointing Wasted Potential


Next up I'll be doing the edgiest isekai out there, idk if it's better or worse than this shit but neither deserves their popularity.

Previous Reviews:
Ascendance of a Bookworm
The Conqueror from a Dying Kingdom
 
Last edited:

Koronesuki

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Joined:  Oct 1, 2023
Yes it is me, the guy who uses this dead thread for things it wasn't meant to be used for because nobody likes to read anymore!
The joke's on you, because not only do I not like to read anymore, I barely watch any anime anymore either.

I didn't read the light novels, but I did watch this anime. I liked it. I didn't take the story seriously. I didn't particularly think it was meant to be taken seriously. I just enjoyed it as a silly comedy. Maybe I'm just easily amused.
 

Nenélove

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I didn't take the story seriously. I didn't particularly think it was meant to be taken seriously. I just enjoyed it as a silly comedy. Maybe I'm just easily amused.
Basically anything can be enjoyed like that, it's not you.
 

Aquatic Novellite

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Nenélove

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AUTISM
aka it's not IMPOSSIBLE to read (up to that point where it gets ridiculous) just not good when put under scrutiny, as I said I did enjoy the city building which is like 40ish percent of the story
 

Aquatic Novellite

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Kind of like Sengoku Komachi Kuroutan: Noukou Giga, I guess. Readable until the MC (professional farmer in training) and her friends produce bloody bolt action rifles in the 16th century, which was when I nope'd out.
 

Zapan1984

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Joined:  Sep 11, 2022
Next up I'll be doing the edgiest isekai out there, idk if it's better or worse than this shit but neither deserves their popularity.
I assume you mean Arifureta as there are several LN Isekai's that could be considered the as edgiest and i read most.
 

Nenélove

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I assume you mean Arifureta as there are several LN Isekai's that could be considered the as edgiest and i read most.
WRONG
I mean overlord :SelenHAHAhere:
Though I could just tackle an easy one which fucking sucks and it's literally just a worse version of slime because im lazy
 

Zapan1984

Well-known member
Joined:  Sep 11, 2022
WRONG
I mean overlord :SelenHAHAhere:
Though I could just tackle an easy one which fucking sucks and it's literally just a worse version of slime because im lazy
hah on my scale Overlord is maybe a 2/5 in edginess there are much "worse" out there but true compared to the others Overlord is more popular.
 

Nenélove

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hah on my scale Overlord is maybe a 2/5 in edginess there are much "worse" out there but true compared to the others Overlord is more popular.
Recommend me some shit, I have a list of potential subjects I have already read but new things on my radar are never bad. I'll read anything tbh, not just isekai.
 

Zapan1984

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Joined:  Sep 11, 2022
Recommend me some shit, I have a list of potential subjects I have already read but new things on my radar are never bad. I'll read anything tbh, not just isekai.
Gotcha while i do read "normal" stuff but i do consider myself Isekai-Trash. I will begin with stuff i like:
-LN: The Apothecary Diaries, you might have heard about the Anime last year to me very enjoyable.
-LN: Blade & Bastard, by the Author from Goblin Slayer but this he uses Wizardry instead of D&D for the setting and illustrated by So-bin who does the art in Overlord, too.
-LN: 86--Eighty-Six, for when i want to read despair.

Now for Isekai and pseudo Isekai that are at least enjoyable to me.
-LN: Free Fantasy Online: Immortal Princess, it is a VRMMO series like Bofuri.
-LN: Her Majesty's Swarm, Isekai but with Zerg.
-LN: Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra, Isekai but a 4X game
-LN: My Quiet Blacksmight Life in Another World, Title says it all
And now for the Trash which are Car crash's and i cant look away :SelenHAHAhere:
-LN: Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest, very edgy you will see.
-LN: I'm a Behemoth, an S-Ranked Monster, but Mistaken for a Cat, I Live as an Elf Girl's Pet, well a White Girls "dream story"
-LN: Lazy Dungeon Master, very stupid but cant look away
-LN: Monster Tamer, Monster Fucker story.
-LN: Survivial in Another World with My Mistress, Isekai but Minecraft and an extremely big Harem at the end of vol 1 the MC has one Girl at the end of vol 2 it is 20

then not japan related my favorite Book Series: Necroscope, Horror with real Vampire's
and that is my ESL writing energy for a month or so :inahungryl:
 

Awoogers

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Joined:  Jun 7, 2023
I assume you mean Arifureta as there are several LN Isekai's that could be considered the as edgiest and i read most.
arifureta is edgy but not as edgy as overlord
 

PleaseCheckYourReceipts

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Crunchyroll staff are now possibly complicit in mail theft lmao.


Pretty sure that's a felony for every piece of mail. Seeing as how Crunchyroll is headquartered in California, San Francisco specifically, that's automatically prison time just for 3 pieces of mail. This is a nuclear event if they have evidence of this happening.

If something was sent "in the care of" to the office, it could get messy in the US Legal context. The US Postal Service has federal jurisdiction but I believe only to the point of delivery. Where "theft of goods of mail" under CA law ends and just general "theft" begins would require someone with CA court experience to answer.

Regardless, why does this not surprise me in the absolute least? Given the nature of having a mail room, the stuff being opened I can see on safety grounds (and it was addressed via the company itself), but never re-routing a single item sent screams Organized Theft. Bring on the RICO investigation! :amegunl:


Kind of like Sengoku Komachi Kuroutan: Noukou Giga, I guess. Readable until the MC (professional farmer in training) and her friends produce bloody bolt action rifles in the 16th century, which was when I nope'd out.

The kind of funny bit, from firearms history, is that I'm pretty sure most of the bolt or lever actions we're used to know actually pre-exist at basic designs well before the metallurgy & manufacturing ability was available for cartridges. They knew what would make the most sense, it's just you couldn't yet produce them. That said, random farmers inventing precision measuring devices is definitely when to nope out.
 

Zapan1984

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Joined:  Sep 11, 2022
arifureta is edgy but not as edgy as overlord
Whut? did i read something different im at the latest volume of both and Overlord is much tamer in regards of edge compared to Arif
 
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