I love That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime. I liked what I read of the LN a billion years ago and I also really like the manga. I really liked season 1 and was extremely excited for season 2. For the most part season 2 has been a good amount of fun, but I feel it missed the beat where for me it mattered the most. 😦
Spoilers for S2 ahead.
My tweet that made me think of writing this post.
I am used to adaptations of stuff I like ending up not great. Often they are visually uhh not great or just adapted to the medium well. For the most part Slime looks great and its bounciness makes great use of the animated medium.
But, the end of season 2….felt at times to be either rushed or perhaps just missing the beat I needed it to land.
There are some small scenes from the manga that are skipped over. And while skipping some small moments might hurt the character development of a few characters, stuff can be skipped in the interest of streamlining the story. Whatever.
The bigger problem is that the anime couldn’t for whatever reason add the gravitas I felt some moments required.
There are a fair examples which could have done with more time or better rhythm so to speak, but the one that really stood out to me and upset me the most was Raphael’s entrance.
As the monsters of Tempest are falling asleep getting ready to evolve, Benimaru does his best to stay awake because he knows he needs to protect his Slime master. And as he is about to collapse, Raphael appears and gently informs him it is okay to sleep and thus Benimaru collapses.
The anime and manga cover the same scene, but it feels like the manga drawn by Kawakami Taiki does so much better a job at eliciting awe in me. After the skill level up scene (which I feel the anime does a fantastic job of by the way), the anime just rolls right through this Raphael part.
Some boring, very cliche music starts. The monsters collapse. There is some shock in the humans. The pacing does not change. Raphael appears out of a big glowy thing and stands up. Benimaru smirks for some reason. Benimaru collapses. All of it feels pretty lackluster animation wise too; a shame for a show that did that so well thus far.
The scene almost feels like a normal throwaway scene when to me at least, this scene (along with Megido) were the climaxes of this arc. They were the moments that should have made me stand up and scream in excitement and yet I struggle to even rewatch the Raphael bit. I find it so uninteresting….the music especially feels so off place and there is no sense of cohesion between the visuals and the track.
The fact that there was no specific track (perhaps a Gregorian chant) that started when we first see Raph feels like such a missed opportunity. Maybe that’s why the manga worked so much better for me, because I could just imagine what everything sounded like…Well that’s partly true but in truth, the paneling work in the manga is just perfect. It is a fine example of how you can do superb, unforgettable moments in just a few pages.
If you have only seen the anime, here’s how the manga does it.
I could reread this scene hundreds of times and still get teary-eyed. I don’t want to watch the animated version again.
By showing Raphael from Benimaru’s perspective, the manga grounds the reader. There is no big glowy entrance. You are concerned for Benimaru and are as awe-struck as he is when Raphael shows up. flows so naturally. Of course Benimaru is the last to collapse. Of course he holds on for his Lord. Of course Raphael comforts him and tells him to sleep. It may be a similar sequence of events, but almost none of that comes through in the anime. Gah!
Apologies for the rage post. Typing this made me even angrier. BUT I WAS REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS OKAY. Most likely, the production had problems this season. Upon rewatch I noticed just how static the above scene was. I am sure the staff wanted to make it better but the hard deadlines made it tough.
Toxic Muffin 