That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Tensei shitara Slime datta Ken

[Kraco]

I feel like the whole "one time bonus for becoming a Demon Lord" feels extra contrived.

I think I'd like it better if it was just "this is a spell that costs 1000 souls to cast". So it's always an option, but the cost is huge.

I view it as a temporary boost after consolidating the spirit energy from the 10k human souls. Those souls are needed to become a true demon lord, but perhaps a whole lot of the energy is actually surplus. That surplus would only stay around for a limited time before dissipating. Kind of like in an RPG you could drink a fortify mana potion, which would give +75% max MP, but the effect would only last 60 seconds. It could be used for something requiring an astronomical amount of magic energy. Since it's a demon lord evolution, that is, restructing a monster to become a demon lord, perhaps that energy is especially attuned to handling souls and corporeal bodies, meaning it's also useful for resurrection.

Murdering these soldiers was just evil. He killed two soldiers that visibly gave up, throwing their weapons away. Then he killed another thousands using the merciless-kills (what a convenient skills ...) again with them long having given up. You can make whatever excuse you want, even in actual war that would be considered a war crime, even in medieval times. These soldiers posed no more danger and had zero will to harm Rimuru nor his town anymore. He could have killed the king and the priest, that would have been fair. The soldiers? Fuck Rimuru.

Sure, I also agree on killing soldiers who surrendered as being evil, but it doesn't matter since it's something he needed to do. A ruler must be able to do evil things as well, when necessary. I said it before, but war is fundamentally evil business. It's all about killing and destroying, no matter for what reason you are doing it. Yet it's something that absolutely needs to be done when you are defending yourself. If you are conquering foreign land, it's the price to pay for that fell act. What Rimuru did was also defending his country by bringing back dead casualties. It was a bad act for a good purpose.

War is a situation where the only realistic choice is to fight fire with fire. A situation exactly comparable to this wouldn't exist in RL, so it's kind of hollow to really analyse it with our ethics. Perhaps the closest one would be a sinking ship with both your own troops and enemy POWs. You arrive at the scene with a small vessel with only enough space for either your own people or the enemy prisoners. Would you save your own, some of both, or the enemies?

[MFauli]

By that logic, literally the exact opposite is also true. Human could assassinate their leader and murder a bunch of their people at any time. Monsters are entirely justified in wiping out humans, because their kingdoms are ticking time bombs for when some "destroy all monsters" religion pops up in one.

The only difference is they're the underdog, and that somehow makes it okay for them to be the aggressor.

He should have cute little bat wings.

No, your premise is wrong. You're implying that monsters are the same as humans, which is not true. Before Rimuru appeared, goblins were wild savages. Orcs destroyed whole landscapes eating everything. Even the ogres (or whatever Hina and co are) used to be more mindless, aggressive monsters.

Humans in this world only knew monsters as dangerous, wild beasts and that justifies killing monsters. Racism in our real world was a big issue DESPITE white and black people being equally intelligent. In this world, humans were intelligent, monsters were not, or when they had a bit of intelligence, they were still overtly aggressive.

Now you're telling me that humans should just watch as a gathering of monsters grows stronger and stronger? Fuck that shit. Their attack was ultimately justified, only the way they went about it in the beginning wasnt, BUT: That was a plan that only a small group knew about. The vast majority of them, basically soldiers, still believed, and for good reason, that they were up against wild beasts.

Taking chances and hope that the monsters leader always remains a "good" monster? I cerntainly wouldn't have taken that chance without the knowledge I have as an outside-viewer.

[MFauli]

I view it as a temporary boost after consolidating the spirit energy from the 10k human souls. Those souls are needed to become a true demon lord, but perhaps a whole lot of the energy is actually surplus. That surplus would only stay around for a limited time before dissipating. Kind of like in an RPG you could drink a fortify mana potion, which would give +75% max MP, but the effect would only last 60 seconds. It could be used for something requiring an astronomical amount of magic energy. Since it's a demon lord evolution, that is, restructing a monster to become a demon lord, perhaps that energy is especially attuned to handling souls and corporeal bodies, meaning it's also useful for resurrection.



Sure, I also agree on killing soldiers who surrendered as being evil, but it doesn't matter since it's something he needed to do. A ruler must be able to do evil things as well, when necessary. I said it before, but war is fundamentally evil business. It's all about killing and destroying, no matter for what reason you are doing it. Yet it's something that absolutely needs to be done when you are defending yourself. If you are conquering foreign land, it's the price to pay for that fell act. What Rimuru did was also defending his country by bringing back dead casualties. It was a bad act for a good purpose.

War is a situation where the only realistic choice is to fight fire with fire. A situation exactly comparable to this wouldn't exist in RL, so it's kind of hollow to really analyse it with our ethics. Perhaps the closest one would be a sinking ship with both your own troops and enemy POWs. You arrive at the scene with a small vessel with only enough space for either your own people or the enemy prisoners. Would you save your own, some of both, or the enemies?

"War is hinherently evil" surely is a philosophical stance one can have. I might even agree, dunno. But you must admit that a thing called "war crimes" exists, too. And what Rimuru did, wasn't just waging war - it was war crimes.

[Ryllharu]

Maybe you should read my postings properly before replying. I literally said that killing the king and the priest would have been okay. Why are you going to great lengths explaining to me why killing them was okay? I ALREADY THINK SO, TOO.

:/

You're hoping the humans (as the underdogs? DEX covered that one so I won't) get some kind of victory in the future? For what? Kicking a hornet's nest and getting stung?

You're worse than the king who thought they deserve reparations for a failed invasion.

You're obsessed with retribution over justice. As an American, a culture that normalized retribution over rehabilitation, even I find your preferences troubling.

No, your premise is wrong. You're implying that monsters are the same as humans, which is not true. Before Rimuru appeared, goblins were wild savages. Orcs destroyed whole landscapes eating everything. Even the ogres (or whatever Hina and co are) used to be more mindless, aggressive monsters.

Humans in this world only knew monsters as dangerous, wild beasts and that justifies killing monsters. Racism in our real world was a big issue DESPITE white and black people being equally intelligent. In this world, humans were intelligent, monsters were not, or when they had a bit of intelligence, they were still overtly aggressive.

You're so insanely wrong, I almost have to believe you're trolling.

Orcs ravaged the region because Clayman's pawn turned them into the Orc Disaster, tried to control them, got eaten, and Clayman was intending to finish them off. Presumably for the same reasons Rimuru just slaughtered 20k people, sprouting a demon seed.

Humans didn't enter the forest because of the dragon sealed there.

Monsters were always intelligent, they just weren't organized. The dryads are smart. The goblins are weak, not stupid. The ogres (Benimaru, Shuuna, Shion, etc.) had their own culture and village until the orcs swept through. Hakuoro is known across the land as a sword fighter. He's trained people before Rimuru came into play (other characters recognize him). The orcs had their own culture before climate change or whatever drove them to starvation. The lizardfolk had their own tiny kingdom. Milim is a monster. Yuzurania is a nation of monster-hybrids. Etc.

[neflight86]

Sidestepping the whole can of worms that is the diplomatic tactics on display, I was fairly underwhelmed by the tidiness of events this episode. Rimuru needs a skill to kill the remaining solders to reach his quota? Here's one. Done with that skill? 'Spend' it during your evolution to upgrade your other one. Summon three super powerful demons who will serve you for reasons unknown as of yet as a byproduct of trying to become a demon lord. Also, while Rimuru was 'forced' into a vulnerable state, that potential tension is immediately removed by Ragna and demons' company. Then, lets spend about five minutes going over all of the new skills that will make Rimumu, who is already unthreatened by all living creatures on the planet save for maybe 5 that we know of, even more resilient so we can show that holy knight who's boss later. It felt like some half baked storytelling that fell into more anime tropes than I would like. Skill piling works well enough in the Spider show because it is the main conceit, and that character is building toward something. Rimuru is/was already an army unto himself. His skills aren't interesting to me.

Then we have the resurrection scene. Lets 'reveal' that the risk of the low chance of revival was a deliberate misdirect by the show as the percentage was off but we as the audience could not have known. Also, lets revive everyone and in doing so, erase two of the summoned demons because their purpose of showing how great a summon they were a part of has been served; we only need one aloof super demon in the cast for now. Everybody (on Tempest's side) gets to come back, nothing is actually lost, and I question if anything was even learned. As far as I can tell, Falmuth attacking simply resulted in another free powerup for the home town monster team. And their king in custody. This is power fantasy 101.

The jobbing performed by the wizard and knight captain (boom headshot) also felt like wastes of time, as there was no competition and we learned nothing new except for some obscure rock paper scissors relationships between angels, demons, and spirits that I expect will never be referenced again.

I hope the Falmuth story is nearing its end, because this power scaling is a bit ridiculous as there are very few credible threats remaining and the storytelling's nuance has continued to erode over the past few episodes. Lets put this whole arc behind us and move on to more relaxed fantasy civ interactions. That's where Slime's strengths are most apparent.

[DarthEnderX]

Humans in this world only knew monsters as dangerous, wild beasts and that justifies killing monsters.

I mean, that's 100% false, as we met all these monsters as Rimuru met them and none of them were wild beasts. Even the goddamn WOLVES weren't just wild beasts.

Less civilized and more aggressive? Sure. But there's no telling that the reason they are like that isn't BECAUSE of how humans treat them. If humans keep regularly sweeping through and making sure they can't build up any kind of civilization, and pushing them into shittier lands where surviving is more of a struggle? Then it's not about their natures, it's about the circumstances of their lives.

And all of this hinges on the premise that monsters are inherently more powerful. But they aren't. Rimuru is OP. And he makes the monsters around him OP. But Rimuru ISN'T a monster. He's an Otherworlder. If Rimuru's powers had gone to a human Otherworlder, then they'd have the upper hand. It's a complete crapshoot and these ticking timebombs could appear in humans OR monsters.

"War is hinherently evil" surely is a philosophical stance one can have. I might even agree, dunno. But you must admit that a thing called "war crimes" exists, too. And what Rimuru did, wasn't just waging war - it was war crimes.

I can agree with that.

However, what you call their "ultimately justified attack"(starting an unprovoked war under false pretenses and killing a bunch of civilians) was ALSO a war crime. So it was a war crime committed against other war criminals. So....I don't feel too bad about it.

Taking chances and hope that the monsters leader always remains a "good" monster? I cerntainly wouldn't have taken that chance without the knowledge I have as an outside-viewer.

Again, the opposite is also 100% true. Monsters should always wipe out any human kingdom, because even if the current king is friendly, you never know when the next one will just suddenly want to kill monsters.

The idea that a people should be regularly wiped out because someone bad might appear amongst them is the most ridiculous and hypocritical thing I've ever heard.

(as the underdogs? DEX covered that one so I won't).

He might not have caught it, cause I was still adding to that post when he was already posting responses.

Also, while Rimuru was 'forced' into a vulnerable state, that potential tension is immediately removed by Ragna and demons' company.

Yeah, I was genuinely surprised. When he got all weak I was like "And here's where Clayman swoops in to do whatever it is he was planning!" but then it never happened.

Since there were 20k souls, and Rimuru only needed 10k, I kept expecting Clayman to come and steal the other 10k souls.

Lets put this whole arc behind us and move on to more relaxed fantasy civ interactions. That's where Slime's strengths are most apparent.

Agreed.

[Kraco]

"War is hinherently evil" surely is a philosophical stance one can have. I might even agree, dunno. But you must admit that a thing called "war crimes" exists, too. And what Rimuru did, wasn't just waging war - it was war crimes.

Sure. Personally I think a degree of honour should also be followed in a war, which is why the occasional "strange" stories from the WW2 are so great. Everybody should try to avoid acts leading to what is known as war crimes, to their best ability, circumstances permitting. However, the sad truth about RL is that only the loser is only ever guilty of any war crimes. The winner never is. On this forum I'm the absolutely worst person to talk about this due to my home country's fate. So, if we go by RL standards, since Jura Tempest won the war, Rimuru can't be guilty of anything, whereas the Falmuth king and the religious order VIP are guilty of everything. I very much believe we are going by those very standards of might making right.

[Buffalobiian]

-Merciless did feel weird. I mean, effective and necessary for Rimuru's plan? Sure. I don't know why they bothered to show it though. Meggido was never explained, so unless it only targets malicious people, there's no reason that given a little time it'd just harvest the necessary number of souls anyway. It seems the only reason Merciless was introduced was to show how powerful it was, and to use it as collateral for an upgrade.

-The Demon scene was a little funny. All the bodies got sacrificed (as per animation) when the Demons got summoned.. so the surviving dude was obviously the dude who still had a body.

-The 3.14% was never an issue. Full resurrection was always going to happen. Rimuru now saying that 3.14% is falsely low given the current circumstance doesn't change that these guys are all going to be rezzed, and we know it.

The demon sacrifice was also weird. "Hey, these two are happy to die for you"... "Oh I'm so envious"..

1) you could have offered yourself if you're so envious.

2) it'd have been better if the demons themselves offered.

3) it's a bit weird for Rimuru to be so ready to accept the Demon's offering. Imagine if Benimaru said "Take my life". Rimuru wouldn't say "Oh, okay. Just what I needed."
-This assumes demons "dying" is permanent and not some "return to Hell until the next summon"

[Munsu]

-Merciless did feel weird. I mean, effective and necessary for Rimuru's plan? Sure. I don't know why they bothered to show it though. Meggido was never explained, so unless it only targets malicious people, there's no reason that given a little time it'd just harvest the necessary number of souls anyway. It seems the only reason Merciless was introduced was to show how powerful it was, and to use it as collateral for an upgrade.

Hopefully they'll explain it, not sure if the anime will bother with it though. As for Merciless, I recall it serving another purpose in the LN other than the instant kill-all, it was a bit more nuanced use, but we work with time constraints, don't think it matters much in the grand scheme of things. But I don't recall the details all that much, so I may be misremembering.

The demon sacrifice was also weird. "Hey, these two are happy to die for you"... "Oh I'm so envious"..

1) you could have offered yourself if you're so envious.

2) it'd have been better if the demons themselves offered.

3) it's a bit weird for Rimuru to be so ready to accept the Demon's offering. Imagine if Benimaru said "Take my life". Rimuru wouldn't say "Oh, okay. Just what I needed."
-This assumes demons "dying" is permanent and not some "return to Hell until the next summon"

Seemed like they were lackey's for the "main" demon. I also wonder if they die or do they just get "unsummoned". Very curious on that regard.

Unless there's a more distinctive meaning in Japanese, it's a shame that we have DEMONS and then we have DEMON LORDS, and apparently there's no relation between each other. Makes it quite confusing to tell what's what in this world.

Also, the Demon Lord gifts were handed out before the resurrection, so wonder if Shion got a gift or not.

I don't think it was Rimuru in the end calling the shots, I think it was the Great Sage (Raphael now) controlling Rimuru. I'm not sure if that skill was able to do that before. I recall it interfering with some aspects of Rimuru before (like preventing him from getting drunk and such), but to take control of the body and make decisions as well is very a very curious development.

I'm also not certain on who was making the decisions while evolving. Like Great Sage was improving itself by its own volition, sacrificing things to improve itself without Rimuru's input? I think the only time during the evolution that Rimuru himself asked for something was to evolve Gluttony, but Rimuru himself has left things from time to time up to Grate Sage before if I recall correctly, so it may very well be just that.

In any case, I found it to be an interesting dynamic. I got Skynet vibes...

[DarthEnderX]

-Merciless did feel weird. I mean, effective and necessary for Rimuru's plan?

Not sure how it was necessary. Megiddo was doing the job just fine.

I don't think it was Rimuru in the end calling the shots, I think it was the Great Sage (Raphael now) controlling Rimuru.

I did think it was weird when Rimuru was like "Notice: Do this." as that's how Great Sage talks.

[shinta|hikari]

I did think it was weird when Rimuru was like "Notice: Do this." as that's how Great Sage talks.

Rimuru was still asleep. I think that was Raphael talking. He even said "I order you in the name of Raphael" when he directed the Beelzebub skill to absorb the magicules.

[Buffalobiian]

Yeah, Rimuru was asleep, Raph was doing everything since being wrapped in the drape. I forgot to include that in my post.

[DarthEnderX]

So really, it was Raphael sacrificing the demons and casting the resurrection.

Not sure it's good that it can do that...


Edit: Just watched that last OVA and, yeah, that demon 7is totally in it.

Also, he let's Great Sage autopilot him, so that's not new either.

[Munsu]

So really, it was Raphael sacrificing the demons and casting the resurrection.

Not sure it's good that it can do that...


Edit: Just watched that last OVA and, yeah, that demon 7is totally in it.

Also, he let's Great Sage autopilot him, so that's not new either.

Just not sure Great Sage has done this before while Rimuru is unconscious, not sure if we've seen Rimuru unconscious in itself before besides the naming ceremonies and such..

[Kraco]

So really, it was Raphael sacrificing the demons and casting the resurrection.

Not sure it's good that it can do that...

As it is, Rimuru himself couldn't even have done the resurrection. It was stated in the scene that it required an enormous amount of control over the colossal amount of magicules. You could basically say Raphael is like an AI run by a supercomputer, able to perform bazillion flops. Something that no organic brain, as we know it, would be capable of. It's actually a good thing Raphael is doing it here because if Rimuru himself was doing it, it would cheapen the whole thing considerably: Either the resurrection would be nothing much, nothing special, or Rimuru's character would be half-assed because when you look at Raphael, or the predecessor Great Sage, it's kind of an impersonal entity, indeed like an AI. So, if Rimuru himself was capable of the same, it would mean Rimuru ought to be like that as well. It could be quite a sucky MC.

Along the same lines Raphael would think absolutely nothing of consuming the two demons to gain extra magicules. It's like an AI, so it's as true neutral as you could ever get. If it coldly judges Rimuru won't miss those two, then it won't think twice about using them. If resurrecting only half of the dead ones had been possible, I imagine Raphael could have selected the ones to save in a nanosecond with no hesitation, based on how important they would logically be to Rimuru (with Shion being number one) and how useful they are for the nation.

[KrayZ33]

Ugh..

I'll just focus on one thing...

Why would a "demon-summoning" accept dead bodies without souls as an offering?
That whole thing came out of nowhere in the first place, but he "sacrificed" dead bodymass. "But it's enough to summon the greatest of the great" - of course.

And obviously, he summoned 3 demons and the other 2 demons are there just for the sacrifice?
It's kinda pointless to include them in this show, so I guess, since they sacrificed themselves and to give these other two demons a reason to exist in this show, everyone who died and ressurected by their sacrifice, is now stronger than before and stronger than they would have been with the additional "gifts" from Rimuru's ascension.

And I kinda remember that demon, I think.... Is that the demon the otherworlder fought whose mask Rimuru is wearing all the time, from the OVAs?
I could be completely off though.

edit:

Edit: Just watched that last OVA and, yeah, that demon 7is totally in it.

Oh, okay that solves it.

[Munsu]

Ugh..

I'll just focus on one thing...

Why would a "demon-summoning" accept dead bodies without souls as an offering?
That whole thing came out of nowhere in the first place, but he "sacrificed" dead bodymass. "But it's enough to summon the greatest of the great" - of course.

And obviously, he summoned 3 demons and the other 2 demons are there just for the sacrifice?
It's kinda pointless to include them in this show, so I guess, since they sacrificed themselves and to give these other two demons a reason to exist in this show, everyone who died and ressurected by their sacrifice, is now stronger than before and stronger than they would have been with the additional "gifts" from Rimuru's ascension.

And I kinda remember that demon, I think.... Is that the demon the otherworlder fought whose mask Rimuru is wearing all the time, from the OVAs?
I could be completely off though.

edit:

Oh, okay that solves it.

He's the same as episode 23 and 24 (where he's more fleshed out in the flashback with Shizu).

As for summoning, seems arbitrary rules at the moment.

I don't think all of bodies are necessarily souless (or I guess once they die they lose their souls, as that's one of the main reasons it's hard to resurrect... maybe there's a delay?), but I figure the importance was in the bodies. Not sure if their motivation is to acquire souls though, so maybe it's not something they'd be interested in. I recall that the first demon Rimuru summoned way back when he needed to provide a physical container for it (but no details were mentioned on how he summoned it that I recall), so maybe sacrificing flesh works just as well to provide a body for them. But the Primordial has been shown to manifest without need of some sort of container, I figure he could anchor himself in this world on a whim of being "called", he just chooses to accept or not.

The question then becomes, do the demons, regardless on how they come, posses more magiciules than what was used as a sacrifice to bring them forth? If that's so, then they were a necessity for the resurrection to succeed, but that's pure writer's discretion by that point. I figure in part was to show that Rimuru was willing to sacrifice his lifeline to bring his people back if needed be (particularly Shion that I assume required more magicules).

Another possibility is that Rimuru only meant to bring forth 1 demon (or just called demons in general and those 3 showed up), and that 1 demon was the Primordial who's always been paying attention to Rimuru so he had the foresight of bringing along pawns to sacrifice for the resurrection to succeed.

[DarthEnderX]

As it is, Rimuru himself couldn't even have done the resurrection. It was stated in the scene that it required an enormous amount of control over the colossal amount of magicules. You could basically say Raphael is like an AI run by a supercomputer, able to perform bazillion flops.

Which is all well and good. But this is fiction. And AI in fiction almost always goes bad at some point. And an unfeeling AI with Rimuru's power at their fingertips could go very bad indeed.

Either the resurrection would be nothing much, nothing special, or Rimuru's character would be half-assed because when you look at Raphael, or the predecessor Great Sage, it's kind of an impersonal entity, indeed like an AI. So, if Rimuru himself was capable of the same, it would mean Rimuru ought to be like that as well. It could be quite a sucky MC.

I dunno. You're basically describing Senku from Dr. Stone. He can be impersonal and calculating when he needs to, but he can also be very compassionate when he wants.

And obviously, he summoned 3 demons and the other 2 demons are there just for the sacrifice?
It's kinda pointless to include them in this show, so I guess, since they sacrificed themselves and to give these other two demons a reason to exist in this show, everyone who died and ressurected by their sacrifice, is now stronger than before and stronger than they would have been with the additional "gifts" from Rimuru's ascension.

Agreed. Unless this is setting something up, it was just wasting the audiences time. Have just one demon show up and then don't have the manufactured tension of there not being enough magicules if it's going to be solved immediately by sacrificing characters we have no attachment to.

[Munsu]

Agreed. Unless this is setting something up, it was just wasting the audiences time. Have just one demon show up and then don't have the manufactured tension of there not being enough magicules if it's going to be solved immediately by sacrificing characters we have no attachment to.

Went back to watch the summoning scene, and unless in Japanese there's no distinction in the phrase used between singular and plural, it seems like Rimuru meant to call 1 demon, and 3 showed up... maybe because the sacrifices were enough to bring that amount?

I don't think it's worth discussing much at this point since we have little to go on, but I kinda like the theory of the Primordial having the foresight of bringing some lackey's for sacrifices. He knew there weren't enough magiciules as it was from the get go to do the full resurrection.

Also peculiar that he showed up in the right instant in which Rimuru/Raphael was about to sacrifice himself.

[DarthEnderX]

I don't think it's worth discussing much at this point since we have little to go on, but I kinda like the theory of the Primordial having the foresight of bringing some lackey's for sacrifices. He knew there weren't enough magiciules as it was from the get go to do the full resurrection.

Yeah but...there was only a lack of magicules because the author wrote one in. If he hadn't written in the magicule absense, he wouldn't have had to write in two unnecessary characters.