That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 8

Inherited Will

Alright, so I know I’ve been saying bad things about this anime for the past couple of weeks, and I’m certainly not about to take any of it back, but this week’s episode was good. It was still full of generic tropes which are lame, but this episode was written very well.

In this first part of the episode I’ll be discussing the main focus of the episode, Shizue “Shizu” Izawa. In the next two parts I’ll discuss the legendary Hero and what’s going to happen moving forward respectively.

It’s unfortunate that the best character of the series so far, Shizu, only lasted about three episodes. Now we’ll have to wait for the next good character to appear, which I assume is going to be one of the oni; either the male, fire oni or the pink-haired, female oni.

So, what exactly happened to Shizu? It seems that she simply died due to her old age. Despite how she appears to be in her 20s or 30s, Shizu was actually at least in her 70s. After her death, we see her hair change to white and her skin become wrinkled, implying that some sort of magic was keeping her looking young (like Tsunade from Naruto).

But before she dies, she tells us the story of her life in this world so that she won’t be forgotten. She served as the right hand of the demon lord until he was temporarily defeated by the Hero who took her in. I’ll talk more about this hero in-depth in a bit.

After travelling with the Hero for a while, the two split up and Shizu decided to become an adventurer so that she could help the people of the land. It was during her days as an adventurer that she earned her titles and recognition.

However, as her age increased, her control over the fire spirit, Ifrit, became less stable. Due to this, she retired from adventuring and settled down as a teacher for children who were summoned from other worlds. Some of these children grew up to be very important and we may meet them later on.

What I found interesting about this is that the plural, “worlds,” was used. We know that Shizu, Rimuru, and at least one of the children Shizu taught came from our world, but this implies that there are children from other worlds as well. Will the series ever explore this concept further? Probably not, but I can hope.

Once the children she was teaching all moved on, Shizu decided to head out on one final adventure to find the demon lord who originally summoned her. She didn’t know what she would do when she found him, or exactly why she desired to do so, but believes she merely wanted to be acknowledged by him before she dies.

The Hero

It’s finally been revealed that the Hero is in fact not Shizu, although many consider her to be a hero in her own right due to her exploits during her time as an adventurer. Instead, Shizu was the apprentice of the legendary Hero who fought off the demon lord and sealed Veldora.

But, before I get into talking about the hero in earnest, let me just remind you all of the prediction I made last week about the mask Shizu wears. This week it was revealed that it was a gift from the Hero, and was originally worn by her, which is one reason Shizu wears it.

However, what’s more important is that this mask helps to suppress Ifrit’s power, exactly like I predicted. Remember those generic tropes I mentioned were still present in this episode despite it being good? Well, this is one of them.

But, then the question becomes why was the Hero using the mask? Did the Hero have some sort of spirit inside of her which needed to be suppressed as well, or was she merely using it to increase her own magic affinity? Since she knew of its power, I doubt she was wearing it just for looks.

So what else do we know about the Hero? And what can we theorize about her?

For starters, I think it’s probably safe to assume that the Hero was older than Shizu. Shizu was the apprentice in their relationship, and she probably would have mentioned it if the hero was younger than her, and therefore still out there somewhere in the world.

Building off that last bit, we can assume that the Hero is dead by this point in time because when Shizu dies, she sees both her childhood friend from when she was first summoned (who she killed) and the Hero, implying that she was being reunited with them.

Both of these characters then point Shizu in another direction where she finds her mother, and as she runs towards her, reverts back to the age she was when the two of them were first separated. From this we can assume her mother is also dead by now, but how did she die?

It’s heavily implied that Shizu’s mother died during the air raids of WWII just before Shizu was summoned, but what if this wasn’t the case? I actually got the feeling that the Hero was Shizu’s mother, who had also been summoned into this world just before Shizu.

In the flashback from the beginning of the series in which we see Shizu’s “origin story,” we never actually see what happened to her mother. Instead, her mother is suddenly gone, so perhaps she was actually summoned by someone as well.

So what evidence is there to support this claim other than the fact that she disappeared just before Shizu? Actually, there’s a fair amount.

For starters, I went back and rewatched the opening scene of the series, and the visual similarities between the Hero and Shizu’s mother are there. They both have the same black hair pulled to the side in a loose ponytail. This isn’t much, but let’s take a look at some other evidence.

Next, when Shizu and the Hero fight each other, the Hero refuses to fight her despite her being the right hand of the demon lord. Further, she believes Shizu’s story about being summoned from another world and even takes her under her wing.

Finally, the dialogue between the two points to the Hero recognizing Shizu. She asks her why she’s there and how she managed to stay alive. These questions make perfect sense if the Hero is actually her mother. As far as she would have known, Shizu was left behind to die during the air raids.

But, if this is all true, then how did Shizu never recognize her own mother? I don’t have the answer to that, but it could have been a combination of her mother attempting to hide her identity and Shizu believing her mother to have already died.

If this is the case, then I think her mother didn’t reveal her identity to Shizu because she didn’t want her daughter to have to go through losing her mother twice. She already thought she died during the air raids, and one day she’ll die “again.”

Seriously, why can’t every episode of this series be written like this?

A New Hope

Now that Shizu has died, Rimuru must fulfill her final request: for him to eat her body in the same way he ate the fire spirit. This serves two purposes: Shizu doesn’t want to be in this world anymore, and she wants Rimuru to carry on her will (physically apparently).

After consuming her body using his Predator skill, Rimuru is finally able to transform into a human, and his appearance closely resembles Shizu’s. It’s too bad that this development in Rimuru’s character appearance had to come at the cost of the best character in the series.

But, as I stated, Rimuru gaining Shizu’s appearance isn’t the only thing he inherited from her. He also inherited her will, which is to find the demon lord and force him to recognize her existence. Can you guess what I’m about to say about that?

That’s right, it’s another generic fantasy trope! There’s always a demon lord which needs to be beat up by the protagonist in series like this. Just look at literally any isekai anime, or most fantasy anime, and you’ll find this trope.

This episode may have given me hope for the future of this series, but knowing that the plot is going to take us on a journey to defeat a demon lord has dashed those hopes just as quickly as they arose. But, who knows, maybe there will be a few more good episodes along the way.

Conclusion

Did you catch on to the fact that the Hero was actually Shizu’s mother? Let me know in the comments along with your thoughts on this episode as a whole. And, as always, if you enjoyed the post be sure to click the like button ❤ down below and follow me on Twitter @DoubleSama.

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My review of the next episode is available here.