That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 15

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 15

The Jura Forest Alliance

By this point, unless you’re new here, it should be fairly clear that I’m not a fan of TenSura as an anime. I’ll concede that the light novels and manga may be good, but I can assure you that the anime is not.

I’m not going to get into all of the issues with this series overall today, but feel free to tell me why you think this anime is so good down in the comments, and I’ll be sure to address them in my review of the series as a whole when the time comes.

So what does this episode in particular do wrong? Well, not all that much, to be honest, other than the fact that almost nothing happened and we got yet another example of forced plot progression to make up for it.

Now, you may have previously thought that TenSura was based on fantasy MMORPGs like many other series such as SAO, Overlord, Demon Lord, Deathmarch, DanMachi, KonoSuba, Log Horizon, Shield Hero, Endro etc., but you’d be wrong. TenSura is actually based on city-building simulation games.

As such, the plot and action don’t really matter. Instead, all that matters is collecting resources and upgrading your city, which is exactly what this week’s episode was all about. In fact, we collected so many resources this week that our village was upgraded to an alliance of villages, and then a nation, all in one episode.

Rimuru’s village consists of a Slime, six Kijin, three Dwarves, and a bunch of Hobgoblins and Tempest Wolves. However, through forming an alliance with the Lizardmen and Orcs, the Jura Forest Alliance was born!

Through working together, these three societies can all become stronger. But, newfound strength brings prying eyes with it, and it’s not long before the Dwarven Kingdom takes notice of the movement of large amounts of resources and monsters in the Jura Forest.

Gazel Dwargo Appears!

A large group of knights on pegasusback led by the king of the Dwarves, Gazel Dwargo comes to the Jura Forest to meet the slime he’s heard is leading the rest of the monsters. I was pretty sure these two had met back in Dwargon, but it’s possible that my memory is wrong (or this is just a plot hole, which is equally likely).

However, he doesn’t just plan to meet with Rimuru, he also wants to find out whether this leader of monsters is a friend or foe. Due to the fact that Rimuru has the ability to lead such a large amount of monsters, it’s likely that Dwargo is concerned he’s a new Demon Lord and will attack the Dwarven Kingdom in the near future.

So, how does Dwargo determine if Rimuru is good or evil? With the classic if-you-can-block-my-attack-you’re-not-evil test, of course! Everyone knows that evil creatures are incapable of blocking a single attack, so this is a foolproof test.

Gazel Dwargo vs. Rimuru Tempest from the anime That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
Gazel Dwargo vs. Rimuru Tempest

Honestly, I think what they were going for was more of a “discussion through combat” kind of thing, which is a fairly common trope in shounen battle series, but that’s not really how this scene came across. If you want a series which does this well, I’d recommend Samurai Champloo.

Anyway, after the short fight between these two leaders, we learn that the reason Rimuru was able to block Dwargo’s attack was because he had seen it many times before. Normally this would be where the protagonist explains that it was a standard attack from whatever game they played before being summoned to the fantasy world, but not this time.

Instead, it turns out that Dwargo and Rimuru were both taught swordsmanship by the same master, Hakurou, one of the Kijin. This was something I actually liked a lot from this episode, because I was so sure it was going to be the generic explanation I just previously mentioned.

Taking the effort to actually tie in different parts of the world which has been built up isn’t as common as you might expect, and so I do appreciate it when it’s done instead of falling back on the tropes of the genre.

The Jura Tempest Federation

At this point, Dwargo no longer sees Rimuru and his alliance as a threat, but rather a potential ally. While he doesn’t acknowledge the strength of the Jura Forest Alliance in its current state, he does say that in the future, if they use their land and resources to the fullest extent, that they could rival even his kingdom.

Further, by entering into diplomatic relations with the Alliance, Dwargo is also recognizing them as an independent nation. The name Rimuru comes up with for his new nation is the Jura Tempest Federation, and the capital city is named in his honor by his subjects as Rimuru.

Now, I’m not saying that’s not how naming cities works, but that’s not how naming cities works.

Time for a history/etymology lesson, kiddos. When naming a city or place after a person you’re generally going to use their last or family name and then some sort of descriptor of the area, or simply a derivation of their name.

An example of this for a state is Pennsylvania, which means Penn’s woods, while a city example is Stalingrad, or Stalin’s city. You can also name a place after a person’s first name, but it’s typically going to be a derivation of their name, such as Alexander the Great naming a bunch of cities Alexandria.

So, to name the city founded by Rimuru simply as Rimuru, isn’t normal. It’s not completely unheard of, but the fact that it was named after a still living person makes it even stranger. Alternative names could have simply been Rimuru City or Tempest.

And, as a final note on this particular topic, we can even see these rules being followed by the Dwarves. The Dwarves’ capital city is Dwargon, a derivation of Dwargo, which is the ruling family’s name.

Conclusion

So, that’s it for today’s review of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime episode 15. What did you think of this week’s episode? Was it good? Bad? While I think there were certainly bad aspects about it, there were good aspects too, so I’d say it was an average episode.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

4 Replies to “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 15”

  1. In episode 5 Rimuru met the king during the trial because this is Judge even sent a spy because he knew that he possessed a huge force like the verudora dragon. Apart from forgetting details exactly because you ENSURE so much that the show is not good?
    The adaptation as many others claim (including me) we can say that it is the best adaptations of light novel that we have seen in years, with a good rhythm explaining every necessary detail and a very good technical production, he had all the luck that Knight & magic did not receive being made by the same 8-bit studio that only dedicated to summarize the novels being 2 chapters by volume practically.
    In another heading Index is the most acclaimed light novels and the best I’ve read in my life and the anime is pure cyclical garbage with quality.

    1. Yeah, I was pretty sure Rimuru met the king back then, but the fact that the two were acting like they had never met before this time threw me off a bit and made me question my memory of that event.

      As for how good of an adaptation this anime is, I’ve heard mixed things. Some, like yourself, say that this is a great adaptation, but others tell me of things that were clearly left out and are therefore confusing for the anime-only viewers. Regardless, it sounds like the light novel is the preferable way to engage with this story.

      However, this series still has a fair amount of flaws with it’s general storytelling and plot up to this point, not unlike the more infamous SAO.

      As for your stance on Index, I agree that the anime for that series isn’t very good either. I do have reviews of Index, Index II, and Railgun if you’re interested in my thoughts on that series, and a review of Railgun S will be coming soon(ish). But, the tl;dr is that I see the Index anime as about on par with this one, and Railgun is only slightly better.

  2. You got the wrong point. Rimuru can block Dwargo’s attack because he had seen this move many times when he is trained by Hakurou not because of the experience of game in previous life. The anime did mentioned a bit Hakurou is Rimuru’s sword master.

    1. You seem to have misinterpreted what I wrote.

      I said that in most isekai anime the explanation for why Rimuru could block Dwargo’s attack would have been because of experience in a game in his previous life. However, I liked that this wasn’t the case this time around and that he was able to block it because of his training by Hakurou.

      I know that Hakurou was Rimuru’s sword master, and I’m saying that was better than the standard isekai explanation we normally get. I hope that clears things up.

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