That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 17

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 17

The Gathering

Every time TenSura does something right as a series, I feel it has to balance it out by doing something wrong. Luckily, the “wrong” of this episode came early on when we’re shown the Jura Tempest Federation’s healing potion laboratory.

We’re told, very explicitly I might add, that the healing potions Rimuru makes are 99% pure, while typical high-end healing potions are only 98% pure. I don’t remember his name, and I don’t care enough to go back and find it, but the scientist from Dwargon who now works for Rimuru has been researching a way to manufacture these 99% pure potions.

So what’s wrong with this scene? Basically everything. Not only are we explicitly told about these potions, but it’s done so in one of the worst ways possible.

I get it, the concept of “show, don’t tell” is a difficult one, especially when I’m saying that certain episodes need to tell more while others need to show more. However, what this means is that there’s a balance which needs to be struck.

As far as the explicit description of the potions goes, we could have just seen Rimuru appraise the potion made by the scientist, and then have him mention that it’s as pure as one he could make. That’s it. That’s all the information we would have needed to understand the situation, especially since it’s previously been established that Rimuru’s potions are extremely high-quality.

But, I get it, sometimes, for various reasons, an author or director may choose to go with a route that involves a bit more telling than showing. That in and of itself isn’t an issue necessarily, but there are certain rules to follow when going for a more direct approach to expressing information.

One popular, and more acceptable, way of doing this is through internal monologue. For example, Rimuru could have explained the differences between the two potions within his own mind. While I consider this a fairly cheap way of getting around the issue, the fact of the matter is, it works.

However, while this is what I would expect from TenSura, what I didn’t expect was to be even further disappointed by what actually occurred. Every character present in the lab knows the difference between the two potions, and yet they each take turns verbally explaining it to each other.

Honestly, this is the kind of thing I expect from an anime with a rating of 3 or below, not from a 5, which is what I have TenSura rated currently. What these characters did in this scene is essentially the same as if I went to NASA and told their top scientist that the Earth orbits the Sun. They know that; they don’t need me to remind them.

Of all the ways to relay information to a viewer, this has to be the worst.

Demon Lords

Well, at least we got the worst part of the episode out of the way right at the beginning, so it’s all uphill from here by default. And, what a way to start the better portions of the episode than with everyone’s favorite demon lord, Milim, beating up some people for disrespecting her bestie.

It turns out that the guy she beat up was none other than a scout sent to the Jura Tempest Federation by another one of the demon lords, Carrion. Simply by sending this scout, Carrion has broken the promise between the various demon lords to not intervene in each other’s affairs.

So, just who is this demon lord Carrion? He’s the protector and leader of the Beast Kingdom, which lies to the south of the Great Forest of Jura, and between the domains of the demon lords Frey and Milim. And, because his scouts refuse to acknowledge the Jura Tempest Federation as a country, it’s likely that Carrion doesn’t either.

My guess is that he’s going to be the next major antagonist of the series, but we’ll have to wait and see because the other two demon lords are also on the move. Originally I thought there were more, but it turns out there are only four current demon lords: Frey, Carrion, Milim, and Clayman.

So, we know that Milim has allied herself with Rimuru, and we now know that Carrion likely has his eyes on Rimuru and the Jura Tempest Federation as well, but what about Frey and Clayman?

Clayman is the demon lord who originally summoned Shizue to this world, and I still believe he’ll be one of the final antagonists of the series. For now, Clayman is simply observing the actions of the other three demon lords, and seems to be plotting to gain power over them.

Frey, on the other hand, seems to have little to no interest in the dealings of the other demon lords or of Rimuru and the Jura Tempest Federation. Instead, Frey is gathering an army to combat a legendary monster known as Charybdis which is apparently being resurrected soon.

I’m not sure what kind of monster this Charybdis is going to be, but my guess is it’s a dragon of some sort since it’s silhouette was pictured in the sky. At the very least, something tells me it has absolutely nothing to do with the Charybdis of Greek mythology.

Cartography

And now, onto what I was most interested in during this week’s episode, the world map. In this section I’ll be referencing locations from the map pictured below, so if it makes things easier for you to follow along, you can simply click the image and it will open a high-resolution, English version in another tab.

Map of the world from the anime series That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
Map of the world

The first thing you’ll notice is that there appears to be three separate continents, the main continent, the one above, and the one below. I’m calling these continents and not merely islands only because the one above is labeled as such, and so I’m assuming the other two are similar.

The upper continent is the Continent of Eternal Ice, while the main continent doesn’t appear to have a name, and the lower continent has absolutely no labeling whatsoever. The lack of any labels on the lower continent is interesting since it surely would have been explored by someone at some point, but maybe that comes up later on in the series.

So, before I go any further into this map, why do I think it’s the best part of the anime? Simply because it shows that the world in which our characters live is a “real” place. If you don’t understand what I mean by that, allow me to direct you to my review of Garzey’s Wing, in which I go discuss this concept in-depth.

One of the first things I noticed on this map is the Barren Lands on the West end of the continent. At first I assumed that the castle pictured there belonged to the demon lord Clayman, but as we can see, his domain actually lies far to the East, between the Eastern Empire, Jura Forest, and Milim’s domain.

What I also found interesting about the Barren Lands was it’s location. I’m probably wrong about this, but I thought this is where the Orcs originated from, or at least I thought this is the barren wasteland we saw Geld traveling through when he was found by the majin Gelmud.

If this is true, then those Orcs would have had to cross through the Various Western States to arrive at the Jura Forest. While this is certainly possible, I got the impression that the Orcs didn’t actually have to travel that far, and so I assumed to see the Barren Lands just next to Jura Forest.

Going back to the location of the demon lords’ domains, it’s also interesting to me that they’re all located on the Southeastern shore of the continent. Is there a reason all the demon lords are grouped up like that rather than being spread out?

From what I can see, there are indeed two possible reasons for the location of the demon lords. The first is the kingdom of Dwargon, which we know is a military superpower. Due to the location of the demon lords’ domains, the Jura Forest works as a buffer between them and Dwargon.

The second reason is the Holy Kingdom of Ruberium, which lies to the West on the border of the Barren Lands. If there’s one kingdom which would be the mortal enemies of the demon lords, it would have to be this one. However, I should also point out that in anime there’s rarely an antagonist more evil than the church. So, this Holy Kingdom could be an enemy of the Jura Forest later on, especially since Milim has aligned with them.

I could go on and on about different aspects of this world map, but I’ll conclude this section by simply saying that I’m looking forward to learning more about the Heretic’s Dynasty, Ulbresia Republic, Heaven’s Wing Country Fulbroshia, and especially the Continent of Eternal Ice.

More Allies

Towards the end of the episode, the Jura Tempest Federation is also contacted by emissaries from two different human kingdoms to the West, which I believe were the Brumund and Farmas Kingdoms. The three adventurers we met earlier in the series are from one of these two kingdoms, although I forget which.

But, regardless of which kingdom those familiar adventurers are from, it was the adventurers from the other kingdom who are more important. This group was sent to scout out the Jura Forest by their employer, although they admit that they planned to fake their own deaths and flee to another kingdom instead.

From this story we can assume that whichever kingdom they originally came from isn’t a very good place to live for whatever reason. If this is the case, I think it’s fair to assume that it will soon be under Rimuru’s control. Remember, this series isn’t based on an MMORPG, it’s based on a civilization building game.

Unfortunately, and I’ve probably brought this up before in regards to this series, but we’re being introduced to too many characters that I simply don’t care about. I still don’t even know the names of those original three adventurers, and now I’m being introduced to even more?

I know for a fact that I’ve raised this complaint about Overlord before, and I can see TenSura making the same mistake. Large casts are fine, but they need to be done right. Each character needs to be unique and memorable in their own way, otherwise nobody’s going to care about or remember them.

It feels like these new shounen anime think that they need to have a large cast like Naruto or One Piece, but that simply isn’t true. In fact, it’s amazing that those two series were able to actually make so many different and memorable characters.

I’m fine with TenSura trying to have a lot of side characters, but don’t expect me to remember all the names of these cardboard characters who appear once every 8 episodes at most in a 24 episode season.

Conclusion

Now that you know how I felt about this episode, what were your thoughts? Did you like the horrible opening scene about the potions? Do you think all the characters are memorable? Do you hate maps? Let me know your wrong opinions in the comments.

If you enjoyed today’s episode review of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, then be sure to click the like button ❤ down below. Also, give me a follow over on Twitter @DoubleSama. I tweet out every time a new post goes live, so it’s the best way to stay up to date with all my content.

Do you want to help support DoubleSama.com like HeavyROMAN who’s supporting the blog at the Heika tier? Then head on over to Patreon.com/DoubleSama to learn more about the various tiers of patronage and their respective benefits.

My review of the next episode is available here.

2 Replies to “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 17”

  1. The only important thing about the scene of Vesta was to show its usefulness because thanks to this they will no longer need Rimuru to make the potions, come on that he can not do it all by himself, if something is doing well is also to show the usefulness of each character for the city as Gobta who has proved to be the best warrior goblin despite its size, and now with Youmu that Rimuru will make him the hero of the city.

    1. But showing the usefulness of Vesta and the potions has nothing to do with how it was done, which is what I have an issue with.

Leave a Comment