That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2 Episode 35

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2 Episode 35

Merciless

TenSura Season 2 Episode 35 was a good episode. I don’t mean “it was good for TenSura.” I mean that it was a good episode. It might not have had super well-choreographed action sequences. But those aren’t required for a good episode of anime.

Anyway, this week I figured we’d look at Rimuru’s skills since they played a major role in the episode. I went over Megiddo a bit last week, so I’m going to skip that one and start with Rimuru’s newest skill, Merciless.

Merciless is an extremely powerful skill for a few reasons. But how does one acquire it? Originally I thought it was tied to becoming a Demon Lord. However, Rimuru acquires it when he’s only about halfway to the number of souls required for that transformation.

Rimuru's Merciless skill from the anime series That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2
Rimuru’s Merciless skill

It seems that the Merciless skill is acquired by killing a certain number of people who have already surrendered. Rimuru unlocks the skill right after killing soldiers who beg to be spared. And the effect of the skill also has to do with this.

Merciless automatically kills everyone within a wide range of the user who has lost the will to fight against the user. That’s a very devastating skill to have. Simply by striking fear in the hearts of your enemies, you can kill them all in an instant.

Since the skill system in this series operates much like it would in a video game, we can probably assume that there are “fear” type skills that cause enemies to flee rather than attack. Paired with one of those skills, Merciless could be used without actually fighting at all.

But, it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing Rimuru use the Merciless skill again in the series.

Skill Swapping

When Rimuru evolved from a Slime to a Demon Slime and gained his Demon Lord title, he also upgraded all of his skills. Or, he would have upgraded them all if some of them weren’t used as payment to upgrade others.

I don’t remember what every one of RImuru’s skills does. But I’m pretty sure one of the skills that was traded in to upgrade a different skill was called Devastation. So whatever Devastation was, we can assume Rimuru can no longer use it.

Why does this matter? Because unless I misunderstood what happened in the midst of all this skill upgrading, Rimuru traded in his brand new Merciless skill. And if you consider how I just mentioned that Merciless is an overpowered skill, that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Rimuru's skills being upgraded from the anime series That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2
Rimuru’s skills being upgraded

So, why would Rimuru give up a skill like Merciless? There are three primary reasons. First, we have the reason you may have expected. By losing this skill, Rimuru is effectively being nerfed. Since Merciless is such a powerful skill, it would void a lot of future conflict. You could argue that simply not adding the skill in the first place would make more sense, though.

Second, as Rimuru stated, he doesn’t believe that he’ll have many options to actually use the skill. I disagree with this sentiment, but if that’s what he thinks, it makes sense for him to trade it in for a skill he thinks he’ll use more.

And third, even if Rimuru was faced with situations in which he could use Merciless, would he ever use it again? The only reason he slaughtered 10,000 people here was that they killed his comrades and he needed souls to become a Demon Lord and revive them. Without that context, it’s unlikely Rimuru would resort to genocide.

Birth of a Demon Lord

Something you might have noticed is that it wasn’t explained very well how exactly Rimuru was able to revive everyone who had been killed. Sure, he used a powerful type of magic to do it. But what does that have to do with being a Demon Lord?

We were told that becoming a Demon Lord grants that Demon Lord something they desire. The only examples we have so far both dealt with resurrection, so beyond that, I can’t really comment. But it’s not as if Rimuru wished for his friends to be resurrected and it happened. He had to perform the act of resurrection.

So was the magic that granted him the ability to resurrect the dead his gift for becoming a Demon Lord? And if so, does this imply that Rimuru can resurrect the dead any other time he pleases (and has the proper amount of magicules)?

Demon Lord Rimuru reviving his friends from the anime series That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2
Demon Lord Rimuru reviving his friends

It’s a weird situation. Obviously, the ability for Rimuru to revive the dead whenever he wants would take away a lot of risks and consequences in the series. But at the same time, I think it could be used in some very intriguing ways.

For example, could Rimuru use this revival magic to bring Shizu back to life?

Shizu’s been dead for a long time, so you would expect that she couldn’t be revived by this spell. But, Rimuru absorbed her body into his own immediately upon her death. I think he even gained her memories or something. So might that mean he absorbed her soul as well?

And if Rimuru absorbed Shizu’s soul, couldn’t he use his slime body to piece it, and her physical body, back together? He’s been shown to be able to restore things in the past. But, despite it seeming possible for Rumuru to revive Shizu, in death, she was finally able to be with her loved ones again. Would Rimuru really take that away from her?

Conclusion

What do you think of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2 Episode 35? Do you think the Merciless skill is as good as I claim it is? Should Rimuru have gotten rid of it as he did? And do you think we could see Shizu be revived eventually? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Episode 36 is available here.

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