Goblin Slayer Episode 4

Goblin Slayer Episode 4

Introduction

Before we begin, I’d like to remind you all that there’s currently a poll up on Twitter to determine what other Fall 2018 series gets the episodic review treatment. If you’d like to cast your vote for one of the four finalists, click the embedded tweet below.

If you’re not familiar with one or all of the anime in the poll, you can read a brief summary of each one, along with why I think they’d make good picks, here.

The Strong

Now that you’ve voted, let’s take a look at today’s episode of Goblin Slayer. We pick up where we left off with our party outside the Goblin’s hideout. The high elf had just taken out the guards at the entrance, and is now bragging about her mastery of the bow.

If only she knew the horrors which she was about to witness inside the Goblin’s lair.

The first of these horrors actually begins before even entering the dungeon, as Goblin Slayer begins to cut open a goblin in order to mask the smell of the party with its blood and guts. Previously, we had been informed that this was done to mask the smell of metal, but this time around Goblin Slayer gives a more detailed explanation.

As it turns out, along with metal, goblins are particularly good at sniffing out humans and elves, even more so if they’re women. For this reason, for the rest of the episode we can see that it looks like only Goblin Slayer, the priestess, and the high elf have masked their scents with goblin blood.

The dwarf and lizardman are noticeably cleaner-looking, likely because they aren’t human or high elves, aren’t women, and don’t wear metal armor. It’s little details like this which really bring the world to life and highlights the differences between characters.

Speaking of the differences between characters, in this episode we also learn what each of the new party members specialize in. For starters, we already knew the high elf was an archer, but it turns out she’s actually a ranger who excels in tracking and spotting traps as well.

While her trap-spotting ability does come in handy within the goblin hideout, she’s unable to use her tracking ability to its full potential. The reason for this is that unlike a standard cave, this hideout is actually the remains of an old, underground, human fortress.

But, while she can’t easily find footprints on the stone floor, another party member can (in a way). The dwarf may not be a tracker, but he’s spent enough of his life in stone tunnels to be able to read the wear on the floor. By doing this, he can recognize the most traveled routes in the dungeon.

I’ll get back to discussing the rest of the dwarf’s and the lizardman’s abilities shortly, but it’s time to move on a bit with the plot. I mentioned that the high elf’s trap-spotting ability came in handy, and while it’s good that she spotted the trap before it was activated, the fact that a trap was there at all makes Goblin Slayer uneasy.

Normally goblins aren’t very smart creatures unless they’re being led by a shaman. However, if a shaman was leading the goblins within this particular hideout, the party would have seen totems on their way in, which they didn’t.

While the lack of totems means there isn’t a magic-casting goblin inside, which is good, the fact that there’s something unknown leading the goblins is bad. I assumed that we were going to meet a goblin champion which was leading the horde, but as we find out later, this isn’t the case.

After that, the party comes to a fork in the path and the dwarf tells them that the goblins are to the left, Goblin Slayer chooses to go right instead. While the rest of the party is confused by his choice, assuming that he’d want to head towards the goblins as fast as possible, it turns out that he knows more about goblins than they do.

The right path leads to a dead-end room in which a wounded high elf girl is being held captive. Although she’s trying to speak, the only word she can seem to get out is “kill,” to which Goblin Slayer responds, “I understand” and unsheathes his sword.

At this point the rest of the party believes they’re about to witness a murder. The priestess has already witnessed Goblin Slayer perform a mercy killing in the past and assumes he’s going to do it again. As for the rest of the party, the fact that goblin slayer stops the priestess from healing the high elf shows his dark intent.

However, the truth comes to light when a goblin jumps out of a crack from behind the injured girl and Goblin Slayer kills it before it can do any harm. He then reminds the rest of his party that he’s only there to kill goblins, implying that killing the high elf had never even crossed his mind.

With the girl saved, the party continues deeper into the dungeon. In this next half of the episode we learn the abilities of the two remaining party members.

While I had already predicted that the lizardman was some sort of shaman, this is confirmed. We see him use two different spells, each involving dragon bones of some kind. His first spell spawns a dragon bone warrior, and his second spawns a sickle-shaped sword.

From these two spells, we can see that he’s much more of an offensive spell caster than the priestess is. However, we also learn that the dwarf is a mage of some sort as well, and uses magic in a much more supporting role like the priestess does.

I had previously assumed the dwarf would be some sort of berserker or tank, but apparently this party isn’t all that well-rounded. Who needs offensive power when you could have three mages instead?

The first spell we see the dwarf use is one that makes the goblins fall asleep, and the second one creates stone projectiles which are then fired in rapid blasts at a target.

We also learn the “power levels” of each of the three magic casters, though can’t be used to compare them to either the high elf or Goblin Slayer. We already knew that the priestess can use three spells, but now we learn that the lizardman can use four, and the dwarf can use five.

Assuming that these numbers of spells are based around some standard, we can assume that the dwarf is the “highest level” spell caster in the party and the priestess is the lowest. This makes sense because the priestess is only a porcelain-ranked adventurer, and the dwarf has been an adventurer longer than the lizardman.

After finishing off all the goblins found in a large, circular room, the “final boss” appears. As expected, the ringleader of the goblins wasn’t a shaman like we had seen before. Instead, an ogre was leading the goblins.

According to the ogre, the goblin horde under his control was given to him by either the demon lord himself or one of his generals. I can’t remember if the goblins were a gift from one of the generals or if the ogre was one of the generals and the goblins were gifted to him. Either way, he’s in charge.

It’s at this point that we learn that Goblin Slayer has either never heard of ogres before, or he just has a better sense of humor than I would have expected. He acknowledges that he’s heard there are monsters stronger than goblins, but since they aren’t goblins he’s never cared about them.

It’s more likely that Goblin Slayer was attempting to make the ogre mad than him actually having never heard of ogres before. I have to assume that he’s at least heard someone mention an ogre before in the guild hall, but perhaps not.

During the fight against the ogre, we learn that while Goblin Slayer is the best at slaying goblins, he doesn’t really know much about slaying anything else. I had previously assumed he was actually a platinum-rank adventurer who was stuck at silver due to his obsession with goblins, but this may actually not be the case.

Even with the help of his new comrades, Goblin Slayer is unable to even land a meaningful wound on the ogre due to its natural healing ability. And, despite his military genius when it comes to fighting hordes of goblins, he doesn’t even come up with real strategy to defeat the ogre either.

Instead, Goblin Slayer has to fall back on one of his magic scrolls which he had been saving to use on a goblin nest if need be. As the ogre is unleashing a giant fireball, Goblin Slayer activates his scroll and summons the power of the ocean’s depths to defeat his opponent.

He then delivers the finishing blow to the wounded ogre, and adds insult to injury by saying that who or what the ogre was doesn’t matter now that he’s defeated.

Goblin Slayer killing an ogre from the anime Goblin Slayer
Goblin Slayer killing an ogre

After their battle is complete and any straggling goblins are found and killed (or so I assume), the group takes their leave and heads back to the town. On the way back, the high elf remarks that while she still doesn’t like Goblin Slayer, she is starting to recognize his skill as an adventurer.

Before concluding, I want to take a brief moment to discuss magic scrolls, both the one Goblin Slayer used specifically, as well as them in general. Last week, the silver-ranked mage in the guild hall told the priestess that she once got a strange request from Goblin Slayer about scrolls, and we now see what it was.

The scroll which Goblin Slayer used against the ogre is one that works as a teleportation spell, and most adventurers use it to make a quick escape when in a pinch. You can think of it kind of like the escape rope item from the Pokémon games if you’re familiar with that.

However, Goblin Slayer used it in the opposite way. Instead of using it to teleport himself out of danger, he essentially used it as a summoning scroll like the ones found in Naruto. But, instead of summoning an animal or a weapon, he summoned the ocean depths.

While I mentioned that he didn’t use ingenuity to defeat the ogre, he did use ingenuity when setting up this scroll to be used against goblins. Nobody else would have expected a transportation scroll like that to be used in the way he used it, which just goes to show how Goblin Slayer thinks compared to the average adventurer.

By tying the other end of the spell to the depths of the ocean, Goblin Slayer was able to unleash a torrent of highly pressurized water to cut the ogre to pieces before he was able to regenerate. While this worked, I assume the original intent was to use the scroll to flood a goblin nest, thus drowning all those inside.

I can’t wait to see what other kinds of magic scrolls are out there, and how exactly Goblin Slayer chooses to use them. If I’m remembering correctly, he should have one or two more scrolls on him, so we may get to see what they do before the end of this season.

Conclusion

So what did you think of this week’s episode of Goblin Slayer? I found it to be much more interesting and entertaining than the previous two episodes, and while I did notice Goblin Slayer’s CG animation, it didn’t stand out quite as much.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

2 Replies to “Goblin Slayer Episode 4”

  1. You should check out the actual name of the characters, it kinda spelled out what they do. The 3 new party members are: High Elf Archer, Dwarf Shaman and Lizardman Priest. The Lizardman Priest follows a different god than Priestess (who worships the Earth Mother) and their miracles are a bit different. The Dwarf Shaman uses elemental spells, a sort of specialized mage, except with religious component attached to it.

    1. Yeah, I saw the full names of the characters after the first episode, but I wasn’t sure if they would be considered spoilers for any part so I left them out for the time being. It seems that isn’t the case though.

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