That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 19
Charybdis
I know there are probably a lot of you who think this was the best episode of TenSura to date, so I’m just gonna rip this bandage off quickly. This was one of the stupidest episodes the series has had so far. And, in case you missed last week’s review, I predicted the exact reason for why this episode was going to be so bad.
Well, actually there were two reasons for why this episode was so bad. The first was what I predicted last week, which is that Charybdis literally doesn’t matter. The second comes towards the end, and is something I’ve complained about in the past as well, which is that everyone gets along no matter what.
I usually get comments on my TenSura episode reviews anyway, but this week I’m really going to need you guys to explain to me what you think is so good about this series in particular. I just don’t see it no matter how hard I try.
Are you afraid of real conflict? Do you not like flawed characters? Do you enjoy being able to predict exactly what’s going to happen at every turn?
Also, on an unrelated note, what’s the deal with newer anime, specifically those in the fantasy/isekai genres, using bass-boosted sounds for everything? Boruto does it, SAO: Alicization does it, I feel like Shield Hero does it, and TenSura does it as well. Remember the days when sound effects didn’t make your ears bleed?
And, just because I used currently airing anime as my examples doesn’t mean this is something that just started this year. You can find examples of it over the past couple of years, but it seems to get more and more popular as time goes on.
The Megalodons
Alright, so as I previously mentioned, one of the major issues with this episode is that Charybdis doesn’t really matter. By that, I mean that the fact that Charybdis is attacking doesn’t matter, not necessarily that the monster itself doesn’t matter.
This is what I predicted during last week’s review, and within this week’s episode the first hint that this was actually the case came with the defeat of the Megalodons. Along with Charybdis, thirteen flying Megalodons were summoned to serve as its subordinates.
These Megalodons were propped up and said to be strong monsters, but as we saw, they’re actually pushovers. The first of these Megalodons was taken down with a single attack from Benimaru, meaning that he theoretically could have defeated all of them by himself.
Further, it’s explained that Charybdis has a special skill which disrupts the flow of magicules in the nearby area. This implies that even though Benimaru was able to one-shot a Megalodon, he wasn’t even using his full power to do so.
Okay, but we know Benimaru is strong, so does that really show that the Megalodons are weak? Well, Benimaru wasn’t the only person to one-shot a Megalodon. Souei took down at least two, Hakuro defeated one, and even Gabiru one-shot a Megalodon. These monsters clearly aren’t that big of a deal.
I’m pretty sure the fights against the Megalodons were supposed to show us how strong the Jura Tempest Federation members are, but they forgot one, very important piece. They forgot to show us how strong the Megalodons are. This means that they just made the Megalodons look weak.
The Chaos-Class Beast
So, now that we’ve seen how little the Megalodons mattered, what about the big, bad boss, Charybdis? First, let’s take a look at its unique skills, because as I mentioned last week, it’s those skills which are going to determine whether or not this ends up being a difficult fight.
As far as we’re shown, it has two unique skills that really matter. The first is its magicule disruption skill, and the second is its extremely fast regeneration skill. The scale shooting and eye laser also probably count as skills, but they’re more attacks than skills as far as I’m concerned.
So, out of the two skills, the second one is the only one that matters. As we saw from the fight against the Megalodons, the magicule disruption skill doesn’t have enough of an effect to really make a difference. The regeneration skill, however, does somewhat.
This skill enables Charybdis to regenerate all of its scales (and potentially its health) every three minutes, meaning it can chain its scale shooting attack and regeneration skill for maximum effectiveness. But, as I’ve already mentioned, Charybdis, like the Megalodons, doesn’t really matter.
After a so-called all-out attack by the Jura Tempest Federation, we’re told that Charybdis’ health only went down by about 30%. This may make it seem strong, but, to be fair, we only saw Rimuru use one attack on it, and that didn’t even seem to be his strongest attack.
So, the question needs to be asked, is Charybdis strong, or did Rimuru just hold back? My money is on the latter, because if he can defeat a demon lord on his own, I have no doubt he can beat Charybdis on his own too.
Milim’s Restraint
But, before Rimuru decides to defeat Charybdis, he learns that the reason it’s attacking the forest is because Milim is there, not because it found out he holds Veldora inside him. Thanks to this revelation, the ban on Milim taking part in the fight is now called off, and the rest is up to her.
Milim also informs Rimuru that Phobio, the Beastman who came to the city on behalf of Demon Lord Carrion, is the one whose body is being used to as a vessel for Charybdis. Upon learning this, Rimuru asks Milim to defeat the monster without killing the Beastman inside, because he’s a white knight like that.
And, this is where we learn just how truly weak Charybdis is. Not only is its magicule disruption skill in effect, which should be making Milim weaker than she normally would be, but Milim also agrees to “show restraint” when defeating the monster, implying that she won’t go all-out.
Even so, she easily one-shots Charybdis, which still had at least 70% of its health remaining. I get that Milim is the strongest of the demon lords, but the fact that she could defeat a chaos-class monster in one shot while in a weakened state and without even trying seems to show that Charybdis didn’t matter.
There was never any danger. At any point in time either Milim, or even Rimuru, could have defeated the beast and all 13 Megalodons easily if they so chose. That’s why this episode wasn’t good. There was never any real danger, and there wasn’t even the impression of real danger. I knew they were going to easily win the whole time.
But, that’s just par for the course as far as this series is concerned, so I shouldn’t expect anything more anyway.
Demon Lord Carrion
So, we get through all the bad content in this episode, and what are we met with at the end? More bad content, but this time in the form of the Demon Lord Carrion.
I’ll be honest, Carrion seems like he could be a good character going forward, but I just don’t like how this series continues to sidestep any form of actual conflict. Out of the four main demon lords, the only one who Rimuru and the gang might have to go up against is Clayman, and that just feels wrong.
Milim is already on Rimuru’s side, we’ve been told that Frey doesn’t care about anyone else and so probably won’t ever be an issue, and now Carrion is also on Rimuru’s side to an extent. In return for sparing his subordinate, Phobio, Carrion is indebted to Rimuru and forms a non-aggression pact with his country.
So, riddle me this, if Rimuru can probably defeat Clayman as is, and he also has all his powerful subordinates, Milim, the Dwarves, and now Carrion on his side, then how is defeating Clayman going to be a challenge? Where’s the conflict when literally everyone is on your side?
I mean, I could see Carrion betraying the Jura Tempest Federation at some point, but even without Carrion on his side, the scales are tipped way too far in Rimuru’s favor. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there’s never going to be a fight in this anime that actually matters.
I can think of a few ways in which fights in this anime could matter, but I’m confident based on what I’ve seen so far that these developments will never come to pass.
Conclusion
This is the point at which I usually ask what your thoughts were on this episode of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, but I already know you all overwhelmingly enjoyed it for some ungodly reason. So, instead, explain to me why you like this series, because I just don’t get it.
Anyway, if you enjoyed today’s review or found any of my points to be interesting or helpful, click the like button ❤ down below. I can also expand on any of my points in the comments upon request because in order to keep this post from getting too long I assumed some level of world and character-building knowledge.
You should also go give me a follow over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any of my future content. As a bonus, there’s currently a poll up regarding what this upcoming Sunday’s post should be on, so be sure to vote on that.
And, finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. If you’d like to help support this blog as well, then head on over to Patreon.com/DoubleSama for more details on the various tiers of patronage and their respective benefits.
My review of the next episode is available here.
Discover more from DoubleSama
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
ダブル様 // Daily anime and manga reviews, rankings, and recommendations since 2017. Join our community.
8 Replies to “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Episode 19”
First of all I want to know if at least you know what the meaning of this story?
I can say without hesitation that it is NOT about struggles of power, competition or self-improvement. At first, Rimuru is established as the possessor of unjustly versatile and advantageous abilities. His venture into the world has never been a physical challenge of any kind, but a strategic and intellectual challenge.
That’s what’s shown here. We knew since last episode that Rimuru wasn’t even the target of Charybdis and we got the battle because Rimuru was evaluating his own nation as too high and making too speculative inferences about Charybdis’ motives for moving towards Tempest.
The reason why Clayman and the clowns even got involved with Charybdis in the first place was due to Frey and Charybdis itself. From the result it’s obvious that they couldn’t tame Charybdis and Clayman mentioned that he doesn’t really care much about Tempest one way or another aside from Laplace’s irky feeling, so Clayman’s and the clowns motives about throwing out Charybdis are clearly part of the Demon Lord politics.
Forbio also did what he did due to Milim. He himself didn’t seem to have any grudge against Rimuru or Tempest at any point.
In other words, No one involved with Charybdis targeted Tempest or Rimuru and he was essentially just a random bystander in Demon Lord politics and Forbio’s grudge against Milim. This time is different from the Orc Disaster because unlike then where he was simply not known by anyone, this time he got ignored deliberately. It shows how no one even really views him as a “player” in the Demon Lord politics at this point. He is still considered “small fry” that can be ignored.
So the purpose of this bow which is showing that not only Rimuru has troubles finding out how others view him, but also that Rimuru and Tempest aren’t really on the Demon Lord’s radar, aside from Carrion (only after the ordeal was over) and Milim who had directly interacted with Rimuru. The fight itself showed that Rimuru also has limitations, which in this case is a lack of decisive attack power that can break through strong defenses, while also showing off Milim’s overwhelming might.
It’s pretty clear that this series isn’t about struggling to survive, but my point is that it there’s essentially zero meaningful conflict whatsoever. For all intents and purposes, this is a slice of life anime, and even among slice of life anime, this has little meaningful conflict.
Conflict doesn’t have to be a physical fight. In the case of this series, political conflict between differing nations would work too. However, we haven’t really even seen that up to this point. We almost had it with Dwargon, but after exchanging a single blow with Rimuru, King Dwargo decides to be his friend. The same is true for Carrion in this episode.
When every potential antagonist (aside from Demon Lord Geld) just becomes friends with the protagonist instead, what’s the point? Where’s the conflict? I didn’t think the actual fight against Geld was executed well in the anime, but I have to say that the conflict set up around that fight was better than anything else I’ve seen from this series.
But, that aside, was I really wrong in saying that there was no meaningful conflict in this episode? Everything you pointed out seems to corroborate my claims. Nobody expected Rimuru and his nation to lose, and there was barely any real reason for the attack on the Forest to take place to begin with.
Also, just to cover my bases, I did say that while the Charybdis fight was meaningless, the actual being of Charydbis might not be. However, with what we know solely from the anime at this point, Charybdis was resurrected just for Clayman to mess with Frey, and it only attacked the Forest because Phobio had a grudge against Milim (which was solved by him “becoming friends” with Rimuru, like always).
You seem to be misunderstanding the point of this fight. This fight isn’t supposed to be a fight that they can lose, period, thinking and expecting that there are stakes to begin with in this fight is kind of silly. The second thing here is that the battles aren’t the main focus, the Charybdis fight is used as a vehicle to introduce Charrion. This is also used as a vehicle to show just how strong Millim is. I think what you are missing is that time is passively moving throughout this fight, such that TEN hours have passed from when Rimuru and co first engaged Charybdis to when Millim finally finishes it off. (might I remind you that Charybdis was constantly regenerating health throughout the entire fight due to ultraspeed regen) Thirdly, all of Rimuru’s forces were engaging in an all out attack on the Charybdis for that entire time. You not being able to recognize the passage of time in this fight just made it seem like Charybdis was weaker than you thought. Finally, there are much stronger enemy’s that will be able to kill Rimuru, certain humans and basically all of the demon lords right now (including clayman, you seem to underestimate just how powerful these individuals are). And I can tell you right now that you are mistaken to think that Rimuru could have beaten Charybdis and all 13 megaldons by himself, even with his massive magic reserves, he would run out of before being able to kill the Charybdis, and probably would have been killed if he did not have as much backup as he did. To this end the fight did what it was supposed to do, present an enemy that even with help, Rimuru could not defeat forcing him to rely on Millim and show just how powerful Millim is that she one shotted the Charybdis even though she was still holding back.
I understand that the point of this fight was to show the difference in power between various parties involved, but my point is that it doesn’t do a very good job of this. There’s this concept called power scaling which is typically used to demonstrate how powerful someone is compared to others, and this is what the episode failed to use effectively.
Based on what we’ve seen in the anime, this is how the power scaling works in this series:
This power scaling information is nothing new. We already knew Rimuru was stronger than his subordinates via his defeating of most of them. And, we already knew that Milim is extremely powerful (I think it was stated that she’s 10x more powerful than Rimuru even when holding back). But, we don’t really have a good sense for the power difference between Rimuru and Charybdis.
Yes, Charybdis is strong, but not as strong as Milim. It was previously stated to be on par with a demon lord, but we’ve already seen Rimuru defeat a demon lord and Milim has expressed that Rimuru is already strong enough to be considered a demon lord as well. So, by this logic, before the fight begins, Rimuru appers to have the advantage.
Finally, we see Rimuru use 1 attack, then it cuts to 10 hours later after the “all-out” attack. Did he take part in this all out attack? We don’t know. He looks pretty well rested still at that point so maybe not. If he did, what skills did he try using against the monster? He has some pretty powerful skills which Charybdis theoretically has no defense against.
I’m not really arguing that Rimuru is on par with Milim, or even Charybdis for that matter. Instead, I’m arguing that based on the buildup we were given, this is what should be the case.
The battles didn’t solve any plot points Rimuru won Ifrit, but anyway he lost the most important thing that was Shizu, The orc lord was not the best plan that clayman could do what happens is that he lets his vassals do their job because he is a lazy, and this series focus isn’t battles so I don’t see why there should be tension or high stakes but it seems alot people haven’t picked up on that after 19 episodes lol
But there should be conflict of some sort. It doesn’t matter if it’s battles or not.
Conflict:
Where is the conflict when everyone just becomes friends and tosses aside their differences every time they meet Rimuru?
Tensura completely rid themsellves of any conflict, purposely I mean think about it they introduced millim right before some random shark came, they always finish a fight of anykind in 1 ep (wolves,ifrit,orc lord, chraybids) that proceed with aftermath
It’s like the author just give everyone a middle finger for thinking that tension is the number one driving force of any Writting that the world must comply themselves to the teaching of tension sensei.
Whats important is that this show still managed to give a “smile” in my face every monday morning, something that dororo and tate do 180° I’m pretty sure you guys understand what I’m saying 😉
Fair enough, but even if you look at TenSura as a slice of life series I’d still argue that there are better options out there this season. Endro and Watenten are two examples which I would rate just above TenSura. There’s also the best anime of the season, Kaguya-sama, but that does have conflict at the center of the series.