Goblin Slayer II

Episode 10

That wedding arc was nice but the honeymoon couldn't last forever. As the current story for Goblin Slayer II starts to take clearer shape, that also means the series tripping and falling back into its old meticulously laid pitfalls. In this case, it's not just the same dead horse to beat about the shallowness of the writing, though that's there too. The bigger issue is that after several episodes of the show exploring the potential for new avenues that played to the strengths it had, it's now regressing and embracing its weaknesses instead.

It's frustrating because the show's still chugging along well with its better points right up until it isn't. Take the party splitting up for some R&R. The guys all go to get drinks together, something that previous episodes have used well in communicating camaraderie, and disarming the Slayer in particular. There's still some vulnerable insight into him during this sit-down, including continuing the amusing awareness of how the actual goblin slaying has taken a backseat to other sorts of adventures. It's a more serious intonation of the situation than the gag it was in the last couple of mentions, which could work well in terms of philosophizing about what it means for the Goblin Slayer to be the Goblin Slayer.

Unfortunately, while the anime has proven quite capable of grounded character insight recently, it turns out it's still not quite so well-equipped for more dense idea exploration. The attempt at a framing metaphor is a dead giveaway. It just comes off stupid to me that the impact of the Dwarf's idiom can only be best felt by making the Slayer suddenly unaware of how swords work. This is the guy who ties specialty knots on his potion bottles, and you're telling me he's never sharpened a sword before? This is the version of Goblin Slayer I got so acclimated to, which thinks is much more clever than it is. As with so many other nitpicky issues I've taken with this series, this malfunctioning metaphor is ultimately a minor thing, but it's emblematic of all the issues that become visible when the story gets like this.

With that in mind, Goblin Slayer II thus primes the audience to watch it go through its stock motions. Sheltered girl shown wishing for adventure at the beginning of the episode? She's immediately on a countdown clock before her ill-advised escapade results in her getting grabbed by goblins and having unspeakable horrors visited on her. It's not a new framework, it was already used as the backstory for the Noble Fencer in the Goblin's Crown movie—who shows up in this episode because the series is brazen in its habit of repeating itself. It's the same core concept that was also seen in the story of Wizard Boy: Inexperienced adventurers who somehow know nothing of the dangers of goblins being hurt and humbled so the Slayer can show them and the audience how it's really done.

Now, the exact circumstances of the victimized Princess initiating this issue make it marginally easier to buy her naivete compared to someone like Wizard Boy. Again, she's more akin to the Noble Fencer, but with even less training and preparation. On some level the idea of this specific instance seems to be to deconstruct the standby fantasy indulgence of rich royalty yearning for the freedom of adventure. The problem is the audience isn't given enough about the Princess to care about her beyond that stock trope and the show's expected result of horrible things happening to her. And what little we do get is borderline-nonsensical plot enactments for the sake of getting all our role-playing pieces on the board.

Bluntly: Why does the Princess need to enact some absurd bathhouse stakeout plan specifically to steal the Priestess's robes and chainmail? I can buy that she knows nothing of adventurer classes and what would be best offensively for an effectively solo adventurer. But she somehow already got her hands on a guard's armor and uniform. Does she have no capacity to just buy equipment from vendors?

The real reason for this is all contrivance, to follow Priestess and High Elf Archer into the bath, which hey, at least that's more of the party bonding time that I've praised this season for so far. But then it's just to rip Priestess off so she can feel sad about losing her cherished chainmail that the Slayer complimented, and provide a modicum more motivation to point the party at the Princess-rescuing quest by the end. Which they didn't even need to do, because as highlighted in the story, someone mentioned goblins within earshot of the Goblin Slayer, so you know he was already running there, unsharpened sword at the ready. I was honestly rooting for Goblin Slayer II for a bit t. But now it will have to pull something revolutionary out of its tired old setups if it wants to win me back.

Rating:

Goblin Slayer II is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

You can just call Chris the Goblin Slayer Slayer. You can check out his other adventures over on his blog, or brave the grungy goblin cave that is Twitter.