The Summer 2021 Preview Guide

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2 Part 2

Champion of monsters Rimuru Tempest ends the orc war and earns the esteemed title as Slime Chancellor. Now that the Jura Tempest Alliance is growing even further, they will now be meeting the animal kingdom of Eurazania, reuniting with King Gazel, rising tensions between monsters and humans, and Rimuru encountering the strongest enemy he's ever faced.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is based on Taiki Kawakami's manga, which in turn adapted author Fuse and artist Mitz Vah's light novel series of the same name. It streams on Funimation on Tuesdays.

Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:

When last we left our slime hero, he'd just killed 20,000 men, committed a dark ritual to become a demon lord, resurrected his lost friends, and set free a world-ending threat from its eternal prison. This first episode of the second half of the season is all about the fallout of his actions—both the intended and unintended.

After all the stress and drama of the past half season, it makes sense that the first thing the people of Tempest do is throw a party—one that begins with the introduction of Valdora to the population. Luckily, Rimuru's friendship with Milim allows the people to take this in stride. From there it's a return to some classic jokes—namely Shion's cooking skills (as well as an explanation to why her cooking is so bad).

With the light-heartedness of the first half of the episode, you might forget that Rimuru is no longer the innocent he was. For while the invading army is no more, those responsible for it remain. It's almost chilling how easily Rimuru orders the “interrogation” of his prisoners and makes plans to conquer a kingdom/set up a puppet government—you know, along with keeping the church off balance, rescuing Carrion from Milim, and getting revenge on Clayman.

All this is to show that the attack on Tempest has forever changed Rimuru. He no longer believes that peace between monsters and humans can be achieved by simply showing that monsters are not a threat. Now he knows that his enemies are real and out there—wanting to destroy him, his nation, and those he cares about for nothing more than personal gain. Instead of waiting for unknown threats to come to him, he will take the fight to the world. And if, in the end, there is to be peace between monsters and humans, it will be on his terms.

The rest of the episode is almost a counterpoint to Rimuru's new path. While idealistic and perhaps a bit naive, Rimuru's work so far at building a peaceful nation of monsters has borne fruit. Not only do the dwarfs send their formidable pegasus knights to join Tempest in the war but the tiny human nation of Blumund sends troops as well (both not knowing the major battle is already over). More than that, a nation of elves sends an envoy to establish relations with Tempest on the eve of war as well. Hopefully, knowing that all his attempts at peaceful coexistence had a positive effect will serve to temper Rimuru's newfound aggression somewhat. There other options besides strict pacifism or world conquest, after all.

All in all, this episode is a solid start to the back half of the season that gives our heroes some much needed rest while looking at both what has come before and what is yet to come.