A 50 year grudge – over in an instant in I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years.
Anyone who found the first episode of ‘I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level’ a little lacking in excitement will probably not care for this follow up episode. For me, episode 2 gave me more or less what I expected from this premise and the end result is something that is very watchable but not particularly remarkable.
If anything, it seems like this series is going out of its way to downplay any of its interesting ideas out of fear it might shake the audience out of their feel-good lull and they apparently really don’t want to.
The episode of I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years begins with Azusa giving Laika lessons on how she got so strong, but given all she did was kills a few slimes each day, its a pretty short lesson. Instead, Azusa seems determined to steer Laika onto the slow and steady path that she’s embraced since reincarnation. Her comments to Laika are very much equivalent to stop and smell the rose and while it makes perfect sense given how her character died if that’s all she’s got then this story is going to run out of steam relatively quickly.
What did grab my interest was the shadowy girl watching Azusa and threatening revenge.
Also, the very brief sub-plot introduced by Laika about the village potentially being in danger which led to them building a magical barrier around it. That was a cool concept and felt like it deserved more than the few seconds of episode time it got. I mean, it immediately stunned a thief in his tracks and the villagers were all celebrating their new defence and then it literally doesn’t get mentioned again, nor does it play any role in the rest of the episode.
There is the possibility that the barrier is being set-up in order to be in play for future plot developments and it just hasn’t been used yet, however it really did feel like an out-of-place little side story in amongst the whole someone trying to kill Azusa plot that ran through the rest of the episode.
And if we go by the theory of Chekov’s Gun, here we had a gun that wasn’t fired, picked up, or even mentioned again after we set in on the wall. Of course, this is a series so there’s always the option that we’ll get back to it however it was something that stood out to me as flow breaking here as it definitely didn’t feel integrated with the rest of the story.
Fortunately, once Falfa appears at Azusa’s door with her ‘your my mother’ proclamation as well as the declaration that her younger sister intends to kill Azusa, the rest of the episode flows pretty well. Falfa and her sister Shalsha are as adorable as you would expect for 50-year-old slime spirits in an isekai (meaning they are cute girls with contrasting hair and hair-tie colours).
The girls’ very existence made the basic premise more interesting. Azusa had been killing slimes for 300 years and here were two slime spirits who could feel the deaths of slimes. In Shalsha’s case she was actually angry enough to spend 50 years learning a specific magic to fight the evil witch.
Given Azusa’s slime massacres had so far been down-played as just her daily grind, it was kind of interesting to think about the consequence on the eco-system of that many slimes being depleted as well as the ramifications when the girls could feel those deaths.
However, this is not a story that really wants to get into that and so after a super cute smack-down, followed by a moment where Shalsha tries to use magic she no-longer has (in a scene that looked like it was cut straight out of an episode of Love, Chuunibyo and other Delusions), the slime girls more or less decide to move in with the witch and they all go to the village for ingredients for dinner.
Honestly, I’m glad we have some additional characters because it has become clear in this episode that Laika is going to ride the devoted disciple trope for all it is worth and that kind of thing would wear thin fast. The final dinner at the end of the episode looked like there was some good chemistry between the cast and with more characters it is less likely that they’ll wear out their welcome if they can play off one another.
All that remains to be seen is whether or not this anime can continue to be light-fun or whether it ends up feeling just a little too empty to engage for the duration. So far it is hitting the light-fun side and I honestly enjoyed this second episode even if I still wonder about the whole point of the barrier section.
Images used for review from: I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level. Dir. N Kimura. Revoroot. 2021.
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Karandi James
Another cute and easy going episode. I was also a little annoyed at how quickly the evil slime sprite gave up on her plan to avenge all the slimes and then even went so far as to show that there are good and evil slimes, and that most of the slime in this area are evil.
I think the barrier will come in handy at some point later in the series, although I also don’t expect it to be for anything huge. Most likely something accidental for comedic value. I would like there to be something more to it, but happy to just ride the wave for now.
They did give up on revenge really quickly. It fits with the feel good but it would have been nice to have made it a little more work for Azusa to win her over.
I did like that she had focused so much on defeating Azusa that anyone else would have defeated her without any trouble. It was good that it isn’t a consequence free magic system.
That was very cool that the more specifuc the magic, the more powerful. But it does mean that they are only powerful in that specific instance. People need to decide whether to specialise or be less powerful but more balanced. It was an interesting concept.
I’m enjoying the mindless sweetness of it all. It isn’t a demanding anime and our little slime killer seems unruffled by anything. Even impending death leaves her with a smile and gratitude for the life she’s lived and the people she met.
If there is a sad note it is the disrespect for slime life. Even Shalsha, who spent 50 years swearing revenge on Azusa for killing slimes, finds a reason to kill some of them.
Azusa is a Japanese feminine name and also the name for a kind of tree, what we’d call a catalpa.
Azusa is also a city in southern California. The name is said today to be an acronym meaning Everything from A to Z in the USA. It is really derived from a native American settlement named Asuksagna.
🙂
I said it on Twitter but I would love to see what would happen if Azusa met Rimuru.