First Impressions: That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime

Hey, I think I’ve heard of this one. There was a review or something of the light novel on ANN awhile back. I don’t remember if I read it, but I sure did remember that title. It’s a pretty memorable one, after all.

With a title like that, I seriously doubt this is going to be a dark and gritty deconstruction of the light novel genre. At worst, I imagine it’ll be pretty run of the mill, but still self-aware enough to poke fun at itself, like Last Period or something. At best, it should be a hilarious parody full of Dragon Quest references, like Magical Circle Guru Guru. I dare not hope for the best case scenario, but I’m not feeling any particularly strong misgivings going into it, so that’s good at least.

In just one episode, this anime has way more going for it than pretty much any other isekai ever. It’s a solid member of the ‘Looks Way Better Than It Has Any Right To’ club, hilarious, and goes through the entire first episode without a single tiddy or pantsu in sight.

The friends and family of an isekai protagonist are usually conveniently ignored so the audience doesn’t have to feel bad for them and can just enjoy the escapist fantasy, but this episode actually goes to the trouble of introducing a kohai who clearly genuinely liked Our Hero and is going to miss him now he’s gone. It’s kind of nice. We haven’t had much of a personality established for the lead yet, but establishing that people cared for him goes a long way toward making us care for him, too. And the bit with the computer (in addition to being the funniest shit in an episode with a fair supply of funny shit) takes some of the edge off of the audience having to feel too bad for the clearly grief-stricken and probably traumatized Tamura.

I have a lot of hope for this series going forward. I doubt the animation will stay as good as it is now, but hopefully it at least won’t get too terribly shitty, the OP and key visuals imply that Our Hero is going to have a coed posse rather than just his obligatory harem, and I kinda really super love the idea of a dragon and slime buddy comedy roadtrip anime. I don’t know if that’s what it’s gonna be, but it would be cool if it is.

It’s a rare treat to really like the first premier of the season, but I’ll almost certainly be sticking with this one for sure.