Goblin Slayer II

Episodes 1-3

If all you wanted from another season of Goblin Slayer is "More Goblin Slayer", the first couple of episodes of this sequel would technically do the job. After a frustrating false start of a premiere that simply reframed the refrain of adventurers underestimating goblins and the guy who slays them, the second episode gets into a technically by-the-book dungeon session. It ostensibly makes sense narratively, properly getting the viewers back into the swing of how things go in this show while being an in-universe instructional for the party's new tag-along. However, that very inclusion is the shake-up that continues to hobble this story out of the gate. Beyond any issues endemic to the overall series, this season of Goblin Slayer has one specific problem, and his name is Wizard Boy.

As a rule, I dislike criticizing characters for being "annoying" or "useless", since that's a reductive view of roles in a story. Wizard Boy is intended to be annoying on some level. He's an embodiment of the frustrations brought on by amateur adventurers, a dragged-along liability that clashes with the careful, controlled planning that the Slayer's party gets by on. The boy's emotionally compromised approach to every step of the dungeon crawl is a contrast to those early stages of shock that even the Priestess has gotten over by this point. This has also been glimpsed in other characters like the movie's Noble Fencer, and in theory, would make for a solid viewpoint character to bring the audience back into the attitude and approach of Goblin Slayer.

The problem is that Wizard Boy doesn't embody anything new as far as the way this series communicates its shock value. Those watching have already seen the same surprisingly effective goblin wave tactics and harrowing scenes of women being brutalized. Thus the only thing left for Wizard Boy to do is to come off as stupid as possible in ways that fans are already all too familiar with for this franchise. He makes every mistake that the main characters have spent the last season and movie learning not to make, and he does it all while loudly whining about how he shouldn't have to learn. He's a liability both in-universe for the party and also for the narrative itself, designed as he is as a viewpoint character for an audience that doesn't even like him, whose main role is to impart information they already know. If Goblin Slayer is a show built on demonstrating stoic pragmatism, then it must be asked what the actual point of this guy is.

Aggravating as it can be to watch Wizard Boy gum up the team's effectiveness, it does eventually become clear that he's been introduced with some purpose beyond showing how tricky it is to fight goblins for the umpteenth time. Part of it is that simple role of sucking so hard he makes our heroes look even better. So Priestess, in her subplot about trying to prove herself worthy of ranking up, comes off as having practiced that calm pragmatism that is so essential to surviving in this goblin-slaying environment. Wizard Boy also represents past specters still haunting both Priestess and the Goblin Slayer himself, as he (if you hadn't figured it out already) turns out to be the younger brother of Priestess's mage companion from the first episode, and his orphaned-younger-sibling backstory stirs the Slayer's traumatic memories.

However, one issue with the backstory component surrounding the Wizard Boy's sister is the way it lands as just one more instance of Goblin Slayer not being able to move on from its first mildly interesting defining element. The concept of starter enemies like goblins being incredibly dangerous was somewhat clever at the beginning, a fair subversion of audience assumptions about fantasy settings. But this deep into a story now so thoroughly defined by that element of its setting, it becomes as unbelievable as ever that continued underestimation of goblins would inform anybody's opinion of adventurers who encountered them. It's doubly dubious because part of the arguably intentional reaction to watching Priestess's starting party so thoroughly wiped out was in how they were characterized as cocky, unprepared amateurs who "deserved" their grim fates. To have the narrative now wheel around and, through Wizard Boy, admonish the audience for reacting to a character's death critically feels cheaply hypocritical.

It's all a frustrating way of beating a dead horse-er, goblin, particularly when this second season indicates it can have a better eye toward the future. Other points of the Goblin Slayer's personality have already been coming through in his interactions with his party members. However, learning about Wizard Boy's past aggressively asserts within him the understanding that his all-consuming crusade is a trauma response manifesting at the expense of virtually everything else in his life. That forms the more interesting through-line. It's compelling to see the Slayer going out for drinks with not-Lancer and not-Guts as they get thoughtful about the divide between their dreams as adventurers and where they wound up in their fantasy-land lives. That's a use of the realistic, grounded approach this series takes with this setting that's distinct from seeing yet another detailing of a pragmatic goblin trap or watching schmucks get murdered messily.

That's going to be the path Goblin Slayer II will need to walk if it wants to come out stronger this season. It can't keep being a one-trick pony, because its one trick wasn't all that impressive to begin with. Its use of Wizard Boy as a crutch seems to level off in that third episode, with a broader focus on the other adventurers who seem more willing to learn, as well as those glimpses of interiority in the Slayer himself. Also, conversations between the Slayer and Cow Girl allude to the transience of life and, consequently, this narrative portraying it. The development of the lands they grew up on can't be stopped, so they have to accept that change and find a way to work within it. For all my misgivings about Goblin Slayer as an overall series, these allusions in the third episode instill within me some hope for this season. If the story, like the characters in it, is willing to learn and grow, it might wind up having something more interesting to say than it has in the past.

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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.