That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 3

Episode 56

I feel bad complaining about this episode. On one hand, it does so much right—puts so much effort into delivering a satisfying action climax after so many episodes of “boardroom meetings.” But on the other, it manages to be both confusing and disappointing when it comes to the little things.

So let's start with the big positive: the fight between Hinata and Rimuru. It's satisfying in pretty much every possible aspect. We get a fight full of cool-looking action that continues to build the intrigue that's been built up throughout the season. Even in the middle of the fight, both Hinata and Rimuru can see that things don't add up—that their stories of what they think is happening don't match. The problem is that neither can risk backing down.

While both Hinata and Rimuru have greater things they're devoted to (Luminous Valentine and Tempest respectively), the truth of the matter is that neither are willing to casually sacrifice those under their charge to accomplish their more lofty goals. The risk for Hinata trusting Rimuru on the field of battle is her knights' very lives. Likewise, Rimuru risks another massacre in Tempest if he lets these foreign soldiers do as they please.

Yet, what's great is that this similarity between the two is both the reason they start fighting and the reason they end it. Hinata has her hands full with Rimuru—she can't do anything to aid her men beyond keeping the slime busy. Yet, as the fight drags on and her knights lose one after another to Rimuru's oni, she sees that none of them have been killed. This proves to Hinata that her gut feeling about Rimuru was right—that he isn't her enemy. So she elects to end things in a way that both her troops and her pride will accept: she uses her ultimate move—but does so in a way that Rimuru knows is coming (in the hopes he will be able to stop it).

This leads to an interesting double cliffhanger. It's clear that Raphael interfered in some way to save Rimuru but won't explain how—leaving us with an intriguing little mystery. Then we get the conclusion to the mystery surrounding the sword that Hinata was given a few episodes back by the Sages—that it was a bomb set to go off if Hinata lost. Will Hinata die due to the attack? We'll just have to watch next week to find out.

As for the negatives, we have pretty much everything outside of the core fight. Shion basically no-sells every attack to come her way and the only explanation we get is that the established rules of magic—including an anti-magic barrier like the one that killed her last time—just don't affect her anymore. This feels like a textbook example of lazy writing.

Then we have the fights between the other oni and Hinata's knights. These knights have been built up as legitimate threats over the course of the season. Yet, when it comes time to see them in action—see how they fare against our heroes—we simply don't get to. Their battles in their entirety happen off-screen and all we know is that the knights universally lost. End of story. It's one hell of a letdown.

So in the end, we're left with an episode that manages to be both satisfying and unsatisfying at the same time. Luckily, what hits perfectly is the main story we've been following this entire season. It's just a shame that the surrounding bits don't manage to do the same.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• So… we're just going to ignore that Luminous Valentine likes to rub her naked body against a girl (who I can only assume is the saintess) trapped in a block of ice in her basement. Cool. Got it.

• I'm interested to see the rationale behind the sword. Did the Sages really think it could kill Rimuru (especially if he had the power to kill Hinata) or was it just a way of escalating things to an all-out war?

• It was nice to see some of the other knights figuring out they had been played during the battle as well.

• Alright, now that all that pesky fighting is out of the way, we can finally get back to boardrooms and backstories.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.