That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 3

Episode 63

So much of this current arc has been spent on Rimuru preparing to use his upcoming festival to promote tempest on the international stage that you may have forgotten its original purpose—to bring together the numerous peoples who live in the forest but outside of the city of Tempest itself and hammer out some new kind of status quo.

While Rimuru has basically just taken over Veldora's territory, it isn't like Veldora did anything along the lines of ruling. He was just... well, being a dragon. His territory—i.e., the Great Jura Forest—is filled with any tribe able to carve out a space for themselves to live in the Storm Dragon's shadow. And now, suddenly, there's this slime-turned-demon-lord who arguably holds their lives in his hands. If Rimuru doesn't want travelers on his shiny new roads attacked by rebels constantly, he's got to assuage the fears of all those now ostensibly under his rule.

Luckily, within the hordes of tribes before him, some familiar faces—the Lizardmen and the Dryads—can show the others how to act. But for the most part, all Rimuru needs to do is listen to each group's worries and assure them he's not going to start mass murdering them (which, to be fair, is a legitimate concern).

All this falls out in some interesting ways. On one hand, Rimuru ends a hundred-year-long war by accident, bringing peace to a war-torn area of the forest. On the other, he grants the Dryads their greatest wish: to live with their god, Ramiris. He also adds a tribe of elves to the dungeon's population. This brings up an interesting issue with Tempest's ruling structure.

Basically, Rimuru offhandedly decides that anything within Ramiris' dungeon is under her rule. By implication, this doesn't mean just the dryads but also the beast men refugees and the elves as well. This puts the dungeon well on its way to becoming an independent nation within and fully dependent upon Tempest. And, sure, while Ramiris and Rimuru are on good terms this seems fine but what happens if a dungeon dweller commits a crime in Tempest and then hides in the dungeon? What happens if Tempest, one day, unilaterally closes trade between the dungeon and the outside world? Does this rule mean that Veldora is Ramiris' responsibility and not Rimuru's since he's living on the lowest floor? Once again, Rimuru's spur-of-the-moment decision to lessen his personal responsibility has potentially huge implications for the future.

Beyond this, it's funny but the action portion of the episode is actually the least interesting. Three guys we've never heard of before show up and want to fight. Each is as powerful as a low-level Demon Lord—and Shion just beats them down in seconds. Then we find out they're not evil, just idiots, and everything is resolved happily despite the fact they broke Tempest's defenses and beat up its people. So I guess it's a good thing that Rimuru didn't just murder them on sight for attacking Tempest unprovoked—despite that seeming to be more in character after the whole Falmuth invasion.

All in all, this is a decent episode of Tensura. A touch of comedy, a touch of action, and a touch of big concepts not really thought through or explored. It's par for the course.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Is this the first time we've actually seen the cast in their black uniforms outside of openings and key art?

• The Dyrads have been vital to protecting both Tempest and the forest as a whole. With them all in the dungeon, doesn't that mean that Tempest's lost its early warning system?

• It's an interesting character note that Rimuru only starts to care about the elven slaves once he finds out they might be his people.

• I really wish we had seen how Milim got the dragons in the dungeon. The logistics of it would have been a good comic bit in their own right.

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