4 out of 5

Directed by: Yasuhito Kikuchi

So yer grousin’ about girl and life woes, when all of a sudden some random runs up and stabs ya’.  Dang!  And then you wake up in a cave, and you’re a slime – the de facto based enemy type in a lot of RPGs, notably Dragon Force.  Yeah, it happens.  As a slime, you’re not too concerned about whatever happened back then – I mean, a stabbing, who cares – so you instead go about your cave talking to the machine in your head whilst you gobble up magic-imbued ‘magicules,’ and then make friends with an imprisoned dragon.

God bless this show, and its source manga.

Yes, this falls into the common ‘just go with it’ flow of many an anime, but That Time… is particularly amusing with it, fully embracing its ‘seinen’ genre and core ‘slime’ joke to swirl its world with self-aware fantasy-ness – races of goblins, elves, etc. – that our lead, Rimuru, calmly comments on to himself, then develops some new magic power that he uses to, like, befriend every goddamn race and demon in his new home’s sprawling realm.

Boasting plenty of action and humor, and maintaining stakes for our essentially unkillable slime by consistently presenting new obstacles we want to see Rimuru overcome with his keen make-friends-not-enemies ability, the best part about the show is how goddamned positive it is, without slipping into lectures or forgetting to have a story each and every episode.  Yeah, once you’re past the mid-season point and realize that the various background plot elements aren’t likely coming forward to giganticly change the tone any time soon, you might check out, wishing for some greater connection to… something, but that’s also ample time for the show to win you over: so many amusing characters, and an oddly rewarding sense of progression as we watch Rimuru’s league of associates grow and grow, slime-san always practical in his expansionist policies – if you join up with Rimuru, what skills do you offer?

…I’m sure there’s some social commentary you could layer on there, about every citizen who contributes having value and whatnot, but let’s leave that out: Ryouma Ebata’s character design and 8-Bit’s wonderfully expressive animation consistently offer up bright and exciting episodes, with amusing dialogue and a memorable cast.  Some shows plod through story arcs; some divert into subgenres that are eyeroll worthy.  Some shows, like That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, take a ridiculous idea and just sort of roll with it, and it really works.  The downbeats, where you’re wishing for some longer lasting bad guys and/or sense of threat, are quickly chased away as Rimuru bounces into scene, spreading magic and, like, good vibes everywhere.