4 out of 5

Directed by: Yasuhito Kikuchi

Oh, the difficulties of life as a slime, when two girls who adore you purposefully dedicate part of their day to hugging you…  Well, squeezing you.  And being a slime, and all pliable, they’re also stretching you out between them, and aw dang it’s not all that comfortable.

So The Great Rimuru decides to create beanbag proxies of himself for each girl to squeeze, but since we’re not in a place where styrofoam exists (I was worried Rimuru was going to introduce plastic to this world…), the whole crew packs up for a beach day to gather a specific sand that can be used for the filling.  There’s also supposedly a monster in the surrounding waters, but that ain’t no worry for our slime.

If this all sounds a bit loopy, well, yes, it is, but it’s told with the same brilliantly enjoyable casualness of the series, and adds another unique friend to Rimuru’s band, as well as delivering some laugh-out-loud antics and character moments.  …It also features the excessive boob ogling thats always felt weird in the youth-skewed show, as everyone is in swimsuits, but the OVD does flip that around for some bodacious dude bods, and then extends it further into ridiculousness with dragon and dog bods as well.