Goblin Slayer | Review | Pinnedupink.com

GOBLIN SLAYER

As in every year in manga and anime, 2018 was not lacking in controversies and polemics on forums and Twitter. Goblin Slayer was one of the most relevant online drama's for a few weeks, demonstrating that much of the community does not take the time to read the synopsis before jumping into any new season anime.

They were then complaining because it did not meet their expectations of another isekai or a "simple" teen fantasy by presenting them with some dark fantasy in one of the initial episodes with the highest shock value that I remember in recent times.

Because of the very commotion it caused on the net; ironically, it was the same thing that motivated me to want to watch it out of curiosity. However, outside of the initial shock and controversies over the use of violence as part of a story, did Goblin Slayer offer anything else of value to its viewer? Without further ado, let's get started with the review.

In a medieval world run by guilds, an inexperienced priestess joins her first adventuring party. Being very young and with little war experience, they decide to accept a mission to exterminate goblins, as these creatures are clumsy and weak. For reasons best left unsaid and best experienced first hand, let's just say that the mission doesn't exactly end well. Here, a strange character appears, equipped with armor whose helmet prevents us from seeing his face.

Little is known about him, only that he is a silver-level adventurer, but he has never faced any creature other than a goblin. The higher-level guild members claim that his level is undeserved with a snarl because he is a coward who merely wastes his time with weak and unclean creatures rather than face dragons or demons. However, the motive behind Goblin Slayer's intentions is much more profound.

This series has been sold as a violent and bloody anime. However, beyond the crudeness of its first episode, it does not go any further along those lines. Our protagonist kills goblins. He has his motives. He is methodical and has no charisma whatsoever. We never see his face or know his name because it doesn't matter. He just kills goblins, and that's how he should be known. Goblin Slayer.

There is no overly heroic plot, no great battles, no great romances, nor are they ever intended to be. The series seeks to make us reflect on the character's paranoia, his unhealthy obsession with goblins, fear, trauma, and the after-effects that a tragic act can have on a normal human being.

Goblin Slayer is mainly about a pragmatic adventurer who kills goblins as his greatest ambition in life. In parallel, we are presented with how he gradually recovers the humanity he had lost in his obsession for revenge—a brilliant idea with excellent treatment, solemn music, and clever symbolism.

Its characters are the classic races of medieval fantasy role-playing; a dwarf, a priestess, an elf, and a mystical and powerful being that we could call a lizard-man, who attends to that rare race that rotates depending on the universe in which we find ourselves. None of them are overdeveloped; they’re just props in our protagonist's straight-line journey. Although many of them try to interact with him, Goblin Slayer always remains distant, gruff, as if he doesn't know how to behave in society.

Although when writing this review, I thought that not remembering the characters' names was because my memory was not very good, in reality, in Goblin Slayer, the characters are literally called by their traits or titles without giving an actual name.

One of the factors contributing to the discussion about the anime adaptation of this work on the networks was the visual work. This, with a look similar to that of a typical teen fantasy anime, outside of the combat scenes, makes for a colorful series with characters that look "adorable" by anime standards. It quickly falls out of place as soon as we see the horror of the monsters they have to deal with amid their adventures.

Speaking of horrors, Goblin Slayer makes use of a CGI model of the protagonist, which normally in night scenes or in the middle of dark caves/ruins looks pretty good when it comes to giving action scenes with multiple movements; however, when the model is used in broad daylight alongside the drawn characters, it is painfully easy to spot. Overall, it's an acceptable animation, which leaves me with no significant complaints although lacking in awe-inspiring moments.

Goblin Slayer's soundtrack is one of the most thoughtful and respectable aspects of the series in terms of music. Not only for giving an acceptable job of voices and ambient sounds to give life to each story’s scene.

But the soundtrack, with its mix of rock elements with instruments and rhythms that are more associated with medieval fantasy, combine in an atmosphere that when it should arouse emotion, does so with astonishing ease, not to mention the emotional, tragic, and even hopeful insert songs such as "Though Our Paths May Diverge" and "Within" that crown certain episodes. The opening was the theme "Rightfully" by the music group Mili (who also performed the insert song I mentioned above), which welcomes the viewers and prepares them for what is to come in a calm but intense way.

At the same time, in a relaxed but intense way, the ending "Gin no Kisei" by singer Soraru is a theme about the obsession, guilt, and doubts that accompany the protagonist.

I can't call Goblin Slayer a horrible or excellent series. It's no more, nor is it less than an acceptable dark fantasy of a more classic cut that offers some variety for those who are already getting bored of people being run over by trucks and arriving in other worlds.

It's not an astonishingly original narrative or one that deconstructs the fantasy genre by any stretch of the imagination, but within its margins, it's a solid series. So, if you don't mind violence and are looking for something in the style I've described in this review, this is a series I can recommend, though if you ignore it, you're not missing anything of value.