YMMV / That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

• Catharsis Factor:
  • After all the machinations that Clayman subjected Tempest to, especially orchestrating the Falmuth Kingdom's massacre, it's a treat watching as over the course of the second half of Season 2, Tempest finally strikes back, destroying his army, raiding his kingdom, eliminating or freeing each of his top subordinates, and topping it all off with Rimuru personally finishing the Out-Gambitted Clayman off.
  • Witnessing Kyoya and Shogo get utterly annihilated in their rematches with the good citizens of Tempest after what they did was nothing short of deeply satisfying.
• Complete Monster: Gelmud is a demon who serves Clayman, one of the Ten Great Demon Lords. Desiring a promotion, Gelmud intends to expand his master's dominion by starting an interspecies war in the Great Forest of Jura. To this end, he manipulates several species by naming them in order to get them stronger and then uses the Leader of the dying Orc race as the new demon lord to attack Great Forest of Jura. This results in the Ogre village getting decimated, leaving only six survivors behind, and resulting in several innocent species getting eaten by the Orc Lord. When one of the species' leaders tries to thank Gelmud for his help, Gelmud simply tries to eliminate him and his army since they have no further use to him.
• Continuity Lockout: The 1st episode of Season 2 includes Tiss and Jeff, two teachers that Rimuru interacted with during his time working at the school. Problem is, the anime adaptation put the events involving their introduction and character arcs into 3 OVAs, and since the first 2 OVAs were pure plot-disconnected fanservice, a decent number of anime-only fans skipped the last three expecting more of the same. As a result, plenty of fans coming into the second season were quite confused seeing Rimuru interact and be familiar with characters they never saw before.
• Ensemble Dark Horse
  • Right from the start Veldora Tempest was massively loved for his entertaining Large Ham persona and Tsundere attitude towards any form of companionship, with many heavily anticipating when he would break his seal and join the bigger cast, placated by the occasional appearances from inside Rimuru's stomach. When he finally made his grand return, the love for him exploded due to him becoming an Adorkable geek who basically lives the fantasies of the readers through using techniques from various other Japanese stories, like Dragon Ball and Street Fighter. Helping matters is that his appearances are sporadic enough that his overwhelming personality never gets tiring.
  • Haruna the goblin girl received a lot of attention early in the series for being one of the few girls at the time. However as more girls got introduced she went into obscurity, but nonetheless remained popular.
  • Demon Lord Milim Nava, for being the Token Mini-Moe of Rimuru's harem as well as an all round adorable and hilarious character who is actually absurdly powerful.
• Epileptic Trees: Veldora reacts or "pulsates" within Rimuru whenever the latter interacts with Chloe in a certain way (e.g. speaking her name for the first time, being kissed by her future spirit, or when Rimuru gave the mask to Chloe before he departs). But when Episode 24.5: "Veldora's Journal" aired, anime viewers joked that Veldora is only reacting strangely because he is losing shogi to Ifrit and is preparing his trump cards, that the scenes where Veldora is pulsating were just coincidentally timed with the crucial events concerning Rimuru and Chloe.
• Fridge Brilliance: The renaming of the “Ten Great Demon Lords” is largely played for laughs, with everyone except Rimuru treating it as completely Serious Business, while Dino notes that, the last time their group needed a new name, they had to hold Walpurgis over and over again until they could finally settle on one. While it may seem silly, it’s important to remember that names play an extremely important role in the setting, as amongst magic-born and monsters, the giving of names also grants a great deal of power, and can initiate the evolution of the named. While the Demon Lords are a group, and draw no such benefits from being named, it’s completely understandable that the assigning of a name to such an assemblage would be of extreme cultural importance to both its members and outsiders.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Goblin Slayer, both receiving anime adaptations during Fall 2018 season and both featuring radically-different depictions of goblins.
  • With Overlord, as many Overlord fans hopped on board with this series during the wait in between seasons and got a similar albeit more lighthearted experience.
  • With I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, due to the premise of two overpowered reincarnated protagonists wanting to eke out a peaceful prosperous life for themselves and their loved ones. Also, the inevitable jokes about what would happen if Rimuru (a slime) and Azusa (a witch known for killing slimes) were to meet.
  • With So I'm a Spider, So What?, due to Slime's second season airing around the same time as the latter's debut along with the comparisons between the two protagonists being reincarnated into forms usually thought of as non-threatening but making gains to becoming among the strongest and most dangerous beings in their respective worlds, along with their hilarious exploits along the way.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Shizue was summoned from the real world during the Bombing of Tokyo, her mother killed in front of her and the city burning to the ground around her. When Rimuru finally meets her he uses his abilities to share his memories with her, specifically his memories of the reconstruction of Tokyo post WWII and its subsequent leaps and bounds into becoming the bustling metropolis that people think of it as today.
  • Rimuru swearing to help the Orc Disaster's people and allowing him to pass on as the Orc King he once was rather than the monster he turned himself into to try and save them. Geld can only thank him with tears in his eyes as he vanishes.
  • Great Sage forcing itself to evolve into Ultimate Skill Wisdom King Raphael all because some buried part of her developing ego wants to help Rimuru achieve his dreams more effectively. Then there's Raphael actually fulfilling Rimuru's goal of reviving all those killed by the Kingdom of Falmuth.
  • In a surprising humanizing moment for such a bastard, Clayman as he lies beaten reflecting on his feelings for his fellows jesters in the Moderate Clown Troupe. It's clear he truly does care about them, as well as their master Kazaream and even about Yuuki.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Both this and Goblin Slayer were both released as anime adaptions almost a week apart, and fans have already made comparisons with the two as they both feature goblins. On Goblin Slayer's we have wicked, ugly, sadistic, and spiteful goblins. On Slime's end we have friendly, attractive, timid, and noble goblins. People who have already seen the Nightmare Fuel of the first episode of Goblin Slayer and then see the second episode of Slime when the goblins are introduced experience a total Mood Whiplash on how goblins are depicted in the two very different series. Fans have even jokingly wondered about what GS would do if he finds that the Slime goblins are nowhere near as twisted as the ones he's used to dealing with.
• Ho Yay: Rimuru tends to inspire a lot of it, but for specific examples:
  • Rimuru and Veldora have plenty of subtext and all but confirmed text. They were each other's both real friends in this world (and in Veldora's case, his first true friend period). Veldora is an utter Tsundere especially for Rimuru, and has made it clear multiple times he would follow Rimuru to whatever end regardless of his grumblings. It's also noticeable that when looking at his True Dragon siblings, each of them have ended up romantically falling for their closest "partner" (Lucia for Veldanava, Guy for Velzard, Rudra/Masayuki for Velgrynd), which Rimuru definitely is for Veldora. This is best shown when Veldora is rendered Brainwashed and Crazy by the Empire, where his last act of free will is to willingly cut his connection to Rimuru to spare him from possibly being brainwashed too. Rimuru in turn reacts to Veldora being "taken" from him just as bad as when Falmuth slaughtered his citizens and especially Shion, with him angrily and murderously demanding what makes them think they can take "[his] Veldora" away.
  • With Diablo, it's completely canon he's enamored with Rimuru and desires nothing less than to wait on him hand-and-foot, and at times it seems the only reason the demon hasn't attempted any open sexual moves is because Rimuru hasn't openly expressed such interest back.
  • More generally, Rimuru has on multiple occasions in the main and spin off series Slime Diaries commented on multiple male characters such as Soei and Benimaru being dreamy and other such compliments. Admittedly, most of these have been with some level of envy for said looks, but they come up enough you'd think Rimuru was deep in the closet trying to hide it.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Inevitable for a harem protagonist, but Rimuru is shipped with almost everybody. Some of the more popular ones are Shion, Shuna, Shizue, Milim, Ciel, Benimaru, Diablo, and Veldora.
• Memetic Badass: Gobta. The reason why he didn't change when he was named is because he is already perfect.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "That Time I Got Reincarnated As...."^Explanationdue to absurd sounding title, fans started coming up with variations for possible new isekais. Not helping matters is the the fact that there exists actual light novel series where the protagonist is reincarnated as a vending machine or hot spring.
  • Goblin Smasher.^ExplanationAfter Rimuru saves the goblin village and causes them to cross the Bishōnen Line by giving them names, this meme popped up due to how sexy the male and especially female goblins become. Tying into the Goblin Slayer Friendly Fandoms, it also resulted in plenty of jokes to how the GS goblins need females in their race to turn good, or how GS himself would go from slaying goblins to "laying" them.
  • Rimuru is a slime of culture.^ExplanationDespite no longer technically being male, Rimuru still has a predilection towards sexy women and often finds himself turned on by the scantily-clad or buxom females he finds himself surrounded by. This one particular picked up after Episode 4, where he spends much of the episode fantasizing about elves and winds up being pampered by a bunch of beautiful buxom elves near the end.
  • This slime has more swag than I do.^ExplanationFans joking over the fact that is a series with a slime as the harem protagonist
  • These aren't the goblins you're looking for.^ExplanationAny given Slime discussion is guaranteed to have a Goblin Slayer impersonator, who's usually greeted by this phrase.
  • Tsundere Dragon^ExplanationVeldora Tempest, Rimuru's first friend as a slime who he dubbed a tsundere dragon. This phrase was so loved by the fandom that almost any discussion about the series as a whole is bound to bring it up
  • Great Sage, analysis^ExplanationThe ability of Rimuru's Great Sage skill to analyse any substance , creature and situation Rimuru comes across has prompted parallels in the comments to the "Kowalski, analysis" meme
  • SHIZU DIES!^ExplanationFor "anime only" fans the 8th episode where Shizu dies of old age became a major Wham Episode on the par with the corresponding Bebop moment.
  • Ramiris herself nearly falls under Fountain of Memes status with the number of memes she quickly generated.
    • Ramiris.EXE has stopped working.^ExplanationThe scene where Ramiris faints in fright at coming face-to-face with Veldora, who she had seconds ago had been boasting she easily defeated in the past, quickly became notable for how swiftly she does it along with the sound effect of her falling over backwards and the small cry she makes as she does so.
    • Great Detective Ramiris^ExplanationThe scene where Ramiris runs through about eight different ridiculous facial expressions in about as many seconds trying to put together the realization that Clayman's supposed dead subordinate at Rimuru's hands is in fact alive before finally coming to the obvious conclusion that yes, Clayman is in fact the bad guy and going on spiel about how she could never be fooled was quickly picked up by fans as a sign of her "intellect".
  • "Wait, Beretta is a girl?!"^ExplanationFans of the series were quite surprised when the anime reveals that Beretta has a female voice actress when in previous media Beretta had always been referred to as male and had a very masculine demon form. While not without precedence since the source material repeatedly states that demons have no fixed genders and can switch on the fly, plus Beretta's Golem body has a feminine design, actually hearing it for the first time still came as a shock.
  • "It's just a prank, bro!"^{Explanation (Spoilers for Season 2!)}The scene where Rimuru makes a show of preparing to execute Myulan only to reveal he was faking it to both trick Clayman and free her from his influence quickly caught on due to how much those not in the know (Youm and Grucius) fell for it. It also applies to Milim and her Pretend to Be Brainwashed trick to fool Clayman and Rimuru, with her nuking Carrion's kingdom off the map to sell the deception as an "epic prank gone wrong!"
• Strawman Has a Point: The Kingdom of Falmuth has ulterior motives for the attack on Tempest, but the Holy Church doesn't. They genuinely see an unchecked nation of monsters as dangerous. Given Rimuru's response to their invasion, it's hard to deny that their fears are not unfounded. Rimuru is generally benevolent, so their blind xenophobia is completely wrong, but a malicious creature with his power and potential for limitless growth could easily conquer the world. Rimuru even ackowledges this in the aftermath, which is why he's so keen to actually sit down and have peace talks with them so they can discuss things.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Pretty much all of episode 8, which covers Shizu's life and death. Suffice to say she's been through a lot.
  • In the second season, Rimuru is devastated when he sees the corpses of over a hundred of his citizens due to an attack by the country of Falmuth. The next episode, an already grieving Rimuru is floored when he is lead to Shion's dead body.
• Ugly Cute:
  • The goblins all look adorable for a monster race even before going through the Bishōnen Line. Special mention goes to Gobta for having the least change aside from perhaps a slight height increase.
  • The Orcs look a lot more fluffy without the nightmare fuel eyes.
• Unnecessary Makeover: Some fans were not pleased that the "evolution" of the ogre characters made them look more human, taking away their more notable features, decreasing the size of their horns and in general being seen as a downgrade in appearance via making them more conventionally attractive. Shuna and Shion get hit with this the hardest, going from distinctive designs to a cute girl with horns and a sexy girl with a horn.◊