Goblin Slayer (anime! light novel!)

You know, after Over Lord, To Aru Majutsu Index, and The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya, I didn't think I'd ever grow to care about light novels again. I find myself drowning in light-hearted romantic comedy more often than not. It just gets a little overwhelming at times.

This... is not quite that.

Goblin Slayer, as the name would imply, is about goblins. The barbaric little bastards are terrorizing villages all over, but in spite of this goblins, terrible that they are, are considered low-level quests for most. In this story, a group of young adventurers go to one of their lairs to put an end to them.

They don't.

Our heroine, a priestess who got in way over her head, is rescued by the eponymous Goblin Slayer. His mission? To hunt Goblins mercilessly, creatively, and without any remorse. Of course, one would wonder why, in a world full of heroic passions to pursue, nobility to rescue, and quests to solve - why has this man devoted himself to hunting goblins exclusively ? And does our heroine really want to know the answer?

Joining them are a widening circle of allies - an elf girl, some kind of wolf-dragon hybrid Big Guy, and a funny dwarf.

Until the anime comes out, you can find Goblin Slayer in light novel and manga format.

Edited by Soble on Nov 3rd 2019 at 5:41:06 AM

The animation looks sick, but I'm having some trouble parsing the central concept. Is it, like... goblin torture porn or something? The idea of a badass hero who goes around exclusively killing monsters that are considered low-level in-universe sounds like black comedy material, but your pothole to Berserk makes it sound grimdark.

Well, lets just say White Fox is gonna have a hard time adapting the beginning of the Novels.

Then again, the didn't really tone down Re Zero that much, so...

Well, if I wanted to go onto it, ^note  I wouldn't say it's grimdark. There's some immediate Diabolus ex Machina and some pretty explicit violence with the rookie heroes getting in over their heads, and it does get pretty squicky. Then the real, Genre Savvy real hero of the story shows up, saves the heroine, they team up, there's some world-building while we see just how squicky the world can be, and the tone of the story is set.

Rather than become grimdark torture porn though, the cast are fairly competent at their jobs and it's not like someone's getting mutilated every chapter. The manga version of the story hasn't gotten very far, or at least I haven't read much farther than that to be able to say if the plot's going anywhere. It's still early.

There's this comedic self-questioning of why thisGuts-like protagonist is wasting his time hunting these seemingly low-level enemies, and the heroine is slowly beginning to realize "he's seen some sh't."

Like how One Punch Man is about a hero who doesn't fight big epic battles or have any personal quest to solve, Goblin Slayer is about Guts if he didn't fight giant Apostles and wasn't hunting Griffith. Well then, what exactly is Guts doing with his life? Can the growing cast of characters figure out what's wrong with him, or why he's so obsessively hunting lesser creatures? Are they even right to stop him considering how dangerous these creatures are?

Short version: It's Berserk-lite. Maybe that's not the best way to describe it but I was getting Berserk vibes from the first chapter, so I'd wager anyone whose read that won't be bothered.

The central concept is this badass hero hunting level 1 enemies, except he's been doing it for so long he's really good at it, and that's scary, but so is the world he lives in where people ignore these level 1 enemies and let them multiply.

Fair enough, I suppose. It sounds like something that would honestly have to be carried by its characters, much like OPM, if you're not just in it for gorn.

Nice concept.

Too much gratuitous rape in an attempt to be edgy.

Exactly why I say, "if you've read Berserk then this isn't going to bother you."

edited 16th Apr '18 9:03:36 PM by Soble

From what I'm told, only the manga has gratuitous rape.

The light novels of which the anime will be based on only mentions them in a "they happen, but never linger" kind of way compared to the manga which devotes full pages to this shit that might make you think the artist or writer has a rape fetish.

I hope their right about this, cause the rape really is annoying. Motherfucker, I don't wanna see that shit.

edited 16th Apr '18 8:40:14 PM by slimcoder

Yeah, the comments I've seen are quite insistent on the manga greatly upping the focus on sexual violence. Not having read them, I'm not sure how true this is. And, of course, what direction the anime takes this remains to be seen

I've only read the manga, but the rape scenes weren't that bad. The first chapter was the worst, and even there it's not like the whole scene is lovingly detailed or anything. Just naked screaming girl, cut to not-naked girl watching in horror.

As for the premise, the basic idea is a deconstruction of the whole "early level monster" concept. Goblins are only as strong and as smart as human children, but they breed very quickly, never fight fair, and are constantly underestimated. Sure a high-level adventurer can usually handle them, but all the high-level adventurers are off fighting demons and whatnot. That leaves the goblins to the rookies, who have no idea what they're getting into and get slaughtered because they were expecting an easy quest like fighting rats in a basement. One of the reasons the world is stuck in Medieval Stasis is because the goblins are constantly destroying villages. It's difficult to advance technologically when your mine gets overrun a couple months after you start digging. (This also causes some Schizo Tech; for example, they have gasoline, but it's extremely expensive because they don't have vehicles that need it or refineries to produce it on a large scale.)

Goblin Slayer is literally the only one making an effort to keep the goblins back. One of the cute things is that while all the other heroes are disdainful of him because he only fights goblins, the quest givers at the guild hall love him because they've seen how many adventurers get slaughtered by goblins.

I was going to say this but didn't really know how to make that argument.

I don't think it's fair to call this, or any work really, "too edgy" though. There's more to it than that, as stated.

edited 16th Apr '18 9:08:06 PM by Soble

I guess it really depends on how well it handles the inherent lack of sense in "oh yeah, these monsters routinely wipe out villages and are an active detriment to our society, but we still don't take them seriously for some reason". It sounds like the majority of interactions people have with goblins consist of watching in silent horror as the goblins rape and eat people, yet the reactions are still 'lol they're just goblins'?

I actually read a little of the manga, up to the end of the adventure with the lizard-man, dwarf, & elf that involved a troll.

Fell off after that, don't know why. Admitably my excitement got a little deflated when I found out GS has a completely normal even handsome face under his helmet. Felt like that was a missed opportunity for something really cool like making him a goblin or giving him a really fucked up face from his goblin slaying. As well as when I found out he gets sexy healing time with a voluptuous watermelon sized boobed priestess. Way too harem-MC for my taste, Guts never needed that shit after all (blech).

Hopefully I get more into the anime.

Apparently the Demon Lords & such divert attention from the endless spawning monsters wiping out villages in mass.

edited 16th Apr '18 9:31:56 PM by slimcoder

It's hard to explain. It's more like a large-scale Somebody Else's Problem. The peasants are well aware of how dangerous the goblins are (or at least, they figure it out pretty quickly once goblins start preying on them), but they can't afford to offer high rewards for the quest to get rid of them. So all the high level adventurers ignore it as not worth their time. Meanwhile, all the kings and emperors are busy with a war against an army of demons or something (it's vague, since the story focuses completely on the goblin front), and just assume that the adventurers can handle the goblins. When a village is lost to goblins, it's seen as a sign of incompetence for the adventurers, not a sign that goblins are dangerous and there needs to be a dedicated effort to getting rid of them.

edited 16th Apr '18 9:30:28 PM by Discar

High level adventurers also usually steer clear of Goblin quests because they are fully aware of how nasty the things are. Other monsters will just kill and eat you. Goblins do worse (before and/or after killing and eating you). It's a low-reward, very high risk thing for them, especially for female adventurers.

Oh my God, this is more or less the exact first impression I had.

One interesting bit of this series is just how straight it plays the whole RPG verse thing. To the point that the gods are two gamers playing a tabletop game and deciding everything via dice rolls. GS being the sole exception, "he does not let anyone roll the dice" after all. Heck, nobody in the series even has an actual name. They are all referred to by their job titles. At the same time, the series also has a dash of Reality Ensues, which is a major reason why level one mobs like Goblins are still really dangerous.

There is also that Goblin Slayer is apparently more inspired by tabletop rpgs than jrpgs most of the fantasy webnovels nowadays are inspired by. That mean there isn't stuff like like "You leveled up to gain this skill" type of things and its more about traditional tactics and whatever

Anyhoo, interested in hearing what parts were from original novel, what parts were from manga and what gets adapted to anime. It is disgusting to hear that manga added more rape scenes either for edginess or because artist has fetish for that

Ninja'd

edited 16th Apr '18 11:41:48 PM by SpookyMask

I'll tell ya, I am sick & tired of how every whatever has the same JRPG level game format & references.

I've come to hate the vaguely European knights & magic fantasy cause its in everything now.

Always interesting to see whats from the manga & whats from the novel. If the anime's really good, I might consider buying the novels.

edited 16th Apr '18 11:43:48 PM by slimcoder

There is also that some of things Goblin Slayer does to kill goblins are straight up P&P/Tabletop RPG player shenanigans <_< Such as buying gate scroll that connects to bottom of ocean

GS is as Crazy-Prepared as any savvy RPG player.

It has rape, but it's more about showing how hateful Goblins are then trying shock or titillate audience. Basically whatever Goblin Slayer does to them no matter how cruel, it's justified.

Regardless it also has lot of character interactions and Slice of life fluff. Main character actually connecting with other people and realising there is more to world than just murdering goblins is as much important as goblins quests itself.

Speaking of TRPG shenanigans my favourite is is Not!Cu Chulain kill gargoyle by casting slow on her, so it fallen from height unable fly

edited 17th Apr '18 1:22:37 AM by Tenzen12

Goblin Slayer (the character) definitely feels like someone cut from a tabletop RPG characters cloth. Plus tactical shenanigans that would be right at home in old-school D&D.

Eh, I got 4 chapters into the manga before I lost interest and looked up spoilers on the wiki instead. Neat concept but I'm not sure I could care about reading it for too long, even if I stuck with the light novel.

edited 29th Apr '18 1:08:34 PM by VeryMelon

Even if the anime turns out to be bad, at least I will still have the manga.

I mean, goddamn, the manga is the first manga adaptation of a light novel I ever liked. In fact, in some ways it is a superior adaptation.

That said, I guess anime will have to cut down on some of the more graphic aspects. Considering that's actually the first chapter, I'm curious how will the animation team will handle this.