Goblin Slayer (anime! light novel!)

I think lot of people don't notice racism angle since goblins are usually thought as monsters and not as people in general even outside the goblin slayer .-.

Either way, GS was definitely one of shows I never watched youtube reviews for since I figured out if some anime youtubers think Overlord is great, didn't really want to know what they'd think of this one too

Edited by SpookyMask on Nov 3rd 2019 at 5:02:09 PM

Overlord is that Isekai about the guy who turns into a skeleton, right?

Well, if I held a grudge against people for liking an Isekai, I'd probably give up on the entire anime community, but you do you.

I kinda find it annoying when same people complain about Overpowered Isekai Protagonists and praise Ovelord for exact same thing

I think the thing with Overlord (emphasis on "think", never watched it) is that the protagonist being something of a Villain Protagonist and the series beimg more of a comedy gives the story a unique draw.

But as I said, I never watched it and never will, so maybe I'm just shitting through my mouth, here.

Its a comedy from Ainz's perspective. From the perspective of the people there its practically a Cosmic Horror Story.

Whenever the series follows the POV of someone not from Nazarick it quickly becomes a horror story and/or a tragedy.

It's like Inverse Sword Art in that the person trapped in the game loves it, and is also conquering everything for kicks.

Doesn't that describe like 90% of RPG-mechanics anime these days?

"The Disturbing Ideology of Goblin Slayer" by Drinking with Skeletons is the best critique of this series I've ever seen. The 73 minute long video is split into "chapters" discussing the most important aspects of Goblin Slayer and what their problems are. Why the rape scene in episode one is sexualised even if it isn't sexy, how the show invites fascist solutions without being fascist itself, the problems with the worldbuilding as it relates to the Goblins and Goblin Slayer himself, the general use of the Thermian argument from fandom to defend everything I just said, etc.

I don't expect anyone else to watch this, especially not anyone who likes Goblin Slayer, but it is a really good video that explains how someone can come to dislike or criticize the series.

That sounds interesting. I'll have to make to watch it.

Saying Goblin slayer is inherently racist in its message... well Duh its Racist by nature of This race is always evil which has been a fixture of fantasy for a while

Tolkien Orcs, The Skaven, The Dregin, The Locust you name it we've had years upon years of Its okay to slaughter this group of clearly intelligent creatures cause their bugfuck evil anyway.

Its sounds more like, they want something nuanced over well Slaying Goblins, basically watching the depravity for the moment the story talks about the one good Goblin and subverts everything! except the subversion never comes.

____

On the GS authorities are dumb... Authorities being stupid for the sake of letting the adventures take place is nothing new

I believe the in universe reason is Most Mid to higher tier adventurers see killing Goblins as lowly work and aren't taking the fact that the Goblins are getting more powerful and dangerous seriously. Basically writing off the deaths and failures as just a weak generation of adventurers. Its very darwinian. The Real warriors are waiting for that Demon Lord to come back

in fact there is such a stigma to goblin slaying that Sword Maiden has to resort to outright deceit just to get adventurers to show up. Cause she can't afford to have it revealed she is afraid of the little bastards. And she's one of the few characters who probably has the clout and wealth to compensate High end Heroes for the work.

Ehhhhhhh, I feel like that's yet another Thermian argument.

Edited by dRoy on Nov 4th 2019 at 10:37:12 PM

There's also the fact that high level Adventurers are traumatized by their first experiences with Goblin quests. Most have a similar reaction as High Elf Archer when seeing firsthand the depravity of Goblins. Heavy Warrior at one point talks about how he nearly died fighting Goblins because his party lost their source of light in the caves and his weapon of choice, a BFS, was ill-suited for fighting in that kind of environment.

Higher level Adventurers avoid Goblin quests because the low payout just isn't enough for them to risk the grisly undignified end that can happen if one makes a careless mistake or has bad luck on a Goblin quest.

Edited by M84 on Nov 4th 2019 at 9:54:35 PM

Hell, The Heavy swordsman as shown in Goblin Slayer Year One almost died due to a giant Centipede Monster attack.

See that makes the in universe answer weaker

that raises the question why none of this high level adventurers once they can drop meteors or reduce Dragons to vapor

aren't concerned with the Goblin problem even when they here about the fact they are getting worse

The in-universe answer doesn't really work

The out-universe/meta is of course if the Adventurers just bucked up and went on an extermination campaign, Goblin Slayer would be out of a job.

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Nov 4th 2019 at 7:59:35 AM

I have yet to get to the part Heavy Warrior shows up, but I imagine it's as simple as the fact that, well, they're traumatized, and don't look forward to relieving that experience.

The heavily mercenary nature of Adventuring certainly encourages this sort of mindset, even in more kind hearted Adventurers.

It's possible Goblin Slayer himself is enabling this attitude to an extent, after all, they know he'll just take care of this more domestic threat while everyone else is busy dealing with world destroying and reality shattering threats.

It also doesn't seem like the world of Goblin Slayer allows one to grow so overpowered that goblins are 100% a non-threat, at least as far as I've read.

Their insistence on sticking around tight spaces certainly desincourages throwing fireballs everywhere.

Edited by HailMuffins on Nov 4th 2019 at 11:08:23 AM

"everybody else is Traumatized, let the guy whose completely bonkers by the Trauma deal with it " Isn't a compelling argument

The best argument you could have had is if the goblins only now were becoming more and more of a threat with the more extreme attacks being maybe Sword Maiden's backstory and of course Slayer's backstory

by making it a everybody suffers through the early game hell and just doesn't look back makes the criticisms of how awful the authorities in the guild are valid

cause they know they are sending people in a meat grinder while propagating a view that the Goblins are pushovers.

I don't know

Cast Grease, flood goblin hole with magical grease, light that fucker up.

or poison fog

or water plus lightning

Thats the thing about high end magic dealing with mundane shit is rendered rather easy

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Nov 4th 2019 at 8:12:11 AM

There are very few who ever get incredibly powerful, Spearman is basically the top level of "normal" power.

Aren't the goblins becoming a more serious threat something the series points out explicitedly?

The demons and whatever else that's attacking the kingdom/empire/republic are drawing attention and resources from the big names and military, letting goblins and other smaller threats run around unchecked.

To bring up Goblin Slayer 's inspirations: if all the big name heroes from the Marvel Universe were to go and fight in spaaaaaaaaaaace against the Shi'iar or whatever, that certainly would make the lives of street-level heroes like The Punisher and Daredevil much harder, because now they have to deal with the problem of both regular and super crime completely by themselves, without the hope for a backup.

The story takes a similar approach: the big lads are focused on something else, deal with it.

Edited by HailMuffins on Nov 4th 2019 at 11:25:47 AM

They also tend to be the kind of thing that requires all their attention. Like a decade ago? in-universe a necromancer created a massive base filled with monsters directly under the capital city.

Yeah, being able to curbstomp dragons is more Gold or Platinum Rank level. Silver Ranks would have to team up to have even a chance of beating a dragon.

Speaking of, I've heard that in one of the latest novels had Goblin Slayer and team running into a dragon. Goblins were living around its lair. They basically had to deal with the dragon by convincing it to go back to sleep because there was no chance of them being able to beat it. And that Goblin Slayer massively losing his cool calling finding goblins living near a dragon massive bullshit.

Good lord, that makes one of the jokes from the Abridged series by the Schmucks Squad Hilarious in Hindsight

We also don't know what exactly the power ceiling is in-universe. For all we know, no one can call a meteor, or the spell for such requires rare materials as a catalyst.

The fundamental flaw with the "goblins are just low level" thing is threefold:

First? Goblin Slayer's backstory involves "Goblins wiped out my village." As I've pointed out before, villages don't exist in such strange limbo, isolated from existence. This isn't isolated goblin behavior, and villages would be necessary regions for farming, irrigation, military setups, etc. It's been over ten years but nobody but Goblin Slayer bothers to take this seriously.

Secondly, goblins reproduce by rape and breed explosively, meaning tons of women are being kidnapped, turned into living wombs and disposed of. The idea that an epidemic of rape monsters targeting women on the regular is seen as no big deal is insane.

And third? Young adventurers are regularly massacred by goblins. Do they not have families, allies? Adventurers are a necessary part of this world. If like 50 percent of police applicants were being killed by goblins, you can damn well bet society would take notice, even in the most libertarian of fantasies.

Remember that something like a Gate spell scroll is worth a fortune, and that the unfortunate Wizard in the first chapter was considered a prodigy simply for being able to cast a fire spell a few times.