Dragon, dragon princess, and the slime who would do anything to make them happy.
What They Say:
Corporate worker Mikami Satoru is stabbed by a random killer, and is reborn to an alternate world. But he turns out to be reborn a slime! Thrown into this new world with the name Rimuru, he begins his quest to create a world that’s welcoming to all races.
E11 – Milim’s Friend
Rimuru helps Milim confront the Chaos Dragon, a corrupted form of the baby dragon that was once her friend.
E12 – Tempest Evolves
Rimuru shares his plans for Tempest’s future, including a new system of government and Council representation.
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Milim faces off against her past, but first, we have to learn about her past. I believe some of this was already told to the audience previously, but we get the full, unabridged version this time. Milim’s closest companion in her childhood was the dragon that her father left her in lieu of her parents. When the Sorcerous Kingdom made a move against her dragon to take control of her, Milim went berserk. The two people who stepped up to bring her back to her senses were Guy and a full-sized Ramiris. Her dragon became corrupted, and upon waking as a demon lord, she was forced to seal it away.
Milim’s life has been a tragedy, and maybe it isn’t surprising that she is developmentally arrested. In this episode, she acts far more mature than we’ve ever seen her act. Her cheerful, devil-may-care attitude replaced with inaction and a loss for what to do. Her friend is long gone, and she has to end this, but how can she?
The answer is Rimuru, it is always Rimuru. All that time messing around with avatars in the dungeon at the beginning of the season comes full circle as Rimuru realizes a speck of soul remains in the chaos dragon. He will preserve it and rehome it, giving the dragon a second chance at life and Milim her precious friend back.
What follows is a very dark yet well-animated battle which sees the landscape nearly obliterated and the castle mostly destroyed. The dark elves are underground and thus safe for the battle, so the stakes never feel like a real and present danger. When the night lifts Milim is left holding an egg and the hope that her new dragon, who she finally names Gaia, will begin life anew.
The arc winds down with a return to politics, a catch up on ongoing projects, and a look ahead to the future.
Raphael finally admits to Rimuru that Yuuki was indeed faking being controlled. Rimuru demands to know why he was left in the dark and the simple answer was that Raphael knew that he wouldn’t have the stomach to end Mariabell, and it was best to de-escalate and see where that left Yuuki. Rimuru and Raphael seem to have reached a new level of trust in their strange relationship.
Yuuki also starts looking ahead at the next part of his plan. He thinks it might be time to reach out to the East, now that the West is firmly in Camp Rimuru. That… bodes ill.
After everything that happened with the Council of the West and with the ever-growing complexity of his nation, Rimuru decides it’s time for a constitution and a legislative, executive, and judicial branch. I….. I dunno Rimuru…. are you sure you want to stoop to the level of humans? Cause right about now I’d rather be living in a demon lord-ruled Tempest than the US… just saying. Although, with how his citizens worship him (some quite literally) his branches aren’t all in his singular party of “Rimuru is the best, one party one state.” He admits up front that this is mostly to appease humans and make them see they can operate as a nation under law and order. And it’s not like his appointees were elected. Hmm.
The final thing Rimuru checks in on is the state of his train project. This is where it is very, very geeky in a ‘the author definitely is a train geek also’ sort of way. It does do a nice job illustrating that Rimuru’s team is fully capable of doing things when the boss isn’t around and making amazing progress without him. Also, it is nice to get the requisite end-of-arc party for everyone. Underwhelming, but a nice close out to the arc.
In Summary:
Rimuru saves the day once again. There’s no doubt in my mind that Rimuru will be able to save Milim’s pet and all of the dark elves and others involved in the incident. His folks have basically figured out how to bring people back from the dead in a bunch of ways by now. This season never had any real tension because it was clear from the jump that Mariabell was out of her league. At least the animation for this arc has been steady and even delivered some pretty good-looking battles and some nice still illustrations. Certainly an improvement over a few of the previous seasons. Next episode begins a new arc, and maybe this one will provide something more interesting than a villain-of-the-week storyline. Well, we can hope.
Episode Grades: B +, B –
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Kate O’Neil
http://www.fandompost.com/author/sonicbug/
Kate has a long history of leaving pieces of herself all over the internet, alighting upon fandom after fandom to briefly taste of its nectar before flitting away. She has accrued a collection of manga so large she believes her home may now have structural integrity issues. She also watches anime, plays video games, and occasionally writes and draws. You can also listen to her on the Fandom Post Radio podcast, available wherever fine podcasts are streamed.
