I rarely drop seasonal anime after just one episode. Not because I insist on watching everything to the end, but because I’m usually able to get a good sense for whether I’d like something. Even if a show takes its time getting to the meat of the story, I’m usually willing to give it the benefit of the doubt if it’s able to keep me even somewhat engaged. Goblin Slayer is the exception to that.
It was originally something I was looking forward to; I love a well-executed dark fantasy, and the initial trailers and discussions made it seem like just that. Having watched the first episode, my interest in it is all but gone. The basic story of the episode is fine-a party of inexperienced adventurers go out to fight goblins and are ambushed, only for the two survivors to be saved by our titular hero-but the execution seemed like it was almost trying to repel me. Rather than simply killing the adventurers, the goblins attempt to rape the women there in the most gruesome way possible. I don’t have a problem with including sexual assault in a story, but it has to be executed properly. The way the anime emphasized the girls’ clothes being ripped off and their breasts being pressed against the ground added a skeevy element to an already disturbing scene, seeming like it was almost meant to be titillating. Subsequent shots of the girls’ traumatized or broken expressions only added the impression that I was watching a cheap hentai rather than a real story.
I fully understand what the writer was going for here: it was a way to depict the goblins as pure evil and establish that this is a dark and cruel world. The problem here is that having the goblins suddenly gang-rape the women there is wholly unnecessary to achieve that goal. Having the goblins just kill the adventurers would’ve been more than enough to accomplish that. Tossing in a rape scene with an overly-fond camera framing it doesn’t add anything to the story beyond being a ham-handed attempt to hammer in how dark this is going to be.
This ham-handedness only got worse later on, as Goblin Slayer calmly slaughtered the goblin children, demonstrating his belief that all goblins are evil to the core. Again, this is an understandable goal to aim for and it sets up Goblin Slayer as a fairly interesting character with his absolutist view of goblins and his apparent hatred of them. The problem once again crops up with how the show goes about it. Rather than simply have Goblin Slayer kill them, the show goes out of its way to frame the children as cute, innocent, and confused while Goblin Slayer explains why he’s going to kill them anyway, and then almost seems to relish in the slaughter and Priestess’s horror at it. It emphasizes their nightmarish screaming throughout the entire sequence while showing blood splatters against the camera and the Priestess is framed front and center collapsing in tears. To me, this is the mark of a show that values being dark and shocking over telling the story. There’s no reason it had to be framed like that except to shock and disturb the audience more than base concept would have. We don’t need the show to shout “look how disturbing this is” in our faces to have a reaction. Doing so is straight up clumsy execution that doesn’t place enough faith in its audience. It’s making a scene artificially darker for no reason other than being dark.
I have a general rule for dark stories like this: if the dark elements (rape, excessive torture, traumatized characters) could be removed and the story would be exactly the same, then those elements probably shouldn’t be included in the first place. Doing otherwise tends to lead story to treat being dark as a goal in and of itself rather than a means to an end. That’s not to say being dark is inherently bad; if it’s woven in as a part of the world and atmosphere the story is trying to create, dark concepts can be mesmerizing. The key distinction lies in the answer to this question: is this a dark story, or a story that wants to be dark? The former type treats darkness as a matter of fact, like it’s just another element of the story being told. The latter takes a more typical story outline and starts artificially adding in darker elements as a central part of the story.
The prime example of the former that I like to point to is Kentaro Miura’s Berserk. On the surface, Berserk has a lot of the same elements that drove me away from Goblin Slayer: its extremely gory, isn’t afraid to kill or traumatize its characters, and doesn’t shy away from depicting rape. Even so, Berserk distinguishes itself with how it includes these elements. Berserk never takes pleasure in being dark, never treating it like a means to an end. Even its darkest, most disturbing moments are treated almost coldly, understanding that they’re impactful enough without the story placing more emphasis on them. When characters are sexually assaulted, it’s almost universally treated as a turning point in their lives, a traumatizing experience that they struggle to get past. It’s never used exclusively for shock value or hammering in how evil someone is. Berserk gets far darker and more fucked up (for lack of a better term) than Goblin Slayer ever does in this first episode, but it never crosses the line from disturbing to unpleasant and distracting. Berserk’s darker elements are calculated and woven in far more deftly than you’d expect from that type of show. Goblin Slayer lacks that deft hand, rendering its darker moments as nothing more than unpleasant asides that are meant to add seasoning to a story. The problem is, too much seasoning ends up overwhelming the flavor of the dish. Metaphors aside, Goblin Slayer’s reliance on adding in darkness makes the show so unpleasant and unsubtle that it gets in the way of enjoying what would otherwise be an interesting story. To me, relying on artificially added darkness only makes your story seem immature and manipulative, not smarter or more mature.
That said, none of this is meant to be an attack on people who do like Goblin Slayer. Everyone has their own tastes and tolerances for this sort of thing, and judging others for their taste in media is one of the most childish things you can do. Goblin Slayer isn’t even unique in its flaws; there are plenty of stories, anime or otherwise, that run into the exact same problem of being dark for no reason other than being dark. For my part, Goblin Slayer was just too unpleasant and nasty to make me want to watch more. I’ll still be keeping an eye out since there’s always a chance it’ll improve later on and the underlying story is solid enough, but I won’t be following it week to week unless I hear that it drastically changes. The first episode of a show is supposed to give the intended audience some indication of what the show’s going to be like and make people want to see more. If this episode is indicative of what Goblin Slayer wants to be later on, then this anime is not for me.
A Piece of Anime 
Pingback: Anime Blog Posts That Caught My Eye This Week: October 12, 2018 | Lesley's Anime and Manga Corner
nice
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you’re fucking autistic lmao
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I actually am, thank you.
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I am autistic too omfg when will the name calling end
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ill be honest, I first heard of goblin slayer because of the manga and how people said it had rape scenes which grabbed my dicks attention. Read the manga with a raging boner but a boner can only last so long before i lose interest in the sub-par story. HURDUR IMA KILL GOLBINS IN CREATIVE WAYS WOW VERY NICE, RED EYES ARE COOL AND BADASS
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yeah this anime is not for those who’s taste for fantasy is SAO. Killing the children was absolutely necessary, also goblins are just animals, that’s what liberals don’t understand while eating pork and cow steaks.
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Damn, ya got me. I’m secretly an SAO fanboy working for The Liberal Media ™.
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I’m a liberal and I love goblin slayer and completely understand. You’re literally just talking about vegans which there are vegans on both side of the political spectrum. Don’t know why tf you brought politics into this
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Rape is one thing, but rape of a minor is another. The girl, according to her bio, was 16 at the time of the rape. I couldn’t handle the anime reveling in the animated rape of a minor. It’s animated child pornography. The show was an instant drop for me after that. There’s just no excuse for it.
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I wouldn’t go quite as far as to call it child porn, but it is extremely tasteless.
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Um, the age of consent in Japan is 13 so… you know
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Not exactly. That’s the national age of consent, but every prefecture (essentially states) has it raised to 18, so the national one is virtually meaningless.
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This is somewhat of the same reason why Andrew Lincoln left TWD. Ooh but I love hentai.
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Your assessment is 100% spot on. I have friends online who like the show, but are under absolutely no illusion that it’s pure fetishized gorn with little to no actual substance and only enjoy it for the DnD elements while being hugely off-put by its less savory ones the constant and casual use of rape, the fetishization of rape and certain characters like Sword Maiden, the flat as hell characters whom are more like walking tropes rather than actual characters, the tonal dissonance, and the sort of juvenile pandering of a gritty, edgy, misunderstood loner badass power fantasy.
As an aside to more pleasant things, I’d like to ask for your thoughts on Reincarnated as a Slime.
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I’m really enjoying Slime so far. It’s had some surprisingly good character writing these last couple of episodes, and it’s been consistently fun and light-hearted. I’d definitely consider it one of the better isekai to have come out these past few years.
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Never received this reply so it’s a late response. But yeah this arc in Slime is where things pick up in terms of action.
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another example of dark fantasy being done well is Re:Zero
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yes
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The only thing I’ll disagree with you is that the goblins didn’t have to rape the women at all, and that they could have just killed them. It didn’t have to be shown so vividly, no, but there actually was a point to them being raped lore wise: it’s to exhibit how the Goblins approach women for procreation, which is actually a plot point. There are no female goblins in this universe, and the fact they kidnap and rape women is intended to drive home how vile the creatures really are.
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I get that, although I’d argue that aspect could be completely left out without too much trouble. I don’t think it’d be that hard to establish how evil goblins are without resorting to rape. Doing that just to drive home how evil a character is generally comes off as cheap manipulation, at least to me.
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The problem with the no female goblins thing is that it runs smack can into the Thermian Argument in that the entire world is fictional and everything in it exists and works as the author chooses it to. Therefore it was a conscious decision by the author to exclude goblin women in order to include goblin rape.
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Wow. Who would have thought that an anime is a fictional world that exists and works the way the author chooses it to? It’s almost like it’s every other anime out there.
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Couldn’t read the details since, you know, Goblin Slayer is vile rubbish but I think very well said indeed, and thank you for putting this out there. My tumblr has some Fighter and Rookies posts collected with a positive recreation.
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I discovered this “infamous” clip from a meme page and it only further offends me from the idea of enjoying anime in the first place. God, this should be illegal to post on the surface internet.
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It is too dark for everyone, I mean like seriously u want to depict this anime as a dark one and that goblins are evil but rape just crosses the line too much. Futhermore, kids watch this as well they literally will get PTSD although they do not personally experienced this, i think it is the emotional torment on all of us that hits us like a truck.
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When I was 10 years old, my mother thought it was a good idea to introduce me to Akira.
I couldn’t watch through it. For a couple years later I kept having flashbacks from the worst scenes. I’m better now, and I actually like horror and gory anime, but I still don’t feel comfortable enough to give Akira another try.
Though I thought Goblin Slayer would be rated for much older people?
I mean, Crunchyroll made a mistake, but that was fixed later.
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I agree i was actually planning to watch on the anime but after seeing ep3 i just fucking cant take this shit
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you are such a sissy
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Thanks, you too 🙂
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The fact that youre still here responding with fire comebacks. Respect man. Also I cant even begin to pick up goblin slayer… yes bc the scenes are so unecessary but also…….. I luv gobs and think they should be depicted as NOT inherently evil. The trope is getting old lmao. Lets have some cute goblin animes
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thankyou. I have been bothered by this series for years now. because when I watched it I heard it was dark and violent i was thinking it would be like attack on titan but instead it was this. I read the comments on the video and read about the r scene immediately stopped only for youtube to recommend the scene by itself, i knew about berserk and hellsing but knew i couldn’t handle them so i avoided them. i tried to get closure thinking that maybe it was just a bait and switch, but nope. at the time i was into d&d doom and pretty much all fantasy genre, it was being memed everywhere I couldn’t get away from it. i even tried to find some one that felt the same way only for them to be call a wuss, sjw , or not a man. i felt worse after that and i unfortunately still feel something when i see a reference to it. I don’t want it gone because people like and censoring not something anyone should do, I just don’t know what to do or how to feel
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It can be tough, but sometimes it helps to just be careful with how you curate your online space. It’s impossible to avoid everything that might bother you, but you can at least minimize it.
The best thing to do is just focus on the things you like and don’t waste headspace on media that doesn’t add anything positive to your life.
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Thank you seriously
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