Goblin Slayer

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*Warning : May contain some minor spoilers...
Who am I kidding, this manga is awesome, just read it*

Story : 8
While the manga is fairly new and fresh, the story is progressively getting better with new side-characters with believable motives , relatable personality and overall looking very promising. To be fair, the first few chapters so far wasn't much for advancing the plot, but take it with a grain of salt since I consider these chapters a Prologue for grand up-coming story waiting to be told. While the manga may appear edgy at first glance , the author did a good job portraying how difficult ... and unforgiving the world can be, especially a world with magic and monsters. The gore, the unfortunate things that happened are explained properly with details. Hell , I will even go so far as to say that I would probably be like the MC or even worse if that happened to me, and I think that many people would agree with me. There are some moments of levity , and the show doesn't take itself too seriously that it leaves a disdainful taste in your mouth. I'm pretty excited for the incoming arc and the story is looking very promising.
Art : 10
The art is absolutely gorgeous. I myself believe that art and artstyle are subjective depending on the people perceiving them , so you may think that I'm being biased, and I do agree. But holy hell is this freaking beautiful. Check them out for yourself and see how you like it.
Characters : 9
As I mentioned before in the Story section of this review, this aspect of the manga is very well-done . The MC is a total badass in of himself , but the things that make him interesting is that fact that he doesn't kill for glory or money or anything artificial like that. I don't want to go too deep into the spoiler territories but the way he views himself , his actions and the world around him is definitely very refreshing and unique. I'm sure the author put a lot of thoughts into the MC ( I also find him to be somewhat relatable in this aspect but this is irrelevant) .
Enjoyment : 10
What can I say ? The gorgeous artstyle combine with intense, detailed and highly gory fights along with beautiful background scenery makes this manga a blast to read. It is so enjoyable that I found myself rereading the few chapters available for numerous times now , and I have not gotten bored of it (and probably won't). The story is coming along very nicely , and is getting hyped up so badly that you just can't wait for the new chapters. This is such a feel-good show (Different from the healing show) that you just want to enjoy yourself and your life while being on this one ride of massive fun.
Overall : 9
I've had fun a lot with this manga and I certainly can say for sure that this is gonna be big in the fantasy sub-genre. It's not too edgy that you cringe to sleep, but it is dark enough to keep you interested and invested. The world-building is amazing too, though we don't know much about it, there are hints here and there and it's really fun to try and think about all of the subtle things happening in the background. The characters are fun to watch, somewhat relatable , have reasonable motives and their personalities tend to defer from others, side-characters are also given some backstories and such. The art style is highly-stylized, detailed and the fight scenes are awesome. This is some top-tier manga here.

Goblin Slayer is kinda entertaining. It's not entertaining because it has a compelling plot, or any deep themes, or any multi-faceted characters (dear god no). Characters have such stupendously little depth that most of them don't even have proper names. That is not a joke. The four important main characters outside of the protagonist are referred to as "Elf", "Dwarf", "Guild Girl", and "Lizardman". Check the wiki if you don't believe me.

The setting is.. questionable. The premise is a generic RPG fantasy world except goblins are much more vile and dangerous. They wreak havoc every day by pillaging villages and raping women. Beginner adventurers attempt ... to kill the goblins, but many (most?) of them perish in their attempts due to their inexperience and get raped and plundered and murdered. But there are apparently worse problems in the world (never shown) and goblins are too weak to be thought of as a "real threat" (even though they very clearly are not weak, as high-level adventurers are shown to have trouble with goblin hordes in later chapters), so quests to slay goblins grant very little reward. This remains the case even with important quests that involve the protection of enefenseless villages from goblin attacks. Because of the disproportionately small pay, no one actually competent bothers to help out, and as a result normal citizens, beginner adventurers, and entire villages get destroyed by goblins practically on a daily basis. But apparently it's no big deal, so goblin extermination quests still have low rewards. Nothing makes sense, but whatever, fuck it.

Insert our badass protagonist, the fabled Goblin Slayer, whom bards sing of (literally) and people fear. He is a genocidal maniac who wants to exterminate all goblins from existence. He flat-out refuses to accept any quest unrelated to murdering goblins - he lives for it and knows everything about the goblin hunt, from how they eat to how they move. He has plenty of experience destroying goblin nests and doesn't flinch in killing even the youngest. He reasons that baby goblins that are spared by adventurers become truly strong when they grow up. So he kills them too.

That's it. This dude kills hoards of goblins because of his "tragic past" involving them (a past he suddenly elaborated about without ever being asked early on in the manga.. talk about subtlety). And women love him. Nearly every female character he meets lusts for him. How could women not love him? He's the best goblin slayer around.

How about the other characters? Well, as I had mentioned earlier, most of them don't even have proper names. Pretty much all of the women only exist to fall in love with the protagonist to make him look cool. I don't really remember any characters aside from the nameless generic dwarf dude and the lizard whose sole personality trait is eating cheese.

So why is it entertaining? Well... it's honestly pretty fun, despite it all. The goblin slaying is often done in creative ways, and the protagonist comes up with half-way interesting plans in destroying the things. It's also enjoyable in just how brutal he is at times. At some point, I genuinely wondered why the author was so fixated on vilifying and destroying goblins. Did a goblin murder his family? Did he read a doujin with them and his favorite female character? Does he just not like the way they look?

In all, I give Goblin Slayer a 6/10, which is pretty damn generous given the many negative aspects of it. A more objective and fair rating would be a 2/10 or something, but I don't really care. Sure, it may not be very intellectually stimulating, but it's far more enjoyable than other "turn your brain off to enjoy" manga like most battle shonen because the author of Goblin Slayer realizes the only entertaining aspect of these things is the ridiculous fighting scenes. It's actually genuinely inspiring how little the author gives a shit when it comes to world-building, character development, thought-provoking themes, or anything that would normally be prevalent in such a tragic, character-driven story. It doesn't feign a stupid facade of depth. There's no protagonist I want to strangle, there's no stupid "friendship is power" monologues and no real coherent plot whatsoever. It's a manga about a badass and his genocide against goblins and I like it


edit: This review only captures the first 30 or so chapters, I do not keep up with the series anymore

Honestly, Goblin Slayer does not impress me one bit into what it is looking to achieve, and I understand that a lot of people would buy it and praise Goblin Slayer, but I'm not one of those people.


Story: 1/10.

The story is not complicated, and the characters get as much depth as their names, which is none. Like many reviews have said before mine, this story will just follow the revenge story of one dude that "specializes" in killing goblins. His revenge path is justified, but what it isn't is the fact that he is the only one out of all the villagers to react ... in this way to the goblin menace.

In fact, the whole setting can't stand on its own when you stop to think even just a little about it. Just to stick with the villagers, it makes no sense that they wouldn't try to defend themselves on their own when the goblins have been there for more than a generation.

This threat is not new to them and out of all the villagers, the story wants to make the readers believe that only one person was brave enough to defend them against a constant threat. This would be a treated as a nitpick if the tension caused by the battles of the story was actually a good focus to follow instead of boring me to the point I can't even enjoy seeing the Goblin Slayer be a badass. And why is there no tension whatsoever in the story?

The answer is quite simple: the combats will go about the same way over and over again. The Goblin Slayer will always get to a place, he will order people around and then take all the glory. Rinse and repeat. Now, if this repeating sequence was played in a comical fashion like the combats of Saitama in One Punch Man, I might find it quite comical as long as it is used sparingly.

But the series wants to be serious and dark all the time, trying to "light up" by using cheap gags that simply don't work for me instead of creating a lighthearted tone.Therefore, I have to judge it for the kind of dark fantasy it wants to be. When my interest was worn off by the absence of tension, I tried to focus on something else that might be interesting only to find myself further disappointed by the series.

I’ve heard some people praise the world-building of the series, but it honestly is nothing even worth mentioning. As I stated before, the setting is nonsensically dark and there is no progression worthy to be mentioned and here's why.

The things we know for certain in chapter twenty-seven are more or less the same we know in the first four chapters: goblins are bad, Goblin Slayer is a certified badass, the rest of the adventurers are either greedy and corrupt or useless. The only thing that changes about the adventurers is that some are only doing something praiseworthy when the Goblin Slayer is around to tell them exactly what to do.

This brings into question their worth as individual adventurers and their personal motivations to put up with the Goblin Slayer's plans. It's like they are unable to have any critical judgement of their own. The only "progression" on a character level that is visible is Goblin Slayer's increasingly greater status among the rest of the adventurers even when he’s paired up with characters of his level of combat.

Which brings me to my next point: The Goblin Slayer is not that different from other self-insert power fantasies found in other LN protagonists. He will always win, he will always be one step ahead of the pack no matter how unlikely it is and he will always be the boss.

Hell, even gods can’t possibly control this character because he has to be a special because of his tragic backstory. We can’t have themes such as predetermination or destiny to ever go against the protagonist, can we?

There can’t be anyone else to rise up like the goblin slayer because that would make him less special and show that his motivation doesn’t differentiate him from other villagers that would most certainly train to become become goblin slayers themselves after surviving a goblin raid.

And of course, no characters can ever show more intellect nor combat abilities than the Goblin Slayer because then he wouldn't have a reason to order them around, right? He would be the one who would perhaps be asked to stay on the sidelines because he’s too reckless.

We can’t have our protagonist ever be in the wrong, can we? After all, what kind of badass faces the disapproval of his actions other than to dismiss it as cheap and recurring gag? I can’t think of a single black swordsman that decided to do something that had real and permanent consequences for everyone involved and marked the turning point of a major arc of any manga.



Art: 4/10.

Nothing impressive about the art. It looks like your run-of-the-mill LN inspired kind of character design. If anything, they make the style work for the monsters, the battles and the shocking scenes which is a use for that kind of style I have not often seen.

However, good battle scene fluidity and good monster design won’t make up for the tedious repetition of the flow of the battles. Nor it will make up for the shock factor the series shamelessly rubs on the reader’s face.

I have read gore manga before, I have seen rape portrayed in fiction before and Goblin Slayer uses both of these things with the tact and understanding of angsty fourteen-year-old trying to make his story interesting by any means.


Enjoyment: 1/10.

I’ve tried to give this manga the chance to prove that it could be enjoyable even if it was just for mindless action.

But it can’t even make that work out and, to compensate, it relies on spamming the shock factor, but that technique is in itself a poor tactic to keep a shallow interest in the story.

I tried to grab onto the world-building, just to find a ridiculous setting and a static world knowledge that reveals the poor thought and care the author put in this story.


Overall rating: 3/10.

I can’t say that Goblin Slayer didn’t try to make its battles somewhat interesting and make its main character different from other fantasy protagonists.

However, it tried to do so by setting up an unnecessarily dark story without even taking the time to make the action varied and interesting nor making the characters more than nameless tropes. This is not the right way to make a story stand out for the right reasons.

If anything, it just highlights the story’s shortcomings when the magic of the badass protagonist and the shocking gore wears off.

I tried to find something to justify the time I put into reading the all the chapters available to me, but I honestly found none.

It was a waste of my time and I don’t plan on continuing losing my time when I can read something a bit more entertaining with its mindless action or its world-building/characters/plot.