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At its debut, this was yet another 'savior of isekai,' but why did this show just turn out OK?

Story 4 -- This show started off giving the tried and true formula of isekai the same treatment MHA gave to shounen, crossing every t and dotting every i the way we all expected but just without the bloat. For the first 13 episodes, this held pretty true and I was treated to some clean and quick isekai. It was nothing special, but the story was moving quick and it was enjoyable to see how the slime wasn't taking himself too seriously. After the midpoint, the whole ... show started to fall apart. The literal rest of the show felt like filler and not G-8 filler. The stories may be important later on in the LN, but they had absolutely no weight in the current story. Not even my general like of Rimuru could pull me through these episodes with any amount of interest. Another episode with the second half of the show is that it devolves further into the harem tropes this show originally seemed to avoid. It gets to say it isn't a harem show with how the MC isn't interested in their advances, but the way the female characters fawn over him is just the usual.
Art 5 -- The character designs are fun, the action for the first half of the series is genuinely good, and the backgrounds are consistent. That said, whenever CG showed up, it was Overlord III levels of bad integration. The action in the second half of the show is also noticeably less interesting in both direction and animation. Characters move less for the entire second half of the show.
Sound 5 -- The seiyuus give fine performances throughout the entire show. None were standout, but I could expect them to be pretty good every episode. The sound mixing and OST I can't even remember a week later. I don't think it was bad, but there is nothing to say about it.
Character 4 -- These characters all ended up feeling like NPCs out of a JRPG. If the characters were off screen, they could be presumed to no longer exist, since they are given nearly no characterization that is not directly relevant to how they can help our favorite slime. Only Gobta seems to get any development out of the entire supporting cast. Rimuru was fun for the first few episodes, but his shtick never changed and he turned into a one-note character. I neither know anything interesting about any of these characters nor do I want to.
Enjoyment 4 -- This score would have been pretty good for the first half of the show, but towards the end I started dreading watching the next episode and only watched it after I had already gotten through "Dororo" and "Mob Psycho 100 II." The only reason I finished this show was because I had some weird sense of obligation to finish what I started. I will not watch through this show again.
Overall 4 -- This show felt like two different shows which I would rate 6 and 3 respectively. This show was never amazing, but it had the potential to be fun the whole way through. Instead, I got bored of the show and was ready to drop it at any minute. If you want to watch just fun isekai, watch "Drifters" or "Youjo Senki." This is not a show worth recommending.

After SSSS. Gridman I was ready for some big ol' tokusatsu boys fighting kaiju. While this was not the giant people I was expecting, it was still an interesting ride.
Art 7 -- Let's get the big concern out of the way. 3DCG is really hit or miss for a lot of people, but if it's something you can handle than this is definitely one to check out. These are the most expressive CG models I have ever seen in anime in all sorts of ways. The faces were aided by the addition of a few expression lines that moved around similarly to the style of ... Into the Spiderverse. The actual character models had more moving parts so they didn't look like plastic models the way most 3DCG shows do. The action looked good and was well choreographed with some clear MMA and WWE influence. My only real problems with the animation are some interactions between different models be they characters or static objects and some issues with characters strange movement when they had no dialogue. This is the best I have seen 3DCG look in a series and is pretty close to the likes of "Batman Ninja" and the OG JOJO openings.
Story 6 -- The reason this rating isn't better is because this is currently all of the story there is. If there are more seasons and they follow through with the story beats this season offered up, the rating could easily go up, but as it stands, this story is banking on just a few interesting ideas with very little interesting development. Only one arc felt completed within reason and it was only introduced in the second half. I think this has the potential to become a really interesting study of what it means to be a hero, but that will have to wait for more content. One big positive is that this story neither needs you to know the original Ultraman show nor does it try to do a flimsy fill-in in its first episode. That lack of an exposition dump was very helpful.
Sound 9 -- The voice acting was consistent and had performances from great seiyuus like Kenjiro Tsuda. However, what brings the score on this section up so dramatically is the sound mixing in general. The sounds of the world were great the whole time and the weapons sounds were also super, reminding of work like "Planet With." The most standout of these mixings though was the post work on the voices of Bemular and Edo. The reverb for Bemular sounded great and matched the sound design of his character in general. Edo's voice was something else. Every single time he spoke I was completely focused. Whoever came up with the idea to mix his voice high and low randomly did something really special. On a final note, I was not overly aware of the OST throughout, but what I remember was pretty good.
Character 5 -- The characters often felt more like cliches than actual people. I never found myself disliking them and the performances of their seiyuus made them all much more likable. They were fine methods of conveying the story, but I was never invested in them as individuals, but only insofar as they continued the show I was watching.
Enjoyment 6 -- I think this show was overall a fun thing to watch and I don't regret sitting down and bingeing this on Netflix. I think a good percentage of the enjoyment of this show is that it is very conducive to be binged. I don't think I would have enjoyed it nearly as much week to week, but in its format, it held my full attention the entire time.
Overall 6 -- I think this anime has the spark of something very cool and I hope further seasons explore those opportunities. On its own, this show will likely be quickly forgotten, but I hope that Netflix renews it for more. Wanting more of something is the best criticism something can receive and I hope that whatever comes next follows through on the skeleton that this season built.

This show was something special. It even me me want to run.
Story 10 -- The story was overall pretty predictable, but it was executed so well. The stakes were always clear and I cared about it because the characters cared about it. I think this story finally had an interesting take on the classic sports anime question of nature v nurture or more specifically natural talent v practice. This and Ping Pong are the only shows I can think of that actually engage with that idea in a satisfying and interesting way. The story fulfills all the goals it sets out to at the beginning ... and completes them all well. Luckily, this show doesn't feel the need to take an episode to solve every single problem it introduces like Yuki's home situation and King's job hunt. Both of these problems are dealt with to different degrees, but the solution is brief and in King's case off-screen, providing time to work with the most important story elements. This is apparently characteristic of Shion Miura who also authored "The Great Passage," but the adaptation is also to be praised for putting the story into this format.
Art 8 -- This show lived in its backgrounds. The beautiful vistas really sold the appeal of running every time they showed up. That said, the animation itself was generally excellent considering the monotonous kinds of movements the characters were producing. There were a few moments of awesome character movement which really paid off emotionally and visually like Haiji's biking scene at the very beginning of the show. The character designs were awesome and expressive, showing exactly who the characters were before they delivered any lines. I believe that the character designer Takahiro Chiba was influenced quite heavily by his work as animation director on both "Haikyuu!!" and "Welcome to the Ballroom" which also have great character designs. The only reason this category is losing points is because of some strange animation errors in the last third of the show. I remember in particular Musa going far off model for a good part of Ep. 20.
Sound 10 -- The music being excellent should be no surprise considering Yuuki Hayashi's previous work, including works like "Kiznaiver," "Death Parade," and the "My Hero Academia" franchise. The score did everything it needed to and helped the payoffs hit even harder. The voice acting throughout was excellent. Ootsuka Takeo led the cast as Kakeru and provided an amazing performance which developed with the character in beautiful form. Worth noting is the fact that Ootsuka is nearly brand new to the VA industry and it is not noticeable in the least. Another interesting fact that I never realized while watching is that the seiyuus for Jota and Joji are two people, Enoki Junya and Uemura Yuuto respectively, but I couldn't tell them apart.
Character 10 -- The characters were the story and since the story was strong, so were they. A good percentage of this show was a character study and each of the cast was fleshed out a great deal and were realistic, grounded people. The whole cast had real motivations that fed directly into their actions and this agreement of ideas really helped both parties. The attention to making characters real came out in spades with Sakaki. He was a very difficult to like character for the entirety of the series, but even though I didn't want to see him succeed, I understood why he was the pain the neck he was. Finally, these characters interacted so well. They were thrown into different kinds of situations and every time they related in a way that was true to themselves and was entertaining to watch. I especially loved how the character dynamics changed as the series progressed. The best example of this is Kurahara and Prince's relationship. Watching their first interactions v their final episodes is night and day. All that said, Nira is such a good girl and her midcards give me life.
Enjoyment 10 -- This show worked for me in every way. All the things it promised at the beginning of the show were delivered and I was always invested in whatever my boys were doing. The show knew how to deliver a payoff and while the journey matters more than the destination, the destination was pretty darn beautiful as well.
Overall 10 -- I cannot recommend this show enough. The only reason I would steer you away is if you have a hard time empathizing with animated characters as this show is never about the spectacle, but the people who are part of it. This came from a director(Kazuya Nomura) with few things I like and a script writer(Kohei Kiyasu) who is new to the market, but they pulled together a story that I loved for every second.