This review contains spoilers.

This review was originally written on Dec 30, 2018.

I'm at a loss for words...

Not because of the show's quite questionable and more than broken quality, which I and many others, have been pointing our fingers at since the first episode made its appearance, but rather something... much more bizarre. I find it astonishing how much controversy and heated exchanges a single scene has sparked up among the viewers, even though its importance, in the grand scheme of things, is as insignificant as one can be.

And I will never understand how and why a mind-numbing phenomenon of this calibre came into existence, but I digress.

Goblin Slayer is not a fundamentally weak story, and I want to get it out of the way from the get-go. Sure, it is a notably straightforward one, but a work's extreme simplicity should never, under no circumstances, be considered a bad thing. Frankly, if executed correctly, the anime would be a silly yet moderately delightful experience, I would be willing to even revisit at a certain point in the future. That did not happen though as too many components of this now deformed cake came out as undercooked.

The logic in Goblin Slayer is one of my favourites for all the wrong reasons. Goblins are established as a level one mob, a being with the intelligence and strength of a child, which is not worth wasting your time on. Adventurers are reluctant to pick up quests revolving around the little bastards for that reason alone; they will not grant you glory and an excessive amount of gold. That is understandable yet odd at the same time. We learn that goblins, with time, can mutate and become a stronger version of themselves, champions, shamans etc. And no one seems to care about it! Does the government or the military exist? We never hear about the monstrous demons and different abnormalities making their moves in the world since the Demon Lord-esque being mentioned several times was defeated, which would be the priority, so these fellas do not have their hands full. Goblins can, literally, ruin the economy at its very core, destroying villages and crops, kidnapping women and killing farmers, yet, even though people know about it, they choose to overlook it and do not see it as a glaring and alarming problem. Maybe they are waiting for hordes of goblins to knock at their door to remind them of this? Or perhaps they are waiting for the guild to send inadequately qualified rookies to certain death and young girls to help goblins reproduce, like the insensitive folks they are? Who knows; I for one do not.

I do not understand the idea behind implementing a "moral dilemma" as well. In episode one, after Goblin Slayer slaughters a group of his favourite pesky green creatures, he finds a hole with a few babies hiding inside it. Naturally, he decides to help them meet their end, but for a reason still foreign to me, Priestess, with a face covered in tears, tries to prevent him from doing that by saying:

"What if there are good goblins?"

Here is the problem with this sentence; no one should raise such a question. Goblins use women, murder and destroy on a daily basis, and everyone, even newbies, knows about it, considering Priestess admits that such things often take place in the world. They are inherently evil beings, who hate "those with words" and we are witnessing this very image of them, remarkably black and white monsters with one goal in mind, in every instant throughout the show, making the concept of a good goblin even less probable, to the point of impossibility. Though we can merely bat an eye on this odd situation, the limitations High Elf Archer put on the main character are not that easy to ignore. The implementation of the "No water, fire or gas." rule was a logical decision during the sewer mission as using any of these methods could potentially cause collateral damage, but other than that, I fail to understand its presence in the story. Goblins are horrendous, so why should they not be treated like filth, which someone has to eliminate from the face of the earth no matter the methods used? Why should they not be killed in nonhumanitarian ways when the series' main goal is showcasing as many gory slaughters as it is possible? I cannot wrap my head around this one. Of course, I might be just a picky bastard for mentioning those, but this attempt at bringing a little bit of "depth" to the story bothers me a lot. It looks as if the series desires you to take it even more seriously, but, in my eyes, both the morals and Sword Maiden's horrific PTSD cripple the experience rather than enhancing it. Sticking through with the simple schlocky tone would have worked way better.

These pretty irritating problems with the narrative could have been easily avoided or at the very least reduced in intensity if the characters had not been cardboard cutouts. It upsets me to no end that the supporting cast is so fixated on the eponymous character that their goals and ideas seem not to exist at all. In reality, we know nothing about these personages; absolutely nothing. Their names are that of the classes or roles they represent since the author is not good at coming up with names, we have no idea why they accompany him, and their backstories are nonexistent just like their personalities. Honestly, I could describe the characters one by one using three words at max. Even Goblin Slayer, the "person" who has got the most amount of screen time and development in the entire story, fits the bill perfectly. Despite not having any social skills, redeeming qualities as a person and, overall, being a monotonous walking trash bin with his only quirk being his tragic past, girls flock to him as if he were the most handsome jock they have ever seen, creating a harem full of carboards head over heels with him. You either become a part of the collection or are a nameless component of the background, whose entire existence boils down to making fun of the eponymous character merely to do a 360 and convert into one of his newly found buddies who will praise him at every opportunity.

For a show with such brutal content, it sure as hell does not restrain itself from exhibiting blatant, in-your-face fanservice. I am not against seeing a tit or two, but I believe that displaying an extremely sexualised "morning routine" right at the start of episode 2, which is the polar opposite of the travesty we witnessed a week earlier, is not the most brilliant idea ever. The same goes for the character of Sword Maiden, whose sole reason for existence is to be a fanservice dispenser, shoving her pair everywhere it is possible with an extremely horny attitude and the camera pointing at her immense cleavage whenever it can. We ought to look at her heroic records as a gold-ranked adventurer as an impressive feat, however, that is not possible. Her inadequately handled PTSD, which was hardly communicated at all, instead of doing the character favour, makes Sword Maiden a damsel in distress who relies on Goblin Slayer to save her from the monsters who used her when she was younger. The fact that a mental disorder is utilised for mere wish fulfilment is sickening.

The show does not know what it seeks to be. Its tone is, to put it plainly, all over the place. Like blood and corpses, the slice-of-life moments filled with characterless struggles at comedy and the previously mentioned plethora of tasteless fanservice scenes are regular guests on the screen. In one instance, the cast is having fun, bantering with each other, enjoying food or other activities, and in the next scene, there is blood and gore everywhere. Heck, even moments that are supposed to evoke emotions are immediately squashed by booby shots. Complete tonal dissonance is achieved. Viewers are disengaged.

I wish I could compliment Goblin Slayer a little bit for its overall visuals, but, in all fairness, there is nothing worth praising here. While the art style has that generic oomph to it and does not ooze with any striking manner or personality, for the most part, it looks okay-ish. I cannot deny that; the designs seem decent, and some of the backgrounds are not half-bad. Nothing worth being called good, yet not offensive either. However, the constant, jarring CGI completely ruined one aspect the show had going for it, its appearance. I could count on the fingers of two hands the number of scenes where Goblin Slayer is not 3D while walking or making other movements. I understand the creators' intent, they did not want to draw his somewhat intricate armour piece thus saving some time, but the final result of this overuse of CGI is nothing short of saddening and immersion-breaking for its quality is utter rubbish.

It gets even worse when we have the opportunity to observe a fight scene because, oh boy, the animation in these is something out of this world. I have seen my fair share of battles so dull, linear, poorly thought out and animated that make your insides scream in agony and here, most of the encounters suit this category of a sort quite well. The tension is never present since, in the back of our minds, there is always that certainty that the red, glowing eye of the edge will prevail by the end of the day; his script-reading skills come in handy all the time. Furthermore, every single fight tastes the same, with the door to creativity forcibly sealed because of the abnormally dumb and absurd morals enforced on the cast, which prefers to stick to a handful of spells, occasionally whipping out a new one for the oh-so-fantastic surprise to forgetting about the restrictions and winning without much stress and hardships with distinctive tactics.

Sigh, I wanted to enjoy the show for what it is, but Goblin Slayer is like a patchwork of the worst kind. It tried to be a jack of all trades, yet ultimately became a master of none; implementing a myriad of different elements only to watch them painfully fall flat on their faces. Attempting "depth" which added nothing of substance, having more than an apparent identity crisis, while maintaining the unintentional hilariousness at its highest level; this utterly devoid of motion and emotion series fueled by controversy will soon perish into the unimportance.