Recently finished reading the latest chapter of this story and damn that was worth the binge. Yes, that was a hint that this post was going to be about praises for the manga. The first 3 chapters was enough to hook me into the Goblin Slayer fan train. It’s damn good that it was enough to inspire me to write a review about it.
Warning: This post will contain some spoilers and dark themes that may not be appealing for the sensitive hearts. All of the images collected here are screenshots from the manga. Credits for the production goes to Kumo Kagyu (writer), Noboru Kannatsuki (illustrator), and the rest of the manga’s production staff. I review the story based on the manga alone.
Summary of the Post:
Plot
Characters
Strengths of the Manga
Things to Improve On
Conclusion
Source
Footer
Plot
An inexperience priestess finds herself in a dire situation after having her party wiped out from a goblin ambush during a quest. She was saved by Goblin Slayer, a silver ranked adventurer that earned his fame for doing what his title exactly says. From then on, we, the audience, begin our journey admiring the Goblin Slayer through the eyes of the Priestess.
The Goblin Slayer’s obsession with eradicating goblins borders to madness and sanity. At one point, the story depicts the banes of having goblins exist in the world, thus there is a need to slay them all. However, we are given a protagonist that has reached the extremes of racial prejudice against goblins that it becomes a barrier social connections.
The plot is straightforward but can be deceptive in some way. Goblin Slayer is a dark fantasy and it entails violence, nudity, and other unpleasant elements of reality most sensitive people would not be able to stomach. Without the story being labeled as “dark”, one could pass off the plot to an other fantasy where the power of unicorns and friendship was all it takes to keep evil at bay. This one lived up to the simple plot and packed several surprises fans of the dark themed stories would love to explore.
Goblin Slayer is kept alive not because of a plot armor. He remains alive in the story because he made himself capable of staying alive.
Characters
The characters in the story are fleshed out from familiar archetypes we often see in anime and manga in the beginning. It can’t be helped and this is necessary for the audience to connect to. Archetypes are there to help the audience get a feel for the character and it makes it more convenient for story writers to develop their world further with these templates. The genius of this manga lies in how it takes advantage of our over familiarity as part of highlighting each character’s personality the most.
Throughout the manga (Chapter 1-29), no unique name was ever mentioned (if there was, I missed it). Characters are referred to what they a known to do for a living. You have Goblin Slayer, Priestess, High Elf Archer, Knight, and so on and so forth. This simplifies the process of the audience relating to the character by adhering to their label in the story. I mean, would it really matter if the blacksmith’s real name is Tetsuya? Or the Priestess’ real name is Agatha White von MakingupthenameasIgoalong? Nope, more unique names would just confuse us and we wouldn’t even care given how much security a side character’s role is to the story.
Think about it for a moment, the first party the priestess was involved into had trivial back stories before they die to show that there is something 3D about their personality. But we still end up with an outcome that they would be disposed of in the story, so there’s no need to invest in time putting some unique names to it. The readers won’t be connecting with them long anyway. We could speculate that the author was just lazy to put up some names for each character. It is troublesome to create new characters only to have them meant to die. Job titles seems like a quick fix to this problem.
There are too many references from your standard RPG games in the manga and it blends in the story well. We see dwarves and elves naturally hating one another. Priestess being kind and caring. Abilities we would naturally find in whatever job class the character wears. The story takes full advantage of this over familiarity that there is less friction in connecting with the characters.
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Perhaps, the only oddity well highlighted in the show is the Goblin Slayer himself. The title isn’t something you would get from any regular mmorpg. This gives the main protagonist more subtle attention. It’s the smallest details of this manga that when taken as a whole made me appreciate why it deserves the hype its getting.
The motivations that drive each character to move in the story are quite simple to understand. This simplicity is taken for granted but it glues the story together and makes the story greater than the sum of its parts. The Priestess wants to be stronger and be more useful to her comrades. The High Elf Archer wants to fulfill her duties and at the same time wants to help Goblin Slayer realize the joy of being an adventurer. Goblin Slayer just wants to kill every goblin. We see the story flow smoothly even with these different character goals in mind.
I appreciate the genius in story telling by focusing on the supporting character’s perspective to highlight the main character, Goblin Slayer. We get to know the MC through the eyes of the people surrounding him during his adventures early on. I think the Priestess is the most suitable character to help us see their world.
The Priestess started out as a Porcelain adventurer (lowest rank), young, naive, and is slowly being introduced to the world as an adventurer. We see how awesome Goblin Slayer is from her perspective based on how inexperienced she is and we are in their world. The readers were meant to put their shoes on the Priestess role. She’s human enough to connect with. Not overpowered, still learning, and has rational fears of the unknown. Whereas, it would be difficult to connect with the manga’s main hero.
I mean, I could understand why the Priestess would act like this and that in certain ways but I could not understand the logic of the Goblin Slayer in an instant if the focus was all about him. I can understand being inexperienced at a job, caring, and introspection. But I could not bring myself to say I understand what it’s like to have my entire family murdered by goblins, my elder sister turned into a sex toy until her death, or engage in fatal training to answer to an inordinate obsession. Nope, definitely too fantasy for me to connect with the main hero.
But that’s cool, because readers weren’t intended to force themselves into the main hero, that’s why the story invests some more screen time in side characters that could help us understand the main hero better.
Because beyond the action hack and slash, blood and gore, we are left to care for the character responsible for story and not a singular spectacular scene. Any character could be drawn to do something amazing but it takes a loved character to convince the reader that he is worth cheering for while he fights.
Strengths of the Manga
The line art, inking, and panelling is amazing. The art style really speaks for itself when telling the story. We see cute and ugly deserving their own highlights in the manga. Voluptuous adventurers versus fucking ugly goblins. Adventurers dressing up to their job titles.
This manga makes perfect use of contrast in the most subtle areas where readers can take for granted. Notice that when the scene involved the heroes in a dark and damp areas, the ink gets heavy whereas when they are in town, there is a lot of room for white space? Duh, this is a no brainer but has anyone noticed that the context of the conversations during danger zones and safe zones also contribute to how much dark the scene is drawn?
In town, it’s a safe zone and everything is lighter. The conversations taken up are less serious and we are left with conversations that explore the lighter sides of our characters. However, when we find our heroes venturing in dangerous places, the amount of ink is proportioned to the context. The simple change in gradients sets up the visual mood and places more emphasis on what the characters are saying during these moments.
Remember how much this manga puts more emphasis on job titles than unique individual names? It offers more room for unique characters to be inserted later on. The introduction of a job title “Goblin Slayer” opens up to more characters you usually won’t find in a regular mmorpg. Maybe we’ll get to see “Chronicler”, “Exorcist”, “Black Gunner” or something along those lines.
The relationship between Goblin Slayer and Priestess is another area fans of the manga could explore. You can say it’s more of a student master relationship from the beginning as Priestess learns more from their adventures. Or it can be platonic or romantic later on. They have the chemistry for it. One is serious, stoic, and narrow visioned while the other is a unicorn. Just your standard cold and warm partnership, used many times cause it works.
The world building in this manga is something to look forward to. Early on, the importance of rank is emphasized as you go up the food chain. Adventurers at the top are far better compensated than low ranked adventurers. This creates side conflicts in the story that add more flavor to it. We see Goblin Slayer is silver ranked and that’s already a high rank just from doing menial tasks such as goblin hunting.
Goblins are the first monsters any starting adventurer would encounter. It’s easy to underestimate their threat due to their appearances but we know by now that goblins are not something to be underestimated with. The manga is able to present a benign threat into something game changing when left alone. It also demonstrates how people easily overlook this threat and go on living as if it doesn’t exist.
Perhaps, someone at the adventurers guild recognized this threat and the hero that deals with the threat to merit Goblin Slayer the silver ranked position. Before the priestess ever met Goblin Slayer, the man has already gained fame from doing what he does best, slaying goblins, he even has bards singing over his adventures.
It is obvious that what we are seeing isn’t just a character with an obsession. We, as a reader, are shown how much a deep rooted hate can propel someone to be at the brink of madness and sanity. We know the Goblin Slayer is sane. But we also know that his obsession has driven him unsociable with others (I’m referring to his inability to connect with people outside the farm he lives in). This isn’t a healthy lifestyle but it is how he copes. It is interesting to see how he develops further as a protagonists. I am seeing his new friendship will be his salvation from his internal pains.
Things to Improve on
Though the focus isn’t entirely on the action scenes, I would definitely want to see more panels dedicated to a well choreographed battle once in a while. The quick still shots of enemies being hacked or destroyed are good for showcasing a character’s ability to end the fight early. But it’s the process that gives an action more dimension and satisfaction once executed in the simple scene of hack and slash.
I can see why this manga is dark but I couldn’t help but feel a lot of it is being tamed. Yes, we get to see gore, rape, and several instances of violence but the impacts are quickly brushed off in the narrative and diverted straight to the action scenes or other conversations also important to the story. In the beginning we see the Priestess commenting about how women rescued from the goblins end up living miserable lives (hinting of PTSD). These are brief moments that are actually bombshells of feels when fully explored.
The Goblin Raids remind me of the Rape of Nanjing, Rwandan Rape, and War Crimes. Survivors would either go insane, get rejected by their families, or live under the protection of the temple because they have no where else to go. If the manga does explore these realities than showcasing more action, the dark fantasy genre takes on a serious turn to being a reflection of our reality. But that’s not what we really want as a reader right? It’s best not to focus on those matters because we’d get less fans to stomach the story.
Conclusion
There are many ways to view the manga as a reader. You can either take it lightly and appreciate what the dark fantasy genre offers or you can start asking the real questions of what the goblins really represent. I recall one conversation by the campfire by our heroes mentioning goblins are born from the failures. If that were true, maybe the origin of goblins are brought by failures of humans as race and goblins tend to be the metaphor brought to life to haunt their world.
9/10 would recommend you giving it a read.
art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics
