Goblin Slayer Episode 4 Review

With this episode we begin the trek into the goblin horde’s underground base situated in ruins in Elven Territory. The show kicks off with that disclaimer at the header and a creation story, about how the gods played games with dice and pieces, like a /tg player’s dream. After this brief taste of mortality we jump back to the party approaching the entrance and the corpses of the goblins and their wolf. Elf Archer enjoys gloating about her kills and skills until Goblin Slayer starts doing his dissecting thing. At this point she is appalled about the concept of covering herself in goblin guts, and looks to Priestess for help only to be met with a comically dead stare.

And so they set off into the ruins, carefully looking for traps in the stonework admiring the work of what appears to be a man-made shrine. Priestess begins to show her brains and training haven’t been for nothing as she immediately picks up and informs to the others that a lack of totems indicates no shamans, ergo no spell casters. However this does not bode well with Goblin Slayer who senses that something here is awry. Between Elf Archer’s abilities to detect traps and Dwarf Shaman’s mastery of stonework, they are able to identify the direction of the goblin’s hide out. Goblin Slayer immediately recognizes the other end as the goblin’s waste heap to the horrified noses of the others. They find a barely living elf captive who is being monitored by a goblin that Goblin Slayer slays gobliny. We start to see the other character’s powers come up as Lizard Priest summons a bone familiar in the form of a dragontooth warrior to take the girl back to her people and come back with reinforcements.

 

 

After Elf Archer composes herself, they go about clearing more of the ruins of goblins, and eventually make a fire and begin to rest. They end up finding themselves coming across a large nest of the goblins sleeping at the bottom of a massive stairwell. However, Goblin Slayer has a plan, revolving around Dwarf Shaman using Stupor to get them effectively drunk, and Priestess to cast Silence so that the party can walk up and just execute them individually. Another bit of cleverness on Goblin Slayer’s part that the party begins to recognize is that he kills them with their own weapons, in order to maintain the killing efficiency. Also, in the manga they begin to explain his reasoning for the shoddy equipment is so that should he ever die, the goblins who loot his body will not come away with gear that would greatly benefit them more than what they already have. This speaks volumes about his mindset, recognizing that at a moment’s notice, he could die and strengthening the goblins is something he cannot chance, even at greater risk to himself.

After the wholesale slaughter however, the party encounters considerably worse than they initially imagined. To Goblin Slayer’s limited world view, he had no idea he was staring down an Ogre, who was given the ruins they had been clearing out as a gift from one of the Demon Lord’s generals. All in all, he’s clearly notches above what Goblin Slayer had faced before and outside his typical repertoire of creatures killed. That being said, battle ensues and the party struggles to keep their lives. Turns out the Ogre can cast magic, which is only barely kept at bay by Priestess and beyond that he has powerful regenerative abilities. It is at this point, beaten, broken, and nearly dead that Goblin Slayer pulls out his trump card in the form of the magic scroll he’d been carrying around. This scroll actually held a Gate spell inside of it, and with the assistance of Witch, had set the returning point of the Gate, not to a place of safety like most would do, but at the bottom of the sea. The result is effectively a power washer turned up to 1,000, and the Ogre is quickly bisected and horrified that such power was being saved to kill mere goblins.

Exhausted, the party rides back to town in a wagon brought by the Elven reinforcements. They rest up for the most part, except for Priestess and Elf Archer, who talk about Goblin Slayer’s reckless tactics. Both admit they find his behavior almost endearing, but Elf Archer speaks about her mindset of an adventure, which is full of joy and happiness, not rape and murder. With this, we have the post credit scene of Goblin Slayer being greeted by Farm Girl and the show is done for the week. I for one was super psyched for this fight and this episode after reading about it and I’m glad they did it such justice. Beyond that I know there’s more to come and if they even just stay the same quality, I’ll be happy. This episode earned a bump up to 14,962.5 PSI sea water out of 15,750 (9.5 out of 10).