One Man Bland
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2017
Yes exactly. I also quite like that the flow of that flashback corresponds with the current events to drive home just how out of his depth they are - like the line "I'm a good fighter" being immediately followed by him committing the rookie mistake that ultimately gets him killed.
And it all seems to be done in the service of putting all the classic fantasy anime/jrpg cliches in a very harsh light. Seems the author knows that the main people who will be reading this series will have seen these set ups a million times before: a group of underdog rookies who fly by the seat of their pants pretty much every adventure but don't ever seem to learn from their mistakes, who get by more on plot armor and friendship than any discernible skills or wits, and where it's often mentioned that monsters have or like to kidnap/rape women but the most that will ever come out of it is some fan service-y panty shots before the female characters go on their merry way. Everything in the opening seems like it's designed to drive home that none of those cliches are going to fly in the world of Goblin Slayer, and gets rid of the appearance of plot armor by driving home that there are very real consequences to fucking up and the characters either gotta Git Gud or suffer said consequences. That's my take away from it at least.
With all that considered, it's almost a shame that Goblin Slayer kind of blows its load so early with this opening arc. While the titular character is definitely more rounded compared to other series - there's effort made to show that he's clever and strategic rather than just swinging blindly, with several quirks stemming from him being poorly socialized that give GS an odd charm - but after a while it kinda feels like the author realized he'd eventually hit a wall if entire plot was "he slays goblins" and nothing else. It seems like he tries to spice it up by creating a set-up where there's a bigger, more classic fantasy genre plot looming on the horizon that GS doesn't give two shits about since he's so singularly driven, but it doesn't really work considering GS's motives for being this way frankly aren't strong enough to carry the plot. With Berserk we spend several hundred chapters watching Guts get run through a meat grinder 3 times over, so by the time we get to the point in his life where he's demon hunting it makes perfect sense as to why he's so driven to do what he does to the point of near cruelty. Goblin Slayer doesn't really have that, and the current supporting cast so far hasn't impressed me, so it doesn't feel like the characters are really strong enough to carry the show on top of the occasional tonal whiplash.
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