Hey there! Thank you so much for visiting Anime Rants with Mono. It’s time to cover the next chunk of TenSura (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime) Season 4. Episodes 16, 17, and 18 of the fourth season correspond to episodes 88, 89, and 90 cumulatively. These installments were entertaining and I particularly enjoyed the visuals, music, brief action scenes, and cool character moments. So far, I think Season 4 has been better than season 3. Anyway, my thoughts on these three episodes are below. Enjoy.
Episode 16: Gran, the Hero of Dawn
Episode Rating: 7/10
As the episode title suggests, this installment was largely about Granville. In the past, he swore to defeat the Demon Lords and claim the western lands for humanity alone. However, after realizing that Luminus wanted to coexist with humans, he formed a pact with her to gain holy power. Together, Luminus and Granville created Lubelius, establishing a flourishing country protected by Luminus’ godlike magic. For many years, Granville secretly served as the Head of the Seven Days Clergy, an important authority in Lubelius. As the leader of the Rozzo family, he also worked from the shadows and controlled much of what happened in the western nations.
Speaking of Lubelius, Rimuru and the children who were training under him visited the country for the first time. Hinata was happy to show them around. And speaking of Hinata, we learned that even though she evolved into a Saint, she kept her human body and still required sleep. Most Saints and Heroes who evolved no longer needed such things as rest or sustenance. Also, while we’re talking about Hinata, I currently ship her with Luminus. That might change depending on the character who wakes up and how she interacts with Luminus and the others. Clearly, Luminus is crazy over that mysterious girl. And one more note on the subject of Luminus: it was amusing to see her show up in a maid dress.
Going back to Granville, we learned about how he lost the love of his life, Maria, to a brutal and petty murder. Since then, all these years, he’s been secretly keeping her body and pouring his own life force into it to bring Maria back to life for short periods of time. This twist was profoundly sad. Now that Maribel had also been killed and Lubelius publicly blamed, Granville was plotting against his old friend Luminus. He wanted to steal the secret weapon – the frozen woman beloved by Luminus. I can only assume he’s blinded by grief and rage. Luminus knew Granville would try something, and was rightfully concerned. After all, humans can be monsters. This episode also told us that Granville joined forces with the Disciples of Verte, who worship a demonic “Green Goddess.”
There was an interesting scene of Chloe and Hinata discussing how things worked in Lubelius. Chloe seemed wise beyond her years. Other than that, only two other notes remain. First, we learned that Demon Lord Leon was siblings with Chloe in another world and was gathering otherworlder children in an attempt to find her. Secondly, Yuuki was plotting against everyone as usual. He and the clowns would be helping Granville in the plot against Luminus. In addition, Yuuki was trying to make Rimuru and Leon fight over Chloe. He hoped to capitalize on the chaos and make sure Tempest’s growth and power came to a halt. That’s all for episode 16.
Episode 17: Lubelius, the Point of Convergence
Episode Rating: 8/10
This episode did a good job of holding my attention and featuring characters that I admire or find attractive. (Mostly, I mean Hinata and Diablo, my favorite characters.) We began with a scene of Granville moving out with his army, intent on attacking Lubelius. Elsewhere, Demon Lord Leon was visiting Elmesia. Though they were friends, Leon was always stiff and awkward, making the relationship a bit strained, but also sort of cute. Elmesia and Leon had good chemistry in their own way. Anyway, after hearing that there was an otherworlder named Chloe among Rimuru’s students, Leon decided to head to Lubelius at once. He left Elmesia with the knowledge that Jaune had disappeared.
Rimuru’s afternoon tea-time with Hinata was interrupted by the announcement that the cathedral was under attack. Granville had begun his assault with an army led by Razul. A highly evolved member of the Insect race, Razul was Gran’s best friend who fought with him and Maria in the Hero’s Party many years ago. Razul’s character design and voice were both really cool. While Razul fought with Diablo and Shion, Granville used an army of hypnotized otherworlders and sent them to attack Rimuru. In order to not kill the innocent people, who were almost certainly from our world, Rimuru had to fight with extreme care. As a result, he was slowed down for a time. Meanwhile, Hinata challenged Granville and a fierce battle of blades began.
With Diablo distracted by the presence of an unknown person, Shion was having trouble fighting Razul by herself. Rimuru sent Ranga to help Shion and told Diablo to handle the unknown person. Part of why I loved this episode was that Diablo and Shion both got a fair amount of screentime. Ranga got a bit of action too! It’s always great to see the Direwolf, for which I definitely harbor no furry sexual feelings whatsoever. (Cough.) Speaking of attraction, I will not try to even jokingly deny that I’m a raging bisexual who is attracted to Diablo on the masculine side and Shion (and Hinata) on the feminine side. I do have some complaints about the writing for Shion sometimes, but I still love her character – not only her hot body design, but also her ferocious yet cute personality.
There was even a great little scene where Shion and Diablo had a moment of mutual respect and called each other by their names. Then Diablo headed out and approached the unknown intruder, who turned out to be a Demon named Rain. (Her former name was Bleu, but she was given a name and an incarnation by her master, Guy Crimson.) Diablo quickly came to blows with Rain after she insulted Rimuru. The fight was pretty cool. Naturally, Diablo won without much effort, being much more advanced in demonic magic. Rain was soundly defeated. Just then, Rain’s master appeared. It was the powerful Demon Lord, Guy Crimson (formerly a Demon named Rouge). This is where the episode leaves off with regards to Diablo, so let’s go back to Lubelius.
While Granville fought Hinata and Rimuru fought the otherworlders, two clowns from the Harlequin Alliance and the undead Maria found Lady Luminus. The clowns started fighting with Luminus’ two strong attendants. As for Luminus herself, she took on Maria. Having known Granville for many years, Luminus knew that Maria was dead. To see her again as a tool of necromancy was insulting to the memory of the original. Thus, Lady Luminus took it upon herself to put Maria back in the grave. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Luminus, Yuuki snuck into the chambers and approached the secret weapon – the frozen woman beloved by Luminus. Quite pleased with himself and his plan, Yuuki began to break the seal over the mysterious girl. To be continued.
Episode 18: Turbulence in the West
Episode Rating: 7/10
This episode was slightly less exciting than the previous one, but still engaging to me. In the first scene, Guy revealed that he was “messing with humanity” by sending armies of demons to stir up trouble at multiple locations in the western nations. Diablo didn’t seem bothered by this, trusting that Rimuru would win out in the end. He explained that Rimuru was powerful enough to name at least three other Primordial Demons: Jaune (Carerra), Violet (Ultima), and Blanc (Testarossa).
Guy said he would like to meet Rimuru for himself and disappeared with Rain. This was a relief for Diablo, who realized that he would have struggled in a battle against the powerful Crimson Demon Lord. While we’re talking about Diablo, it’s always so cute and gay to see him raving excitedly about Rimuru. He loves his master. I swear Diablo is a service submissive. Anyway.
Meanwhile, Testarossa sat in the council of the West, which was under attack. The old man who oversaw the council suggested putting Testarossa in charge of the counterattack. The Demon Lady readily agreed and immediately got to work unmasking the treachery of Johann in front of the whole council. Testarossa’s childlike servant, Moss, also helped the situation. Suddenly, The Disciples of Vert appeared, overrunning the council room. They started a ceremony and successfully summoned their “Green Goddess,” the Demon Mizari (or Misery, according to the fandom wiki). She was the Primordial Green Demon.
Rather than be provoked into a fight, however, Mizari only wanted to report to her master, who happened to be Guy Crimson. She left the council, and her followers were quickly subdued. Johan was arrested and taken away by Inquisitors. Nice work, Testarossa! (Side Note: I also thought Moss was very cute and cool.) The last section of the episode focused on Rimuru and Leon, so let’s return to the battle happening in Lubelius.
The otherworlders turned out to be very weak, tipping off Rimuru to the fact that something was off. Demon Lord Leon arrived in the middle of the battle. Granville then explained that the otherworlder children who were summoned only produced a powerful hero once in a while. The rest were very weak and didn’t tend to live long. Granville’s plan was to turn Rimuru against Leon, so he revealed that his own experiments were based on Leon’s. We as viewers also know that Leon was the one who summoned Shizue and forced her to take on Ifrit and become a warrior. Rimuru knew that Granville was trying to provoke him, and he already knew most of this about summoning otherworlders, but he was genuinely livid to hear about the unjust experiments that robbed so many children.
For Shizue’s sake, Rimuru punched Leon in the face. He then pretended to start fighting Leon, who picked up on the fact that it was probably an act. Leon put on a magical suit of armor and Rimuru drew his special sword. The fake duel began. To be continued.
~Thanks for Reading~
Written by 7Mono at Anime Rants
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