I’ve been reading the manga ever since watching the first season and, much as it has been adapted well, I can’t say it’s spent much of the time since that first drop really investing me. Season 2 had some really solid moments with their own problems, but Season 3 in particular felt like a substantial letdown. I chalk that up to three reasons. First, the arc it’s adapting just isn’t that interesting. I love some good worldbuilding, but this season seemed to focus most of its time and effort on relations between Tempest and other nations, as well as building up new infrastructure in Tempestthat could make them a center of commerce and a place where humans and monsters can coexist. That’s fine, but after two seasons of watching Rimuru become a force to be reckoned with and learn about some of the biggest powers in this world, it all feels so basic. We get a couple of fights here and there (more on that shortly), but there’s just not enough to sink your teeth into for long. The building of the labyrinth in Tempest, in particular, just feels like Rimuru trying to realize an isekai wishlist. It’s kind of interesting to see how granular they get with it, but it’s also a strange direction for the series to take after so much setup of antagonists, all of whom largely take a backseat this time around.
Second, pacing. If I’m reading this on the page, I’m fine with going through every detail because, like any book I read, I’m setting the pace of how quickly I’m getting through it. It doesn’t typically bother me to have to slog a bit in a manga. I can skim parts where it’s not working too well if desired. Harder to do that with an anime that’s paced to the length of its episodes. More importantly, an anime has opportunities to expand on parts that could draw more attention, especially with two full cours to work with, and drop elements that might not need careful attention to detail. Case in point, there are two fights over the course of this season that offered opportunities to both showcase the strengths of the animation and expand on what happened in the manga to draw in viewers. Both were left almost exactly as they had been in the manga, and while the animation is there, one of those fights still contains a frustrating asspull that could have been done so much better and the other seemed almost more exposition than fight.
Third, and perhaps most frustrating, the only arc in here that felt weighty (the Conflict Between Saints and Monsters Arc) just didn’t work for me. I rarely love idiot plots, as they only ever justify themselves by providing good reason why some people won’t talk to one another, but this one felt particularly contrived. Too many people had to ask no questions and refuse to talk to specific people in order for the events to play out the way they did (generally, the more people you include in your idiot plot, the harder it is to believe, no matter how convincing their reasoning is), and even then, given that they still had a lot of fights, the result just made it feel like it meant nothing. I’ll keep this vague, but in particular, I have a big problem with characters suddenly discovering that they had an overpowered, purpose-built ability that will save their life just because, or that a sacrifice they made was effectively a fake-out. That’s particularly frustrating when the reason for the lack of knowledge is literally a voice inside the character’s head. All that took what could have easily been one of the best arcs in the series and made it my least favorite thusfar.
I’ll probably continue with this series because I suspect it’s going somewhere in the manga, but this season seemed to drain the interest out of me as it went along, even as it maintains its quality. It had some bright spots and left us on a note that indicates enemies lurking in the shadows and converging on Tempest, but they sure are taking their sweet time doing it. As someone who has rarely had a problem patiently waiting for the good stuff, two cours of waiting for the other shoe to drop was a lot and, no, it still hasn’t dropped.
