That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

Welcome to TenSura, one of the latest additions to the niche and undersaturated genre known as "isekai" *laugh track plays*. Since there are about 17 isekais produced every anime season, studios have realized that in order to produce a truly successful isekai, they need to grab the viewer's attention in the first couple episodes. What happens after that? Eh, who cares. The show's already popular. Story (4/10): I believe one of the greatest flaws of TenSura is the concept itself. The idea of a light-hearted Overlord may sound good on paper, but it fails in execution. Overlord works as a show because Ainz is cool. The problem with TenSura is that Rimuru really... isn't cool. He's OP in a Kirito-like, boring way, in that he lacks any personality other than being an average, nice person. After the pretty good first few episodes (up through the establishment of the goblin village) Rimuru just doesn't do anything interesting. I'm struggling to recall what actually happened in the arcs because there's not really anything connecting them. Rimuru just goes to some random place and gets more allies for his village by talking to them. Personally, I don't find that this makes for a very entertaining show. There's no overarching plot, no "cool factor," and no tension since Rimuru can easily defeat any enemy with his OP isekai protagonist skills. Oh yeah, apparently there was a comedy aspect here? I didn't find it funny, and apparently MAL didn't either since this show doesn't have a comedy tag. Characters (5/10): Who? The only character listed as a "main" in TenSura is Rimuru, who, as discussed above, I do not like. The other characters include a harem of personality-less dolls, some side characters like Souei who attempt to compensate for Rimuru's lack of coolness, and random characters that appear once and are never brought up again. Shizu, the only character that may be argued to be "well-written" is nothing but a well-disguised MacGuffin. All she does is progress the plot. I'd like to talk about the random side characters in further detail. The problem here is that this season is pretty much an introduction into the universe. You get all of these characters that are simply introduced and left alone, like demon lord with clown servants, demon lord with blonde hair, knight girl who is hinted to be Shizu's disciple, those adventurers from the guild near the end of the show, and probably others that I've forgotten about. They're probably going to be important in the next season, but what about this season? Art (8/10): Pretty solid. The character designs are relatively memorable. The color scheme and the overall art help build the comforting, light-hearted atmosphere that the show strives for. The fights are nicely animated. Sound (8/10): Idk why I'm giving this a high rating. There's this one OST that plays during every battle that's stuck in my head, so apparently that somehow makes the sound good. The OP and ED themes also nicely mirror the quality of the show. Just like the show was good at the start and became a drag, the first OP and ED were good, and the second ones really weren't. Enjoyment & Overall (6/10): TenSura was extremely bland, but I can't really give it a lower rating since it was decent enough for me to have the desire to watch every new episode. I'm really hoping that this was simply a setup season and that season two will be better, since this season seems to lay the groundwork and nothing else, but only time will tell.