‘Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken’ Anime In 2018 Based On ‘That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime’ Manga-Novel

The release date for the Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken anime has officially been confirmed for 2018. Affectionately known as “Slime Isekai” by fans, the English That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime anime (or Regarding Reincarnated to Slime) is based on the Japanese Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken manga/light novel series that has sold 4.5 million copies in Japan.

Written by Fuse and illustrated by Mitz Vah, the light novel series first began serializing back in 2013. The isekai light novel series follows many of the standard tropes in the genre, but the biggest twist is that the main character is a Japanese man who awakens as a blind slime monster in a fantasy realm. This original take on the flooded isekai genre has caused the Slime to swell to success.

As of this article’s publishing, the Slime Isekai light novel series is up to Volume 11, while Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken Volume 12 is scheduled for release on March 9, 2018. The announcement of the anime adaptation came through a photo of Volume 12 posted on Twitter by a Seibundo bookstore in Japan. The jacket cover for the book revealed that the Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken release date for the anime will be in the fall of 2018. That means fans should expect the anime to be released in October.

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Yen Press has licensed the English translation of the Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken novel series. The English version began releasing in December of 2017. Volume 2 is scheduled to release on April 24, 2018, while Volume 3 has not yet been announced. However, there is a fan translation project by Guro Translation, and the original web novel series can be found on the Japanese language Let’s Become Novelists website.

A Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken manga adaptation of the light novel story launched in 2015. Written and illustrated by Taiki Kawakami, the That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime manga will be up to Volume 7 on March 9, 2018. New manga chapters release monthly in Kodansha’s Monthly Shonen Sirius magazine. The series is currently up to Chapter 36, and Chapter 37 should come out in April of 2018.

The English translation of the manga is being published by Kodansha Comics, and it’s up to Volume 4 already. Volume 5 is scheduled to release on April 17, 2018, while Volume 6 is set for June 19, 2018. The release date for the English translation of Volume 7 has not been announced yet.

That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime Anime Spoilers

The overall story definitely is definitely a form of wish fulfillment, which is standard for the isekai genre, but that’s certainly not how the story begins. At first, the main character, 37-year-old Satoru Mikami, is griping about his mundane life in a dead-end job as a salaryman. He’s never even had a girlfriend, and his outlook is bleak.

Worse, he’s murdered by a random robber while trying to protect his co-workers. As he laid dying, his strong regrets caused him to wish for a new body with no blood. Unfortunately, he awakens to find himself reincarnated as a spineless, bloodless blob, not an overpowered knight like in practically any other isekai story like In Another World with My Smartphone or Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody.

As every fan of fantasy knows, the weak slime monster is usually the lowliest of the low monster in a fantasy world that any hero can defeat (unless it’s Konosuba). Satoru is stuck in a cave and he’s blind, only able to “see” through limited means of perception. Slimes don’t sleep and he spends months being bored, eating nearby grass to pass the time.

But this particular slime is overpowered in his own way. Besides being bestowed with resistance skills, Satoru eventually realizes that he has a unique skill called Predator that allows him to gain powers by swallowing other monsters living in the cave. He also hears a mysterious voice in his head called the Great Sage that guides him by giving knowledge of every law and rule of this new universe. With his own knowledge of fantasy, Satoru is motivated to level up using these two weapons and become the most powerful slime there ever was.

The slime’s epic journey gets a jumpstart when Satoru meets the Catastrophe-level monster Storm Dragon Verudora while exploring the cave. While most creatures would simply cower in fear at the sight of a dragon, Satoru simply thinks dragons are awesome, and the odd pair end up striking up a friendship. In this world, monsters are nameless unless a high-magic being bestows a name. Thus, the dragon Verudora ends up bestowing Satoru with the new name Rimuru Tempest. The dragon is also renamed as Verudora Tempest.

It turns out the dragon is stuck in an unbreakable Endless Prison, so the slime uses his Predator skill to swallow the dragon into a magical storage space where the Great Sage can analyze the dragon. The plan is to figure out a way to free the dragon from his imprisonment.

Verudora teaches Rimuru how to “see” by perceiving magical energy, and Rimuru learns to speak by devouring a cave bat and earning a sound-emitting ability. Upon exiting the cave, Rimuru finds himself embroiled in a conflict between goblins and a pack of fang wolves. The slime settles the dispute and becomes the leader of this new combined village.

Without getting into too many spoilers, the next stage of the slime’s conquest involves a royal courtroom, dwarves, lizardmen, and an adventurers guild. Rimuru learns more about this new fantasy world he inhabits, and it turns out that World Travelers from other realities are not unheard of. A mysterious girl named Shizue turns out to be a woman who was reincarnated from Japan. Shizue requests that Rimuru use Predator to take her powers.

After absorbing Shizue, the slime picks up shapeshifting and the ability to create clones. Rimuru eventually figures out a way to generate a human body for his dragon friend. As the slime grows, he also learns to take on human forms. At first, he only has enough mass to appear as a child, but the genderless slime will eventually look like a silver-haired male teenager with feminine features (just like Knight’s and Magic, it’s a trap!).

Thus far, the slime has earned his powers through hard work and sharp wit instead of being overpowered from the beginning, but his journey has not been that perilous. That status changes quickly when an Orc Lord and a war force of 200,000 monsters threaten the creatures of the Great Forest of Jura. In response, a protector of the forest asks Rimuru to fight back the Orc Lord and his army. There’s also a greater villain lurking in the shadows.

Similar to the Overlord anime, this conflict sets the stage for Rimuru establishing a monster country called Tempest near the cave where his adventure began. As King of Tempest, Rimuru gathers a band of heroes to combat anyone who opposes his kingdom. The slime desires that this land treat all monsters with equality, and over time, Tempest grows into a city.

“To everyone who went against us, we will bare our fangs and retaliate. To everyone who lends their hands to us, we will grant our blessing to them,” said Rimuru in reference to the ideals of Tempest. “To our opponents, we will do to them what they have done to us. In the future, I hope that we can be linked in friendship one day.”

From there, the story progresses with festivals, dungeons, tournaments, and other familiar elements of the isekai genre. An earthly war between empires leads to a heavenly war between angels and demons. Hopefully, the Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken anime adaptation won’t blow through the source material at a rapid pace and leave ample room for That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2. Fans of the Slime Isekai light novel/manga series will just have to wait until the fall of 2018 to see how the anime turns out.

[Update March 12, 2018] Added trailer video.