That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 4 Episode 7 - Japanese Fans Pan a Toothless Villain and Marvel at Rimuru's Terrifying Power Gap

Storywise she's positioned like a big shot - we thought Yuuki was pulling all the strings from the shadows, then the one pulling Yuuki's strings shows up, like she's the true evil. So it's tough that the majority are thinking, 'Is Mariabel really that big a deal?'

It's just that Mariabel has zero charm, lol. No sense of tragedy either, so you can't empathize. The Falmuth conflict had schemes but was a head-on fight, so the Falmuth king's downfall had real pathos. Mariabel has no visible public power, just schemes in the shadows, and Tempest isn't even openly opposing her - just ignoring her - so there's no payoff. Right now she just looks like a bratty little girl plotting in secret and tripping over herself.

I've felt it since I first saw the Season 4 ED. Honestly, every original-novel reader probably thought the same: are they raising Mariabel's bar way too high?

It'll be fine. At some point they'll spend a whole episode on a Mariabel flashback, staging it like the tragic tale of her doomed life.

Mariabel's main goal is to avoid a future where everything coalesces and races forward under Tempest's lead. Short of outright hostility, she wants a rival power to exist and stall things - but as she's aware herself, Rimuru, a monster and now a Demon Lord, has a near-infinite lifespan, and she understands a human like her and the Rozzo clan can no longer compete. That's what frustrates her.

If she'd just stayed the princess of Sialprutto she'd never have wanted for anything, so there was no need to rush. She has the potential to acquire an Ultimate Skill, and could have ended up controlling a piece of the world Rimuru is building.

If she'd just operated in the shadows as, say, Granbell's secretary, things would've been better. The start of her ruin was that she had little drive and was awkwardly handed control of the western economic sphere.

From the viewer's seat it's obvious Rimuru has no wicked schemes, but from other humans' perspective, it's hardly unreasonable to suspect: 'After winning trust through peaceful diplomacy, won't he just expand de facto control?'

But even if they're suspicious, what option do they have other than accepting Rimuru's negotiation? If anything, the more suspicious you are, the more refusing and angering him risks the unknown - so you have to accept. And does Mariabel even consider what happens if her scheme works, Rimuru is branded humanity's enemy, and then an angry Rimuru resorts to force?

That's exactly why Mariabel didn't make herself the enemy (even though she's been found out) and instead schemed to make Ingrassia and Rimuru fight each other.

From the human side, they'd consider the possibility of 'Accept ALL our demands or I'll sic Veldora on you' - and the fact is, Rimuru could actually do that.

Yeah, a monarchy that holds weapons of mass destruction (Veldora and co.) and has a near-infinite lifespan... if you'd lived to the modern day and got reincarnated, of course you'd be scared out of your wits.

Among the characters introduced so far, it's clearly established that Milim, Guy, Velzard, and Veldora are a cut above. Diablo and Dagruel are at a level that rivals them, and Rimuru's camp keeps getting stronger and closing in on this tier.

This is all correct. Rimuru doesn't realize how cheat-tier and strong he is. Even against a serious Guy, as long as the soul corridor with Veldora exists he's immortal, so he can escape, and Raphael will work out a countermeasure in the meantime - so he won't lose. In other words, Rimuru is already the strongest.

Slight spoiler, but Diablo (pre-incarnation) has a record of fighting Guy (pre-incarnation) to a draw. That's probably the basis for saying Diablo rivals the top tier. And Dagruel rivals them likely because he and Veldora have brawled many times without a decisive result.

Well, at this point Diablo is deliberately not evolving and not acquiring an Ultimate Skill - because he's too much of a battle junkie and fights would stop being fun.

In battle-manga threads, strength debates usually devolve into people stubbornly pushing their pet theories and getting into flame wars, which I hate - so it's nice that the power-scaling talk here stays peaceful.

Taking care of Lord Rimuru: go wake him in the morning, help him get dressed, manage his schedule, support his work, handle chores - all while on bodyguard duty.

When Diablo was entrusted with handling Falmuth, the moment he came back he set off on a journey, saying he wanted others to handle the dirty work of toppling a nation and would go find subordinates - so it can't be helped.

Up until Hinata's challenge I wondered if any participant would even reach Veldora. Judging by the strength of the enemies on the floors up to that point, they make you think a real expert is on the verge of clearing it - then they park Veldora, who's in a completely different class, at the end so no one can clear it.

When a supposed aristocrat talks in modern youth slang like 'and like, and like,' immersion vanishes for a moment. Isekai shows do this a lot. Even a prim 'desuwa'-speaking lady sometimes has her whole register collapse - makes me wonder why it isn't proofread.

Isekai works on the conceit that the other world's language is being translated into modern Japanese. They're rendering nuances spoken in the other world's tongue into the closest modern phrasing. There's no problem at all.

I wish they'd let the story's flow come across naturally. There are a lot of scenes where the visuals feel unnecessary - like they didn't need to be animated.

If they change the ED each cour, then since this cour's main guest villain is Mariabel, it makes sense. There's a certain audience that loves a bratty little girl, so that ED checks out. Next cour, old man Granbell lacks flair, so maybe the ED will be the naked beauty Lady Luminous keeps sealed in a coffin deep in her temple - look forward to it.

Cour 1: Mariabel. Cour 2: Granbell. Cours 3-5: the Empire arc. Cours 6-10: the Tenma War (the Great War of Heaven and Demons). ...This is going to take another 10 years.

This whole cour is Mariabel's story, told from her perspective - the tale of a hidebound privileged class that marches steadily toward ruin no matter what it does. Kind of like the Tale of the Heike.