I watched this one just for the title. Do I regret watching a film entirely on the strength of a bizarre title? Only a little. I’ve seen enough anime to know it could have been a lot worse. You’re gonna have supernatural battles. All these freaking anime shows have supernatural battles. (The ones that aren’t completely romance, that is.) I go into these things hoping for <50% of screentime devoted to animated dick measuring contests. This one was more like 25-30%, so I’ll take the win, even if I wasn’t a fan.
Background: Japan has a lot of animated shows with supernatural characters/monsters. Some are weirder than others. After they run a season or two or three, They decide to make a big movie in the downtime and release it to movie theaters. Some of these movies get my attention. I should ignore them as 1) I don’t speak Japanese and 2) I haven’t already seen three seasons of the “Super Dragon Pokémon Quest Hour or” whatever.
I’m trying to avoid them. Seriously. It does neither of us any good for me to report on this crap.
However, I just couldn’t avoid a title like: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime the Movie: Tears of the Azure Sea. This is a title so entrenched in the realm of silly that -paradoxically- it makes a full circle and comes back to the realm of brilliant. And as I saw this film, I’m going to report on it.
Here’s what I understood: there was this dude. He was murdered. He was reincarnated as some sort of blob. The blob took up residence in the ocean, formed a community of special friends, and now there’s an underwater kingdom rivaling Triton’s with the blob at the center.
Blob is a shape shifter. Sometimes blob is a blob. Sometimes blob is a child-like man. Sometimes blob is a powerful winged warrior in black.
I could have gotten every part of that wrong. As I said, this isn’t my thing. I mean, like, looking at it now, I’d describe “Friends” as: collection of semi-pampered, largely indulged twentysomethings find dirt-cheap, spacious, and clean housing in mid-town Manhattan.
Anyway, on this particular Reincarnated as a Slime adventure, the whole Slime gang is going to the beach. The Blob, Rimuru, calls the shots for the most part, and one of the shots Rimuru calls is that whenever he’s in blob form, his keeper/handler/transporter is a girl with big tits. I’m pretty sure those are her only jobs: have big tits and cart Rimuru around when he’s in blob form.
Meanwhile, at their resort, the gang, which numbers anywhere between the size of BTS and the size of the BTS Army, is being stalked. Yura, 
a priestess from another underwater nation, needs help with a coup problem. Not exactly sure how Blob Kingdom is related to her issues, but it is. The only “person” who notices they’re being stalked is Gobtu the goblin. He’s shorter and greener than his people. Also, he doesn’t have big tits. But Yura does, so there’s that. Gobta and Yura have this on-again/off-again rivalry that amounts to a romance, and this was easily the best part of the film.
Sure, she’s a priestess, he’s a goblin. Let’s get these crazy kids together; whaddaya say? Eventually, there were big supernatural water fights, of course. These were well-animated, but on the confusing side and reminded me much more of a middle-school pool party than some sort of epic battle for undersea domination. I dunno. These shows clearly aren’t for me. Get back to the priestess/goblin thing. That was working for ya.
As I said above: considering my handicap in viewing coming into the event, I liked this one more than most of its kind. Still can’t recommend, and have zero interest in watching the TV necessary to make this movie make sense … but I did like it more than most.
Once a demon was reincarnated as slime
To me, without reason or rhyme
But he got some cool friends
And that’s not where it ends
For most adventures have a 30-minute run-time
Not Rated, 104 Minutes
Director: Yasuhito Kikuchi, Austin Sisk
Writer: Toshizô Nemoto, Yasuhito Kikuchi, Yasuki Kawakami
Genre: Shows I didn’t know existed
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of whatever the Hell this is
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The uninitiated
