That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, S4 Ep 10 Review
Dang. I knew that Maribel was going to get absolutely embarrassed, and that’s not just because I read the manga ahead of time. It’s just what happens when you mess with someone like Rimuru. But I didn’t think that seeing it in anime form would be so humiliating! I know that we shouldn’t underestimate kids, but even so, Maribel just got reminded of her place in the world in the worst way possible! For her, that is. It was like watching one of Jinwoo’s curb-stompings for me!
What did she think would happen?
So, Maribel has decided to stop messing around and throw everything that she’s got at Rimuru. She’s got Yuuki fighting for her, some knight we dont know, and last, and definitely least, her trump card: Gaiye. Yes, the arrogant and self-absorbed adventurer that made a fool of himself at the opening festival and during the fiasco at the Council is Maribel’s trump card. She used her power to supercharge him up in exchange for most of his life force or something, thinking that it could distract Rimuru long enough to brainwash him. But we already know how that turns out.
And Rimuru just revokes the man’s subscription to life like it’s nothing.
Honestly, what was Maribel thinking here? Gaiye was a chump even before she pumped him with her powers. He couldn’t handle a Dryad, for crying out loud! How did she think that he could fight Rimuru! It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic!
What follows can be best described as a grown man giving a little girl a lesson on the pecking order of the world. Maribel just keeps trying to throw everything she has at Rimuru, and he just no-sells it all like it’s nothing.
This is just sad
And the more she keeps failing to get rid of him, the more she gets upset as she realizes how badly she messed up making an enemy out of him. But she’s got no one to blame but herself about this, as she chose to go into this fight without learning more about her enemy. If she had, she would have known that it would take way more than what she brought to kill Rimuru. In all honesty, the only useful card she played was Yuuki.
We as the audience should already know just how dangerous Yuuki is thanks to his manipulation tactics. As it turns out, though, he’s also dangerous in the physical sense. His secret power, Anti-skill, lets him seal away any skills an opponent might have, if only for a short while. And since skills are often what determines how powerful a person is, that makes him very dangerous to fight. Even Rimuru realizes that there’s a chance that Yuuki could kill him. But thankfully, he still manages to come out on top. But then Kagali and the others give this impassioned plea for him to snap out of it and not let Maribel control him and he snaps out of it.
Wait, what?
Man, Yuuki is good
Rimuru effectively voices the thought that the audience is meant to think while watching this: this is cliché. Way too cliche, in fact. I’ve seen plenty of anime where a character is mind-controlled and overcomes it thanks to the power of friendship or something else, and it’s usually very heartwarming. It’s supposed to be heartwarming, after all. But this was way too easy, and Rimuru knows it. But he can’t prove that Yuuki was faking it without looking like the bad guy, so he’s forced to let things go and let him deal with Maribel as she tries to blow up a magic reactor and kill everyone.
And you know what? We’re right to find this sus, because Yuuki was playing everyone!
As Yuuki corners Maribel, alone and wounded in the ruins, he decides to play with his food before eating it. He reveals that he was never under Maribel’s control, and had been faking it the whole time!
This is actually a brilliant play on Yuuki’s part. He knew that Rimuru was starting to become wise to him, and the last thing he wanted was to make an enemy out of a Demon Lord before he was ready. But thanks to Maribel, he can now say that all of it was because he was being controlled by Maribel’s skill, Greed. And since Rimuru can’t prove otherwise, he can’t make a move against Yuuki without looking like the bad guy. Thus, he’s managed to get away with everything he did up to this point.
And then comes the most humiliating aspect. Right before Yuuki delivers the killing blow, Yuuki reveals the fatal flaw to Greed: it doesn’t work if the target’s own greed exceeds that of its user. And while Maribel wanted to control the world from the shadows, Yuuki wants to rule as its king. You can’t get greedier than that! Maribel was just born too late to do anything, and that costs her her life.
It’s sad, honestly. As evil and selfish as she was, Maribel could have done a lot of good for the world. Then again, the same could be said for a lot of villains.
