He Does Not Let Anyone Roll the Dice
Creative Staff
Story: Kumo Kagyu
Art: Noboru Kannatuki
Translation: Kevin Steinbach
What they say
One day, a certain person arrives at the Guild to ask for Goblin Slayer by name. The request comes from the Water District, a neighborhood in the prosperous capital of the Supreme God, and the Arch Bishop that hails form there. The Arch Bishop was once a Gold-ranked adventurer known as the Sword Maiden who defeated the Demon King, a true hero. Now, she comes forward with the details of goblins somehow appearing within the Water district…
Goblin Slayer, alongside his companions High Elf Archer, Priestess, Lizard Priest, and Dwarf Shaman, enter the catacombs beneath the Water District to get down to the bottom of the goblin disturbance!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Goblin Slayer was a series that interested me from the first volume. Inspired by Tabletop RPGs, it takes concepts from classic Dungeons & Dragons stories and gives it a Japanese twist.
The story begins with Goblin Slayer going on an adventure with High Elf Archer, Priestess, Lizard Priest, and Dwarf Shaman. In the last volume, these four people had formed a party with Goblin Slayer. Now it seems as though they have formally become a group. Of course, this particular adventure was done at the behest of High Elf Archer, who, toward the end of volume 1, demanded that Goblin Slayer go on an adventure with her that didn’t involve goblins in exchange for helping defend the farm that his friend, Cow Girl, lives on.
Of course, goblins randomly show up on this quest anyway, so in the end, her desire to have Goblin Slayer go on an adventure that doesn’t involve goblins is never fulfilled.
Something that I really liked about this volume was the establishing of relationship dynamics between Goblin Slayer and his party. In the previous volume, Goblin Slayer was toted as a lone wolf. Sure, he had Priestess with him, but she tagged along because he saved her and she didn’t know what else to do. In this volume, Goblin Slayer has accepted these people as his party, and so when a quest comes along to hunt some goblins in a city far from where they are based, he asks them to join him.
I’d like to take a moment to mention that some of the chapters are written in a highly unusual style. There is at least one chapter that I believe shows the “gods” as they play a game of TRPG. It gives us this sense that the gods are actually just normal people playing a game, and the characters we read about are merely figurines on a board. This is further enhanced by how none of the characters have names and go by titles. At the same time, while the writing during these chapters are interesting, it throws me off. There’s no dialogue tags, so it’s hard to follow when someone is talking, or even who is talking. It doesn’t help that these chapters are almost written as a dialogue-esque monologue. This makes for a very befuddling read.
Putting those chapters aside, Goblin Slayer and his party journey to the city where their quest takes place. The city is never named, but there they meet with the person who made this quest—Sword Maiden. Known as the Archbishop of the Supreme God, Sword Maiden is the former hero who defeated the Demon Lord and a Gold-ranked adventurer, the only one in existence. It’s unknown at first why she hired a Platinum-rank to slay goblins, but the quest was given and Goblin Slayer only ever has one thing on his mind: Slaying goblins.
The last volume dealt with a series of quests. This volume only deals with one quest, and that’s the one in this city. Goblin Slayer and the others are dispatched to slay the goblins that lurk underneath the city, but there’s a lot more going on, and this quest is about far more than just slaying a few goblins.
In terms of writing, this one is about the same as the previous one. Most of the writing has a varied style. Sometimes paragraphs use short sentences. Other times they use long sentences. A few are single-sentence paragraphs. The mix in the writing makes the story more interesting. However, there is a problem about the manner in which this story is told.
Head hopping.
Head hopping is when a story is told from one person’s perspective, say, Goblin Slayer’s, but then during that same scene it’ll switch to another perspective—let’s go with Priestess—and it won’t give any warning or indication that the switch is happening. You just have to sort of follow along and notice the switches as they happen. I normally don’t mind some head hopping, but I disliked having to constantly switch perspectives with no warning. The worst part about this was how it would sometimes switch to a goblin’s perspective, the problem being that goblins are, according to this series, unintelligent creatures that aren’t capable of rational thought. If they aren’t capable of rational thought, then they shouldn’t have the brain capacity to even have their own perspective, since they would logically be creatures of instinct. From what we learn in the previous volume, the only goblins capable of human-like intelligence are Lords.
In Summary
This volume, while containing some flaws, was a highly enjoyable journey detailing the life of a broken man in his quest to slay some goblins. What makes the story better is that Goblin Slayer appears to be slowly changing. He still has goblins on the brain, but he’s doing his best to become a companion for Priestess and the others. Whether or not he can ever become a normal human being is up in the air, but I’m interested in seeing where his story goes. Also, maybe it’s just me, but I’m really beginning to ship Goblin Slayer and Priestess together. I think they would make such a cute couple!
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: A+
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Yen On
Release Date: April 18, 2017
MSRP: $14.00
