Title: That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime: The Ways of the Monster Nation Vol. 4
Author: Sho Okagiri (Adaptation), FUSE (Original Story), Mitz Vah (Character Art)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Genre: Isekai, Fantasy
Publication Date: March 30, 2021
The Story
Volume four picks up with Ramiris on the case to find out who stole Rimuru’s statue. While the fairy’s on the hunt, the sculpting students are ordered to replace the statue but without any type of visual reference, they’re not sure how to capture his essence. Of course, we have a plot device from a couple of volumes back… the camera! Framea is off to snap a few pictures of Rimuru and thanks to his cooperativeness, they get the job done many times over… much to Rimuru’s chagrin!
As a way of apologizing for being the one to steal his own statue, Rimuru gives us… THE BEACH EPISODE! Yep… the classic trope of anime and manga is back so if you want to see all of your favorite girls in small bikinis… you’ve come to the right chapter! Some swimming and volleyball later and we’re out of this chapter and onto the Hanami festival where everyone just watches flowers bloom. This is where we are paid a visit by Luminus who tries to scare Framea by telling her that there are corpses buried underneath the Sakura trees and that they suck the blood from those corpses in order to turn the petals pink.
Oof.
From here, Rimuru wants to build a theme park to add yet another attraction to Tempest and, finally, Framea is given a “magic card” that lets her purchase anything she wants without paying for it… at 23% interest. She goes around and has a blast charging things left and right until the volume ends with Rimuru getting stuck with the bill!
Characters
So… Rimuru hates statues of himself, eh? It was kind of funny when he stole his own statue and all of the sculpting students made him a new one… now Tempest is overrun with Rimuru statues and his plan backfired in his face! It was a simple story plot but it did reveal a facet about Rimuru we didn’t know about until now. While not a major development, it’s nice to learn about a character’s quirks… no matter how big or small they may be.
Framea just going around and charging stuff to Rimuru’s “magic card” was both hilarious and predictable. If the chapter didn’t end with Rimuru getting stuck with a massive bill, then the joke would have fallen completely flat. Despite the predictable outcome, I did have a laugh at it and it showed us that Framea has a 3-star mind when it comes to self-control while shopping.
I really love Luminus. I really do. She’s sassy, downright evil, but doesn’t really mean it. She gets put in check quite a bit but her dark teasing is a trait that I love in characters… especially in a fantasy setting such as this. Hopefully, we’ll get to see more of her in future volumes.
Final Word
The spinoff series started out with Framea being charged to make a guidebook and rating practically everything three stars. I thought the hook of this series would be to find out what she would give her first five-star rating to; however, the series is deviating from that entire plot point and abandoning her rating system in favor of more spin-offy (new word?) plot points. I mean, we had a beach episode and, technically, a festival episode (although the theme park is under construction). These are two typical tropes that you would find in almost any anime/manga story.
Although, this could be a good thing as repeating the same gimmick over and over again can get worn out in a quick manner. I know there are (at least) 8 volumes in Japan so we are only halfway there to being caught up to the Japanese releases. So, imagine if they didn’t take a break and we just kept getting volume after volume after volume of guide book creation and star ratings? It would get old fast like a Dave Meltzer newsletter (I have a feeling that I might be the only one to get that joke.)
As long as the series doesn’t continue to lose sight of the main objective, I’m okay with taking a break every now and then. This volume stirred it up and I got to see some cute girls in bikinis!
I really should go to my local beach one of these days… I only live 10 minutes away, after all…
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**This item was provided for review by Yen Press
