Goblin Slayer Episode 11 Review: A Gathering of Adventurers

A week after the strangely-timed and disappointing recap episode, we’re back where we started – staring at some goblin tracks. This week’s episode is the first part of the Goblin Slayer finale which many manga fans have been hyping for since the anime’s beginning. Let’s dive in, fingers crossed that no best girls die, and check out what happened this week!

Episode Eleven Violence Levels – High

Japanese Original Episode Title: 冒険者の饗宴

Plot

After discovering the goblin footprints at the farm’s edge, Goblin Slayer tries to convince Cow Girl to flee. Her, being best girl, refuses to abandon her home. Knowing he can’t take on all the goblins himself, Goblin Slayer travels into town to get some help from the Adventurer’s Guild.

Episode Highlights

All For One: A really heartwarming scene in the Guild as the adventurers agree to help Goblin Slayer, whether because of gold or friendship. Compared to previous episodes where it seemed Goblin Slayer was only scorned by other adventurers, it was nice to see they can step up when needed!

Goblin Lord: We’ve seen goblins, hobgoblins, and goblin champions, but they couldn’t prepare us for the Goblin Lord. The Goblin Lord is a goblin specializing in intelligence and leadership. In the manga, the Goblin Lord can use language to organise and communicate with the horde – I guess words get the message across better than grunts and screeches.

Human Shields: Definitely not a positive highlight, the human shields the goblin used are definitely one of the most horrifying things I’ve seen in an anime

Themes & Trivia

Goblins & Wolves: The Goblins riding the wolves in this episode were very familiar to the Orcs and Wargs in the Lord of the Rings universe.

Preparation: Remember way back in Episode 1 where I talked about being prepared for fights? It seems we’ve come full circle as one adventurer is nearly killed by a goblin but saved from the armor Goblin Slayer recommended he uses – preparation is key, a theme presented time and time again in this series.

Comments

This episode was definitely worth the one week delay! From the heartwarming scenes inside the guild to the epic farm confrontation, it’s everything I could ever hope it would be. I gotta say, that guild scene really got to me, I’ve really been feeling quite bad for Goblin Slayer. He’s just off killing all these goblins, saving village after village and it seemed all he received as thanks was scorn and derision. No one seemed to appreciate or acknowledge his work, even the lower-ranked adventurers thought they were tough shit compared to him. So I really did appreciate seeing everyone rally around him, even though some of them were only in it for the money.

There were also two female characters I was really impressed with this episode. First up is the Witch, who I had mixed feelings for before. But gosh can that girl cast a spell! I’d love to see her absolutely crush some goblins in the next episode rather than just do backup. I mean, she knows that fire spell but all she uses it for is to light her pipe!! Burn some goblins girl, burn them! This episode was also a really important one for Cow Girl, who seemed to just fade into one-dimensional fan service in recent episodes. There was a real strength of character shown in her staying with Goblin Slayer, and her not wanting to give her home up to a goblin horde. You go Cow Girl!

Onwards, to the final battle!

Ahhh! I can’t wait until next week’s episode. This week ended on a hopeful note – that all the goblins will be destroyed and everyone will live happily ever after. Right? That’s gotta happen, right? Well, at least I can indulge in my fantasy of Goblin Slayer and Cow Girl happily living on their farm for another week until the final.

That’s it for this week’s Goblin Slayer review, while you wait for the next one, make sure to check out the rest of the MANGA.TOKYO team’s Fall 2018 reviews.

NEXT TIME: The Fate of an Adventurer