YMMV / Goblin Slayer

• Accidental Aesop: The economic angle of the goblin threat can be taken as a critique of capitalism. It's mentioned early on that goblins are dangerous enough that it takes experienced adventurers to root them out, but at the same time, they mostly attack frontier farming communities that can't afford to pay very much by way of reward. However, the Adventure Guild is a for-profit entity, and experienced adventurers usually ignore goblin jobs because there's no money or glory to be made. Goblin Slayer gets by because he doesn't care about fortune and glory, and is implied to only break even because Cow Girl and her uncle give him free room and board in exchange for guarding their farm. He's also fortunate that his reputation in the Adventure Guild is so good that the administrators foot the bill to save the farm from the Goblin Lord at the end of Volume 1. The profit motive is poor at solving problems that it isn't profitable to solve.
• Adaptation Displacement: It's not unusual for an anime adaptation of a light novel to routinely overshadow its source material. However, the manga adaptation for this series is immensely popular, which is unusual as most light novel-to-manga re-tellings tend to be seen as cheap tie-ins with average artwork that leave out tons of narrative details and frequently get cancelled after covering only a few of the light novel volumes. According to this site, the manga version of the main story routinely outsells the light novels by a factor of 3-to-1; further evidence can be seen with how the Year One manga has overtaken the Year One light novels and is developing its own original story, a rarity for both mediums.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • What was Sword Maiden's comment in Volume 2, that Goblin Slayer "will one day disappear", supposed to mean? Was it in reality just a reminder/warning for Priestess in case she gets too reliant on him, since Goblin Slayer is known for being an asocial loner? Did she say that so she could have Goblin Slayer to herself, or was it a warning that if Goblin Slayer remains on his current path, he would no longer be himself, or a reminder of his mortality?
  • Is Goblin Slayer a Chaste Hero because of his hyper-focused personality, or has his exposure to goblins raping women (going all the way back to him witnessing it happen to his older sister) desensitized him entirely from forming a relationship with a woman at all? Speaking of his personality: is Goblin Slayer suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or was he neuroatypical before that?^note One could argue it's the former: negative thoughts about the world? Check; difficulty in maintaining social relationships? Check; difficulty at feeling positive emotions? Check; an ever-present need to be kept "busy"? Check; always on guard for danger? Double check with a helmet that took a favor to remove; aggressive behavior? Most certainly with the way he kills his marks. What's one of the therapies for PTSD? Repeated exposure to the situation ("exposure therapy") — in effect, Goblin Slayer is suffering PTSD, but he has been treating himself for years, and the party is helping him recover a normal life.
• Angst Aversion: The brutal deaths and rape of the Greenhorn Team at the start of the story has been enough for some to swear off the series entirely, even as it later counterbalances it with more positive, optimistic elements.
• Broken Base:
  • The fate of the Greenhorn Team at the start of the series - fans argue that Goblin Slayer is an effective Deconstruction of many fantasy tropes by showing a team of newcomers being brutally killed due to their lack of preparation and is a great way to set the tone for the series, but detractors dislike the opening narrative for a variety of reasons, whether because they think it uses rape and violence for shock value and/or find the subject matter too dark and brutal for their tastes.
  • There's also a question of how well the subject matter works as intelligent deconstruction. Fans enjoy the off-kilter takes on the usual heroic fantasy anime setting and shocking levels of grittiness, and on giving even "weak" monsters their due as a huge threat requiring careful planning and tactics. Detractors complain that some of these "clever" tactics are nonsensical (e.g. Goblin Slayer using cheap, poorly-maintained gear so that whatever lucky goblin kills him won't have anything useful to loot off his corpse is often pointed to as a prime example of the story trying to come off as smarter than it actually is; the counter-argument is that if he took better care of his tools he'd be much less likely to be killed), and that, rather than representing a realistically gritty fantasy world, the story instead suddenly switches from a traditional fantasy world to a gritty and low-magic one whenever the goblins show up, cheating on their behalf to make them a bigger threat and Goblin Slayer an Ignored Expert.
• Catharsis Factor: The narrative pulls no punches showing how reprehensible goblins are, making Goblin Slayer's creative and brutal goblin slaying all the more satisfying.
• Complete Monster: On his quest to exterminate every goblin, the Goblin Slayer himself has encountered beings at least as vile, if not more so, than the goblins themselves:
  • Vol. 3: The Dark Elf is a member of the Evil Sect who has women butchered and vivisected as sacrifices while leading goblins in the sewers of Water Town to cause as much havoc as he can. Having manipulated numerous attacks, the Dark Elf helps to inspire previous assaults by the goblins, including the Goblin Lord's attempted razing of Goblin Slayer's town. Later resurfacing during the "Harvest Festival" arc, the Dark Elf intends to use his goblins to massacre and violate all in their path while he summons Hecatoncheir, the hundred-armed giant, to obliterate the rest, and goes on a rampage to throw the world into chaos and devastation, intending on summoning many more monsters to kill as many people as possible.
  • Vol. 9: The Ice Witch is a hedonistic vampire who enjoys preying on young women. Gaining the loyalty of a group of carnivorous sasquatches, she unleashes them upon the local villages to slaughter the innocent Hare Folk, while blocking out the sun to allow no respite. With numerous innocents massacred, the Ice Witch plans to have villages slaughtered to give herself cover in an innocent town and kill freely for a century.
  • Vol. 11: The Guard Captain of the Desert Kingdom is an impulsive, brutal man who murders the rulers so that his supposed superior, the Prime Minister, can be the puppet master of the more intransigent Desert Princess. Deciding to raise an army of goblins to secure the coup, the Captain funnels innocent women to a goblin breeding camp to be used as breeding slaves before unleashing them on the city. When exposed, he reveals he plans to awaken a dragon to get it to do the attacking for him.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Virtually anyone who has ever laid eyes on the Goblin Slayer can tell that the man is simply not well. He has a flat affect, no sense of sarcasm, no care for his self-image, limited social skills and sense of tact, and his work ethic is more machine than human, not to mention his complete lack of a libido. Goblin Slayer also has to think extremely long and hard to gather and articulate his thoughts in deep conversation and visibly struggles to recollect and recount more than the broadest details of his quests when giving reports. He brusquely dismisses and discards from memory anything he doesn't consider worth complete attention, tends to fixate on minute details, and admittedly has trouble appreciating the concept of solidarity, outright surprising himself when he thinks of his friends as friends. Whatever's afflicting him more than likely stems from his Freudian Excuse, as he was suggested to have been a completely ordinary boy until then. He ticks off boxes in at least obsessive compulsive disorder, PTSD, and old-fashioned psychopathy.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Of the ill-fated party members from the Greenhorn Team, the bare-fisted Fighter has gotten the most attention and sympathy for her attempted Heroic Sacrifice, and for surviving the ordeal, but left completely broken. Even though she wasn't seen again after her departure, several fans have expressed their wish to see her return; taken to a point where some people Trolled fans with fake Light Novel spoilers about her being Driven to Suicide.
  • Amazon was able to gain a rather sizable fan base for obvious reasons, despite only being mentioned once so far in the light novel, and getting only a few scenes spread through a few chapters/episodes in the Manga and Anime. Many fans are hoping she'll be given a larger role in a future Story Arc.
• Fandom Rivalry: Long-time Berserk fans haven't come to appreciate being turned into strawmen by the Goblin Slayer fandom just so the latter could defend their series from criticism.
• Fan Nickname: Most characters have their epithets abbreviated when brought up in casual discussion, especially on Imageboards.
  • The majority of them have their titles rendered as initials (e.g. Goblin Slayer is "GS", Cow Girl is "CG", Guild Girl is "GG", Sword Maiden is "SM", etc.)
  • Some non-human characters are referred to simply by their race (e.g. High Elf Archer is almost always just called "elf", Dwarf Shaman is "dwarf", etc.)
  • A few of the side characters get jokingly called by the name of the character their design is taken from: (e.g. Heavy Warrior is "Guts", Chosen Heroine is referred to as "Haruhi", Sword Maiden is "YoRHa 2B", etc.)
  • Lizard Priest stands out for being granted a full-on Affectionate Nickname, "Lizardbro", for being both the strongest and the most personable member of the main party.
  • High Elf Archer is stuck with Dwarf Shaman's In-Series Nickname for her: "Anvil".
• Fanon:
  • An early fan comic on Pixiv spurred the idea that Goblin Slayer's tutelage of Priestess will eventually develop into a full-on case of Take Up My Sword, grungy armor, broken psyche and all.
  • Because Heavy Warrior is an Expy of Guts, some fans playfully interpret him to be the very same "Black Swordsman", albeit one living it up as an adventurer from having avoided any traumatic events, such as the Eclipse or meeting Griffith.
    • This fanon is further supported when the details of Heavy Warrior's backstory are revealed. Before becoming an adventurer, Heavy Warrior originally was a mercenary and had an Expy of Griffith as a best friend. However, Heavy Warrior's friend received a Career-Ending Injury and was forced into early retirement. Then the girl Heavy Warrior had a crush on (who turns out to be a Casca Expy in Year One) ended up settling down with Heavy Warrior's now crippled friend before he has a chance to approach her. The embarrassment of the situation became one of the reasons why Heavy Warrior decides to leave his mercenary life behind to become an adventurer.
  • One could only wonder if Chosen Heroine is actually Yuuki Konno reincarnated with her Luck Stat raised up to ridiculous amounts in response to her being Too Cool to Live in her own series; that Chosen Heroine resembles Yuuki in the light novel and manga illustrations isn't lost on fans.
  • Witch's langourous, drawn-out manner of speech is often speculated to be her method of preventing accidental spell-casting (despite explicitly using it on occasion to light up her pipe). However, due to her smoking habit, other fans joke that Witch must be stoned, while another theory is related to Dunegons & Dragons 5th Edition where the "Sage" character background material includes a personality trait where a Sage◊ speaks... slowly... when talking... to idiots...
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Goblin Slayer and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: both feature goblin themes and their Animated Adaptations were airing in the same season with drastically different portrayals of the respective goblins bordering on polar opposite, leading into the creation of a friendly rivalry. Of course, seeing just how different the goblins of another world are would likely give Goblin Slayer a heart attack and a nervous breakdown.
  • Players of Dark Souls and Darkest Dungeon, as well as traditional pen-and-paper Tabletop Games (including the /tg/ community), have expressed some fondness of this series because of the author's inspiration taken from the genre and medium, not to mention the former two especially for the series' bleak and depressive tone and constant death.
  • Doom fans took an immediate liking to Goblin Slayer thanks to similarities between the names, stoicism, personality, brutality, and pragmatism of both series' protagonists. The premise of a badass in armor slaying hordes of reprehensible creatures is what drives both series into what they are.
  • There's also plenty of overlap with fans of The Mandalorian, another show about a badass armored warrior who never removes his helmet and travels around with a younger magical companion.
• Genius Bonus: In chapter 65 of the main manga, Goblin Slayer agrees to meet Spearman and Heavy Warrior at a tavern. The tavern they hit up has a sign that depicts an axe with the number 233 stamped on the side of it; this is an opaque Visual Pun on The Bible passage Acts 2:33, which speaks of Jesus receiving the Holy Spirit and "pouring out" its message to the world.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series already had an international audience before the Animated Adaptation aired; despite the R-Rated Opening of the pilot, Goblin Slayer absolutely dominated the Anime selection in the United States for the fall of 2018. Likewise, Canada^note Sans Quebec, New Brunswick and some of the northern territories, parts of Central/South America, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Nordic regions also enjoyed Goblin Slayer.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Chapter 55 of the Year One Manga focuses on the Guts Expy Heavy Warrior neglecting his health in favor of handling the logistics of his party. He promptly collapses, with his teammates and acquaintances chiding him to not overwork and take care of his body. The chapter was released barely a day after the announcement of the passing of Berserk creator Kentaro Miura.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: An /a/ thread in March 2016 had several anons brainstorm a theoretical fantasy anime, with the most popular suggestion being one where the main character is a silent knight wearing a full-concealing helmet (à la Dark Souls). Muteness aside, many of the story concepts considered (no-nonsense protagonist with Skewed Priorities, cute female partners at odds with him, etc.) come off as oddly prophetic given that Goblin Slayer as a Light Novel series barely started out in Japan at the time.
• Hype Backlash: Fans of the series hyped up the Animated Adaptation as "Doom (2016) meets Dark Fantasy" — that it will be one of the "darkest Anime (they) had ever seen". While the R-Rated Opening certainly served its purpose, it's not uncommon to meet viewers who went in with astronomical expectations to be put off by seeing Harem Genre-esque elements and significantly less dark and gruesome goblin-based murder than was advertised as the episodes rolled along.
• I Knew It!: When the Animated Adaptation leapt forward into the events of Water Town from Volume 2 in the midst of the season, fans of the series deduced the climax from Volume 1 would be saved until the last couple of episodes, citing a more narrative-driven Story Arc. This turns out to be true as the end of Episode 10 is a Foreshadowing of a massive goblin horde at the edge of Cow Girl's farm.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Most people just want to see Goblin Slayer killing goblins and nothing else; a few late-comers also started watching to see the hype over the girls like Priestess.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Goblin Slayer seemingly dying after rescuing the party from the goblin champion in the midst of Volume 2. Even if it weren't Spoiled by the Format or from works ahead of the medium being viewed, having that actually happen is too absurd.
• Memetic Badass: Goblin Slayer; because he vows to purge every one of the critters from existence, fans would pit him against other goblins, goblin slayers and goblin-related characters from other media, joking that he would win every time, ranging from Rou in Re:Monster (an over-powered character because he's still a goblin) to Mini-Gob (Goblin Mage)◊ from Granblue Fantasy (although looking like a human child, she's still a goblin) and even the Green Goblin from Spider-Man. That being said, he's also been consistently presented as getting having troubles against General Enri.
• Memetic Molester:
  • Among Western fans, Goblin Slayer's assertion of "being like a goblin to the goblins" is taken to its logical conclusion by showing him as contemplating/threatening revenge rape against female goblins from other series such as Haruna from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Wasabi from Goblin Is Very Strong and Gobumi-chan from Dungeon Nursery. It's not helped by his occasional lack of people skills and unintentionally creepy behavior on occasion, like the notorious shot of him creeping up on High Elf Archer. ^WARNING though the image at this link is SFW, the website is definitely NOT. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there's a fanmade Eroge parody RPG with the predictable title "Goblin Layer" which takes this to the obvious conclusion.
  • Similarly, Eastern fans may have Priestess capture and rape young goblins in a disturbing amount of Fanart.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Thanks to comparisons between them, some of the series' fans liken the titular character to Doomguy/Doom Slayer, complete with the Doom comic book parody and cracks about their similarities. When the promotional trailers were released, fan edits replacing the music with tracks from Doom (2016) became abundant. Turns into Hilarious in Hindsight in Goblin Slayer Side Story: Year One, where Goblin Slayer does "rip and tear" into a goblin for "research purposes"; Hilarity Ensues when Goblin Slayer's Funimation voice actor did motion capture for the Doom Slayer.
  • "Did somebody say goblins?"^ExplanationGoblin Slayer's obsessive pursuit and demands for slaying quests have taken a life of its own, with fans excitedly calling for him upon the mere mention of goblins, even or rather especially in entirely different series.
  • Goblin Slayer's autism.^ExplanationAnonymous users on the anime/manga board of 4chan have taken to calling Goblin Slayer an autistic out of affection, citing his flat demeanor and overly-methodical thought processes concerning little else besides goblins, particularly his complete indifference to women clearly head-over-heels for him in favor for more goblin-slaying.
  • Will she get gobbed?^ExplanationReaders who'd been drawn in by the series' reputation for rape scenes would ask this question on a regular basis. It has become an almost ritualistic in-joke for every update to the story or its adaptations to have one faction of fans clamoring for rape like goblins, and another countering with anti-goblin sentiments.
  • "Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer."^ExplanationFollowing the pilot episode, it quickly caught steam on Twitter and Tumblr to take atmospheric quotes from Darkest Dungeon to describe the Greenhorn Team's quest and its aftermath in terms of a doomed Level 0 expedition, with that quote being the most used by far.
  • "You get used to it...◊" ^ExplanationNew viewers coming in via the anime were really put off by the R-Rated Opening in the pilot. Light novel and manga readers, who had been exposed to that and more, responded with Priestess's resigned reaction; this also extends towards other contexts, such as video game console newcomers.
  • "Ew! I don’t like em! I don’t like goblins! UAAAAAAH!"^ExplanationCrossing over an already popular meme from Jontron, the series would inevitably get this comparison due to its premise and the protagonist's pure dedication to killing goblins. Jokes about the Goblin Slayer's true identity being Jon soon spread like wildfire with the Animated Adaptation.
  • Crossover jokes about Goblin Slayer meeting the Goblinas and Hobgoblins of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and being completely baffled at their stark contrast to the goblins of his native series.
  • "I see"/"Yeah"/"Souka"^ExplanationHis deadpan tone of voice and lack of expression, thanks to 24-Hour Armor, has led to Goblin Slayer's frequency of answering with the former two responses being used as imageboard comments; likewise, the latter Japanese term, which means what the former responses mean in English, is also frequented.
  • "A harem is cool, but sex doesn't kill goblins."^ExplanationA popular quote used to poke fun at Goblin Slayer's single-minded dedication to killing goblins and lack of interest in romance.
• Memetic Psychopath: On certain Imageboards, criticism of Guild Girl for not being insistent enough that the Greenhorn Team to drop their goblin quest or waiting for Goblin Slayer to come and chaperone them has morphed into assertions she is actively sending new adventurers to die from sheer sadism. There's also a half-serious conspiracy theory that the Adventurers Guild's quest system is deliberately designed to have a ridiculously high rookie mortality rate as a method of indirect population control/culling of battle-capable (thus potentially revolutionary) peasantry.
• Misaimed Fandom: While the series goes out of its way to make everything related to the goblins and their atrocities as horrifying as possible, it's somewhat undermined by the fact that "strong female adventurer underestimates goblins/orcs and is easily defeated then captured and repeatedly gang-raped into a mindbroken breeding slave" has been a popular standard stock plot for hentai manga, played entirely for eroticism, for years before the series began. The series could be interpreted as an attempt to deconstruct these stories by pointing out how nightmarish and unsexy such scenarios really would be... but the existence of the aforementioned "Will she get gobbed?" meme basically proves that it hasn't been entirely successful.
• Moe: Priestess' innocence and cuteness makes her rather huggable-looking, and you're sure to want to give her a reassuring and comforting hug after all the trauma she experiences at the hands of the goblins.
• Narm:
  • A bizarre slip-up with the global simulcast of Episode 7 had the end credits sequence double in length - on television, the credits rolled during a new extended sequence with an Insert Song; online, however, the credits were missing, followed by the regular end credits. This resulted in an image of the party kneeling around Goblin Slayer's fallen body in mourning reflected in a canary's eye that remains on screen for over a minute, until the credits started rolling. The audience likely believed White Fox ran out of budget and resorted to Padding at the height of a scene that was meant to be Played for Drama.
  • Generally, during scenes meant to be dramatic and tense (including the aforementioned Episode 7), the intended effect is significantly lessened by the fact that none of the characters have names, which makes their heartfelt pleas and dramatic dialogue a little goofy when they call each other by character classes or titles.
  • Almost all of the monsters in the Light Novel have their own language that is rendered in all-caps, poorly spelled Pokémon Speak from the protagonists' perspective. It works for goblins, and a few other creatures of bestial figure and intelligence, but when fiends, including high-level, human-shaped, intelligent archfiends, are running at the heroes screaming “DEEEEEVLLLIIIVVVVVIL!!” and “DAAAAEEEMMEMMMEMMEOOOON!!”, it may be hard not to laugh or cringe.
• Narm Charm:
  • Make no mistake, this series centers on a socially-awkward man who goes around killing only low-level mobs. When asked for his name, he proclaims himself as "Goblin Slayer" with no sense of Irony or self-awareness. That being said, it's precisely because of his quirky personality and motivations that he is an endearing character to fans.
  • Because most characters in Goblin Slayer don't have names, but are rather designated by their Character Class and/or title instead, this adds to the Role-Playing Game element the setting is derived from.
  • Several characters, including Goblin Slayer, are references to other Japanese fantasy-based franchises and properties, including Berserk, Dragon's Crown, Dragon Quest and the Fate Series, which should feel like a mess of a Crossover fanfic. However, it's played straight with no Leaning on the Fourth Wall and thus loops back around to being cool, such as when "Guts" and "Cú Chulainn" charge into battle together.
  • At the climax of Volume 2, a man's promise to appear in somebody's dreams to slay goblins (because he is Goblin Slayer) reads like absurd cheese out of context, yet leave it to this series to make such a moment genuinely heartfelt and appropriate given the recipient and the audience's sympathy for the latter.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Even after several volumes into the light novels and manga and several episodes into the anime, people are still arguing about the rape scene in the beginning of the story.
  • Priestess has two instances of Bring My Brown Pants — one during her first goblin quest and another in Volume 2 when the goblin champion and its horde ambushes the party. Parts of the fandom have taken these incidents and like to present Priestess as a crybaby who soils herself and breaks down at the drop of a hat and needs a diaper in daily life in memes and joke comics.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: The series first came onto fans' radar due to the controversy over its use of rape in the pilot episode. Those who checked it out found that it was no worse about it than other successful, acclaimed works in the genre and had enough going for it to make it one of the most prominent, successful Anime of the season.
• Popular with Furries: There's a decent amount of scalie interest in the series thanks to one of Goblin Slayer's companions being a Lizardman and there also being other minor Lizardmen characters. There's a decent bit of furry interest too thanks to other types of anthropomorphic folk or Little Bit Beastly folk running around.
• Signature Scene: No one is able to forget the total and absolute slaughter of the Greenhorn Team.
• Sophomore Slump: Most viewers agree that when compared to how the first season structured its plot to the first two Light Novel volumes by forming a tightly-knitted Story Arc, Season 2 rushed through adapting Volumes 6 to 8 with little-to-no Character Development, while simultaneously adapting out certain elements. Even though character designs adhere closer to the Light Novel illustrations, various instances of Off-Model (such as the troll) were explicitly seen throughout the episodes. The Studio Hop from White Fox to Liden Films for Season 2 has been perceived as little help to the series.
• Special Effect Failure: During Season 1 of the Anime, it can be somewhat noticeable whenever Goblin Slayer switches between his 2D model and his CG model.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many people were not happy with how season 2 diverted from the source material light novels for non canon material much like The Promised Neverland.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: This tends to happen when new goblin tiers are introduced with the potential to be much bigger threats to Goblin Slayer and his crew. Unfortunately, these goblins always die at the end of that particular Story Arc, no exceptions.
• Ugly Cute: With their chubby limbs and extreme natural skittishness, goblin juveniles are kind of cute in a piggish sort of way — even the very youngest of them know full well how to exploit this to put an adventurer off-guard.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: In the days before the anime was released, previews on Crunchyroll and MyAnimeList gave the show a rating of PG or PG-13, respectively, under the assumption Goblin Slayer was another isekai-esque adventure. Following the pilot and violent content released to the wider audience, reactions led to the rating being appropriately changed to R or properly labeled to warn of the graphic material.
• The Woobie: Fighter, a practitioner of her late father's martial art, is a member of the first adventuring party Priestess joined and a symbol of all women and unprepared adventurers that fall into goblin clutches. As the nicest member of the party, she was ready to lay down her life to try and ensure her surviving teammates' escape. Once ambushed, she witnesses her party member Wizard get stabbed with a poisoned knife and Warrior, her childhood friend and another party member get chopped to pieces. She then tries to fend off the goblins to allow Priestess to escape with Wizard, but is overpowered by a hobgoblin and then gang-raped. Although she and Priestess do survive thanks to Goblin Slayer and (thankfully) didn't come out pregnant with any goblin children, her experience left her traumatized and unable to continue fighting after being rescued.

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