Goblins. For many a gamer, in many forms, goblins are the quintessential beginner’s test. Taking down goblins is how you begin many a game, from Dungeons & Dragons to Final Fantasy. And this is also true in Goblin Slayer, a manga series about a man who kills goblins. Many goblins.
The world is about to end because demon lords and armies of darkness and the like. However, the Goblin Slayer seems to be one of only a few who knows the world has been ending for some time now, not by some massive threat like ogres, demons, or trolls, but by goblins. Entire villages and towns are being wiped off the map by this threat that adventurers and soldiers are just ignoring, because their time is too precious to waste on some puny goblins. It’s a threat that’s been allowed to grow and grow until it became an all-encompassing force.
The manga, however, doesn’t start with us meeting Goblin Slayer. Instead, we begin with Priestess, one of a small group of main protagonists alongside Goblin Slayer. She’s just become an adventurer and joins a small group looking to start off by slaying goblins. They… don’t really make it.
Before we continue, I’d like to mention that this manga is not for children. This manga has extreme violence, gore, blood, death, harsh language, nudity, and even non-graphic sex (no genitalia). Moreover, much of the non-graphic sex is often rape, so if you don’t enjoy such material, I’d steer clear of this series.
I mention this because the first chapter of this manga will feature all of this. The male warrior, Warrior, of the group is killed gruesomely and the female mage, Wizard, is raped to the point of begging Goblin Slayer to kill her. The female monk, Fighter, and Priestess, are the only survivors and even then, Fighter is brutally beaten, raped, and scarred for life. She’s last seen being carted away, along with other surviving women, her fate unknown. And we see, in the foreground, another group of newbie adventurers, heading off to hunt more goblins, like lambs to the slaughter.
It’s as Priestess is about to be struck down too that we finally meet Goblin Slayer. He arrives just in time to save Priestess, who is determined to save her companions. Like I said earlier, Goblin Slayer does wind up saving Wizard too, but she’s badly poisoned and Goblin Slayer gives her a merciful death. We’re then introduced to the pragmatist that is Goblin Slayer, as he begins to show just how many rookie mistakes Priestess and her party made, like getting distracted by a goblin totem so much that they completely missed a side passage of the cave that the goblins used to ambush them. Or that Warrior was a fool to use a longsword in these cramped caves where he should have brought a short sword. His knowledge on how to fight goblins are impressive and brutal, even to the point where he even kills the goblin children, knowing they’d just come back for revenge, if spared. This is a man who knows how these creatures tick, how they think, how they act. It’s not a matter of if they’ll come back for revenge but when.
This entire bit takes up the first two chapters of the manga.
Chapter 3 is where we’re introduced to more major characters, like Goblin Slayer’s childhood friend, Cow Girl, and Guild Girl, though she goes unnamed for some time. Cow Girl comes off as the one Goblin Slayer wants to protect the most while Guild Girl is the one in charge of giving jobs and quests to the various adventurers, Goblin Slayer included.
By now, you may have noticed no one has proper names in this series. Everyone is referred to by a title. This seems to be a constant throughout the series that you will get used to. A lot of minor characters wind up going unnamed. I actually had to check the Goblin Slayer wiki to even find that the doomed party in the first chapter had names.
Anyways, Chapter 3 is mainly about establishing characters. We learn that Goblin Slayer lost his home to goblins, which is why he hates them so much, was forced to watch as his older sister, his only relative at the time, was tortured, raped, and finally killed right in front of him, how he trained, and why he always chooses goblin quests. For him, it’s not about the rewards. It’s about wiping out as many goblins as he can.
We’re also introduced to some recurring characters like Spearman, who tries to hit on Guild Girl every chance he gets, Witch, whose shapely body gathers many men’s attention, but is also extremely talented with magic. Then there’s Female Knight and Heavy Warrior, two veterans who cannot understand how Goblin Slayer is the same rank as them, despite he only hunts goblins.
This ranking system is established in the first chapter, so let’s go over it now. Simply put, based on your experience and level (yes, they actually say this), you are given a rank by the Adventurer’s Guild. There’s ten ranks in total. These are, from highest to lowest;
Platinum
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Ruby
Emerald
Sapphire
Steel
Obsidian
Porcelain
Porcelain is the lowest rank while Platinum is the highest. Moreover, Platinum and Gold only really take on national threats, so anyone Silver and below are the only adventurers who go into the field. Moreover, while higher ranks are given to the experienced, it’s also a measure of trust. It’s established later in the series that those with untrustworthy characteristics, like those who abuse women or power, never make it very far in the ranking system, despite having the experience necessary to advance. So those with higher ranks aren’t just powerful but trusted individuals.
Simply put, Goblin Slayer is Silver ranked. Thus, so are Female Knight, Heavy Warrior, Witch, and Spearman. Priestess and her party were all Porcelain ranked.
We also find out that Guild Girl, like Goblin Slayer, is aware that goblins are becoming a real threat. She laments how many parties they send out to take down the goblin hordes, only to never return. It typically takes them sending party after party to wipe out the threat and solve quests, typically only being finished by the third party. So many dead, or worse for the women, being used as walking breeding grounds to make more and more goblins. And it’s a threat being allowed to continue just because so many parties consider goblins below their notice.
We also learn Priestess is now working with Goblin Slayer as her partner, with him teaching her how to deal with goblins. Like how to hide her scent, as goblins have a very strong sense of smell and they’re especially attracted to the scents of females. We later learn this is especially true of female elves. This also explains why Goblin Slayer’s armor is so dirty, because clean armor smells heavily of metal while his dirty armor, caked with goblin blood and viscera, works much better for camouflage.
Chapter 4 is where we’re back to the carnage, as Goblin Slayer and Priestess, having taken up two goblin-slaying quests, head off for an elven fortress to clear it of goblins. After being introduced to a small female party that tried to clear it prior, who only wound up being beaten, caught, and bred by the goblins, Goblin Slayer and Priestess come in to wipe the place out. We even learn that Goblin Slayer isn’t exactly happy with using some of the extreme measures he does, as setting fire to the entire fortress leaves no survivors, whether goblin or captive. He doesn’t like that he had to kill everyone, considering it a mercy for the victims. But because of his actions, the nearby village is now safe, even if some of their young women never returned.
In the final scene, we have a bard singing of Goblin Slayer and his accomplishments, before we are introduced to another major character, High Elf Archer, who seeks the Goblin Slayer. We do not learn her reasons just yet, as she unmasks herself on the final page, but we will come to know her in future volumes.
Goblin Slayer is a manga that’s hard to recommend, if only because of the nature of it’s content. It is extremely violent, has an abnormal amount of nudity and rape, but what comes between all of that is really good. The story is one of minor enemies being ignored for so long that they become a national threat, a threat that so few people even recognize as so many adventurers just ignore it. Simply put, if every adventurer, guard, and knight started to actually deal with the goblin threat, it could be wiped out in no time. But since no one’s willing to put in the effort, other than Goblin Slayer, the situation just keeps getting worse.
So, I can only recommend Goblin Slayer to people who’re okay with this extreme content. If you don’t mind some blood, gore, nudity, and sex in your manga, you are likely to enjoy this series. But if any of those are a deal breaker, don’t even touch this series.
Highly Recommended for people comfortable with extreme content
Not Recommended for other audiences or children
In the end, the end of this world isn’t coming. It’s already here.
The Professional Protagonist 