I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level (Season One)
When Asuza died at her desk she thought her life had been all for nothing, but a goddess took pity on her and gave her a second chance as an immortal witch in a fantasy world. With this life, she’s not going to be hurried into anything!
What did you watch?
A couple of my favourite shows from last year were ones that I had not expected to enjoy anywhere near as much. They were BOFURI and Princess Connect. Both are a little goofy and set in a fantasy environment. One is a full-dive video game and the other is full-on fantasy, but that’s close enough. Since then, I tend to keep an eye out for shows that might be similar. I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level was one that caught my eye. So, I watched it and this is what I thought. There will be spoilers, although there isn’t much to spoil…
What happened?
Asuza was the ideal corporate slave. She worked hard and was the first to work and the last to leave. Well, that was until she died on the job. Looking back at her life, she realised that she had worked hard for nothing. So, when a goddess took pity on Asuza and offered her a new life, she took it and promised herself that she would do things at her own pace from now on.
She arrived in the new world as an immortal witch. That gave her all the time in the world. Asuza worked out the bare minimum she needed to do to survive and set about doing just that. In order to buy the supplies she needed, she worked out that she needed to kill twenty-five slimes a day. Well, after three hundred years she had maxed out her stats making her the strongest person alive which presented a whole new set of challenges…
What did you think?
If I was to compare this series to BOFURI or Princess Connect, I would say it’s closest to BOFURI, but on a far lighter level. This is a fun series with an emphasis on fun. The story is simple and follows an episodic basis. For the first five or six episodes, a new character is introduced where they are defeated or helped by Asuza. Then, they move in with Asuza and become a part of her found family. It’s very formulaic, but it works.
There are some changes to the formula as the season goes on, but it’s not that drastic. Ultimately, you will want to watch this if you want something easygoing. It will not test you in any way other than to see how much cuteness you can tolerate. There’s a lot of cute. Some of it was too much for me, but I can see others really appreciating it. Ultimately, this series is fun!
What was your favourite moment?
There is an episode where one of the slime spirits has found herself stuck as a slime. In order to rescue her daughter, Asuza goes on a quest to find a so-called intelligent slime. The intelligent slime, who Asuza nicknames Intelli, doesn’t know the answer but points her in the direction of a magician slime. However, magician slime or Magi as Asuza calls her informs them that she uses magic to transform into a human form. She then points out that Flalfa must have pulled a muscle while sleeping.
She can’t help but recommend they find fighter slime, who ironically calls herself Fighty. In order to get Fighty’s help, they need to defeat her in combat. More specifically, they need to enter a fighting tournament and defeat her. So, Asuza and Beelzebub enter the tournament and plan on one of them meeting her in the final. However, Beelzebub defeats Fighty with ease and then has to face Asuza in the final. Their fight was pretty epic.
What was your least favourite moment?
For me, it was the second episode. More specifically, Shalsa, one of the slime spirits had sworn to kill Asuza for all the slimes she had killed over the last three hundred years. She’d even spent fifty years perfecting a spell that would nullify all of Asuza’s magic.
It looked like it was going to be the end for Asuza who could do nothing against Shalsa. However, Laika was able to easily defeat Shalsa as all of her magic was focused on stopping Asuza. All of that was fine and sounds kind of funny. It was what happened next that seemed like a stretch too far. Shalsa and Flalfa moved in with Asuza and became her children. Fifty years of rage gone in an instant.
Who was your favourite character?
I really liked Asuza’s character, but there was one girl who stood head and shoulders above the others. She was powerful and mysterious, she did what she wanted and didn’t care about the costs. I am talking about Beelzebub. She was a demon who fell into Asuza’s life thanks to Halkara and a series of misunderstandings. I feel like Beelzebub was the closest thing Asuza had to an equal or a rival.
Who was your least favourite character?
It’s a bit of a toss-up between Halkara and Pecora. Halkara should have been an instant like for me, but I felt like the jokes just didn’t work in this series. However, Pecora was annoying and she took on the role that I like least in most shows, the annoying child-like ruler. I think that Pecora has to take the award for that fact alone. I did enjoy how she sent Asuza on a wild goose chase, but she was still annoying.
Would you like some more?
If they make more, I will probably watch them. I don’t think I would go out of my way, but if it’s there, then why not? As I said earlier, it was fun and we all need a little more fun in our lives. Easy, mindless, fun!
What have you learned?
One aspect that I enjoyed about this series was the number of characters. I can see that being an issue to some, but I thought it made the fairly monotonous formula more enjoyable as they could vary the characters involved. It’s always going to be Asuza and one to four others. Sure, I’d much rather it was always Beelzebub, but you can’t have it all.
So, what am I taking away from this? Well, I think that if you have a story that is fairly simple and you want to find a way to give it a little more life, I’m going to recommend adding in some more characters. Don’t go crazy, but having a couple more means you can alternate which ones are active at different times. It works well if you put the worst character for the situation in there too, especially if you are creating a comedy.
Series Information
Anime
| Season | Season One |
| Released | Spring 2021 |
| Animation Studios | Revoroot |
| Episodes | 12 |
The title doesn’t seem to fit the story’s overall tone, but who cares? It’s simple, mindless fun for me to enjoy most of its runtime. Definitely Pecora is my least fave character which leads to least fave moment of her asking Azusa to give her “Big Sis (Onesama) Time” moments which I tried to tolerate with my eyes half-open.
Unlikely to have a season renewal, but who knows? If By Grace of Gods series can get a season renewal after some long time, Slime 300 may have that chance someday. It’s an enjoyable series for me.
It’s weird that if I like this series that much, why wasn’t I feeling the same for Kuma Bear series? Maybe there were dramatic moments that were over-the-top/exaggerated or too much mood whiplash with the problem being solved too easily? Maybe the moe characters are annoying to me at some point? Thought they were gonna be loveable like Maple (Bofuri) but I was wrong.
Hence not planning to watch season 2 of Kuma Bear since I don’t feel the same like I did for Bofuri & Slime 300. Well I think I can only recommend this series to those who don’t care of the mood whiplash & moe being superficial.
Anyways I rather rewatch Slime 300 more than a new season of Kuma Bear. Maybe the latter isn’t meant for me…🙁
It’s not impossible for this series to get a second season, although I agree it’s unlikely. I’d probably watch it if did though.
I’ve not seen Kuma Bear mostly because I find the small child-like characters to be more annoying.
I’m mostly waiting for more seasons of BOFURI and Princess Connect.
“I’ve not seen Kuma Bear mostly because I find the small child-like characters to be more annoying.”
Yeah, it’s best you don’t pick this up because as much as I appreciate a female lead to be an OP hero, as opposed to seeing many OP heroes being male protagonists, and her voice sounds normal as opposed to the voices of moe girls, Yuna is a bland & uninteresting protagonist to me. After each episode, I could care less about why she’s likeable because her whole motivation & backstory feels superficial to me.
I get Yuna is written as a meant-to-be likeable character but I expect a proper character backstory to make me at least care on what she’s doing in her new world. Why I like about Slimes 300 is because protagonist Azusa for mentions a few times about her sad past life of dying from overworked. The way Yuna acts is like she has no family waiting for her back in her world. Now that got me, “So I’m supposed to like her despite forgetting her parents & grandfather??” 🤨
I’m down to my final two episodes, but I should’ve dropped this after a few episodes. Maybe I’ve stayed for the cute bears Yuna has in her bear gloves. Now, I’m starting to appreciate the author of Realist Hero to have the protagonist not having any loved one left behind in his world. Kuma Bear author could’ve used this excuse, but unfortunately, it’s too late for me to like about Yuna and the other characters… 😕
Yeah, a lot of heroes who go on adventures or go to another world tend not to have much in the way of family left behind. It frees them from the anchor and makes their willingness to give up everything that much more believable.
Without Tanjiro’s family all being killed and Nezuko becoming a demon, he would never have gone anywhere.
Even in Mushoku Tensei, Rudeus’ parents died and his family disowned him. He had nothing holding him back other than his personal issues.
I loved this anime! Even after my 9-month long hiatus from watching anime, I still absolutely wanted to watch it, and I have no regrets watching it just to end my hiatus.
I loved Azusa’s design, especially her huge witch hat. Falfa and Shalsha were very cute. Beezelbub was a very solid and enjoyable character. The show had a lot of great moments, especially towards the end of the season.
However, the show wasn’t flawless. I dislike Pecora and her behaviors. She’s the Riko Saikawa of this anime. Halkara wasn’t good either, but she’s not as bad as Pecora. The middle of the anime felt weak compared to the other parts.
To me, the show feels somewhere in between Bofuri and Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid in terms of premise and vibe. But overall, I love it! I give it an 8.5/10.
Yeah, Asuza’s giant hat was amazing. I didn’t really care for Falfa and Shalsha, but I didn’t hate them either.
I feel like they got Halkara’s character completely wrong. She could have been funny, but they kept missing the jokes.
It definitely had a soggy middle, but thanks to the more episodic nature of the show, that didn’t stick around for long.
I’ve not seen Kobayashi yet, but this definitely felt like a light version of BOFURI. It was still a lot of fun and had a nice message about not overworking.
[…] some BOFURI vibes from the OP. Well, this episode shifted a little and left me feeling more like I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level. I think it will probably end up in a similar vein and judging by how it’s going they could […]