Goblin Slayer

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*Warning : May contain some minor spoilers...
Who am I kidding, this manga is awesome, just read it*

Story : 8
While the manga is fairly new and fresh, the story is progressively getting better with new side-characters with believable motives , relatable personality and overall looking very promising. To be fair, the first few chapters so far wasn't much for advancing the plot, but take it with a grain of salt since I consider these chapters a Prologue for grand up-coming story waiting to be told. While the manga may appear edgy at first glance , the author did a good job portraying how difficult ... and unforgiving the world can be, especially a world with magic and monsters. The gore, the unfortunate things that happened are explained properly with details. Hell , I will even go so far as to say that I would probably be like the MC or even worse if that happened to me, and I think that many people would agree with me. There are some moments of levity , and the show doesn't take itself too seriously that it leaves a disdainful taste in your mouth. I'm pretty excited for the incoming arc and the story is looking very promising.
Art : 10
The art is absolutely gorgeous. I myself believe that art and artstyle are subjective depending on the people perceiving them , so you may think that I'm being biased, and I do agree. But holy hell is this freaking beautiful. Check them out for yourself and see how you like it.
Characters : 9
As I mentioned before in the Story section of this review, this aspect of the manga is very well-done . The MC is a total badass in of himself , but the things that make him interesting is that fact that he doesn't kill for glory or money or anything artificial like that. I don't want to go too deep into the spoiler territories but the way he views himself , his actions and the world around him is definitely very refreshing and unique. I'm sure the author put a lot of thoughts into the MC ( I also find him to be somewhat relatable in this aspect but this is irrelevant) .
Enjoyment : 10
What can I say ? The gorgeous artstyle combine with intense, detailed and highly gory fights along with beautiful background scenery makes this manga a blast to read. It is so enjoyable that I found myself rereading the few chapters available for numerous times now , and I have not gotten bored of it (and probably won't). The story is coming along very nicely , and is getting hyped up so badly that you just can't wait for the new chapters. This is such a feel-good show (Different from the healing show) that you just want to enjoy yourself and your life while being on this one ride of massive fun.
Overall : 9
I've had fun a lot with this manga and I certainly can say for sure that this is gonna be big in the fantasy sub-genre. It's not too edgy that you cringe to sleep, but it is dark enough to keep you interested and invested. The world-building is amazing too, though we don't know much about it, there are hints here and there and it's really fun to try and think about all of the subtle things happening in the background. The characters are fun to watch, somewhat relatable , have reasonable motives and their personalities tend to defer from others, side-characters are also given some backstories and such. The art style is highly-stylized, detailed and the fight scenes are awesome. This is some top-tier manga here.

Goblin Slayer is kinda entertaining. It's not entertaining because it has a compelling plot, or any deep themes, or any multi-faceted characters (dear god no). Characters have such stupendously little depth that most of them don't even have proper names. That is not a joke. The four important main characters outside of the protagonist are referred to as "Elf", "Dwarf", "Guild Girl", and "Lizardman". Check the wiki if you don't believe me.

The setting is.. questionable. The premise is a generic RPG fantasy world except goblins are much more vile and dangerous. They wreak havoc every day by pillaging villages and raping women. Beginner adventurers attempt ... to kill the goblins, but many (most?) perish in their attempts due to their inexperience and get raped and plundered and murdered. But there are apparently worse problems in the world (never shown) and goblins are too weak to be thought of as a "real threat" (even though they very clearly are not weak, as high-level adventurers are shown to have trouble with goblin hordes in later chapters), so quests to slay goblins grant very little reward. This remains the case even with important quests that involve the protection of defenseless villages from goblin attacks. Because of the disproportionately small pay, no one actually competent bothers to help out, and as a result normal citizens, beginner adventurers, and entire villages get destroyed by goblins practically on a daily basis. But apparently it's no big deal, so goblin extermination quests still have low rewards. Nothing makes sense, but whatever, fuck it.

Insert our badass protagonist, the fabled Goblin Slayer, whom bards sing of (literally) and people fear. He is a genocidal maniac who wants to exterminate all goblins from existence. He flat-out refuses to accept any quest unrelated to murdering goblins - he lives for it and knows everything about the goblin hunt, from how they eat to how they move. He has plenty of experience destroying goblin nests and doesn't flinch in killing even the youngest. He reasons that baby goblins that are spared by adventurers become truly strong when they grow up. So he kills them too.

That's it. This dude kills hoards of goblins because of his "tragic past" involving them (a past he suddenly elaborated about without ever being asked early on in the manga.. talk about subtlety). And women love him. Nearly every female character he meets lusts for him. How could women not love him? He's the best goblin slayer around.

How about the other characters? Well, as I had mentioned earlier, most of them don't even have proper names. Pretty much all of the women only exist to fall in love with the protagonist to make him look cool. I don't really remember any characters aside from the nameless generic dwarf dude and the lizard whose sole personality trait is eating cheese.

So why is it entertaining? Well... it's honestly pretty fun, despite it all. The goblin slaying is often done in creative ways, and the protagonist comes up with half-way interesting plans in destroying the things. It's also enjoyable in just how brutal he is at times. At some point, I genuinely wondered why the author was so fixated on vilifying and destroying goblins. Did a goblin murder his family? Did he read a doujin with them and his waifu? Does he just not like the way they look?

In all, I give Goblin Slayer a 6/10, which is pretty damn generous given the many negative aspects of it. A more objective and fair rating would be a 2/10 or something, but I don't really care. Sure, it may not be very intellectually stimulating, but it's far more enjoyable than other "turn your brain off to enjoy" manga like most battle shonen because the author of Goblin Slayer realizes the only entertaining aspect of these things is the ridiculous fighting scenes. It's actually genuinely inspiring how little the author gives a shit when it comes to world-building, character development, thought-provoking themes, or anything that would normally be prevalent in such a tragic, character-driven story. It doesn't feign a stupid facade of depth. There's no protagonist I want to strangle, there's no stupid "friendship is power" monologues and no real coherent plot whatsoever. It's a manga about a badass and his genocide against goblins and I like it


edit: This review only captures the first 30 or so chapters, I do not keep up with the series anymore

I can be a good manga, with an interesting story. But .... rape, rape and more rape. This manga will be much better without rape. I can't read this, because it is too brutal because of this. I don't have problem with blood and brutal fights. Some people like this manga and think it must be brutal in this way to show how brutal goblins are, but not me. Characters are good, the plot is also. But I am disappointed. I thought it would be like Hai to Gensou no Grimgar but more brutal. It is more like berserk. If someone likes reading bout beautiful ... women raped by ugly goblins, it is perfect manga for him.