*National Geographic theme plays*
Hello and welcome to Anime Geographic. I’m your host, Nitsuj of Project Nitsuj. The anime world is filled with a number of interesting and timeless creatures. One of the oldest beings, the goblin. A stable in the fantasy genre, next to slime monsters, goblins are one of the most versatile monsters out there. In that they can be creatures you find at the beginning of the game, mid-level bosses, and troublesome enemies you fight near the end. Along with this they have different personalities and abilities. Some are straight up dumb, others are smart and clever, they can be civilized creatures, and some are just horny beast looking to get some. There’s a lot you can do with goblins in your story and one anime that explores this is Re:Monster. A series written by Kogitsune Kanekiru, Re:Monster got its start as an independent web novel in 2011-2018. Before AlphaPolis the publishers of Gate acquired it and turned it into a light novel from 2012-2017. Along with the original novels there’s been side stories, spin-offs, a manga adaptation, and most recently an anime. Produced by Studio Deen (Hell Girl) in 2024, the anime went unnoticed as it came out at the worst time that year. It came out in the spring and guess what else came out during that time? Kaijuu no.8, Demon Slayer, Mushoku Tensei, Wind Breaker, Konosuba, That Time I Got Reincarnated as Slime, My Hero Academia, Spice and Wolf, Viral Hit and the surprise hits Reborn as the 7th Prince and Sentai Daishikkaku. It never stood a chance. Join me as we journey through the life and times of goblins. This is Re:Monster.
Opening and Ending Theme
The opening for this anime is “Into the Fire” by Chansung and AK-69 feat. Changmin. I liked it. It’s catchy, matches up nicely with the anime. The use of English lyrics is also cool but I recommend not paying attention to them because it will make you laugh at what they’re saying. Still, the anime does give you that power fantasy feeling.
Our ending is “Sadame” by Everdream. Wow, this song is a lot better than I remember it being. I regret not putting this on my top 11 list. Anyway, the song is peaceful and gives off reflection vibes. Like we see what everyone has been through so far and reflect on just how far they’ve come in life. Starting off as simple goblins to now being strong creatures that can decide their own fate.
Episodes 1-4
The anime starts with our main character voiced by Takuya Sato getting violently stabbed to death by a crazy bitch (man, what happened to the good old days when truck-kun would just isekai people?). He dies and gets reborn in another world as a goblin (if you hear Doom music, run). Since goblins mature faster than humans, in three days he’s already grown into a preteen goblin. He gets the name Gobrou and teams up with another named Gobkichi who was the biggest of the newborns to hunt and survive. He also brings in a third goblin named Gobmi as a backup and who likes him. As he continues to hunt his level goes up and when he reaches level 100 he’ll be able to evolve to the next goblin stage. We also see he learns new abilities whenever he eats something new thanks to his absorption ability from his past life (hoping they explain this down the line). One night, some of the other goblins try to attack him out of jealousy but Gobrou sensed the attack coming and beat them. In order to prevent the attacks from happening again, he starts bringing food back for the others (earn their loyalty through their stomach. It works on men so why shouldn’t it work on goblins?). After two weeks of living he finally evolves along with Gobkichi into hobgoblins (probably the handsomest hobgoblins I’ve ever seen) and becomes the leader of his goblin group (geez, he accomplished more stuff in two weeks than most people do in a year).
In episode 2 the goblin raiders return. These guys are the previous generation of goblins so they’re technically Gobrou’s parents. They’ve captured women for obvious reasons and Gobrou tries to protect them but the raiders aren’t backing down from their snu-snu. Before a civil war erupts, they decide to have their representatives fight and the winner gets to lead the group (so this is what civilized goblins can achieve). Gobrou wins and thus becomes the new leader where he says no one is to harm the women and even plans on sending them back to their villages. However, he’s not going to let them stay for free and demands human knowledge in exchange for their safety. The days go by as Gobrou continues to train everyone and the older generation not liking his leadership (millennials vs boomers). One night the boomer goblins try to rape the women, but Gobrou stops them and makes an example out of them for everyone to see so that they know there will be no going against his authority or backstabbing (scene here: https://youtu.be/P5ftNGt9Fn4?si=qcbRBocSiKeuVqvp. There will be none of your crap! None of it!). Work with him and he will make you prosper. Cross him, and he will gut you like a fish (and then proceed to forget you ever existed in the next five seconds). As more goblins become hobgoblins, Gobrou establishes captains to man the units while he ventures out alone and comes across the red bear, the master of the north forest (we eating good tonight). We get a decent fight where Gobrou and the bear kill each other (hooray, now Zoidberg is in charge!). Luckily, Gobrou reached his max level and evolves to end the episode and save his life.
At the start of episode 3 Gobrou returns to the others where we see he evolved into an ogre (with Sephiroth hair. Scene here: https://youtu.be/I35rp4L8MH4?si=hHHFzCJioNhitU_c). The only downside is he lost one of his hands to the bear (https://youtu.be/pa_e9B6uNnE?si=r3hudoCAnU0aCSRN). One day they come across a dungeon belonging to a powerful mage and take the treasures for themselves. Gobrou finds himself a new arm which is nice and even gets lucky with a dryad (five hours of pleasure. (Corbin): My man. Didn’t need performance enhancement drugs either). Naturally, Gobmi and the other human women are jealous as they’ve all developed feelings for him (Stockholm syndrome hit them hard) so he has sex with them as well (scene here: https://youtu.be/1EUvbICOuJk?si=4BPfgUU3TTiuJ2pW. (Baron): Second time and it’s a reverse gangbang. Luckiest goblin of all time).
In episode 4 the goblins receive a visit from arrogant elves. Humans are coming to steal their treasure, and they want the goblins to help them protect it. Gobrou says no and scares the elves away. They would return a few days later to get revenge but Gobrou captures them and forces them to have mock battles to decide their fate. Out of 28 battles, only six elves won and were taken prisoners. The others were killed for their abilities (I’m fairly certain Gobrou has over 100 abilities right now). After this we get a lot of mini-events happening. Gobkichi evolves into a special red ogre. The boomer goblins, realizing they can’t keep up, decide to leave and go off on their own. Gobrou learns how to tame monsters (the irony is not lost here) and the goblins rescue some kobolds from a greater skeleton after accidentally entering the mage’s tomb from the last episode and triggering a trap.
Episodes 5-8
At the start of episode 5 Gobrou and Gobkichi save the daughter of the elf chief from some humans after they received a tip from an elf within her ranks. After interrogating the humans, they find out that the human army will arrive in 20 days (almost as slow as the Spanish Inquisition, https://youtu.be/yKQ_sQKBASM?si=K41iU6x3mDK5zpsU). The next day, they escort the elf back to her village (and not to sound racist but they all look alike. Either this is lazy drawing, or the elf bloodline is as pure as milk squeezed from a New Zealand cow). The chief rewards them with Failnot, a legendary bow as well as some mythril weapons and alcohol. The next day Gobmi evolves into a Dhampir variant ogre (damn, never thought I say this but I wanna tap some ogre) pretty much making her the strongest character there. Others begin to evolve into ogres as well with each one getting a tattoo on their body that has some connection to Gobrou. We see Gobkichi and Gobe another female goblin who evolved into an earth-variant ogre become a couple after he confessed his feelings to her (good for him. They got a whole fire and earth thing going on). As the war between the elves and humans continues, the elves finally go to Gobrou for help and he accepts. He tells everyone that they’re becoming a mercenary group and head out to fight.
At the start of episode 6 Gobrou and the others attack the human base. You would think this be a dominant victory, but surprisingly the humans actually put up a fight. They survive the surprise attack, rally, and go on the attack (I like this because for the longest time we would see the main character and his army dominate their opponents. Which is cool but it’s always nice to see some members of the opposition put up a fight and not back down). Gobrou takes on the female commander while everyone else defeats the others or captures them (*cough* females *cough*). Gobrou defeats the female commander and along with some other women takes them as prisoners (at this point, Gobrou is a harem king who follows through on his lovemaking). More humans come to the forest and Gobrou and his army manage to catch their commander to find out why they’re after the elf lands. It turns out the first princess of Sternbert has fallen ill with a fatal disease and the king is desperate to find a cure that the elves are said to have (have you tried asking instead of attacking? Who’s supposed to be the mindless monster here again?). Gobrou finds out the medicine the humans are after was given to him by the elf king and it’s against their laws to hand it over to humans. Gobrou drinks the medicine where he gains the quick regeneration skill (one of the most OP skills in any fantasy story. Give him some metal claws and he’ll be Wolverine). Not only can he heal himself but just a drop of his blood is enough to heal anyone from any injury or sickness (he’s got, the Phoenix blood).
In episode 7 the female commander begs Gobrou to use the elf medicine to save the princess of her kingdom. While he has no problems doing that the issue lies with the kingdom’s religious faction. Gobrou was blessed by the God of Demise and Origin and the kingdom follows the teachings of another god. They would not take too kindly to Gobrou saving the princess and could possibly lead to a future conflict. So he hatches a plan to get the medicine to them without it actually coming from him. The next battle comes where Gobrou takes on an insect mage named Phillo in a really enjoyable fight (it’s nice to see the OP character have a challenge). Despite having the edge, Phillo manages to escape and Gobrou uses one of his clones to find the main camp of the humans and deliver the medicine to their commander thus giving them a reason to stop the fighting (the monsters are tired of digging graves for you guys). They hold a funeral for the people they lost and cremate them.
Nothing much happens in episode 8. A few evolutions, new powers, and new allies. Gobrou uses his new skills to create a centipede wagon and plans to take the human ladies back to a human village and let them decide if they want to stay with him or leave (shouldn’t be a hard choice).
Episodes 9-12
In episode 9 there’s not much to say. They finally reach a human kingdom where the human ladies decide to stay with Gobrou (obviously. They’re addicted to that ogre pie). Gobrou becomes the bodyguard for this tomboy princess named Rubilla and escorts her back to her kingdom with her knight. On the way they encounter and devour new monsters (Gobrou eats his own arm just for the fun of it. That is hardcore).
Episode 10 has some shocking moments. For starters, two of the human ladies get pregnant with Gobrou’s children (he’s too young to be a dad). This places the ones pregnant in a dangerous position as ogres are born a lot quicker and mature faster in the wound so in order to get the nutrients they need to stay alive they start feeding on their moms from the inside slowly killing them. Unless they give birth soon they’ll die along with the children. After finding a cave, Gobrou performs a C-section on the ladies and manages to deliver his children safely (first time I’ve ever seen a dad deliver his own children). He names them Auro and Argento and the two are mixed bloods which are often hated in this world because it’s said they bring calamity. Despite their mixed heritage, Gobrou plans to love and care for them for the rest of his life (and kill anyone who would hurt them). The next day Gobrou goes out to hunt where he comes upon an majestic frost deer with amazing powers. Not even he’s sure he could beat this thing but he decides to try and gets ready to fight. However, the deer just shed its antlers and leaves (you’re not worth it Gobrou). As Gobrou heads back he spots a bunch of humans fighting demihumans where he interferes and helps the humans. After this, he returns where his children are now talking (they are geniuses) and feeds them the antler. He gives some to the others as well where he gains all sorts of new abilities and as he sleeps, he gets the prompt to evolve again. After the credits, we see Gobrou’s new form which really isn’t all that different. Aside from getting a third horn and looking slightly slimmer.
At the start of episode 11 two more of the human women give birth to Gobrou’s children with one of them being human and the other being a high ogre. From there not much happens. Gobrou checks in with everyone. When he checks in on Gobkichi, he sees a vision of himself getting killed (your fate has been sealed). Naturally, this worries him so he goes to check in on his best friend where he sees that Gobkichi has evolved into a minotaur red ogre variant (I’m sure the author is making this up. . .but I like it). He explains that the vision Gobrou saw was of a spirit taking the form of the strongest person Gobkichi ever faced, him (how flattering). With the misunderstanding resolved (if only all misunderstandings were resolved this quickly) Gobrou and Gobkichi have a duel with each other. Things get a little intense and Gobrou has to calm Gobkichi down before he kills everyone. The two kept fighting well into the next morning with Gobrou coming out victorious.
In the final episode Gobrou and the others reach their final destination, Oswell. As thanks for the safe return, Rubilla issues Gobrou a card to grant him free access to the capital any time he chooses. The group takes their leave the next day where Gobrou helps Gobmi train on the way home and she evolves into a noble vampire variant (the goblin evolution tree is very versatile). They make it back to their forest where they see the place has changed for the better (they finally upgraded the cave. Why this wasn’t done sooner is beyond me). There’s a little tragedy as their caretaker (the one who raised them) finally passes but he at least got to see Gobrou’s kids (you’re a grandfather). They honor his death by hosting a fighting tournament and then we wrap up the season with Gobrou receiving a call from Rubilla who has a job for him.
Final Thoughts
This series was okay. It honestly feels like I’m watching a monster documentary. The character of Gobrou is nice. I like how he’s this fierce leader who’s ready to take on any challenge but also has a soft side for his friends, his lovers, and his kids (he is such a doting dad). I also like how he’s not too tied to his past and doesn’t think about it. He’s focusing on the future and making the best of his new life. I also like how the other characters have personality and powers and get stronger along with him. All these goblin evolutions and their variants are pretty cool, and I like how each one has their own unique design and specialty. Some are skilled at combat, others at magic, and support. Everyone has their role to play in the group, and they play their part well. The animation isn’t really all that great. Aside from a few good character designs this animation is mid at best. The same with the music. A few good songs but mid. Fight scenes are decent. Gobrou’s are the best. I do like how even though he has all these powers he still has his battles where he struggles and has to rely on strategy and determination to win.
Final Score The final score for Re:Monster is a 6/10. Nothing too great but nothing too bad either in this anime. A second season is in the works and yeah, I wouldn’t mind seeing a second season. If you’re interested, check this anime out, I think you’ll find something to like about it. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
