Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. On these cold winter days, I like to sit on the couch, turn on my heater, and watch a relaxing anime. The type of animes that don’t require much thinking and don’t really have any major conflicts for the characters to face. You’ve had a long day at work and just need to relax, so what better way than with an anime that doesn’t have as much intense action and storytelling that you’re used to seeing? Don’t get me wrong, I love me some intense anime, but over the years I’ve come to really enjoy these relaxing animes and how they give me a chance to relax. Animes like Is the Order a Rabbit, Kobayashi, and The Maid I Hired is Mysterious are all good relaxing anime, but the one anime I would like to focus on today is By the Grace of the Gods. Getting started as a novel 2014 before turning into a light novel in 2017, the series was written by Roy. It’s an isekai anime that at first really doesn’t seem all that special and feels like it’s piggybacking off the success of Reincarnated as a Slime given the context of its story. However, the series pretty much does its own thing that’s different from Reincarnated as a Slime. Rather than present something exciting and adventurous it instead gives us something relaxing and wholesome. In 2020, Maho Film the relatively young studio that’s been making a name for itself by presenting unique and wholesome anime took the novel and turned it into an anime series. While the anime may not have won many awards people enjoyed watching it and seeing as how a second season is coming out next month now seems like a good time to review it. Let’s do some slime raising. This is By the Grace of the Gods.
Opening and Ending Theme
The anime’s opening is “Yasashii Sekai” by Azusa Tadokoro. This opening pretty much sets the tone for what you’re about to watch. It’s relaxing, wholesome, and makes you see beauty in the world around you. It’s the perfect opening for an anime like this.
The ending is “BLUE ROSE knows” by MindaRyn. A very upbeat and fun song to listen to. Not much to say about this ending. Though I will admit I do like it more than the opening.
Episodes 1-4
Our story begins with our main character Ryoma voiced by Azusa Tadokoro, an 11-year-old boy who lives in a forest full of slimes (kid, you’re a little young to have this kind of fetish). Ryoma was once your average hard-working salary man (with the body of a muscle fitness instructor) who worked for a terrible company and had terrible bosses until one day he died from hitting his head on the floor. He was soon reincarnated into another world by the gods where the first creature he came across was a slime and made that his familiar (if only he could meet Rimuru). As time went on Ryoma became a slime tamer and spent the last three years taming and studying the various slimes that he had all by himself with no human interaction (that’s not good for you. Scene here: https://youtu.be/QZsUDgRPvws). One day he comes across a group of knights being led by a young noble named Reinhart. One of them was fatally wounded and their healer ran out of magic (and nobody has any healing potions on them? Talk about poor planning). Ryoma helps them and brings them back to his place to rest where they’re shocked to see someone so young out in the woods alone (it’s called figuring things out). When the knight who was injured is all healed up they take their leave with Reinhart thanking him for everything and promising to repay him. A few weeks go by and life went on for Ryoma when Reinhart came back with a few others including a young girl.
So in episode 2 we start off with Reinhart introducing his father, his wife Elise, and his daughter Eliaria. The whole family is amazed by his knowledge of slimes and learn new things about them that they didn’t know (they’re like Pikmin only squishier). Eliaria asks Ryoma’s help in taming her first slime and evolving it into a cleansing slime (a cleaning slime). Getting the slime is easy, however evolving it into a cleansing slime is a little disgusting. In order to get a cleansing slime you have to feed the regular slime the water you just got done bathing in (meaning you’re essentially feeding it the dirt from your body). Eliaria does this and she forms a contract with a slime (well at least we know what fetish that slime has). After this, Reinhart and the others invite Ryoma to travel with them to the town of Gimul. He accepts as he wants to see the world (you’re too young to be a hermit) and learn the common sense of this world (yeah, because you have no idea where you fit on the food chain). They travel for a few days until they come across a rockslide that blocks the road for them, but Ryoma helps them remove the rocks safely.
Ryoma and the others safely arrive in Gimul for episode 3. The town is known for its mining operation, but it’s been on the decline as of lately which is why Reinhart and the others are here, to investigate the mines and see what the problem (they’re running dry. Case solved). Nothing much really happens in the episode. We see Ryoma go to the church to get his status card where he gets a chance to talk to the gods again. They reveal that Elise is the descendent of another person who got isekai’d to this world and apparently Eliaria inherited his magic capabilities. After this, he goes to register at the Adventure’s guild to become an adventurer and passes with flying colors (scene here: https://youtu.be/Xv9FXHVMB84). The episode ends with him going to do his first mission from the guild, cleaning up the house of this cat demihuman named Miya.
Episode 4 stretches the importance of sanitation and family. At the start of the episode, Ryoma and his slimes easily clean up Miya’s house in half a day (he makes Mr. Clean look like an amateur). He gets a bonus from Miya for all his hard work (good kitty) and then moves on to his next job which is cleaning the communal toilets because the government in Gimul is embezzling funds (can no government go uncorrupted?). As Ryoma and his slimes start cleaning the communal toilets, he discovers miasma in the waste (I’m not surprised. Put a lot of shit in one place and it becomes poison. Just look at Washington D.C). Ryoma tells everyone about this and in a touching scene the first thing they ask is if he’s okay (I particularly like this moment). He says he’s fine and wants the guild to hire adventurers to keep the area safe while he cleans the remaining 29 communal toilets and clear out the miasma. Everyone is against Ryoma doing this by himself but he insists it has to be him and no one else (he was a white collar, he used to dealing with shit). For the next 3 days, Ryoma worked tirelessly to clean all the toilets and eliminate the miasma. Reihart also goes through government documents and finds embezzlement. With Ryoma’s job done he walks back to the inn he and the others were staying at. He starts to remember his past and how he used to work long hour days, but his mom would always be there to greet him when he came home no matter how late it was (it may not seem like much, but trust me, that is a good feeling to come home from a long one day of work and see someone there to greet you with a smile). Unfortunately, she passed away and Ryoma started to come home to an empty house (reflecting the sad loneliness of his heart). Ryoma feels sad that he’ll never get back what he lost, but when he arrives at the end Reinhart, Elise, Eliaria and everyone else are there to welcome him back with smiles, a warm meal, bath and bed already for him (scene here: https://youtu.be/onT4cBEy-HI. Not gonna lie, I almost teared up here a little bit. This was a touching scene. He got back what he lost).
Episodes 5-8
Not much happens in episode 5. In the first half of the episode, Ryoma shows Eliaria how to play with her magic and he learns some new magic skills as well. In the second half of the episode Ryoma, Eliaria, and a few knights enter the mining shafts to eliminate the monsters that have infested the mines. Luckily, the monsters are weak, so this provides good training for Ryoma and Eliaria. After defeating the monsters, Eliaria finds a metal slime (oh~ those are rare) and gives it to Ryoma as a gift for helping her so much. A little later, Ryoma uses alchemy to create iron and sells it off to a trading company along with some other items thanks to Reinhart. The episode ends with Ryoma and a few other adventurers getting a mission to go on a monster hunt in the mines.
In the first half of episode 6, Ryoma and the adventurers go into the mines to eliminate some monsters. When they come out to take a break, they find out that a village of goblins has been discovered deep within the mine and they have to eliminate them before their numbers grow (quickly, before they rape our weapons). All the adventurers return to the mine where they quickly discover it’s more goblins than they originally thought (what’s that? Does anybody hear that? It sounds like the faint sounds of Doom music). Ryoma really gets a chance to show off here as his slimes heal, supply arrows for archers, eat the dead bodies of goblins, and even fight against the goblins themselves (I’ve seen many a strange animes in my life, but I’ve never seen anything like this). In the end, the adventurers defeat the goblins and return safely where Ryoma makes a shocking decision, he wants to separate from Reinhart and his family.
So in episode 7 Ryoma tells Reinhart that he wants to separate from them for the time being. While he’s grateful for everything they’ve done for him he doesn’t want to get spoiled. He wants to continue to grow and build connections on his own, so he’s decided to start a laundry business with his slimes. Reinhart and the others knew this was coming and are totally okay with Ryoma going off on as own as long as he promises to write to them regularly, visit them and ask for their help when needed (this is the equivalent of a parent sending their child to college and telling them to call them at least once a week). Ryoma agrees to their requests and will be staying with Reinhart and his family (forcefully) until their business in Gimul is done. After that, Ryoma goes through the proper channels to start his laundry business. He goes to the merchant guild, buys a plot of land, destroys the old building to built a new one, and gets help from everyone on creating the interior and exterior of the shop as well as building a dorm for the workers.
Nothing much happens in episode 8. Ryoma opens up his laundry business where he receives two assistants named Carla and Callum who are brother and sister as well as twins. He has a welcoming party and on their first day he heads out to do a mission not really expecting a big turnout on his first day (oh~ you have made a terrible mistake) only to return to his shop and see how swamped the placed is. Thanks to his friends from the adventurers who spread the word about his business, neighbors as well as other adventurers came to try Ryoma’s service. They manage to service everyone properly and turn in a good day’s work.
Episodes 9-12
In episode 9 Ryoma manages to get two new workers for his shop, Fei and his daughter, Li Ling (okay, not sure if that’s intentional or not but there might be a little hint of racism here). Sometime later he hires on three new workers named Fina, Maria and Jane along with a cook named Selma because of the workload. Each day Ryoma’s shop keeps making more money than the previous day and everyone is telling him to branch out into other territories (I agree. We’re gonna turn you into the Walmart of laundry services in this world. Minus the evil and corporate greed).
Nothing much happens in episode 10. Ryoma’s shop continues to thrive and his employees are happy to have such a great boss who cares about them. Ryoma makes some stone dolls of everyone for Eliara which she loves and Ryoma gets two new slimes. The first is an iron slime he got by feeding a regular slime some iron (I’m beginning to think slimes are the Eevee’s of the monster world). Originally, he was trying to create another metal slime, but discovered that in order to get a metal slime you need to feed a slime various metals. The other slime is a bloody slime which he bought from some traveling adventurers. This slime is a little creepy as it’s a slime that eats (or in this case drinks) blood making it extremely helpful for eating monsters and beasts, so it’s cool and has a liquid-like appearance that’s different from the other slimes we’ve seen so far.
In the first half of episode 11 Ryoma and Eliara receive some hands-on training on forming packs with other familiars. In the second half, Ryoma and the other adventurers get ready for the grell frog outbreak a yearly event where these rare frogs emerge and adventurers are called in to catch them and make some big cash. But Ryoma won’t be focusing on the frogs. Instead, he’ll be focusing on trying to form a contract with a limour bird a type of bird who come around to eat the frogs.
In the final episode we start with Ryoma and Eliara taming some limour birds with Eliara actually getting a shiny limour bird that can use light magic as opposed to dark magic. In the second half it’s the final night before Eliara and the others leave town and Eliara spends the evening talking to Ryoma (JUST HUG ALREADY). They exchange gifts with each other. Eliara gives him a ruby necklace and Ryoma gives her two slimes (you have a lot to learn about giving girls gifts Ryoma). The next day Eliara and the others leave town with Ryoma promising to meet her and the others again.
Final Thoughts
Well. . .this made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. This anime isn’t one of the best but I wouldn’t call it the worst either. It is what it is, a relaxing anime you watch to take a break from the intense action, drama, story, and themes you see in other animes and there’s nothing wrong with that. The character of Ryoma is endearing. You feel bad that the guy had such a terrible life in our world and happy to see him surround himself with characters that really do care about him and make achievements he earned and can be proud of. He’s a little overpowered but they show he still has room to learn about many things and he’s willing to learn them. His friendship with Eliara is cute and I like how the members of the guild don’t look down on him because of his age and the women don’t fall for him. I also like the various slimes he has at his disposal and how he uses all of them efficiently. It’s like something out of Pikmin and I like how he develops himself as an adventurer and entrepreneur. The only real downside with this anime is that we never get to explore this world. I kind of want to see the kingdom’s capital, see the school Eliara is going to, the political structure, their ideologies, and if they have other civilizations that mirror our own or not. Stuff like that really fleshes out the world. The animation and music are nothing really special. They look good for what they are, so don’t expect to be blown away by these two features.
Final Score
The final score for By the Grace of the Gods is a 6/10. It’s a relaxing anime that I enjoyed for what it was and would like to see a second season if they get around to making one. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks this as a lot of viewers both in and out of Japan enjoyed this anime as well. Hence, the second season. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.