Tonight was the finale for:
Goblin Slayer
Genre: Fantasy, Action, Adventure
Fanservice: Quite a bit, both the good kind and the problematic kind
Premise: While the big heroes are out defeating the Demon Lord, who's there to look out for the little guy? The farmers or townsmen whose lives are destroyed by the paltry goblins that no serious adventurer deigns to stoop to confront? Especially since the victims often can't afford the rewards needed to post a quest that would entire an adventurer? I'll tell you who - the Goblin Slayer. He doesn't care about pay. He doesn't care about glory. He doesn't care in the slightest about what other people think about him. He doesn't care about politics, or demon lords, or the end of the world. All he cares about is killing goblins, and he'll take any job if it involves killing goblins - and if it doesn't, he's not interested.
So, in case you've been under a rock, this was one of the Big Damn Anime Shows of 2018, and it didn't disappoint. It's a good show. However, it's not for the little kids. Like Grimgar, or Berserk, or a number of other disturbing anime that have come out, this one mixes in a lot of blood, violence, gore, torture, death, and rape. Actually, it softens that last bit up quite a bit from the Manga, but it's still unquestionably there. It's blatantly stated that that's how goblins perpetuate their species - they kidnap women for breeding purposes, then kill them when they're not "useful" any more.
In fact, goblins are shown to be often vastly underestimated. They're not individually strong, but in groups they are cunning and ruthless. Unprepared novice adventurers often find themselves swarmed or outsmarted, and shortly thereafter, dead (or worse). This was the fate of the Priestess's (shown above) first adventuring group - too many rookie mistakes, and they were wiped out, with her soon to follow - when she was suddenly saved by Goblin Slayer.
He's not the toughest, or the strongest, but his experience and intelligence means that he always tackles every goblin problem the best way possible - the way that is surest to leave him alive and all the goblins dead. He'll use any tool, no trick is too underhanded or overkill. And he never leaves a goblin alive - not even a newborn one. The only good goblin is a dead goblin.
He starts off as a loner and a one-trick pony, but as events progress, he makes friends, gets an adventuring party, and starts stretching his wings a little, eventually doing more than just fighting goblins. But it always comes back to goblins - he's got a personal score to settle with every goblin in the world.
A side note - it's clear that this is meant to be a depiction of somebody's D&D campaign - none of the characters have names, they are just addressed by their classes or careers. Adventurers take quests from the adventurers guild. There's a very prevalent "dice" motif to all the ancillary artwork, even though dice do not actually feature in any plot point. And most tellingly of all, all the spellcasters don't have "mana" or magic power or anything like that - they get good ol' D&D "spell slots," so a low level priestess or wizard might only get 2 or 3 spells an entire day.
Also, there's a lot of expy characters on the sidelines here. You'll see unmistakable direct homages to Berserk, Dragon's Crown, Fate Stay/Night, MTG, Warhammer, and of course, Tolkien.
There's also a harem angle smoldering below the surface. There are 5 prominent female characters in this series (Cow girl, Priestess, Guild girl, Elf, and Sword Maiden) and they all have varying levels of infatuation with the titular protagonist... but he doesn't care, and never responds to their interest - he's only interested in killing goblins.
It's also being simuldubbed, though the english dubs are 3 or 4 weeks behind, but if you want to watch it in english, you've already got 9 of the 12 episodes available. Definitely one to watch.
