But death is such a tease and never puts out. 

— Despite having just rummaged around in the sewers, the only person who wants to bathe is Priestess. I find Elf Girl’s excuse particularly odd. She doesn’t like the idea of fire, water and air spirits being all mixed up? What? I’ll use that next excuse when my girlfriend tells me to shower.

— Then again, they’re standing in the rain right now, so hey, it’s kinda like taking a shower!

— Now, if you’re worried that naked Priestess is all that you’re gonna get — and a quick visit from the FBI to follow — don’t worry! You also get to see what she’ll become when she grows up! Er, minus the blindness. But we all saw this coming. Anime wouldn’t design a character like Sword Maiden and not find some excuse to get her naked.

— Ugh, we’re going to get Sword Maiden’s backstory, aren’t we? I’m kinda curious, but at the same time, I’m kinda not. I mean, if they’re totally and completely lazy, then the reason she’s blind is probably going to be like, “Oh no, goblins tortured me for however many days or weeks. But I still escaped and became a symbol of hope! Alas, I’m too scared of goblins so even though I slayed the Demon Lord, I must hire a buncha dorky adventurers to do this job!”

— Yep, Priestess notices scars all over the woman’s body. They’re faint, but they’re still there.

— Apparently, Priestess is the only person to ask Sword Maiden if she’s okay. They always ask, “Where’s Sword Maiden?” Nobody ever asks, “How’s Sword Maiden?”

— Sword Maiden then ominously states that although Goblin Slayer is dependable, he will disappear one day. Why? ‘Cause his obsession with goblins will eventually do him in?

— Live for thousands of years, but has never written a letter. Amazing. It’s not as if they live in the era of electronic communication.

— Elf Girl suspects that Goblin Slayer might have written back to Childhood Friend, so she teases him for finally caring about others. I’m told that the anime is being adapted out of order, so I’m going to have to disagree with the decision if this is truly the case. From my perspective, we haven’t seen anything to justify Goblin Slayer’s character development.

— In the middle of the conversation, Goblin Slayer finds it odd that there aren’t any quests on the board to tackle sewer rats. Uh, I guess? Maybe something else takes care of the sewer rats for Water Town. The giant alligator would be the prime suspect, so maybe the town has symbiotic relationship with the thing. I’m not sure why this would be a cause for concern, though.

— For their next excursion into the sewers, Goblin Slayer buys a cute canary. Kinda reminds me of coal miners dragging the same birds with them before going deep into the mines.

— Welp, he attributes this knowledge to miners, so same deal.

— This time around, the group is going to beeline for the leader of the goblins. Priestess then starts to worry that maybe they’ll run into something like the Ogre again. Then y’know, Sword Maiden’s words might be prophetic. Too bad as the viewers, we kinda know that the hero of the story won’t and can’t get killed.

— Something that would make the show kinda interesting is if these “names” acted as titles that would get handed down from generation to generation. As a result, this Goblin Slayer might get killed, but then the story would flash-forward a few decades and start following a new Goblin Slayer. Maybe even if his kid (if he wasn’t asexual). I’m just saying… the threat of death would make this show much, much more interesting. But alas, the storytelling looks to be as straightforward as possible, so although Priestess might fret over her friend’s mortality, we won’t have to. She and her friends have on serious plot armor.

— These are some fancy sewers.

— It’s kinda amazing that this universe would have the technology to construct such impressive architecture, but y’know, goblins are a huge issue.

— The group eventually stumbles across a spooky, scary skeleton. Then all of a sudden, the door closes behind them as goblins swarm to their location. Poison gas also starts seeping through the walls. They just stumbled into a trap. I would feel anxious, but that plot armor is real strong, yo.

— Poor bird, though. I feel bad for the animal.

— Sadly, I must admit that the air quality in this room is probably not as bad as it is in San Francisco right about now.

— The group plugs up the holes, then wait for the goblins to barge in. Eh, sounds like they have a decent choke point.

— After taking out a few boring goblins, a goblin champion finally crashes the party. I mean, it’s still the same boring goblin, but it’s bigger, I guess. I would be amused if they started palette-swapping the goblins just to keep things interesting.

— Look at these idiots break their noses against Priestess’s Protection barrier.

— That’s one sharp blade. It looks like even the hilt helped cleave that goblin in half.

— Then for some reason, the show indulges in a Matrix-like 3-D rotation of a scene. Instead of someone dodging bullets in a cool way, we just have Goblin Slayer surrounded by goblin body parts and blood. Seems gratuitous to me.

— Goblin Slayer eventually tries to attack the goblin champion when it has its back turned to him, but the leader manages to instantly turn around and land a pretty decent counterattack. The hero thus gets knocked to the side and starts coughing up blood. Kinda strange. He’s so meticulous and prepared for every situation, but it felt like he just charged the big, bad boss directly and paid the price as a result. Maybe he thought he could kill the champion in one move, but his gamble didn’t pay off.

— But no, I still don’t expect him to die.

— But Priestess doesn’t know any better, so she starts freaking out. And because she starts freaking out, her Protection Barrier starts to weaken. It starts to look bad as even Elf Girl gets swarmed and overpowered. But again, if this was a show where the good guys could die, that’d be one thing. But so far, only minor characters have bitten the dust.

— So the goblin champion walks right up to Priestess, and we might initially assume that he wants to have her for himself or something. Well, not to be flippant, but don’t you think it would be an evolutionary disadvantage to even get this large? The very species that you depend upon in order to procreate is now too small for you. Becoming a goblin champion means you just played yourself.

— Oh lord, that’s twice now that the story has made the poor kid piss her pants. The writer is so obsessed with girls and water sports.

— Because he can’t really do anything else to her, the champion instead takes a huge bite out of one of Priestess’s arms. Yeah, yeah, he’s toying with his victims, so he’s not killing her outright. He didn’t bite her head off. If this show really wanted to be metal, he could’ve just bitten off the whole arm. But since he didn’t, we know that she’ll be fine. She’ll just have a scar or whatever.

— Anyways, as Goblin Slayer hears his party members’ screams, visions of him failing to protect his sister floods his mind. He also hears some guy making fun of him. As a result, this somehow gives the hero the second wind that he needs to get up and fight back.

— So what does he do? He grabs the hair that had fallen off of that spooky, scary skeleton and starts choking the champion with it. Yeah… that’s how we’re going to win.

— I don’t get why he’s so chatty in the middle of a fight for his and his friends’ lives.

— Meanwhile, the goblins did manage to tear up Elf Girl’s clothes, but her plot armor remains intact along with those mega-durable shorts of hers. And don’t worry, ’cause nobody in anime has nipples.

— Goblin Slayer continues to be haunted by this voice. We then see what looks like some old goblin man staring down at him. Who was this guy? Was he the one who taught Goblin Slayer everything that he knows? Did he get trained by a goblin himself?

— Unfortunately, Goblin Slayer didn’t actually manage to kill the champion. He merely took out one of its eyes, so it retreats for now. The rest of the goblins follow suit, and just like that, the party is safe.

— And predictably enough, Lizard Man manages to save Priestess’s life. It never really felt like it was in danger anyways.

— Now here comes the fun part. They’re all worried about Priestess, but Goblin Slayer is in terrible shape. He was literally fueled by hatred to keep fighting. Otherwise, he would’ve stayed down and the party would’ve wiped. So now that everyone’s okay, Goblin Slayer falls to his side and it looks like he’s dying. But I mean, it’s episode 7. We know better.

— Best boi is also still alive! Yay!

— The show then lingers on the reflection in best boi’s eyes as sad, solemn music is playing. The anime really, really wants you to believe that Goblin Slayer will die! And look, I’ll give the story major props if he does bite it! I’ll be very pleasantly surprised if the story has the balls and moxy to pull that off. It just can’t happen, man. I know it can’t. In next week’s episode, the party will just drag his butt back to Sword Maiden or whomever, and he’ll just get healed up to tip-top shape. Then we’ll go back to the sewers and take out the champion for good.

— But to heal him, they’ll probably have to drag his body out of that armor. So eh, I guess we might get to see what he looks like.