Oh good lord.
— So Shizu isn’t doing so hot. It looks like eating Ifrit won’t save her. Plus, she’s been alive for decades. Maybe she simply looks young on the surface, but her body is shutting down. Oh well. I mean, I don’t really know what the story expects of me. I barely know this girl.
— She asks Rimuru if she could tell him her life story. I wanna say no, but unfortunately, I’m not the hero.
— Blah blah blah, she served the demon lord, blah blah blah, he bailed one day. She eventually met the Hero, they clashed, they became friends, then… uh, the Hero just left one day. Why? Beats me. Beats Shizu too. You know how it is. Anime characters never communicate their feelings. The Hero just up and left one day. If you want to be extra cynical, then it’s more like, “I’ll come up with a reason why she left, so I’ll just leave this part vague and open-ended for the fans to speculate!”
— More backstory. Shizu went on adventures, Shizu became a teacher for kids like her (i.e., summoned from other worlds), yet someone else left her, and finally, Shizu tried to look for the demon lord. Basically, she sensed that she didn’t have much time left to live, so she may as well try and give him the what for! Unfortunately, she never found him.
— So right before she bites the dust — oh no, don’t leave us girl who only showed up for a few episodes! — Shizu makes one final request: she would love to get in slime boi’s belly. Just vore this up, baby!
— And y’know, if Rimuru has a spare Sunday, avenge her or whatever. No biggie. Take your time. Build up your nation and followers. Do what most isekai heroes do nowadays.
— And within Rimuru, Shizu has pleasant dreams? I suppose she’s technically not gone for good, because like the dragon, she’ll just reside within Rimuru. I can’t say I feel all that choked up, though. I feel nothing. I don’t even have a pit in my stomach.
— Seriously, we barely know Shizu. All we got were a bunch of rushed flashbacks. The non-flashback scenes weren’t much to talk about either. She tells slime boi that her time with the three bumbling adventurers were a lot of fun, but we saw almost none of that. We glimpsed the tail end of their time together when they got chased by giant ants or whatever, and that was it.
— Another problem, too, is that this prologue or whatever you want to call it is long enough as it is. So it’s not like they can just dump half a season developing this girl. So Shizu came and went, and not a single tear was shed.
— Still, I find it odd that the series would open with her being summoned just to have her die so soon. Oh well.
— Anyways, everyone wants to pay Shizu a visit, because they’re sure that she’ll be all healed up by Rimuru. But instead, they walk in on a naked, probably genderless human who looks a bit like Shizu. Yeah, eating the girl now allows slime boi to truly live up to his moniker.
— On the one hand, Rimuru is still a slime… I guess. But if you watch the OP, you see him engage in ferocious battles as his human form, which is kinda lame. It’s kinda like That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime But I Can Still Look Like an Attractive Anime Protagonist Whenever I Want. I mean, what’s next? Him becoming a demon lord? Pfft, probably. This is anime, after all. Every lame trope just gets regurgitated. Every isekai dork dreams of becoming a some sort of overlord nowadays. What middle-aged man stuck in a dead-end office job wouldn’t dream of magically transporting himself to a fantasy world, revert back into a young child, build up his own empire, gain loyal followers, and become a demon lord?
— And the comments defending the fact that Rimuru is overpowered are hilarious.
— I also like how trusting everybody is. Welp, if this is what Shizu wanted, I guess there was no other choice! But they don’t know what she wanted. All they have to go by is Rimuru’s word.
— But let’s wrap this up. The three bumbling adventurers get over their sadness in no time flat, and right before they return home, Rimuru gives them some fancy new gear.
— Right before the credits roll, we see an ominous encounter between a dude in a plague mask and some pig man. They’ll probably be the next antagonists. Shrug.
— Last but not least, do not post spoilers or even coyly hint at spoilers, or I’ll just delete your comment.
Moe Sucks 
i agree this prologue dragged for too long. they could finish this much earlier in my opinion. also
In fact the one who gave spoilers was the same anime since Shizu never told her past to Rimuru in both the web novel and in the manga she only tells the name of demon king who summoned her to this world, does not even mention her students, neither much less the character that gave him the mask which have not even mentioned in the manga. They are anticipating lot, the staff seem eager to get into the following arcs but at the same time they are going at a pretty slow pace.
Okay, the straight up “Go through with pulling the plug?” predator prompt did hit me a bit… if only because there’s no way not to think of people IRL who need to make that same decision. Having it just laid out bare in a simple “Yes/No” question is pretty powerful, and Rimuru’s VA did a good job with the tone of his answer (contrasting, btw, against all the emphatic “YESSSSS!” responses we’ve heard before).
There was indeed a second mask-wearing hero, then. It was kinda half-confirmed at the end of last episode that Veldora is way stronger than Ifrit, so that was the more likely scenario I guess.
I thought Rimuru could only mimic bodies he had absorbed? He absorbed a black-haired, large-chested woman, so why is the body he got blue-haired and seemingly male/androgynous?
Anyway, Rimuru has a quest to talk to Leon now. Not sure what kind of compelling civil discussion one can possibly have with a kidnapper and child-murderer, but we finally have the beginnings of a tangible plot. Hopefully plague guy has some sort of connection to him so we can finally get this show on the road.