Goblin Slayer: Season 1 Blu-ray - Complete Anime Series - Action, Fantasy Adventure - Perfect for Anime Collectors & Home Entertainment

To preface this review, I am relatively new to anime, and this series is one of my first. I am however a big American comic book fan, but I wanted to broaden my horizons some. Family and friends of mine were getting into manga and anime, so I decided to check it out too. What initially drew me into this series was seeing the manga at a bookstore. It looked quite cool from the cover, so I decided to check the anime out online.The first episode was a bit of a shock as it was quite graphic (not nearly as graphic as the manga as I later found out), but I stuck with it and found I really enjoyed the series. The series is quite dark overall, though it does have moments of levity and even some humor. There is a lot of violence in the show, but it makes sense within the context of the story. The world of Goblin Slayer is quite brutal and the monsters that inhabit it are deadly. Some characters meet grisly ends, and even the main characters are not immune from harm. I am not too familiar with other anime, but from what I hear much of the popular modern fantasy material is not nearly as dark, so I suppose that could be why some people were turned off by the graphic content in this series.The story is quite simple overall, mostly slaying goblins as you could guess from the title. It is twelve episodes in length, which is not too long, but it does not feel too brief either. I also think the first season of the anime ends perfectly as the order of events is different from the manga and light novel, but it works very well for the show. The characters are all very enjoyable and the title character Goblin Slayer is great. The character growth for Goblin Slayer is not huge, but it is there; it is just more subtle. The character has a very fixed mindset and views, but his interactions with his companions certainly change him a little for the better, and I believe this is quite evident at the end of the season.The animation looks very good for the most part. There are some 3D animations which look a bit odd mixed with the 2D animation, but they still look solid. I did not watch the original subtitled release of the show, but I have seen the dubbed episodes multiple times, and I believe the voice actors are all very good. Some people say the voice actor for Goblin Slayer (Brad Hawkins) has too much emotion to his voice (at least compared to the original Japanese voice actor), but I believe he does the role perfectly, the subtle emotion he presents adds to Goblin Slayer’s character. He is still rather cold and sort of disconnected, but there is just enough emotion to his voice that you can tell that Goblin Slayer is a true character and not artificial.I am also happy with the Bluray set of the anime that I purchased. It comes with the series on Bluray, but also on DVD and digital, which is a big plus. I purchased the limited edition set, so it also came with a cool artbook and some nice small cardstock prints with artwork of the main characters on them.Furthermore, I liked the anime so much that I purchased all the manga volumes that have been printed in English so far. I then took it a step further and purchased most of the light novels which are the source material for the anime and the manga. I am definitely liking the story presented in the books so far, and I am eager to see the Goblin’s Crown OVA being released in 2020, and hopefully a second season of the anime too.