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Slimes are commonly known as the weakest creatures, but more and more I'm seeing powerful slimes show up in anime. When did powerful slimes become a thing? Or have they always been a thing and I just haven't seen them around before?

Earliest example I can think of:

  • Overlord - Solution Epsilon. Anime 2015, novels started in 2010.
  • Konosuba - Season two finale, Hans. Anime started 2016, Novels in 2013.
  • Reincarnated as a Slime - Anime 2018, Novels in 2013.

I'm sure there's plenty others as well.

David Hobs
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    Not related to anime, but in video games, "slime" in general is usually just a kind of a monster race/type, and it also has "level" progression. [*Dragon Quest*'s slimes](https://dragonquest.fandom.com/wiki/Slime_family) might be a good demonstration of this. – Aki Tanaka May 08 '21 at 06:38
  • I was thinking of DQ's slime mob as an early example of this. Don't have time to pull references together just yet, but if you wanted to do some research, then you might want to look there as a start. – Makoto Jun 07 '21 at 15:25
  • AFAIK DQ popularized the hegemonic idea of the slime as a weak or "starting" creature in Japan, and I'd bet that the "powerful smile" archetype is a symptom of the general popularity of cliche subversion (to the point of being a cliche itself!) in recent popular media. I'd say that the examples given in the OP are at least partially subversive of the classical fantasy Light Novel tropes. – mantra Jun 08 '21 at 00:47
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    You'd have to dive pretty deeply into the history of this to reach a conclusion. For example there's a 1991 SNES game called Jelly Boy with an unreleased sequel about group of kids that turned into a slimes and got transported to some strange world. The roots of this are definitely Japanese games and not anime, which I do not know as much as I know about anime. – Ocean Jul 13 '21 at 12:59

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Well, your listed examples are all from worlds with RPG Mechanics, and most of them are central to the plot, so they are usually literally high-level.

They also all have humanoid forms, which is a measure of power, instead of them just being blobs.

While slimes are treated as weak in the Dragon Quest games, in tabletop RPGs, they usually have some liquid durability and acidic powers that make them formidable.

And monsters need monstrous traits like that, so, when reasoning it out, a durable, sentient, blob of acid is very dangerous.

Then there's the ability of sapients to learn magic... And gain levels, etc...

Malady
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The trend began when the anime called, “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime” started serialization. This show started in 2018. I don’t know if someone already had an anime that was about powerful slimes before the anime “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime”, but I am sure that they were not as popular as this anime. There are a bunch of anime’s that are about slimes that started after the anime “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime”.

If you want more info, here’s a website that I got all of this info from: https://www.cbr.com/slimes-taking-over-manga-anime/.

I hope this helped

Namaskaram
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Kalifer
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  • Did you read the full question with my examples? I mentioned reincarnated as a slime and referenced Overlord which came out before that. – David Hobs May 08 '21 at 03:01
  • Overlord did come before Reincarnated as a slime, but it isn’t about powerful slimes. I was talking about anime’s that are about slimes and if or not they come out before Reincarnated as a slime. – Kalifer May 08 '21 at 04:39