Rimuru rides toward a lizardman alliance and finds Gabiru’s sister in the mud instead. The mutiny already happened. The Orc Lord’s Starved skill is on-screen. Christmas 2018 was not a cozy episode.
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Hook
Rimuru rides toward a lizardman alliance and finds Gabiru’s sister in the mud instead. The mutiny already happened. The Orc Lord’s Starved skill is on-screen. Christmas 2018 was not a cozy episode.
This page is the sequential stop after Episode 12 — not a random recap dump. Scores below are for this 24 minutes only.
Quick Information
- Anime: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
- Season / Episode: Season 1, Episode 13 (overall #13)
- English title: The Great Clash
- Japanese episode title: 大激突
- Runtime: ~24 minutes
- Studio: 8bit
- Original air date: December 25, 2018
- Kagex score: 8.7 / 10
- Where to watch legally: Crunchyroll (region-dependent)
Should You Watch It?
This is the war going live. Watch it if you want the clash, the rescue, and the moment Gabiru’s hero speech hits a wall of eating soldiers. Skip it and Episode 14’s Orc Disaster turn has no runway. Action jumps; still sequential. The sister-in-the-mud scene is the human (lizardman) cost the numbers needed.
Beginner-friendly? No as a start point. Watch from Season 1 Episode 1. This installment assumes you already know Tempest’s core cast — Rimuru at minimum.
Bottom line: sequential viewers should not skip “The Great Clash.” Fight-only watchers may feel the talkier stretches; nation-building fans will not.
Spoiler Warning
Spoilers for Season 1 Episode 13 (“The Great Clash”) follow. Stop above for a clean first watch. This page does not spoil later episodes.
Story Recap
Goblin riders for a treaty that is already late
Rimuru takes goblin riders toward the marsh to lock in the lizardman alliance Treyni made necessary. Ranga at the front of a cavalry line is the visual of how far the wolves have come from Episode 3. The plan is still diplomatic: meet the chieftain, combine forces, do not die separately. It is a good plan for a week ago.
Benimaru and the ogre staff ride like people who have already lost one country. Souei scouts. The mood is professional. Tensura putting a slime on a war march without making it a joke is the growth. The forest is a theater now. Treaties are logistics.
Wolf cavalry as a unit, not a cute idea, is the visual of Episode 3 paid out.
Souka in the mud
They find a lizardman who has already been hit by orcs. She is Gabiru’s younger sister, Souka, and she is the episode’s knife. The alliance meeting is obsolete. Gabiru staged an insurrection, took troops, and went to fight the Orc Lord without waiting. The chieftain’s plan is in pieces. She asks Rimuru to save her brother and her clan anyway.
That request is unfair and correct. Rimuru did not cause the mutiny. He is the only nearby army that is not currently eating people. Souka’s report turns a summit into a rescue. The show is specific: this is a family disaster inside a race disaster inside a forest disaster.
Souka as injured diplomat turns a summit into a rescue without a speech from Rimuru.
The heir who would not wait
Gabiru’s mutiny is pride plus last week’s humiliation plus a sincere desire to be the protagonist of Jura. He leads lizardmen into a meat grinder because waiting for a slime felt like cowardice. The episode does not need to mock him for long. The orc line does that. His soldiers believed the speech. That is the tragedy of loud leadership: it recruits.
Cut between Rimuru’s riders and Gabiru’s charge. One group is trying to arrive. The other is trying to exist as a legend. Only one of those jobs is possible today. The chieftain’s earlier order looks, in hindsight, like handing a grenade to a son who wanted a parade.
Pride plus last week’s Gobta loss plus a desire to be Jura’s protagonist is the mutiny math.
Starved, demonstrated
Gabiru meets the Orc Lord’s army and watches Unique Skill: Starved work. Orcs that should go down get back up by eating. Wounds become calories. Killing becomes feeding. A conventional honor charge is the wrong tool. The shock on Gabiru’s face is the point of the episode’s action: the forest’s old combat culture just met an industrial unique skill.
This is why Treyni was scared. This is why ogre villages vanished. Starved is not a bigger axe. It is a rule change. Rimuru’s people, watching from the other side of the marsh, now know the boss fight is a logistics problem: you cannot out-duel an army that eats its losses.
Starved converting kills into calories is a rule change, not a bigger axe. Honor charges feed the line.
A clash that is really a delay
The “great clash” is multiple collisions, not one duel: riders hitting orc screens, lizardmen breaking, Rimuru’s named fighters finally doing the job they were hired for. Shion and Hakurou are the kind of problem orcs have not been budgeting for. It is still not the Orc Lord himself as a finished disaster. It is the army’s weight.
Rimuru’s goal shifts from treaty to extraction plus stall. Save who can be saved. Do not let Starved snowball before the real counter exists. The episode ends mid-war on purpose. Christmas cour-end energy: you do not get a bow. You get a marsh full of reasons Episode 14 has to go nuclear.
Shion and Hakurou as problems orcs did not budget is the named-kit unfolding, still not the Disaster himself.
Story Analysis
Episode 13 is where the Orc Lord arc stops being meetings. Souka in the mud is the human-scale image the numbers needed. Gabiru’s mutiny is the character-scale mistake. Starved is the system-scale horror. Three layers, one hour. That is good war writing for TV isekai.
Pacing is forward. Comedy almost gone except the bitter kind. Emotional impact sits on Souka asking a slime to save the brother who just doomed their people. World-building: unique skills can invalidate whole martial cultures. Alliances that wait for pride die. Rimuru’s emerging doctrine is rescue-and-restructure, not honorable clash. Benimaru’s crew finally gets to fight the thing that ate their home, which is payoff for Episodes 9–10 without finishing the revenge yet.
The title is honest. It is a great clash, and it is also a mess. Gelmud’s gears are chewing people who think they are in a heroic last stand.
Three layers in one hour is good war writing for TV isekai: Souka as human-scale, Gabiru as character-scale, Starved as system-scale. Comedy almost gone except the bitter kind. Rimuru’s doctrine showing up as rescue-and-restructure instead of honorable clash is the protagonist brain. Benimaru’s crew finally hitting the army that ate their home is payoff without finishing revenge. Gelmud’s gears chewing people who think they are in a last stand is the title’s honest mess. The great clash is also a screw-up. Both can be true.
The great clash is also a screw-up.
The great clash is also a screw-up, and Gelmud’s gears chewing people who think they are in a last stand is the title’s honest mess rather than a clean war chapter.
Character Analysis
Souka is the MVP of the hour: injured messenger, sister, diplomat by necessity. Gabiru is a failed hero in real time, which is more interesting than a comic relief lizard. Rimuru becomes a field commander. Benimaru, Shion, Souei, Hakurou, and Ranga are the kit unfolding.
Gobta on a wolf in a real war is the series letting the joke character stand in mud. The Orc Lord is still more army than person, which is correct for this chapter. Gelmud is the missing director. The lizardman chieftain is the offscreen parent whose plan lasted until his son’s ego. Lots of people matter. The sister matters most.
Souka is the MVP: messenger, sister, diplomat by necessity. Gabiru as failed hero in real time beats comic-relief lizard. Gobta on a wolf in real mud lets the joke character stand in a war. The Orc Lord is still more army than person, correct for this chapter. The chieftain is the offscreen parent whose plan lasted until ego. The sister matters most. Named ogres are the kit.
Rimuru is the field commander whether he likes the job title, and the sister asking a slime to save the brother who doomed the clan is the nested disaster the marsh deserved.
World Building
Starved as a unique skill that converts combat into calories is the key rule. Lizardman succession and mutiny show marsh politics can suicide a race in an afternoon. Goblin wolf-riders are now a military unit, not a cute idea. Multi-front marsh combat is Jura’s first true campaign map.
Alliances have a shelf life measured in hours. Dryad authorization from last week is being cashed. Orc numbers plus regeneration-by-eating explain how ogre clans vanished without a legendary duel. The forest’s “honor charge” era is over. Unique-skill industrial war has started.
Starved as unique skill that turns combat into calories is the key rule. Lizardman succession can suicide a race in an afternoon. Goblin wolf-riders are a military unit. Multi-front marsh combat is Jura’s first campaign map. Alliances have a shelf life in hours. Dryad authorization from last week is being cashed. The honor-charge era is over. Unique-skill industrial war started in standing water.
Nothing here is later-arc homework. If a name or rule is only teased, it stays a tease.
Animation
8bit goes wider: orc masses, wolf cavalry, marsh water, Starved’s ugly eat-and-heal logic. It is TV war, not movie war — crowd tiles, strong key poses, Shion and Hakurou as highlight reels. Souka’s injured intro is acted clearly. Gabiru’s charge looks properly stupid against the scale. Good enough to sell panic. Not pretending to be Ufotable.
Wider 8bit: orc masses, wolf cavalry, marsh water, Starved’s eat-and-heal ugliness. TV war, not movie war — crowd tiles, Shion/Hakurou highlight reels. Souka’s injured intro is clear.
Kagex animation score for this episode: 8.4 / 10 — peaks vs average cuts, not a sakuga clip ranking.
Music and Voice Acting
Score 8.3. 8bit’s TV mix leans on Elements Garden sting + silence. Japanese track is the reference for Rimuru’s dual register (cute slime vs office-brain). Dub timing varies by season; don’t wait on it to judge the episode.
Hidden Details
- Souka’s plea reframes Gabiru from meme to someone a sister still wants extracted.
- Starved makes “hold the line” a feeding strategy for the enemy.
- Rimuru’s treaty ride arriving after the mutiny is the cost of last week’s failed recruitment.
Best Moments
- Finding Gabiru’s sister instead of a negotiation table.
- Starved turning a heroic charge into a buffet.
- Named ogres finally hitting the army that erased their clan.
Pros & Cons
Pros: Specific to “The Great Clash” — The war episode that makes Starved scary and Gabiru’s mutiny expensive. Required before the Orc Disaster payoff.
Cons: Requires earlier episodes. Viewers who only want climax fights may call the political / logistics scenes slow even when they are load-bearing.
Final Verdict
Kagex overall: 8.7 / 10 — The war episode that makes Starved scary and Gabiru’s mutiny expensive. Required before the Orc Disaster payoff.
- Story: 8.8
- Characters: 8.7
- Animation: 8.4
- Music: 8.3
- Enjoyment: 8.7
Souka in the mud got me more than the clash crowds. Gabiru’s mutiny hurts because the episode lets him be sincerely trying. Starved is a nasty unique skill — industrial horror in a show that was building chairs a few hours ago.
What to Expect Next
Next week the majin behind the gears steps on stage, and the Orc Lord decides what to eat next.
Next: Season 1 Episode 14 — The One Who Devours All. Watch legally on Crunchyroll.
FAQ
Do I need to watch Season 1 Episode 13?
Yes if you are watching the TV series in order. Skipping “The Great Clash” leaves a hole later episodes assume you have.
What is the Japanese title?
大激突 — Crunchyroll English title is “The Great Clash.”
When did it air?
December 25, 2018 in Japan. ~24 minutes. Studio 8bit.
Is this Season 1 filler?
No. Tensura’s “quiet” hours are usually nation, diplomacy, or setup — not recap filler.
Where does this sit in the overall count?
Overall TV episode 13 of the main series (S1–S3 are 72; Season 4 continues from 73).
Should I watch Slime Diaries first?
No. Diaries is optional comedy. This review is the main TV track.
Where are character guides?
Tensura characters — Rimuru, Veldora, Milim, and the Tempest officers.
Where are facts / spoilers for the franchise?
Fact and Spoilers on the hub. This episode page stays inside Episode 13.
Keep exploring
- Tensura anime hub
- Season 1 review
- Overall review
- Previous: Season 1 Episode 12 — The Gears Spin Out of Control
- Next: Season 1 Episode 14 — The One Who Devours All
- Characters
- Fact and Spoilers
Your turn
Was “The Great Clash” a continue episode or a skip-risk for you? Favorite beat? Who should get the next character page?
Sources: Crunchyroll episode titles; Wikipedia list of Tensura episodes; official Tensura anime site.
