I'm so conflicted on this one. On one hand, I'll be honest and say that this was pretty much what I expected. Between all the CGI earlier this season and Madhouse rushing the hell out of Volume 7's gruesomeness, I knew to dial my expectations back a bit. On the other hand, I feel like Madhouse screwed up things that could easily have been avoided. SPLAT was written as an absolute splatterfest of guts and gore, but there wasn't a lick of it to speak of in this episode. I mran, FFS, even the Carne Village episodes were more gruesome than this. Also, why did Madhouse pretty much redesign the appearance of the Katze Plains? No fog, no ruins, no credpy atmosphere... just a barren field in the bright of day.

The episode wasn't bad or anything, but I do think Madhouse seriously dropped the ball here. It should be okay enough for anime-only fans, but as a LN reader I'm a little disappointed. I'm not even sure that I'd want them to adapt the other LNs, I can already imagine them watering down a lot of it.

Thank god they aren't the ones adapting Goblin Slayer. Hopefully that adaptation is more faithful to all the brutal details of the LNs.