The Fall 2026 Anime Preview Guide

So What's Wrong with Getting Reborn as a Goblin?

Office worker Akira Yagami's altruistic nature usually gets him the short end of the stick. When he dies after saving a kid from oncoming traffic...he reincarnates in another world as a goblin. Normally, goblins only live for seven days, but Akira's newfound powers let him defy the species' normal lifespan...and are the key to his path to becoming the strongest goblin ever.

So What's Wrong with Getting Reborn as a Goblin? is based on the manga series by writer Nazuna Miki and artist Tsukasa Araki. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

Okay, look, I know that we're not supposed to overthink the logistics of these silly isekai plot gimmicks, but when so many of these shows have almost nothing going for them except for the endless scenes of exposition, what the hell else am I supposed to do? I've seen plenty of anime where some anonymous Japanese worker-dude gets reborn as a cute RPG monster, so I didn't really have any thoughts one way or the other when our hero Akira got Yu-Yu Hakusho'd into a new universe as a tiny Smurf-looking goblin. The minute Akira started explaining the ludicrously contrived socio-ecological systems that define the goblin way of life, however, my brain started to break.

Seven days? We're meant to believe that this entire civilization of tiny, sentient goblins has managed to establish itself despite goblins only living for a grand total of seven 24-hour days, while Akira's unique goblin skill lets him live a fairly normal human lifespan of eighty years? I'm sorry, there's suspension of disbelief, and there's whatever insane series of contrivances that the author of this story worked backward from to justify this utterly reality breaking detail of the story. I don't care how horny and fertile the goblins are. I don't care if we're operating by magical fantasy rules. This is not some dreamlike, allegorical fantasy like The Little Prince that can get away with actively shirking the fundamental laws of not only physics, but basic storytelling logic. An isekai story is by its very nature defined by the “other world” to which it sends its characters and audience off adventuring. The world must, on some fundamental level, make sense, or else nothing matters and the whole effort is a waste of time. If these little blue bastards only live for seven days, there's no way they are developing personalities or relationships that can create the bonds required for a society to thrive. There's no development of any technology. There's no art. There's nothing.

So, while it may seem like a relatively minor detail in the grand scheme of things, So What's Wrong With Being Reborn as a Goblin essentially sabotaged any chance it had at being taken seriously from the get-go. What if we look past that, though, and try to evaluate the anime as a deeply unserious but still technically functional work of disposable entertainment? Well, as much as it may shock you, the “What If We Ripped-Off That One Slime Isekai But Treated Our Audience Like They Were Stupid, Little Babies?” anime is not very good. The artwork is admittedly a touch more colorful and detailed than some of the isekais out there, but the animation is nothing to write home about, so the visual presentation still lacks luster. The minute we get to the battle scene where Akira runs into Karen, the pretty blonde knight lady who will almost certainly become the main love interest, it is clear that this is not a series that is capable of (or even very interested in) crafting exciting entertainment.

If this show has any potential at all, it might be in the commentary about modern workplace culture and the jaded men and women it creates that crops up from time to time, but this premiere is too busy going through the usual isekai motions to make much of it. I'm not going to hold my breath in the hopes that Episode 2 is going to suddenly turn things around for the better.

I need this stupid anime to stop confronting me with how poorly developed its whole premise is. In the beginning of Yada Yada Reborn as a Goblin's second episode, Karen offhandedly remarks that it used to be popular to keep goblins as pets. She even points out that the trend died out because goblins only live for a single week. Nevermind the fact that these are sentient, language-speaking little people who wear clothes and love their families, oh no, that wasn't the problem at all. It's the “Goblins complete an entire life cycle of birth to old-age in the span of just 168 hours” bit that ruined the whole goblins-as-pets industry.

Here's the thing, though: Karen acknowledging that this effort to keep goblins as pets was doomed to fail just makes everything so much worse. It shows proof that the author of this story was just self-aware enough to realize how ridiculous the concept is, but yet not quite able to understand that nobody would ever want to keep the goblins as pets in the first place, and it is utterly insane to ask anyone to consider otherwise for even one second, because – say it with me now, everybody – the Smurfy little abominations only live for seven days. Don't any of you reading this dare chime in with defenses of it being “social commentary” about the goblins representing exploited and dehumanized races who are put into systems of bondage, either, or I swear that I will come and find where you live so I can smack you upside the head.

The show itself seems to be trying to go for that angle, what with the untrustworthy humans who are afraid that Simon is going to use his long lifespan and natural wisdom to upset the natural order and lead the goblins to some kind of newfound golden age. We're going to just go ahead and ignore any intentional or unintentional parallels that Reborn as a Goblin might be trying to work into its otherwise deeply silly story about "Horny Smurf and His Band of Infantalized Freaks," because everything about the goblins is a half-baked affront to the very concept of sentient existence. Instead, we'll just try to determine if the show is able to build on what few strengths it has to create a slice of bubble-gum nonsense-fantasy that is worth spending twenty-some-odd minutes of your own finite time on this Earth watch–

No. The answer is no. It is not. While there are plenty of grosser, uglier, meaner, and lazier isekai out there that Reborn as a Goblin can legitimately claim as inferior, that doesn't mean that you should be rushing to add this series to your queue. It is, beyond its appallingly rickety worldbuilding, aggressively mediocre in every meaningful aspect of its writing and production. I suppose we can just be thankful that this ridiculous and smelly little goblin of an anime only has a lifespan of maybe a dozen weeks before we can toss the remains in the nearest bin.

I might only have this opinion because the last “reborn as a goblin” anime I experienced was the overtly and immediately misogynistic Re:Monster, but So What's Wrong with Getting Reborn as a Goblin? ain't bad for an isekai! Sure, it's over-written, explains everything because it doesn't trust its audience to intuit events and intentions, and falls into the same story beats as other anime of this ilk, but at least it looks nice and doesn't feel like it's written by people who don't think women should be allowed to vote.

Beginning with hyper-competent office worker Akira staying late to help a newer coworker correct a mistake, he takes on the brunt of the work because it's his coworker's anniversary and his girlfriend's birthday! On his way home, he dies while saving a child who ran into the street à la Yu-Yu Hakusho (though what was a child doing in a business district that late at night?) and is reincarnated as a goblin in a fantasy world. In this world, goblins have the ability to pass the unique skill they're born with at birth onto other people when they die and, though goblins usually have a short lifespan, Akira's unique skill allows him to live to the age of 80 and therefore stockpile a wealth of abilities, including one he inherits from the feared Archfiend that allows him to control anyone he defeats in battle.

Reflecting on the show now, I'm not sure how it's materially different from Tensura / That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime outside of the low-level monster that the MC reincarnates as, but people seem to really like Tensura, and I'm sure those same folks will enjoy Reborn as a Goblin taking things from the top.

My only major complaint with this first episode is how little it trusts its audience to understand what's happening in the show. Akira monologues about how the skill “HEAL,” get this, heals the wounds of the person it's used on, which is so rudimentary that for a second I thought this show might be aimed at younger audiences…but it can't be because one scene prior Akira was monologuing about how horny he is! Based on the ending credits animation, it seems like it's only a matter of time before he has a harem of women from different fantasy races to help him alleviate that anatomical urge, and fingers crossed they're all as competent (and cute) as the lady knight Karen introduced in this episode.

I'd be shocked if So What's Wrong with Getting Reborn as a Goblin? was anyone's favorite anime from this season, but there are far worse isekai out there, and I'll give a passing grade to any one of these I can walk away from without feeling actively disgusted.

I am the bo-bo fool for giving So What's Wrong with Getting Reborn as a Goblin? the benefit of the doubt and thinking that an isekai that opens largely inoffensively would improve as the show goes on. Not only does episode two of this anime devolve into copious and unchallenged sexism, it also violates the rules it established in the previous episode and, I can only assume, thinks I'm too stupid to catch this discrepancy.

This episode sees Akira traveling into the nearby human settlement to foster relations between them and his goblin community. He meets with the leader of this community Margrave Ophiuchus (who is introduced gardening while using a metal folding ladder despite this being a high-fantasy setting, but whatever) and the two try to build some kind of understanding. This amounts to the two going to a brothel and having a lot of sex offscreen while making demeaning and objectifying comments about women. I take any lack of pushback against this mentality as the show's tacit endorsement of it.

The rest of the episode features Akira organizing goblin society while secretly being surveilled by Ophiuchus until the tomboy demon who had a relationship with the Archfiend shows up, and this is where the episode really pissed me off. He begins organizing the goblins into different units so that they can pass on complimentary skills to one another, so that individual goblins start stockpiling skills suited to combat or trade for instance. HOWEVER, the previous episode establishes that goblins can only pass on the skill that they're born with and can't transfer any of the skills they inherit. So either this plan is foolhardy and will result in the readiness for military or economic operations to vary wildly from week to week as he's concentrating abilities onto individuals who only have a seven day lifespan, or this episode is ignoring this fact it established last episode.

Regardless, my estimation of So What's Wrong with Getting Reborn as a Goblin? has dropped tremendously and I don't want to think about it again until the next round of voting starts for ANN's seasonal “Worst Of” list. This is probably entirely my own fault for hoping that a show squarely within the male power fantasy isekai genre could be better than its contemporaries, but no. There's nothing worthwhile in this show and I hope whoever is reading this learns from my mistakes and skips it.

“Those are Smurfs,” my sister said, stopping behind my chair. “No, they're goblins,” I informed her. “Smurfs. Smurfs,” she insisted. “See, there's Brainy Smurf right there.” And then, like all wise younger siblings, she sailed from the room in a cloud of smugness, certain that I wouldn't chase her to argue.

She was correct, if only because I twisted my ankle the other day when the dog knocked me over in a fit of post-poop zoomies, but I will point out that the goblins in this show are far worse proportioned than Smurfs, particularly Akira, our lead. All bodies are different, even in anime, but how did he end up with those ludicrously long arms? That bothered me more than his decision to make himself fake glasses, because I don't feel like myself without my glasses. But this is also a story where goblins live for only seven days, so clearly deep thinking was not really happening.

That, I think, is the most egregious worldbuilding offense. Seven days seems far too short for the sort of organized society the goblins must have been created in. Even if Akira weren't the only goblin with the special skill “octogenarian” (giving him eighty years to live), all of the other goblins would die too quickly for any laws to be established. It also means that goblin ladies must have a ridiculously short gestation time and rapid-fire birthing, because to raise children to an age where they can care for themselves, they'd have to become fertile at two or three days old. We do see rapid goblin aging at the end of the episode, but there are so many problems with this entire scenario that it feels like something made up on the fly without much planning or thought.

But then, it also seems like Akira was reborn as a goblin with a variety of inherited skills in order to facilitate him having sex with women of other races. Perhaps I'm speaking too soon; as of this episode, he's only met (and impressed) Karen, a human knight, but mention has already been made of his excessive goblin horniness, and the skill he inherits from a dying archfiend makes anyone he defeats completely subservient to him. You can't blame me for worrying where this is going, especially since a demon girl and a busty elf are in the ending theme. Add to that an overabundance of split screens to save on animation, an opening theme made up primarily of still shots, and signs this isn't going to be a brilliant production. Going into episode two, I'm feeling very cautious. Let's see if it changes my mind.

Well, episode two changed my mind, just not in the way anyone was hoping. This drop in rating is entirely Simon's fault: a skeezy old nobleman who dares to have the name of one of my childhood cats. My Simon was cantankerous, perpetually hungry, and loved only me. This Simon is the sort of gross individual who says things like “To fully know women, you gotta sleep with a thousand to even have a clue.” I have words for a guy like him, but they're in Yiddish, and my grandmother would come back from the dead to wash my mouth out with soap if I said them.

While he is just one character, Simon speaks to some of the show's problems. He exists to reinforce the idea that women should be throwing themselves at Akira, who, while at a brothel with Simon, sleeps his way through at least four sex workers. Akira may not be attracted to goblin women – he admits they look like mascot characters to him – but he's certainly not averse to women of other species. And that would be fine if Simon hadn't framed it so vilely. Blatant wish fulfillment is one thing; rank misogyny is another entirely.

Another potential issue, one Akira is already working to fix, is how humans see goblins. Episode one used the word “uppity” to refer to a goblin thinking he was as good as a human, and the pre-Civil Rights weight that word carries should be obvious. In this episode, Karen tells Akira that humans used to keep goblins as pets, only stopping because their lives are so short. Taken together, this clearly implies that humans believe goblins are lesser beings, even though they speak the same language and live very human lives. Simon, in fact, fears Akira because he's smart and will live a long, human-span life. This can't be accepted in the current worldview, because goblins led by Akira might start getting ideas above their station. This plot thread is far more interesting than anything else in the show so far and may help it rise above its lesser qualities.

This episode also shows some improvement in the visuals, although not enough to make it actually better. The lack of animation in the opening theme still strikes me as odd, and many scenes in this episode are just people sitting or standing around talking rather than engaging in any action. That occasionally goes for reactions as well – why doesn't Karen react at all when it's revealed that Akira has the Archfiend's skill? I don't remember him telling her in episode one, but maybe I just forgot in the hour in between.

This is not, by any means, a very good show. It's nonsensical, barely animated, and has one of the worst characters I've encountered in the guide. There are bits that could be good, but I'm not willing to sit through the rest waiting for that to happen.