This playful tale about an ogre samurai, a poisoned queen and a demonic pool of talking slime has a lot of confusing lore for the uninitiated to catch up on

This high-spirited anime feels like having the contents of a Dungeons & Dragons manual screamed at you by your 12-year-old nephew after a Haribo binge – but it’s kind of fun trying to keep up. It hits the ground running with a top-knotted ogre mercenary (voiced by Yuma Uchida) being cut to ribbons in the woods, rescued by Queen Towa (Riko Fukumoto), healed using her life force and given a ritualistic name: he is now known under her service as Hiiro.

Hiiro soon learns that Towa’s waterfall-bordered kingdom Raja is in a tight spot: it’s dependent on gold mining that releases toxins into its lakes, which the queen must neutralise using a magic tiara that in turn poisons her. He heads off to the forest where he finds that – bulging anime eye! – his former ogre comrades have shacked up with the orcs who destroyed his village. Once he cools off, he gets local demon lord Rimuru (Miho Okasaki) to broker a truce with the dragon Veldora to let Raja farm in the forest. Rimuru offers to help with the poison, too. (You may also be experiencing a lethal buildup of lore in your bloodstream by now.)