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the premise sounded interesting, gave it an honest shot.
its just bad. and i have no idea why its so popular, besides crunchyroll's derp moment of labeling an anime labled for 21+ as PG13.

i mean, the main characters – GS and the priestess are good characters. but everything else is so stupid.
the rape scene came out of nowhere and felt like a cheap attempt create shock factor. it makes no sense for none-human ape-like cretures to be sexually attracted to humans. and it makes no sense no one warned they adventurers.
some guy i argued with, gave detailed and convincing explanation why it makes sense and how goblins breed etc. but the anime doesn't give any explanation at all.

then there are long drawn out dialogue scenes that feel polintless and don't lead to anything.

and then there are constant drawn out shots and zooms into girls breats and scenes with full (albeit not frontal) nudity, they come out of the blue, have no real reason to be and it completely breaks the tone of this supposedly dark fantasy world, and to call it "fan service" is honestly insulting the fans. this trope is almost in every anime though, and that just makes it even more annoying

and finally you have people who speak in D&D lingo "if i get enough xp ill get to unlock new feats" which completely break the 4th wall, and not in a comedic way

oh and did i forget to mention that goblin slayer BARELY DOES ANY GOBLIN SLAYING!

the memes are fun. but do people really unironically like this show?

Me likey dark stuff.

I’ve been wondering the same thing for a while now, but criticising anime doesn’t end well on most websites. More effort than it’s worth trying to make sense of it.

You can simply compare it to junk food if it help get the mental image across. We all know its bad for us yet we still like to eat it.

The same probably applies to GS, it may not be a "high quality" production or anything, but it probably has some aspects that may be appealing to watch.

Dark Fantasy (or Dark Sci-fi)
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Like Berserk, Overlord, Deadman Wonderland, Elfen Lied, Knights of Sidonia, Claymore, Warhammer 40k, etc..They all have a cold hard truth that the future in reality is just cruel. Not to mention that the titles I mentioned consists of lots of people dying.

There's no "friendship is power" in there, it's just a full on "welcome to reality bitch"
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Either way, the rest of your comment just consists of you just not liking Goblin Slayer at all it seems

Since when does popularity need to be justified..? And why, more importantly..?

@Sanakan_ht
It’s a good genre but does GS really commit itself to that? The oppressive environment is for everyone besides the main characters. Nobody important is going to die and there’s no real threat that violence can’t deal with, if anything that’s more comfortable than real life.

@Nedhitis
It doesn’t, but when something this unconventional gets so popular you can’t help but be curious. Everyone is giving a different explanation for it, like it’s a parody of generic fantasy, it’s just violence and wish fulfillment, it’s actually a realistic character based drama once you get past the surface.
The majority of the fan reaction is just ‘goblins are bad’ memes which just makes things more confusing. When most things get popular you can at least tell why people like it, this is just weird.

You're aiming for obviously low hanging fruit.

The animation is pretty crummy most of the time and it still has quite a few cliche tropes, but there are a lot of little things that make me appreciate Goblin Slayer. I like how it is a small story of what is essentially a mentally deranged exterminator on a personal quest which ultimately can't be finished. I like his pragmatic approach and dedication to his work even though it has made him into a pariah. It's certainly not a great show, or even that good when compared to its peers in the same genre, but it has a sort of stupid edgy charm about it that's fun to watch. For me at least.

I still don't know if I'd watch Goblin Slayer myself.
Not because of the gore, rape scene, or whatever because if there's one thing I can compare this to, it's my experience with Re: Zero (both were created by White Fox after all).

When I was going into Re:Zero, I knew nothing about it other than Rem and Ram being maids. That first episode made me realize how violent/graphic Re:Zero was gonna be, so I took that as face value now that I realized what's going on.

The difference in Goblin Slayer is that, thanks to that rape scene going viral, I'm already aware of what this anime will be like before hand. Now granted, some will ask me why I wouldn't know simply based on the title. Well, when I think goblins I think of them as just being mischievous little freaks of nature--rape and bloodshed would be the last thing on my mind. In other words, the surprise got spoiled for me. Plus, from what I heard the rest of the anime isn't exactly like that first episode (like I mean, it's toned down).

I dunno if that makes sense to anyone, but that's really how I feel about Goblin Slayer right now. Will I give it a chance? Again, I don't know.

Okay, listen, i've started reading the manga since the very first chapters were translated and posted on /a/, the manga is just about this dude declaring war on all goblins for what they did to his family and sistematically killing them, the setting is a very clichè Dungeons and Dragons inspired one with characters that don't even have names but are just classes (human priest, lizard shaman, dwarf mage, elf archer), so basically everyone except Goblin Slayer himself is basically a predetermined role in the generic setting.

Goblin Slayer is not the hero of that world, nobody cares about him and he doesn't care about anybody, but his existence is the only one that cannot be controlled by the gods of that world (the players), and that makes him unpredictable.

As for the rape and violence, there are already plenty of manga with both, so the shock factor and consequent hype is just pushed by people who are fairly new.

Rape itself, i will admit, is a pretty cheap way to create shock, but in the context of Goblin Slayer is kinda "justified" by the nature of the goblins themselves since there are no female goblins, and by the fact that it's not used anymore and showed so graphically after the first episode as people seem to assume.

At the end of the day, Goblin Slayer is a very average manga that is overhyped for no reason.