What Episode 86 Sets Up
According to the synopsis and preview stills published by Oricon News, a Japanese entertainment news outlet, Diablo has stepped away from Rimuru and traveled to the demon world. His errand is practical: find three demons he knows from way back and hand them the day-to-day busywork of running Tempest, the monster nation Rimuru leads. In other words, the show's most devoted servant is out recruiting staff.
Oricon doesn't name the three, but its photo captions openly tease new characters, asking whether the trio in the stills are "Diablo's three friends." Longtime novel readers will have their guesses. Anime-only viewers should just know that Tempest's roster is about to grow.
By season count, this is the 14th episode of Season 4. The anime kept its cumulative numbering when the new season started, with the Season 4 premiere counted as episode 73 overall.
Where Season 4 Stands
Season 4 premiered on April 3, 2026 and is planned as a five-cour run (a cour is a standard broadcast block of roughly 12 episodes), with the first two cours airing now. Production remains at Eight Bit (Blue Lock), the studio that has animated the series since 2018.
The season picks up after Tempest's Founding Festival, with the nation building diplomatic ties and working toward a world where humans and monsters prosper together. Behind the scenes, though, Rimuru's rise has made enemies. The former hero Granbell Rosso and his granddaughter Mariabell, who preach protecting humanity through control, are scheming toward a collision with Rimuru. Meanwhile, Demon Lord Leon begins moving on his own agenda in the golden land of El Dorado, and another hero is on the verge of awakening.
A 56-Million-Copy Franchise
The series follows Satoru Mikami, a salaryman who is stabbed by a random attacker and wakes up in another world as a slime. As Rimuru, he sets out to build a nation where every race can live together, winning allies through wits, nerve, and an ever-growing list of absorbed skills.
Fuse's story began as a web novel on Shōsetsuka ni Narō, a Japanese web-fiction platform, and later got a manga adaptation drawn by Taiki Kawakami. Per Oricon, the series has now passed 56 million copies in circulation. The anime debuted in October 2018, Season 2 aired in two halves across 2021, and Season 3 ran from April to September 2024. A theatrical film, Scarlet Bond, opened in 2022, and a new theatrical film is currently playing in Japanese cinemas.
Looking Ahead
Episode 86 airs Friday, July 10 in Japan. The day after, on July 11, Bandai Namco Filmworks' official YouTube outlet "isekai channel" is holding a watch party for the episode, according to the company's V-STORAGE news site.
Internationally, Crunchyroll carries That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, and Netflix's catalog lists all four seasons. We'll find out who Diablo's three old acquaintances are when the episode airs.