Slime

The Slime, in Japanese, is a monster in the Slime Family and the primary mascot of the Dragon Quest series. It first appears in Dragon Quest I.

Biology
The slime is a pudgy, mysterious blue raindrop-shaped monster with wide eyes and a charming smile. It commonly appears as the weakest monster in almost every Dragon Quest game that it appears in and also one of the first monsters that can be encountered in a Dragon Quest game. Across its existence, it has become a staple of the series with an entire Slime Family created and countless merchandise created with its likeness.

According to the manga Monster Story, the Slime originated from a small lake in Alefgard where they multiplied until their population density became too high where they then began to migrate throughout the land. Subsequently, they evolved to acquire genders leading to the creation of the She-Slime, a female version of the Slime. However, in the Dragon Quest Monsters series we can observe that both Slime and She-Slime variants can be male, female or non-binary. Slimes are, according to Koichi Nakamura, the "size of [an average human's] knees" although the life-sized Big Soft Vinyl Monster 1/1 scale Slime merchandise is 30 centimeters in size.

The Slime is typically found in grasslands, although they can also reside in caves and on coasts. They seem to be herbivores as there are no records of them preying on other monsters or animals, although they are aggressive towards their enemies. Slimes are also weak to heat and dry weather, as discovered in Dragon Quest IV, Dragon Quest X and Dragon Quest Monsters 2. A she-slime can also be seen drinking from a well in Dragon Quest VI. This is because their bodies are mostly made up of water and in the Dragon Quest Monsters series, other monsters oftentimes prey upon Slimes as a means of hydration. Furthermore, according to the description of Dragon Slime in Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 3, some Slimes can become an ascend after death and become an Angel Slime.

In the Dragon Quest I Game Book, edible food can be made from Slimes. The book describes a raw Slime as tasting like squid and tasting like fish when steamed. And in Dragon Quest Monster Parade, there is a dish that appears to be a fried Slime. In Dragon Quest IX and later, Slimes can drop a Slimedrop and in Dragon Quest Builders 1 they drop Blue Goo. Then in Dragon Quest Builders 2, they will melt themselves on bonfires in order to create Oil for the Builder (DQB2).

Contrary to their appearance and combat ability, Slimes are very intelligent. In fact, in many instances they are able to communicate with humans through speaking in human languages.

The lifespan of a Slime in unknown, however the oldest Slime is the Slime at the Tower of Nod in Dragon Quest IX who is said to have lived for over 300 years.

Combat Style
Slimes take advantage of their gelatinous body to suffocate enemies and even uses the protrusion on its head to stab enemies, although no examples of this have been shown in the game. They have no bones and their body is just fat, giving them the density of rubber. Despite their innocent look, they would be troublesome to deal with for novices for these reasons.

Sometimes Slimes will merge together to create a Slime Stack or even a King Slime.

Conception
Its concept of Dragon Quest's Slime originates from the tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons. D&D's Slimes are large monsters with translucent bodies that resemble amoeba and in Wizardry, a PC RPG that inspired Dragon Quest, the Slimes are the weakest monsters. There are also other RPGs that precede Dragon Quest where a Slime is the weakest enemy, like Hydlide and The Tower of Druaga. Therefore, the treatment of Slimes in Dragon Quest are part of an RPG trope that was founded by preceding RPGs although was arguably popularised by Dragon Quest.

These aforementioned influences can be found in Yuji Horii's initial concept artwork of Dragon Quest's Slime. This concept was completely transformed by Akira Toriyama into the charming, iconic smiling blue Slime as Toriyama stated that it is "difficult to design something so sludgy", although he was able to pull that off with Bubble Slime. This transformed the perception of a "Slime" from something sludgy, gooey and ugly to a charming and cute monster. Even Toriyama was surprised by the huge amount of popularity his Slime design received, "I didn't have that much of an emotional attachment to [Slime] and I didn't imagine that it would become popular when I designed it".

Trivia

 * In Japan, the Slime was ranked the fourth most popular videogame character of all time in the February 25th, 2010 issue of Weekly Famitsu.
 * Between the 1990s and 2000s, the Slime had trademark issues worldwide as the company Mattel had exclusive rights to the toy product name 'Slime', which were sold and licensed by the company Tsukuda Originals in Japan who were eventually absorbed into Bandai, now Bandai Namco. So Dragon Quest Slime products released in that time frame will have "Slime is a registered trademark of Tsukuda Originals" on them