The Great Cleric – He Just Doesn’t Want to Die (FAP-371)

Producers: Yokohama Animation Lab TBS NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan Kodansha Crunchyroll BS11 MAGNET Micro Magazine Sha Nichion
Studio: CLOUDHEARTS
Source: Light Novel
Aired: July 2023 to September 2023
Genres: Adventure Comedy Fantasy
Number of Episodes: 12
Jack's Score: 9 / 10
Rick's Score: 8 / 10

This week we are talking about The Great Cleric, an Isekai that trades the typical overpowered hero trope for a salaryman just trying not to die a second time. We largely spend some time debating the show's unique mechanics, specifically the protagonist’s grueling training regimen and his constant consumption of the mysterious "Substance X." Rick got hung up on some details but overall he felt that the show had a book end. Jack found it to be an easy watch and an incredibly easy binge so much so that he knocked it out in a single sitting. He’s much more forgiving of the wide-open ending, viewing it as a setup that actually has him considering picking up the light novels just to see where the story goes next.

The Great Cleric takes a slightly different approach to the standard isekai formula. Instead of an overpowered hero being summoned to defeat a demon lord, we follow a salaryman who gets reincarnated as a 15-year-old named Luciel. And his main motivation is pure survival and since he’s terrified of dying young again, he chooses the job class "Healer" as his main job. However, realizing that healers often get exploited or killed because they can't fight back he also chooses the martial arts skill as a back up to help him and he decides to train his body to an absurd degree at the Adventurer’s Guild. Where more chaos ensues as we drinks something called "Substance X" with daily training. It’s essentially a workplace drama disguised as a fantasy anime, focusing on bureaucracy, corruption in the Healer's Guild, and the grind of self-improvement.