English Dub Review: The Great Cleric “Substance X and a Small Change”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Luciel gets a break from training to learn about butchering monsters with Gulgar’s brother, Galba, and study world history and culture with Nanaella. While shopping with Nanaella one day, he discovers Monika unconscious and bleeding on the street.

Our Take:

This week’s episode sees the healer finally earning some rest from his nonstop training. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s taking a day off from everything else. Aside from martial arts and healing magic, Luciel has many other things to learn from the fantasy world. So if he wants to survive the realm and live a peaceful second life, he’s going to have to get his education skills up to max level.

The episode sees Luciel spending his rest day, as ordered by Brod, undergoing educational lessons from the guild members. One of those lessons has Luciel learning how to butcher dead monsters with Gulgar’s brother, Galba. Although it may seem queasy, especially from Luciel’s perspective when he’s grabbing out the horned rabbit’s meat, the task is worth it for the guild’s delicious dishes. Afterward, Luciel has a tutoring lesson from Nanaella, Melina, and Monika regarding the world’s history and culture.

After spending the last couple of episodes watching Luciel train, we finally have an episode that expands upon the fantasy realm’s world-building regarding its history. While it may not stand out from the other isekai shows, it helps progress its by-the-numbers plot instead of spending more than two episodes watching Luciel train. For the monster butchering, Galba explains that the guild sells meat to the other guilds to cover the costs, and the adventurers need to learn how to spot the monsters’ weak spots to defeat them. So basically, if Luciel wants more of its scrumptious food, he’ll have to train even harder to hunt them.  

The episode also reveals that the country has a history of slavery. While the town Luciel resides in forbids this terrible action, the other villages still allow it. This reveal marks another reason Luciel has to get even stronger, especially since Monika was attacked by assassins hired by a healer. So not only does Luciel have to increase his strength and magic, but he also has to end the bad blood between adventurers and healers. If that’s the case, it would surely be enough to generate further interest in the series.

Overall, the episode marks a mild improvement over the previous three chapters of The Great Cleric. It uses its world-building for the fantasy realm to advance the season’s plot instead of wasting another episode just showing Luciel’s training routine again. It’s a good thing, too, as Luciel already spent an entire year training his magic, although everything else still needs work. With his renewal from the Healers’ Guild overdue and the sinister Bottaculli lurking over the country, Luciel’s next phase of his journey is about to begin.