English Dub Review: The Great Cleric “S-Rank Healer and Exorcist Luciel’s Declaration”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Luciel finally defeats the boss in Level 50 boss, though is surprised when it briefly turns human upon defeat and tries to tell him something. At the final floor, Level 51, he finds an undead holy dragon, which he also defeats, who tells him that the dungeon was made as a prison for him (the dragon) and gives Luciel the quest of finding the other imprisoned dragons across the land. Luciel finally returns home, apparently having been gone for six months, and explains what the dragon told him to the Pope: all the dragons were imprisoned by a demon lord and they need to free them all or else whatever hero comes next won’t be able to stop said demon lord. He also learns the reason he’s stayed at Level 1, namely because Substance X is frowned upon by the gods. Luciel is made a Bishop and an S Rank Healer, and so uses his authority to tell all healers to give power to the church. Also there’s a wedding.

OUR TAKE

Having binged through this whole series in the course of a week, I can undoubtedly say this has probably been the most flavorless Isekai I’ve ever watched. It’s bland, the protagonist has no interesting growth or change aside from getting power ups, the character designs are dull, none of the jokes land, it’s all just…boring. It’s just the most boilerplate bare minimum Isekai bullcrap that has gone so stale that the only way to make it feel fresh is to make the hero a vending machine. And maybe they were trying to make things seem new and interesting by putting the focus on a healer instead of a regular hero, but none of the potential in that premise gets utilized. The story starts with Luciel learning that healers are exploitative and predatory with how they make use of their healing, which I thought was going to lead to perhaps some commentary on privatized medicine or something. Luciel’s first instinct is to heal people for free to set an example, so I thought maybe this would end up with him giving people the means to heal themselves more easily. Seize the means of healing, if you will. But in fact, no, the solution is apparently work your way up the system, including through performance enhancing substances that destroy your sex drive, so that you can instead impose strict rules at the behest of the Church. Sounds like a great plan.

Speaking of, HOLY shit is it impossible to remember the names of any of these characters because they all blend together and barely stand out. Some of them even have basically the same face and are only different through hair color and clothes, but even those differences aren’t enough to leave an impression on me because they all have the personality of cardboard. I swear to god, the entire plot of the series is very quickly evaporating from my mind because of how forgettable it all was. Apparently the novels the series is based on has sold over two million copies, so it apparently has some fans, but it also hasn’t printed a new novel in nearly two years, so who knows what’s going on over there. Maybe the author gave up on it too after seeing how poorly this anime adapted it or something. Or maybe this is actually a totally faithful adaptation and the whole series is this boring. Hard to say for sure, but I very much await forgetting all of this, and I do not envy the task of having to write a season review of it.