Mine's bigger than yours.
Yeah, maybe even mine's bigger.
Hello, and welcome to our week be There Yet in exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.
I am an anime expert, dee hollander.
And I'm brenda mccullough, your anime plucky protagonist that seeks to prove himself to the world despite being half of the creature that he fights against.
I was going to say, I feel like you've said that one before, but no, it was not as specific as that one.
Right?
Yeah. You started on a similar, well trodden path, but it took some turns that we weren't expecting.
See, it's interesting because I picked this path because it's so well trodden. It's paved, there's signage. There's a cop behind the signage catching speeders like a narc. That's how well traveled this path is in anime.
It's true. Again, I think last time you said something like that, we said, my hero.
Academia, it's the same naruto, demons later.
Kind of any of it.
Shainsaw man will get there one day.
Blue. I saw the trailer.
I'm excited. That has a similar beginning. It does fall in line with that trope, but it doubles back and does a uturn and it kicks you in the jaw like, it it goes off.
Can't wait.
How how about I say the name of the show we are actually watching? Black Clover.
Yeah.
I just love that we listed off, like, 20 series. Not not even talking about what we're talking about this week.
It's true. We haven't watched three of the four we mentioned.
Sorry about that. I've watched well, Chancellor Man is not yet, but yeah, I've watched the other stuff, but yeah, black Clover.
Yeah.
So this is one I picked from our list of recommendations.
Jessica gilbert.
Yes. Thank you, Jessica.
Thanks, Jessica.
I think every time I look at it, my brain tells me black butler, because I'm always like, yeah, 2008. I remember this. No, it doesn't line up. This is what, like, 2017? I believe it premiered New York.
Yeah.
Really?
More than where you used to.
That's crazy. I would have thought that this was one of those early two thousand s ones.
Yeah, my brain just always goes into that. Black butler. Black Clover. It's the same. The art style looks a little dated at this point, so seeing it be this recent is a little weird to me.
Yeah, I've never watched this, but I'm not familiar with this at all, honestly. But when I hear about it, when I hear about it, I always am like, this feels like a 2010 joint. I don't know.
It's got that energy of typical Shonen jump where it just bleeds together with all of the other typical shonen jump.
Yeah, that's what it is.
Yeah. I remember when it came out, I was just like I think it came out around the time I was still recovering from the end of naruto and bleach. So I'm just like, no, I don't have it in me. Not again.
I've been burned before.
All my own doing, and I keep doing it to myself. I never learn my lesson.
But also I hate myself.
That's why I watch anime.
But one day there will be one.
I like, and it's about girls going to antarctica.
That's the one.
That's the one. Movie.
Well, clearly we have nothing else to say.
No.
How about we go and watch this show and make another clean edit point for me? What do you say, friends?
I love that. I love the sound of that.
We're going clover picking.
Oh.
Oh, God. One's black. Oh, there's a dead body here. Oh, no. Got you. I'm sorry.
Oh, my God. It's almost it's almost time. It's almost time.
We got start right then.
Ready? Yeah. We never get to capture this rare moment. We're back. We're breaking news, everyone. We're live at 04:19 p.m.. Oh, my goodness. When will it happen? We are waiting for that. That perfect time 420. Thank you.
Thank you. It did just cross my mind. I was like, what if one of our clocks was like, a header behind.
Though, and one of us I was panicking.
Yeah, my my computer clock is the only one that is on time. My phone and my car are both ten minutes fast.
Your phone?
Yeah, so that way I always think I'm late to somewhere, and then I get there, I go, oh, I'm actually on time.
Wow, I did that with my alarm clock.
It works until you have to know the exact time, and it's like, oh, shit. Math. Okay, here we go.
Anyway, now we have to stop recording, and we all have to go smoke some weed.
We timed at our break poorly.
Oh, all right, here we go.
Starting episode one. So we see some crying babies.
I'm out. I'm done. No, thank you.
I felt the same.
I was like, this is shrill, unlikable characters. Baby. And not only babies. Baby orphans left at a church in the village of hage. And a priest takes them in and he's like, oh, what peculiar children. They're babies.
Never seen one of these before.
Weird.
They're like a person, but smaller somehow. He's like, oh, are they twins? No, they're too different.
What about this interesting part? No, not that. Moving on, I guess.
A fun dynamic that would change nothing. I want to, but yeah, they take them in. There's a calm one and a spirited one that kicks the priest in the face. Hell yeah. Love this kid. Immediate flip erase. It on my bingo card. So we get a time skip. We see them as teens. This is, you know, the calm one and osta, the radical one, the anime protagonist.
They couldn't be any more different.
There's a real who's on first bit with the name uno. Oh, it's you know who know. No. You know. No, I don't know. Who is it?
You know, I'm going to let you keep going.
I chose not to interrupt dugan because I knew it wasn't worth it. But I did have to say it to get it out of my brain.
I do it all the time. It's fine. You'll never get judgment. Well, you'll get judgment for me. I hear the things you say sometimes. Yeah, it is warranted. So we get this time skip. They're 15. Perfect time for AustA to propose to a nun. I just called her nun this whole time. Did anyone get her real name?
Lily.
Lily. Thank you.
Like the cousin from The monsters, our favorite show.
Or Hannah montana's best friend, of course.
Or Miss tomlin sassy cogent, actually. Oh, my God. I'm three lines into my notes.
Jesus. Okay.
Naturally, the nun doesn't want to marry him, but he's like, no, I love you. You're the best. Take care of me. I am so charming. I'm a baby man. And she uses magic and punches him into the ground with a big fist. And he's all embarrassed in front of, you know, and the other orphans just really setting up the dynamic of, oh, I'm the hot headed one. I'm the only person in this world without magic. Weird, right? Yeah. But he's so insistent he's going to use his spirit and charm to overpower no magic, a premise they really stick with for a long time. And of course, he challenges uno to a fight, but he gets pummeled because, again, no magic, just heart. And he's just always trying to overcompensate because, you know, is called directly by the priest, like the hero and savior of the church. He's the boy who's going to take over and stop us from perishing because we're very poor. So they introduce the concept of grimoires, which are their magic tomes that amplify their existing power and in asta's case, really hopes it gives it to. And we hear them talking about wanting to be the joining the magic knights because Asta is so into overcoming adversity. He's not only going to get magic, he's going to be the wizard king. So we get blah, blah, blah, blah.
Honestly, that's about all three episodes that we watched right there.
Yeah.
Yeah. A lot of this is repeating itself. I'm doing a little bit of editing in my head to be like, okay, instead of this scene where he says, no, I'm the underdog and I'm going to win, how can I condense it? Basically, we see the nuns, lily and the priest, talking about that one incident that gave me hope in these boys, but mostly because magic, that was during the break.
Fuck.
But, yeah, lily talks to you and is like, hey, maybe have a better relationship with your brother because there is like, a connection between you. For the life of us, we don't know what it is. But there's got to be you were dropped off at the same time. There's got to be something up so.
We she says, we're in an anime and something interesting has to happen. She looks at her watch and says, nothing has happened.
Boy, look at that time go.
Yeah. Normally, pretend this is Beauty and the Beast. This would just be like the Bone shoes, the opening song. Yeah, get it done in two minutes. We get it, but it's like, no, this boy doesn't have magic. But he's real spirited. But he hopes he gets magic and let's go see if he gets magic. So we jump ahead. We're in the Clover Kingdom, where all 15 year olds get their grimoires, where they're full mages. And we just see a bunch of teens gathered in a library tower just full of magic books. The grimoires choose their mages, so it's a big ceremonial thing.
Wand chooses the wizard.
Is it just.
A tower full of empty books until, like, every year at this time. And it's like, all right, time to get rid of 20 books. We just wait around till next year and we do it again.
I like to think they're just like reservoirs where this is essentially a wizard well, where it's like, oh, yes, all the magic is gathered in this one place and just manifests as books. And then we just come and take it as needed.
See, that's interesting. It would be a shame if they told us anything like that.
I thought they grew like, fruits on a tree. It was like, wow, we got a pretty big book this year.
Yeah, we hear about this boy wizard, Wizard King history a whole lot. Don't really know what's going on with magic. We see a couple people fight each other and we see, like, one guy using it in a field to plant crops. Yeah, magic really doesn't factor into this world a whole lot outside of it. anyways, sorry. We need to find something interesting to talk about. We jump ahead. Whatever. The grimoires start choosing mages. Some people are, like, excited. Some are, like, oh, this book is blank. What? It shows me it has to mean something. We get some lovely just like, mine is bigger than you're, but mine's thicker. Just delicious. But yeah, so everyone gets books, but, you know, he gets the big magic book, the Four Leaf Clover Grimoire, which was the grimoire of the first Wizard King. So it's like a prodigy or something. Was this truly unclaimed until now? Was it just sitting on the shelf?
It was waiting for someone as special as this emotionless boy.
This is Kingdom Hearts character. He's got the belt that cross on his ass.
He's a perfect a beige no, that's not Kingdom Hearts.
Kingdom hearts is zippers. Final fantasy is belts.
Well, Kingdom Hearts is also the X, because there's the mark of recusal, which is just an X anywhere on a person's body. And the bad guys and or disabled. Listen, kingdom Hearts is dumb.
I mean, I knew that, but I had never heard that specific. Anyway, talk about kingdom hearts floor right now.
I don't know, we could kind of sorry. Go on, dugan.
No, I needed a break. I was like, what am I doing with my life? anyways, the non wizard doesn't get a wizard book. Isn't that weird?
Shocking.
But he really wanted it, of course. Everyone's like, pathetic loser. This little dumb idiot boy can't do babies can do more magic than this dumb idiot. Ha ha. And he is like, oh, look at us. Two orphans getting dropped off. Me. No powers. disrespected, literally getting laughed at. You golden gifted program child. I publicly declare you my rival in a real pokemon sense, where it's like, sorry, you do not measure up to me at all for most of this. But yeah.
Where it's like saying, I challenge Tony hawk to be my rival on skateboarding. They're like, all right, Brendan, how good are you at skateboarding? It's like, I've seen one. I know what one is. Okay, good luck with that rivalry.
I really enjoy skateboard videos. Like, I can't do them, but I love it. It's passion. But yeah, if we get some bullies challenging because they wanted the big magic book, not their magic books. firefight AustA hears the struggle and comes in and tries to save the day, and we just get a random person. This is, like, minute 18 in the episode, and this is the king magic. And he just uses chain magic and just ties all them up. And he's like, oh, what's this? A priceless artifact? I'm just a random villain now, but fourleaf Grimoire precious artifact. I can sell it again. Doesn't work for anyone else. Yeah, doesn't matter.
But if every book is soul bound to their mage, isn't every book as unique as every other book? I had a lot of questions with this.
Listen, they didn't think that far ahead. That's why it's 170 episodes.
Anyway, Asta jumps in, he fights him, he's able to dodge some magic because he just works out a ton and got gains. Yeah, he's more ripped than these wizards who've never pumped a day in their life, but yells, and he's like, hey, don't give up. I know you're my rival, but I'll be the Wizard King for you because you don't have magic. I'm not good at this. I'm sorry. Yeah, he's like, hey, don't you worry about being wizard King because I'm going to take your dream. But you already said you're my rival, and I honor that. So you'll be the rival of the wizard King. Isn't that something?
The worst part is it works somehow. That's motivational for him. Yeah.
Once he gives up on his dream, he's able to get magic. I guess so we see a very rare grimoir appear because and again, he just gave up on his dream of being wizard King, and he's being rewarded by the devil.
Yay.
Not an exaggeration.
Of course. We have straight up christianity in the church. So we all know the three parts of the clover. You know, like, the whole thing. Why it's a part of this religion is because it stands for integrity, hope, and love. I'm God. Who I don't reckon jesus.
What?
Jays. Hey, seuss. I don't know these gentlemen. I'm sorry. It stands for integrity, hope, love. And the fourth one is luck and a five leaf clover. Well, five. Next logical step is the devil. And that's where we end episode one.
Wow. Five.
You're getting greedy now. You're getting punished for you.
Listen, peek behind the curtain. I fell asleep the last bit of this episode. So this is all news to me. And then when episode two started, a lot of that same shit happens, but they don't talk about the devil.
I love these concepts of, like, love, like hope, and then just the actual physical manifestation of all evil in our world is the next one. This is a step too far. Reign it back in there, kid.
And again, I can't stress enough, very Christian things. And the only biblical figure associated with the clover is the devil.
I didn't really think about the whole church and priest thing. Like, yeah, that just walked by me. I love the bad guy that's fighting him, too, with all the chains. He wraps us up, and it's like these chains can measure the magical power of people that they touch. And touching you, I know for certain that you have absolutely zero magical keep. It's like, how extremely convenient that you're using us to just hammer home the point. He has no magic. That's the whole premise of the show. We fucking get it. And just really making sure, you know, here's a bad guy who's specifically telling him down to your DNA, you're a loser. You got nothing.
Because they had to undercut it a second later to be like, you don't have powers. Just confirming real quick, you like, medically no magic. Not just like it was in you all along. You just had to find it. No. Yeah. Dr. Chains, I'm here to tell you, you are magicless. Diagnosis complete.
Even after our first episode, it genuinely feels like this is shown an anime generated by an AI. It just hits every point with just no through line in the wild.
So in episode two, looking at my notes that I take on my phone, it's like seven little pages in my notes app. I have to skip my entire first page because I didn't fucking because I was snoozing. I didn't fucking realize that this is just seed's exact same thing the first, like, five minutes. It's just the same thing that happened at the end of the first one. So, yes, he calls him a loser, though. He does straight up call him a loser. The evil man calls ass the loser.
Someone's beating by ass. That hard. Yeah, I can't argue with them.
That's true. groom manifests he also gets a big sword. Cool. uno is, like, looking on affectionately, and he's like, AustA makes the impossible possible. And uno remembers when they were kids, how motivated osta was to become the wizard king and to protect and provide for everyone. And then we get the opening, and it's a pretty standard opening for this kind of thing.
Yeah.
There's also a lot of characters.
Do we meet any of them in the first three episodes?
No.
Why would we?
So this whole episode is a flashback, mostly. So we're ten years earlier, we see uno running along a path. He falls asta helps him up and calls him a cry baby. And he's like, but everything's going to be okay. I got your back. And they hold hands and they run along. They meet up with a couple of the kids from episode one, but they're like, widdle. Like, one of them is like a tiny little baby.
Widdle.
And the nun I was not sure if this was the same nun. It is.
There's only one.
There's only one nun. There can only be one. She killed the other one highlander style.
We love her.
Austin still wants to marry her. He has a tantrum when she says no, and she, like, flashes her grimoire, and he's like, okay, I'm stopping, but I'm not going to give up on love. And then we kind of get an info dump in the form of lily reading AustA and, you know, a storybook, but it's just what we already know, essentially. Darkness covers the world. demon threatens to take over. A powerful mage fights and defeats the demon. And the world is so much brighter now because the mage brought don to the world. Don dish soap. This week's sponsor.
My brain went to the same place we were broken in all of a sudden.
That's absolutely wild, honestly. Okay, so he's the first wizard king. He brought peace and prosperity. Asta asks if there's still a wizard king, and there is. It's a position that's been passed down, and it's a very important role in the land. They protect everyone with their magic, and they're second only to the actual king, like, of this place.
I love this part because we hear nothing about, I want to be the wizard king. I want to be the strongest wizard in the land. Also, you still got to listen to some royal dickhead. You're still not top dog. It's like, cool. What if we were just king? What if that was the goal?
There's the king king and then the magic king. So it's at that moment Austin decides that he'll be the wizard king one day. lily says, where'd you get that idea? As if she didn't just read them a storybook about it.
She also signed off for a few minutes.
She just blacked out while she read it.
You read so many books to so many orphans. It all blends together.
So Austin says he wants to be cool and strong like the Wizard King in the story. The Wizard King has power. He's important. And if he has power, he can make everybody's lives better. And he's going to rebuild the church, and I'm going to be important when I grow up. And the nun is going to marry me. And she says, no, I will not. I'm a nun.
No, thank you.
Time skip. Still in the past, though. Now. It's December. Winter. AustA is like, working to get some magic powers to come out. And he's frustrated more marrying the nun.
Goofs.
Uno comes up with a widow baby and baby's crying. uno can't handle it because uno used to be a cry baby.
It's almost like you would know how to help them.
AustA takes the baby and shakes him around to try and calm it down. It doesn't work. Then Priest dad shows up. He says he needs a letter delivered. And AustA is like, me, me. I'll do it. Me, dad. But he asks, you know, to do it because it's a very important letter and he does not trust AustA with it. And he does say this in front of AustA.
Like, I get it. I don't like osta either. But everyone is so just matter of fact mean to him. You're the bad one. You're the mistake. Everyone hates you, you know, is the golden child.
Everyone like and even here it's they're literally five.
Yeah.
Like, jeez. So Priest dad explains that he has to go meet a guy to get some food because they're running low. And was like, okay, I'll do it. I'll go deliver the letter. And Austin is like, you're going to be okay? And he's like, yeah, I can do it. And he runs off. The kids all walk away and none. lily looks to the sky and she's like, it's going to be a cold one tonight. We see a guy get tossed out of a bar. uno walks past and trips. And the guy eyes like this necklace that uno is always wearing. uno delivers the letter and listen, I am currently relistening to the adventure zone balance. And I just was reintroduced to magn. Not magnus Angus. Mr. Angus McDonald. Boy detective. And this child, you know, gives some Angus vibes, like the way he speaks.
Hello, sir.
I can see that.
Yeah. He's like, oh, I'm glad I delivered the letter safely. So he runs off and the guy from the bar is following him. He cuts him off, runs into him. Then we see back at the church, the nun is getting worried about uno and Priest to dad because neither of them have come back yet. We see the guy from the bar took uno's necklace. He says he's going to sell it and he's hitting him. He's like, yeah, fuck you, child. uno wants it back. So he tries to summon some magic, but he's like crying and scared. So it's not very intimidating. Especially because he's five. Once again. taz Balance AustA rushes in. He runs. The guy grabs him around the waist. He's trying to fight him, but the guy keeps hitting him. But he won't give up because that's austa's whole thing. The guy just drops the necklace and walks away. He's like, what a fucking freak. What a weird kid.
AustA doesn't even throw a punch. He just keeps trying to pull him down by the waist, which is a man center of gravity. It's the worst way to do osta. Does nothing here. The guy just gets freaked out by.
Yeah, he's like god orphans.
I got to go take a shower. So AustA collapses after that because he took a lot of hits. uno crouches near him and asks if he's okay. He says he's fine and that he's always got uno's back and they were back. In the present, we see AustA has this big sword. Evil guy releases more chains, but it is unclear what happens. The evil guy says, you took my magic and turned it back on me. And it's like, okay, sure.
As a sword is able to cut through magic and like, dispel it all. All right, sure.
And then he yells that his magic is never giving up. And I was like, wow. The real magic is the friends we made along the way.
Episode two.
So he defeats the guy in one hit, and he's like, it's because I'm so swole my muscles.
No.
Back in the past, unit keeps apologizing. Austin is like, it's nothing. I'm going to be the Wizard King, and everything's going to be A okay. Even though I'm poor, I'm going to be the Wizard King. I just have to pull myself up for my bootstraps. And then uno seems to be inspired. He says he'll never cry again. He says he's going to work hard to try to be the Wizard King too. They're just saying the same shit over and over again to each other. It's exhausting.
I'm going to be the president. Well, we'll be co presidents. Hell yeah. High five.
Back in the present, AustA is showing off. His grimoire is like, you saved me again. I'll repay you for it one day. And then he asks AustA if he remembers their promise that they're rivals. And I was like, it seems like you're both very aware of the fact that you guys are rivals. Like, what are you talking about? Do you remember? And then they look in the sunset. Look at the sunset and they say the same shit about making something of themselves even though they're poor. Literally, the last five minutes is just that talking point over and over again in the past and the present. And I recapped this episode in less than ten minutes. Thank you. Goodbye. Good night. I'm taking it out. That's episode two.
It really goes from like an underdog story of this poor orphan who makes something for himself to being almost belittling.
Where it's like, look at this smelly little poor orphan who can't do anything for it.
They hammer it home so much, it feels like the creator of the series is bullying them for being orphans.
Yeah, this person hates poor people.
It feels like that.
I want to give one piece of nuance when they are first one piece when they are put on the porch and they are crying, number one already being annoying. The priest is like, hey, no orphans, babies. That's my thing. I will take you in. It is specifically once he gets to know AustA, that he's like, no, this kid sucks. So maybe it is justified. We don't know.
It's not that they hate poor people. It's that they hate annoying poor people.
They just hate Asta and all the traits he possessed.
They made a character that they fucking hate.
I'll give you $100 to shut up.
If you give me $1,000, I will never speak again.
The deal.
Dream deal.
I mean, hammer that home. The flashback to when they're five. osta literally hasn't changed at all.
No.
Since he was five years old, he's still saying he's going to be the Wizard King and still asking sister to marry him and her sister lily to marry him. And that's his only interaction with her or her existence as a character in the show.
That's what happens when you grow up in a church. No development. Anyway, sorry, that was too hot of a take.
Oh, don't worry. Organized religion is a fucking sham. I'll take the heat for that. Yeah.
Brendan, how could you say such a thing?
I was raised Catholic. I know who corrupt. They are. Episode three starts off with the village being destroyed by a giant three eyed monster, and then it's saved by the Wizard King, you know, the same way. The last two episodes have started just in a new form. And eventually he traps the giant and slays it with the giant magic sword. And we cut to the royal capital of the Clover Kingdom, where we learn about the governing body of the kingdom and the nine groups of magic knights that serve the Wizard King, who serves the real king. The opening, that was just set up, I guess for where depps is going to go, but we don't actually get to the capital, so ignore all. And then we come back from the opening. Back at the skull in the village, us is there training again. But now he's got his big sword he's training with. And while he's there, he sees a little sparrow, the same one we see in the opening. It doesn't come into play in this episode.
I also didn't notice there was a bird in the opening.
Me neither.
I was episode three. I had to pay attention the whole time. Bird flies off, keeps drinking his weird beet juice that says is supposed to give him magic powers. It hasn't yet uno. Keeps training for the magical night exam that he's going to take in three months at the royal capital. Cut to the wizard tower where they did the grimoire thing and we see the wizard. We never get a name for this dude. He's just the grimoire wizard, I guess.
Column stephen.
Stephen here is recommending that asta takes the Magic night exam. And the priest. Priest? Dad, Prad and Sister lily are like what? How can you recommend that he has no magic? And stephen's like, he says he wants to. Who am I to stop him? And he's like, I don't blame Steven for not giving a shit about Austin, because why would he? He's just some guy. But also, they keep going back to, why are you letting him take the test? It's like, why would I not? Like, if he fails, he fails, whatever.
They literally say the same thing, like, three times. He literally says, you know, I understand, but why austa? He says that like, three times, almost verbatim. And I'm like, is this an accident? Was this a mistake? Did you not mean to put this in the anime?
These first three episodes have about one and a half, maybe one and a third episode's worth of dialogue. And it's just regurgitated endlessly in different forms. Nothing new is added in this episode. And if you take a shot every time they see Wizard King in these first three episodes, you will die. You will medically decease.
I'm just going to lay down so much.
Is this are you getting floored?
I guess I kind of am.
Sorry. It was a sneaky one. I wasn't expecting that. We're all sleepy, of course, because this was nothing. I didn't know we were there. I'm leaning back, if that's the case.
It's easy for me. I'm in my bed, so I can just lay down.
I'll do the heavy lifting now. You too. Lay down. We haven't had a good explorer anime in a while. Let me tuck myself in.
Brandon one set.
Let me get my toes. Let me get my warm milk.
Dug it. Are you a hunk shoe kind of sleeper?
Oh, I'm absolutely a hunk shoe.
You could tell how interested we are in this. animus so back to Stevens Tower. While they're talking about trying to dissuade asta from taking the magic night exam, we get a flashback to the rich kid bullies being saved from the weird chain wizard, and the police arresting them, I guess. And Steven, the wizards there for some reason to comfort these children that aren't his. And the priests insists that asta can't take the exam. And Stephen says, austa is so bad. We all hate this child. He's a garbage being that should not exist in our world. He's probably going to fail anyway and come back to you. So what's the big deal? Just let him fail. Again. Everyone hates asta. And again, it's valid.
They said, fuck them, kids.
But he said, fucking this kid in particular, this one kid. So they tease the priest saying like, you don't want USA to leave because you're going to miss the boys. The priest is like, what? No. Why would I ever missta? He fucking sucked. Like, they keep hammering home how much.
They don't like asta, my sweet, darling boy, you know, of course I'll miss him.
He'll succeed. They say, let him fail. He'll come back and prad ask like, hey, how did he get a grimoire anyway if he doesn't have magic? And Stephen the wizard says, Fuck if I know. He's as confused.
What do I look like an authority on magic or something?
What do I look like a fucking wizard? And he's confused about us, this book, and doesn't even mention the Five elite clover. He goes in his head, he goes, but that book is interesting because of the Five relief clover. Oh, well. And doesn't tell these authority figures of this child that has this demon book.
He doesn't want to rat out the devil powers that austa has to his priest father.
He's also occultist. So we cut back to we see the boys training a bit in their separate areas. And we see them walking home and they catch up to each other. They go, race you back to the church. So they start racing back to the church. And right as they get there, they see the other kid at the church and they run by at the same time. And they go, hey kid, who won? And he's like, well, you both are pretty close. But you know, got here just a little bit earlier. Despite all of asta's training his physical body, because he has no magic, he still can't win a foot race against his weak nerdy brother.
Hey, why running isn't his strong suit.
Nothing is. Next day, more training. One of the kids from the church, nash, don't know why I wrote his name down. He's the one that's shitty to asta saying, austa sucks. He's shitty like everyone else in this village is shitty. To asta goes to check up on asta in his training, saying, why are you training? You can't do magic. This is a waste of your time. You won't pass exam anyway. And austa says he's going to be the Wizard King for the unteenth time. And nash says, poor kids like them can't dream. They can't protect the ones they care about. They can't become the Wizard King. You know the thing asa said again for the unteenth time, but this time nass said he can't do it. No, it's still the same dialogue. It's still the same. nothing's changed. asa yells at him saying he's not going to give up and says, even if you're a poor orphan, you can make people happy and protect them and become the wizard. He literally says the same thing right back to him. The only difference is that the word dull isn't in there. And then asa cuts down a giant's tooth because he's inside the skeleton of a giant.
I feel like we haven't discussed that. There is a large demon skeleton right across from where they live.
The most interesting thing in the show, and they never address it. It doesn't have residual magic in it. It's not roped off. Kids are just fucking around in this giant demon skeleton.
Like, okay, they said, free playground.
You know what? They'll tire the kids out. They'll sleep better at night. That night, before the boys head off for the capitol, they have a big dinner. And the priest says he is mainly doing this for uno, because uno is actually going to leave us, is going to fail and come right back. He actually says that at the dinner.
Oh, my God.
And austa talks about how he's going to succeed, how he's going to become the wizard king, how he's going to prove to everyone that a poor orphan can protect the people they care about and make everyone happy. It's all he says. And then he says he's going to marry Sister lily again. The other thing, he only says she hits off magic. Nothing has changed in the last two episodes. This is a third of one episode dragged out to three episodes. Next day, they send off the boys early in the morning, wishing them luck on their travels to the capital city. They wish you no luck. And they say they'll see us in two weeks when he comes back after he fails to test. And nas says if asta can pass the test, if there's a slim possibility, if there's a microscopic chance that he can even become a magic knight, then NASA is also going to become a magic knight to prove that he's better than asta again. Even in a heartfelt moment, he's a little shit and everyone sucks. Flashback. Two. Sister lily meeting the boys for the first time. osta asked her to marry her on site. She hits him. He gets into a fight with the guy. She heals him. He asked her to marry her again while he's being healed in the bed. Literally nothing has changed. I don't know why these scenes exist other than to fill time.
And me to quote him, because the show is trying, even though everybody in the show fucking despises osta with every fiber of their being. The show is like, but you, the audience, should really like him.
We haven't given you a single reason to, but you should.
I don't understand the way they're going about it because there is that one kid who's like, hey, everyone fucking sucks. Austin doesn't deserve this. And then everyone's like, no, this as matter of fact, well, Austin is a piece of shit. And Una is not going to come back because he's going to be the next Wizard King. So everyone say goodbye. Especially you, osta. You will not see him again, you piece of shit. It's just like, no, we're pleasant, we're nice, we love these boys, but, God, we don't respect you.
We can scientifically prove why you were a failure in every regard. It's like, again, why should we care when no one else does? Come back from the flashback. The boys are walking to the Capitol, talking. Again, it's nothing. It's talking about being the Wizard King. It's all they talk about. Us, the daydreams about him being the Wizard King and flying back home on a broom and marrying sister to lily. Again, it's literally all he talks about for three fucking episodes. And we see the boys racing on the road to the Capitol, their rivals, so they're challenging each other, and they just get exhausted. And then they start running it. And then they get exhausted. And then we get a montage of them traveling.
And again, they already raced. They already raced in this episode.
The longest and worst montage I've ever seen in my whole life, probably.
Well, no, it's fun because tell me why osa has the sword and killed a pig one time. And in every other scenario they've ever encountered, una's magic is better. Nine out of ten times, una wins.
I'm so glad you told me. Why? It was funny. I get it now.
Yeah.
Brendan, if you were here, I don't know what I would do.
Oh, you're welcome. It's what I contribute the most. We see them traveling through, like, the rain, through the mountains, through the forest, through the mountains again, through the desert for one instant, and then back into the forest.
Makes no fucking sense.
What is the topography of this country? What's happening? They get to the capital city without any issue whatsoever. They encounter no challenges. They just walk for, like, seven days straight and get there. That's it. The credits after the credits, we have a little cheebe segment called clover clips, where the bullies compare grimoires. And they say that the measurements of the length and the width and height of the grimoire is dictated by the owner's talents.
I did not even know there was a chee B segment. Didn't get that far.
I wish you guys could see what I'm doing right now, playing with jasper. Just my fucking posture, my stance, if.
You will, fully draped over the bed.
I am half on the bed and half off.
Melting.
Imagine like a Victorian widow who just found out, no, it's not that graceful. Just face down. Anyway, that was the three episodes we're yet.
No. So what I'm going to do is this is how this should have gone as one episode. They get dropped off, orphans, brothers, sure. Time skip 15 years. Oh, one's good at magic. One doesn't have it, but he wants to get it. They go get their grimoires. One, we still get the four leaf grimoire given, but also surprising. Everyone way more interesting. The non magic kid gets the unknown five leaf one immediately from there. That's so magical and weird. We, like, respect you now. We're starting on a good foot. You two were sending you to the Capitol. Go train up, my dudes. That could have been one episode and saved 44 minutes of my life.
You're so right, bessie.
My life having 170 episodes of this does not mean there's content for that. It's not impressive. This show could probably be wrapped up in, like, 40 episodes at the pace it's going, so I can't imagine watching all of this. I can't imagine watching any more of this. Like I said, it feels like it was generated by an AI because it's hitting all of the tropes, but there's no thread connecting them. There's no emotional investment in any regard. Like you said, dugan, why should we care about asta when no one else does? And honestly, he's an annoying shitty character. He's giving us no reason to like him.
I think the only explanation for how I feel right now is that this anime has drained my life force. I'm going to need something to put it back, but.
I have a recommendation if you want it.
What is it?
So I kept watching Golden conway, and one guy makes skinsuits out of people, and one of them has a big arm for the dick, and that got a good chuckle out of me.
I want to go back to this morning when I found out about Masakiwas's new movie. I can't even explain to you, like, the Rush. I felt like finding out about this movie and looking it up and seeing what it was about.
And then we watched Black Clover and.
Then we watched Black Clover not just talk about my day. So I woke up.
Sorry, Jessica.
Hope you knew what you were doing when you recommended that to us.
Sorry, friend. I also worked out today, so maybe that's why I'm so tired. Anyway, this is a good episode, I think.
Of the podcast.
Yeah, of the podcast.
Okay.
Yeah. We're very talented and so skilled. I need to say I respect you both as hosts. You have to hear it because apparently it's all right to go around in this world and just be like, nah, that Brendan is the best buddy.
Why would you ask that, making it so obvious.
I also respect because we say it so much. I couldn't get it pointed out that, hey, you do that. Hey, you do that.
I respect you as hosts, and I love you as friends. I feel like this feels like a similar vibe to when we watched Dragon Pilot, and that was also early on a Saturday, again, when we usually record in the evening on a Sunday.
And the same situation, 2 hours difference, though it's barely different.
Shut up. saturdays are cursed now. saturdays are cursed.
We are gentle, gentle children, and if you change our nap schedule, we get very cranky and can't function anymore.
It's the truth.
Crunchy roll. Hit us up, make us official.
If there's anything you want us to watch and tolerate, I guess I'm sorry.
This is a recommended show. You know what we do to recommend the shows. Be careful what you recommend.
Yes, we're about to turn another big corner. We expect you to know the deal by now. So are we there yet@gmail.com? Or reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram. Or are we there yet? On both.
You can find me on Instagram and TikTok at honeyperiod or on Twitter at honeyd eight and Honeydart. And honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E-I contribute nothing.
To the world besides this podcast. So instead, I recommend The Girl from the Other Side, which is a short ova series or ovd series? It's basically ancient maggus bride, but watercolor and shotgun straight into your veins because it's three episodes.
Great.
Yeah.
Also, again, very professional. Very good. neglected to update my little spiel. You can also find us at are we there yet? On TikTok.
Oh, yeah, buddy.
Whoo. Party time. Thank you to camille ruley, and thank you to Louis zong for our art and music. God, I changed, like, one word and I lost the whole routine. You got Louisong dot bandcam.com for them. Sick jams. Listen to, listen to anime, watch music next week. Good.
Eat your teeth, drink your school, go to teeth. I don't know, really? Just.
Keep that in. Sorry, everyone. We love you. Goodbye.
Dragon Four is better.
Music. You.