Seija Musou: Salaryman, Isekai de Ikinokoru Tame ni Ayumu Michi

Great Cleric is a tough one to rate because I did want to like it. I like the art style, the character designs and the concept of an MC who is not OP from the start, but has to grind and train constantly to improve was appealing. Sadly, for me at least, the show took 8 weeks to get good and for most people it’s just not an investment they can make. Had this show come out the gate with the energy we saw in the final 4-5 episodes, this could have been a really good show.

I tend to believe the problems with Great ... Cleric were adaptation based since the Amazon reviews for the light novel are glowing. But, my God was this show dragged out. I’m all for training arcs and having an MC go through trials and tribulations to get stronger, but it gets to a point where it’s too much. In an anime where you only have 12 episodes to get people into a story, there’s only so much of the same repetitive stuff people can take. The training arc in this one could have been cut by several episodes and Luciel leaving the starter town to get the story going should have been done sooner. Once that does happen, I started enjoying the show a lot more. The whole capital arc is very fun, there’s some cool dungeon crawling, best girl gets introduced and the pacing gets much better at that point in general. It’s just way too much slog you have to go through to get there.

As a character, I’m kind of neutral on Luciel. He’s somewhat of a lovable idiot. Has some good moments where he makes you laugh and you root for him and then some where you just want to slap yourself in the face. He’s probably more developed in the books, but I wasn’t in love with the guy based on this anime. As I said before, I do like that he has to actually work for everything he’s got. He starts off purely able to heal before learning other combat skills and the show, for better or worse, takes its sweet time showing you how he acquires each and every one of those abilities. The side characters are pretty meh until blonde waifu gets introduced. At that point my interest was piqued. Sadly, again going back to the pacing, it took a long time for her to really become a part of the story. There’s a few others who get introduced at the end that are solid too.

Art is really solid in the anime. I’m a big fan of the bright colour palette, I like the designs as well. Animation is your generic powerpoint style, but it gets the job done. The production on the show is serviceable.

Really my main issue here just comes from the pacing. That alone just makes it hard for me to recommend this to people. I’d say give episode 1 a try and see how you vibe with it. That same pacing is going to stick around for like 4-5 episodes so if that’s something you can handle, go for it. Personally, I think I’ll give the Light Novels a chance at some point just to see how things were handled there. The world is interesting enough for me to want more of it, just not necessarily in anime form.

Great cleric gets 6 out of 10.

A salaryman-turned-healer who accepts equality and fairness in a world where there is unequality and unjust? I want to be part of the party!

We have healers located everywhere in AniManga. Shows like Seijo no Maryoku wa Bannou desu a.k.a The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent, brings out the potential of the typical Isekai reincarnation that ordinary, summoned people can harness to their fullest potential. But in the case of author Broccoli Lion's Seija Musou: Salaryman, Isekai de Ikinokoru Tame ni Ayumu Michi a.k.a The Great Cleric, the road to becoming a certified healer, is harder than you think, especially if it's one that (thankfully) the ... MC doesn't come off as being an arrogant OP MOFO lord.

The way that I can describe Seija Musou is a premise that is akin to Shin no Nakama a.k.a Banished from the Hero's Party, but only if it's focus is on pure healing and a career path to serve the masses. And that is exactly Luciel's role: reincarnated from a salaryman losing his life to an unforunate accident, only to be blessed with healing magic by a goddess. With the rare incursion of a second chance at life, Luciel decides to live his life to the fullest...getting the comfy job as a healer, all in an attempt to avoid dying a gruesome death. Will he fail or succeed, that's the story of The Great Cleric, who has only his business acumen to guide him in the foreign lands.

Yes, you're not reading this wrong: Seija Musou may be an Isekai, but it's of the slice-of-life kind that deems it of a snail-like pacing and a plot that doesn't say much. And surprisingly enough, the manga adaptation of the LN is perfectly readable since the anime seems like it's taking cues from that source instead. But yet, sometimes, I would like to take a gander at what the scenario is trying to tell me, and I can tell that Broccoli Lion is taking this the chillax way, developing the story as far and wide as the reaches of how will Luciel be taken in the midst of becoming a healer that everyone can look up to him for his healing services and somewhat weird reputation.

I like the fact that Luciel is as humble as he comes and goes, not being the usual Isekai summoned/reincarnated OP snob who already has the world in his/her hands, and most importantly, the simple objective that hard work reaps results. And let't not kid ourselves here, it's the truth that some will find Luciel to be the boring-ass MC who gets the women looking his way, but I'd argue that his influence is even stevens across the board. Especially to the ones who influence him to be better, like the various guilds' clerks of Nanaella and Monica, to warrior Lumina and even his instructor Brod, which the original source material likes to always shine a weird light on this PowerPuff Girls-like Substance X. Apparently, it reeks of a smell so bad that everyone either puked or stood far, far away upon sight, but to Luciel, it went from being awful to being like how muscular people keep their bodies so fit: a protein shake of sorts. It's weird, but it's enticing at the same time of how Luciel can be so energized by the weird drink that everyone abhors, everyone BUT him. Luciel is a pretty mannered person too, not just stemming from the fact that his business skills take him to the next level, and his generosity keeps him from being a mundane MC that's full of spirit to do what's right for the people around him, fixing the ever typical "Church is bad" practices when it comes to greed and corruption, earning him the ire of enemies wanting to exploit healing as a profit beneficiary.

Luciel's the kind of MC who has heart, and really, God bless his good-nurtured heart like so.

Funnily enough, do you remember this Winter's Hyouken no Majutsushi ga Sekai wo Suberu a.k.a The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World? That was the very first show that the relatively new studio of Cloud Hearts had worked on, and it looks like ass. The reason why I'm referencing that janky mediocre fantasy show, is because the studio is back with its main parent subsidiary of Yokohama Animation Laboratory together on the production side of things, and while it doesn't look as compared to a lone supported 3rd rate studio, it just looked...alright. Animation can be inconsistent at times and janky because of the source material's infused comedy gags, but for a chillax series, it serves its purpose.

The OST is also...alright. Not the best by any means, but it's just decent enough, coupled with Nasuo's OP and Yuki Nakashima's ED.

Like Shin no Nakama, Seija Musou is just primarily a slice-of-life Isekai that is rather (un)common for the genre, since the crux of Isekai shows is mainly all about the action, harem and everything else in between. I guess it all goes to show how authors choose to circumvent around the Isekai space, and for Broccoli Lion's effort, it's satisfactory at the very minimum and minimalist of practices, that still chocks up to a decent watch overall.

I cannot recommend watching this for entertainment values, but if you feel the incentive to watch this, do so in your free time.

In short, manga is more amusing than anime.
Animation seems to be on a cheap side, and lines that look fine on page don't sound so good in motion.
Plot-wise it's your average isekai. Out of positive bits, the protagonist doesn't seem to be as overpowered as others would be in his position, since the series often make a point that even though his stats are getting high, he still far away from actually overpowered people in the setting. At the same time it often makes one wonder, why they don't take care of all that shit that goes on. Kinda the same dilimma ... you would have in D&D with archwizard NPCs.
That said, it's inoffencive and safe. For now at least =) I've read further in the manga.

This is the story of a salaryman going to another world, becoming a healer who will become a renowned masochist... I meant healer.

Another isekai, with the same progression of getting stronger for the sake of HUMANITY IN A SENSE THAT, he's doing so by HEALING for low rates. Since, the other world he is currently in, is a place where Healers are the rich men. This ain't your isekai where the MC will try to go to the battlefield asap and get involved with many strong figures and get power spikes every episode...

There are improvements on the MCs over time via training no instant achievements ... though I believe he's stronger than average people in that world. tbh I'm frustrated with the fact that there are only 12 episodes, I don't think it's enough to fully enjoy the story and, look forward to whatever there will be in the future( or in the light novel)...

As another isekai, the MC looks naive? he's really innocent like some old school shounen MC character at the start of their story.

Well there are 3 more episodes to see as I write this... 7/10

Final Thoughts: Finished the anime, and the last 2 episodes made me remember how I reach the near-end of an old pixel/2d rpg game. I feel like this anime doesn't seem to fit the current era aside from the fact that it is an isekai. I believe people would barely enjoy this kind of story since, this is a healer who built his status and power not his own character. Nonetheless, I like it.

8/10 because of the nostalgia.

yes biased.