Anime Lightning #3: Summer 2025

Sharp, fast, and full of curveballs—this lightning round sprints through six anime that all ask the same question in different ways: what happens when the “support” finally becomes the center? We start with a Dark Beast Lord who revives a hero, adopts a royal orphan, and disguises himself to judge whether humanity deserves mercy. The worldbuilding flexes—forges that rule kings, immortality with a cost, factions circling a child named Luna—and the morality bites: monster is a job title, not a verdict.

Then we flip tones without losing the thread. A legendary detective gets dragged back to the game by a high school firecracker who knows memes, movies, and how to beg forgiveness after cracking skulls. Their chemistry hums because the jokes land clean and the cases keep moving. From there, a white mage learns that confidence is a skill, not a mood, as an S‑Rank party proves what leadership looks like when it actually values support. We also chase a shy hero whose accidental one‑punch life keeps saving the women hired to kill him, and an isekai where god‑tier stats can’t buy self‑respect or community. Finally, an outcast chef opens a tiny restaurant and takes on corruption with a wok, a knife, and a town that believes in him.

Across these stories, you’ll hear us dig into underestimated roles, found family, action‑comedy done right, isekai systems that say something, and why quiet craft outlasts loud titles. We call out the moments that surprised us, the bits that overreached, and the themes that tie it all together: guardianship over glory, usefulness over ego, and the stubborn hope that people can change when someone feeds them—sometimes literally.

If you had fun, hit follow, share this with a friend who needs a new watchlist, and drop your rankings in a review. Which underdog arc stole the show for you?

Chapters

• 0:01 Lightning Round Kicks Off
• 0:26 Dark Beast Lord Clevitus Arc
• 4:58 Morality, Magic, And Factions
• 8:47 Detective Duo: Old School vs Now
• 11:47 Action Gags, Mentors, And Rivals
• 11:47 S‑Rank Party Finds A White Mage
• 14:50 Confidence Overlooked, Power Revealed
• 15:28 Shy Hero Meets Assassin Trio
• 18:08 One Punch Gags, Hidden Motives
• 18:25 Ugly God Mode: Isekai Rules
• 22:39 Bias, Power Caps, And Party Bonds
• 24:12 Outcast Restaurant: Chef’s Redemption
• 30:36 Corruption, Community, And Comeback
• 31:58 Scores, Themes, And Final Plans
• 32:22 Patreon First And Season Schedule

Transcript

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What a game, it's time for another round of lightning. Lightning anime. So let's go ahead and get into it. Starting with Clevetis, one of the lords of Dark Beast from the South. Clevotus reign shatters when he revives a hero. He personally slays and adopts an orphan humanoid baby, the last hope to save a dying world. Now bound together, what fate awaits this unlikely trio? So Clevites kind of reminds me of Aaron Yeager to an extent where he just wanted to be left alone, but humanity insists on his death, then he will make it his mission to eliminate all of humanity for the sake of protecting. You know, not exactly. If anyone bothers to hear him out, while on the journey, he decides to masquerade as a humanoid so that no one thinks that Clevitus left his post. A dying woman pleased to Clevitus to raise her child as his own, and the Dark Beast lore agreed to see if humanity is worth preservation. Turns out that the child is of royal blood, and now that the king and kingdom of Eden or Hyden was wiped out by Clevetus, the child and the land is now a target of multiple factions and kingdoms. Alicia, one of the 13 heroes slain by Klebtus, has been revived by the Beast Lord to serve as a caretaker for the child who he names Luna. Kleptus names himself Quinn while he's in his humanoid form. And I like how the first order business when he revived Alicia was show me them titties. Because Luna needs a wet nurse to um avoid starvation. Nell is one of the women of service at the bandits camp. She has a heart as big as her boobs and buttons because, like, she she was like kind of on the thick side, but she her boobs like made like the perfect for Luna's witness because like they were like big. And it's just sad how they treated Nell, to be perfectly honest, but you it really is like you actually know what watch clever because you you might see some crazy shit. Now, during the fight against the bandits, we learn that Luna has magical talent. Alicia is immortal as long as Clint Itcher exists inside her, and she gains a regalia and eye patch for I and Clint save Nell, renaming her Nellaru with a little white hair and her body fixed to a point where she's more slender and a full set of teeth after the band is beating her old ones out prior to the plot. I don't know, it's like I kinda I don't you know I'm not gonna call it. It's fine, it's fine. Uh the trio are introduced to Gart, a servant of the Dark Beast lord that resides in the West, Zophier. Excuse me. Uh Gart tells Clint and Alicia that uh Zaphir also wants the annihilation of the humanoids. General Drill, the Dragon Slayer, is revealed to be the man that killed Alicia's father. He, among many, wants the forge at Eden, said to not only be able to craft Regalia, but is the world's oldest magical item with secrets that raise curiosity. Drill wants to put an end to the age of heroes, finding it pointless to appoint champions to fight the undefeated Dark Beast lords, and using his secret magic, Prison of Dark Icker, he managed to track Clevitus in a prison of blood, but clearly gave up his humanity for power bestowed upon him by another Dark Beast Lord. By the way, he has up to five eyes. One more, and he will look like a great value uh Kokushibo from Demon Slayer. While Clint learns more about magic and eventually encounter thrill, some wizards uh boloft uh come to attack the end, and that Alicia, Nelaru, and Luna are staying at uh Nai, a wizard with the ability to control gravity through the swords of iron, confronts Nelaru in the search for Luna while Alicia deals with Maynard, uh Boloch's uh strongest and most terrible wizard who controls bugs, such as a giant centipede like monster. Maynard convinces the people of Sheeran that Alicia is a traitor to humanity and that she needs to surrender herself. She explains that what happens and town folks decide to back off. Maynard comes to attack but was defeated by Alicia after Clementus reminds her that Stream Splitter works on any living creature because they contain water. Uh Luna's mother Taya, Tala, excuse me, uh Renee demands to search for her son, uh Hedelius the Seventh. He we learned that Luna is the only heir who can use the Force of Eden, which makes the baby even more valuable. Uh Talla tells us that the hammer of the king can't terror any regalia and will use it as an acting ruler to deal with Rell. Excuse me, I'm sorry. Hmm, stumbling on words as for evil. While Alicia fights Rogue, we find out that the king survives, but he carries his severed head with one hand like a headless knight. We also learn that Drill and Elise's fallen Margo completed to become a hero and originally received a sword that would become Dark Dragon. It was during a mission to slay a dragon that Margot lose his leg and his career as a hero. By Margot's request, Drill will regalia, but became overwhelmed by Dark Power, meeting his master Warden of the North for the first time. He slain the dragon, but at what cost? Well, Drell makes his way to the ford. The headless king looks like he's about to throw his infant grandson in it. We also learned that Luna's true name is Toth, and that all kings of heathen are thrown into the forge to be reborn as both ruler of the kingdom and ruled by the forge. We also learn that all five humanoid races are descendants of humans that disappeared a long time ago. Alicia defeats Rel and convinces Quinn not to abandon Luna. The infant prince returns to his mother on his own defeat. The war is over, but the story isn't. Tawa and a mysterious tone are key to the bigger mystery behind everything. And until a hypothetical second season, we leave it at Quinn requesting Tala to let him be Luna's magic teacher. Now, I will give Clevertis an 8 out of 10. Great story, likable characters, and a fair amount of intrigue between the bloodshed. And also with Bro, he is one of those builds where I don't completely disagree with them. Because think about it, you having all those heroes go out and fight these dark beast lords, and they keep dying one after another, it's almost like what's the point of that? I can't agree with him to that extent. But that's just it. Next anime. So once a legendary detective, Nagamuk Hero, now summer through middle age, baffled by smartphones and modern life. His quiet decline gets disrupted when Moshiro, a bold high school girl, burst into his office demanding to become his apprentice. Though he's rusty in certain ways, her relentless enthusiasm drags him back into detective work. Now the gap bridge and detective duo is on the case. I think it's a fairly interesting dynamic between the lead characters. It's like old school versus modern. As a guy in his mid-30s, I can relate to Nagumo to an extent. But as a man with a more contemporary mindset, I can still keep up with current and trends like Monstro. What I don't like is the idea of them being assumed to be in an age-gap relationship because Monstro is a high school girl. No, just no. The show doesn't seem to try too hard with the gag. In fact, I believe that some jokes and shenanigans are good when they're kept simple, like when Monstro puts on her JoJo face. There's some real-world references are dropped throughout the show, suggest Monstro is trained to be a detective by watching action movies like Die Hard, Resident Evil, and Tomb Raider. After a feminist request being mistaken for a crime gang elimination, Macho takes out some Yakusa with weapons from her seemingly unlimitless storage in her clothes, and Nezu gives up and becomes the cost of guy for Nagumo. We get some black representation with Macho's coach, uh Sunaro, a young, rich, popular captain becomes Machro's rival and being Nagumo's assistant and helping the old man regain his shine. His sense of observation and questioning is hilarious. We're also introduced to Asunaro's assistant Maki, who has a disdain for her master as clear as her monotone demeanor, but she has more personality when talks to Nagumo. Mainly because they're both like older. I mean, Maki's not even that old, but she's like in her late 20s, I want to say. Another friend Nagumo is an Accenture Inventor, Azuha. She reminds me of Q from the 007 movies, which he made a reference to, as a matter of fact. And the more I watch this anime, the more I laugh and scream, what the fuck? I give it a 7 out of 10. Fast-paced action comedy that's unironically funny. Next anime, we got scooped up by an S-Rank Adventurer. Lloyd is a white mage who was unexpectedly banned from the heroes party as he was lost and uncertain. He happened to cross paths with the S-Rank Adventurer party in need of a white mage. So he joined them on their request. Little did anyone know that at the time the heroes party would fall apart and Lloyd would rise to fame. This is a story about an unmatched support magic user who believes himself to be ordinary, becoming an unstoppable adventure. Another underestimated support type protagonist that's more OP than he seems. His master, the legendary mage Merlin, sealed his true potential to prevent a tragic event from happening again, making sure that the boy doesn't get overconfident, but Lloyd learned a lot of different magic from her. If anything, Lloyd suffered from a lack of confidence because he used to being told that's ever wasn't good enough. Alan, the famous hero and the leader of that elite party, is one of those assholes who think that support units are useless or next to useless. And yet when Lloyd leaves, you see how Alan's overconfidence is a flimsy shield. See, crazy thing is like ever since the first anime lightning with I Love My A-Ring party, it just seems like we've been coming across a bunch of these where oh like he ain't really shit, but it turns out his abilities are more overpowered than things. Speaking of which, the S-Class party that Lloyd joins is comprised of Yui, the leader and swordsman, Dogas, the shield tank, Cross, the Archer, and Silica the Maid. Fairly friendly people for the highest ranking achievement in this world. And after rescuing a beast folk woman named Quare from Demons, the party used her power to protect the land of Ishtar from monsters attacking it. Lena, the sensible one of Alan's party, decides to leave Alan to join S-Rake Adventurers after Alan makes a fool of himself to run the townsfolk, revealing that he hasn't been training in a while. The quote-unquote hero leaves Ishtar with the remaining members of his party who started to doubt him as well. The main takeaway from this anime is to have self-confidence is to believe in your true strength. Don't underestimate or undervalue yourself. If you doubt yourself, you won't reach your full potential. Best thing to do is to take pride in your abilities without over-exaggerating. Raggers can be obnoxious at times, but no one likes a person that's self-depreciative or unsure of themselves. Trust me. Trust me. I give this one 7.5 out of 10. It was kind of mid, but still enjoyable with a relatable theme about confidence. Speaking of confidence, the next anime is The Shy Hero and the Assassin Princesses. The hero Toto has talent, but his shyness has prevented him from forming a party as he languishes in the town of Oregon. Three beautiful women. Oh I don't know. I'll say Ciel's a woman. Like because he looks like a girl, a little girl. Anyway, uh, three women, Ciel, Anemone, and Goa, invite Toto to join their party out of the blue. Toto gears up to begin the journey, but unbeknownst to him, all three women are plotting to kill him for their own reasons. Now, Toto, I mean, not excuse me, not like Toto from Kyle. Like Toto is a strong, nice guy that just struggles with communicating with others. Very bad for when it comes to women touching him or making advances at him, can come up as unintentionally scary because he's like a big dude. Like think Dave the Barbarian big. He can I can kind of relate to him to an extent because he's also strong enough to defeat enemies with one punch. I mean, I'm not saying that, but like I just relate to the whole part where he comes off as unintentionally scared about hey man, I'm just be locking, you know. Sometimes I just have a hard time communicating with others, but I'm getting better at it. But uh, I think it's kind of funny how even though it's a comedy, like you just have that whole Sytoma one-punch string. Now, Cio. She's the next heir to become ruler of the Demon Clan, assigned by her father to kill Toto without any assistance as a means to prove herself worthy of the throne. Of the three girls, she's the only childlike character, and she actually wants independence and to eat tasty dessert more than anything. Anemone uh is a back alley assassin hired to kill Toto for a hundred million dollar bag on his head. Also, big boobs, and Goa is a dominatrix that's gunning for Toto just for a proper challenge and quote unquote freaking him. Also, bigger boobs. Kind of a fast-paced fantasy adventure comedy where the girls find themselves bonding over how they're all plotting on Toto. I don't even consider Goa as an assassin if she's just trying to make Toto her new pet for a brothel. But over time, each of the girls start to like Toto, making it more difficult for them to assassinate him. I give it a 7.5 out of 10. Once again, kind of mid, but at least the members of the main cast stood out respectively in their own right. Well, most of them. Toto was kind of cookie cutter for me. We got Ugly Mugs Epic Fighter. After a false accusation, Shigeru Yoshi Oka becomes an unemployed recluse. By choosing to remain ugly in another world, Shigeru gains higher status. He begins his second life as an absolute god with C leveled staff. At first, Shigeru, he tags along with Seika, Seiji, and Reese, who were also east guided into this world. But due to a weakness caused by direct contact with a girl, he considers breaking away from the party. However, Seika, Seika, damn it. Seika thanks Shigeru for his help in episode one, bought him a burger as things, and he's using repayment as an excuse to stick around. Uh let me tell you something. This guy, I'm talking about this. This dude Shigeru nerfed himself physically and financially in order to gain over 100 trillion bonus points towards his new life, but got Isekai before he was able to distribute those points. Luckily, he was able to do so upon his first level up. He takes 10% damage for a turkey touching a girl, and usually that's like trillions of HP points, but that's just 10% for him. He dies if he has sex with a girl, and his income. I know the point is to be yourself unashamably. Unashamedly. But honestly, I would say that you have to be either defiantly prideful or a moronic masochist to take that deal. That's just me personally. The party seems genuinely nice and nice to Shigeru. Seika may tease him, but at least she's not like that minor girl who framed Shigeru for harassment in the past life just for being ugly. And I'll talk about that a little bit more in just a moment. The world that the party lives on is like a video game world, most notably with the squares and rectangles floating in the midair. Seika is smart, rich, and cute for a 17-year-old girl. But she can be wasteful and thoughtless when it comes to her resource management. She's also very blunt with a not very modest attitude. Did I forget to mention that she has a silter mentality? But I don't blame her considering that the implication that she was handicapped in her past life. Oh, yeah. And she has an angelic transformation that can do miraculous healing. So there's that. Uh Saiji is the kind of guy that would be the typical anime protagonist, a genuinely nice dude and hero with the power to transform into an angelic form named Aldian and uh Shining Fist. We have Reeze, who knows Seika and Seiji from their previous lives, with Seiji being her brother and Reese being part of a program designed to help Seika. She has the ability to see special notes when you decide to get Isekai. So she knows Shigeru's deal, being an Almighty God, and asks for his help to keep Seika happy. Also, she has a demonic form. Uh oh, yeah. Something about another Almighty game god named Karina, who was actually the sister to that minor that I was telling you about earlier. Like, basically, her sister fucked her over, too. So it's just crazy how this one girl, like, this minor hates ugly people so much that she goes around falsely accusing ugly dudes for harassment just for them to get like jail time and whatnot. Like, she just really hates ugly people. Like, this is the type of shit that men are afraid of in real life. She got arrested, but she was a minor, so that's how she like got off easy. But imagine being a teenager going around trying to ruin the lives of men just because you think they're ugly. It's almost like saying, Oh yeah, ugly people, they don't deserve to prosper. Like, ugly people should never prosper. Like, bro, that's kind of fucked up. Uh oh yeah. Also, something about an organization of Misfit reborn into the world name Ornung Beer or something like that. This anime was alright. Another 7.5. Not all that, but not bad either. I think the premise character story, but with that aside, it just felt like another video game like Isakai story. And last anime for anime lightning, because I am trying to get faster at. There's a there was a whole bunch of anime that I wanted to review, but I was kind of pressed for time, and I got other things that I wanted to review, and other shit to do outside of the podcast. So I just stuck with six of time. Last anime. Welcome to the Outcast Restaurant. When Superstar Adventurer Dennis gets booted from the world's strongest party, he teams up with Runaway Otti Ottilie. I'm sorry, I'm gonna butcher the name. Uh to serve up his true passion, delicious cuisine. But this not so average eatery has not so average patrons. Dennis will battle his quirky customer trouble with his trusty butcher knife and walk. Visit the adventurers and restaurant and fill up your heart and stomach. Now, once again, we have another protagonist that's been kicked out of his party for having a seamlessly useless class, last ability. But Dennis is a level 99 chef, specializing in alchemy, metallurgy, metallurgy, excuse me, uh, knives, and more due to his focus on cooking. He provided support for most of the Silver Wings members and out of bounty, but opens a restaurant in a small town after his exile called the Adventurers Restaurant, where he serves his various regulars. He aimed for level 100, which he achieved, and become what is known as a ranked sovereign. Vigo, the captain of the Silver Wing, once again, that asshole party leader, uh, clearly up to something, while most of the other members just go along with it. So there's one character that that's the most sensible of them all. He's a level 99 swordsman who's known as the Azure Rensword due to his destructive power and full-body blue armor. He's a ruthless and power-hungry man, driven by ambition, who's exiled then to begin his plan to usurp power and to have Katie to himself and frequently acts on his own and views others as stepping stones, using his power to deter dissempting voices in Silverwing. Katie is a level 84 swordswoman who is known as the Crimson Swift Sword due to her agile fighting style and red armor. The vice captain of Silverwing, she wears very revealing bikini armor due to her immense pride in her body, which has the added effect of seducing nobles. She was the one who recruited Dennis and remained his sole friend while he was in the battalion. Their closeness made others think they were dating when they were not, and continues to support Dennis after his exile. Atelier is a young girl who was sold into slavery after being cast out of the Noble family, uh works at that family, and she is bought by Dennis, who sets her free shortly afterwards. Uh, she used her newfound freedom to help out at the adventurous restaurant, becoming known as his poster girl. Uh, Henrietta is a swordswoman in the full play armor, comes in as Dennis' first customer. She tells him that she was good at her par as well because she was a woman and she was frequently allowed to eat for free due to not being able to find work recently or easily. Her impoverished background where her family used to eat, leather made her not pick it with regards to choice of food. In episode two, Dennis asked around to find a party for her, uh, and she finds a party of male adventurers willing to hire her. Later, Dennis would hear rumor that an all-male party has been hiring female adventures in order to take them into the dungeons, assault them, and then leave them to be killed by monsters. And Henrietta was thrilled her new party, uh, values her skills with a sword. But after a full day of monster slaying, uh, she gets paralyzed by the party mage and uh revealing uh that they have contempt for female warriors and they were gonna have their way with her, but they were spoiled by Dennis, who furiously appeared with twin meat weavers in a paper bag hiding his face, knocking them out. Uh Henrietta awakens at the Adventures deal with no idea how she got there, but grateful that the guy didn't like go too far and have been found and end up being arrested. She returns to Dennis' restaurant and learns that he had mysteriously closed the restaurant for the last two days. Looking closely up, Dennis, he she realized he somewhat resembles the paper bag man. And then we have adventurer Biblia Strange come in and complaining about local adventurers uh to inferior for to perform party with. So, in other words, he just got a big ego. Uh we got night miss member Botcha, who's overworked by her lazy party members, and decided to just leave them, but their leader Hopper and the rest of Nightness just didn't take that very well. And Dennis got into it with them. He ended up defeating them, blah blah blah. Uh, Katie reveals that Silverwing had begun failing quests since Dennis' departure. Oh, surprise, surprise. Who would have thought that the guy that they kicked out was actually useful? Dennis refused to return. And Vigo also refused to invite Dennis back. He was being very prideful with that. And the restaurant became more popular, so Dennis hired uh Baco Bachel as a second waitress. Uh Henrietta's food pill continues to increase, worrying her that Dennis might stop feeding her until she can pay. After Dennis influenced alternative events, Vigo, Atui's father Joseph, Hopper from Nightmare, and some judge plot against Dennis going as far as arson on the restaurant. Dennis thought about running away, but was convinced by friends, customers, and other townsfolk to fight back and let them help them. He then visits Gene Black, a ranked sovereign, and his adoptive mother, mother, excuse me, for information and was given a hint of how he can reach level 100, realizing a purpose in life. Dennis confronts the conniving four men, defeats be go, have the men arrested, and everything resolved nicely. Katie becomes captain of the Silver Wing uh battalion. Uh Bibia joined the good guild. Uh Baco Abacho. Oh god, these names about kill me. It's teaching magic now. Uh Henrietta is now a knight, and Dennis continued to um work at the now named Outcast restaurant with Attilia. Yeah, it's a 74.5 for me. Decent show got a little dark here and there, but it was decent, and that was about it for Anime Lightning. Uh, there's a lot of anime that I'm gonna be doing full reviews on, but here's the deal. Um, for a solid month, I believe, we are going to try to get into the habit of uploading our episodes to Patreon first. So some of them might seem a little dated in a way, where it's like, oh yeah, I'm kind of talking about a little old news, but to be fair, it was on Patreon first, and then we decided to put it on the public podcast. So going forward, we're gonna do better at uploading new episodes to Patreon first, and then once that gets circulation, then we'll upload all of them onto the main platform. So you know, listen to them on Spotify or whatever podcast platform that you listen to your shows on. Uh, if we don't do a proper Halloween special, we do have an afterdart special that we're gonna release around that time. But for the most part, we're gonna try to take it easy for the month of October and we'll be back in full swing by mid-November. We'll definitely probably have a whole bunch of episodes for you to listen to. So until then, remember to stay nerdy and that great things are coming. Go ahead and have yourself a good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night. But ultimately, take it easy. It's been Jet Black Extreme with Anime Lightning, and I'm zoning up out of here.