The Fall 2024 Anime Preview Guide

The Most Notorious "Talker" Runs the World's Greatest Clan

Noel longs to be a Seeker like his heroic grandfather, slaying the beasts that emerge from Abysses and exploring far-off lands. Unfortunately, it turns out he's nothing but a measly Talker–a job with no combat skills whatsoever. Undaunted, Noel sets out to establish the strongest clan in all the land, using his silver-tongued Talker skills to unite assassins and heroes under his leadership.

The Most Notorious "Talker" Runs the World's Greatest Clan is based on the light novel series by Jaki with illustrations by fame. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

I suppose that I ought to applaud the nod to creativity that this show attempts with its creation of the “talker” class. A sort of cross between a caster and a priest, this group uses their words to direct and buff their partymates, functioning as the brain of the expedition. That's kind of neat, and the only issue is how the episode presents it as a weak, belittling class. That makes even less sense than looking down on healers because talkers are so undeniably important – the way Noel is shown, without him, all of the other people in the group would just be firing off attacks willy-nilly. Talkers are undeniably incredibly important.

But then our hero wouldn't get to be both the strongest, coolest guy in the group and the underdog, so really, disparaging talkers is the only way for the story to have its cake and eat it, too. And really, it's just one of many baffling choices made here in both visuals and plot. Why pick a reddish filter that makes everyone look like they've got a rash? What time period is this set in? Why are there swords, guns, and product placement, medieval armor and kicky minidresses and a preponderance of sleeveless turtlenecks? It feels like the literary equivalent of tossing a handful of cooked pasta at the ceiling to see how many noodles stick.

It's a shame because, as I mentioned, the idea of a talker class isn't terrible. Noel's determination to become the greatest talker also has believable, if hackneyed, roots in his grandfather. Grandpa was a great Seeker (the in-world term for the blander “adventurer”) known as Overdeath, and he died in Noel's arms two years before the story began. He gave his grandson all sorts of potentially awful advice, and Noel is ready to put all of it into practice, starting with getting his party to break free from their overarching clan and start their own. Since they're a relatively small, new group, Lloyd and Tanya aren't all that keen on it, so of course, betrayal happens, leaving Noel stuck with meathead tank Walter. Instead of rationally thinking things through, I suspect this will only make Noel more stubborn about starting his own clan.

Simply put, this is a mess. It has good ideas, but the way they're put into practice is questionable at best, and the awkwardness of the character designs doesn't help much – poor Noel has a tiny head atop overly broad shoulders. At the same time, Tanya, Walter, and Lloyd are so bland as to be unremarkable. Seeing how Noel handles Tanya and Lloyd's betrayal may be worth another episode, but I can't guarantee it.

I've set out a goal for myself this season: find something interesting or unique about every generic LitRPG. I'm excited to see how long I can manage it and which show will force me to break this resolution. My pick for The Most Notorious “Talker” Runs the World's Greatest Clan is that Noel is femininely beautiful, complete with a beauty mark and long, luxurious lashes, which is unusual among his ilk. Comparing him to the other men in his party, it's plain to see that this was a deliberate choice and not just what people look like in this world.

Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, I can say how I really feel. The Most “Notorious” Talker does little to distinguish itself from other isekai that carry the “virgin vs Chad” mentality. After an introduction to Noel's tragic backstory consisting entirely of proper nouns and numbered stat mush, we learn that this is a world where everyone has an immutable class. Noel is, unfortunately, a “Talker” who uses words to buff his party members. Of course, all the Chad DPS and tank fighters HATE the Virgin support classes, so poor Noel is completely unappreciated and treated like he never contributes. Healers are apparently fine, though. This is what Noel tells us.

And then he pulls out a gun that shoots incredibly powerful spells and times himself on his smartwatch to see how quickly he can bring down the baddies. I can sympathize with support classes being underappreciated; as we all learned during the pandemic, society runs on the backs of underpaid support workers like retail and food service employees and unpaid labor that women primarily perform. Oppression is not logical. But he has a GUN. That shoots SPELLS. Even the most thickheaded damage class would notice that it makes him really strong! It reeks of wanting to have your cake and eat it, too, being assigned a support class but also wanting to do cool moves to dispatch your enemies.

Don't let anyone fool you. Noel is a bard, and there's nothing you can do to make bards cool and edgy, no matter how cynical and misanthropic they are. Not even if they have a gun and smartwatch.

Okay, anime producers of the world, we need to sit down and have a real talk. Do we all understand that there is a difference between channeling the edgy, self-centered fantasies of our cringey tweenage selves from yesteryear and actually just pillaging the Mountain Dew-stained pages of an actual dorky high schooler's journal in search of copyrightable IP? I shouldn't need to explain the difference between those two things, right? One of those methods can produce schlocky but fun exercises in pulpy, campy ridiculousness. The other method is, at best, a really embarrassing way to admit that you're creatively bankrupt enough to steal from people who aren't even old enough to drink away the sorrows that come from living in this late-stage capitalist hellscape.

Okay, okay, fine, I will admit that I can't prove that the creators of The Most Notorious “Talker” Runs the World's Greatest Clan just copied and pasted a bunch of random chapters from some poor kid's Wattpad fics and changed enough of the names to keep from being sued. All signs technically point to this anime having been produced by professional adults with plenty of experience in their respective fields. If anything, though, that just makes the anime's faults harder to excuse. At the very least, if the anime were the product of a lone teenager with too much time on their hands and too few friends to help them put the whole thing together, I could justify the glaring flaws with the basic premise of the story, like how our supremely tough and totally a for-real badass bard of a main character, Noel, lives in a world where people somehow don't all want to become best friends with the guy who can give everyone superpowers at the drop of a hat while he shoots monsters with his big firearms. I could also see how hard it would be for such a kid to actually sit down and play enough Dungeons and Dragons to realize that nobody, real or fictional, is about to give a bard crap for actively buffing their party members and supporting the team. I could even understand why that kid would think that covering up his sloppy animation with crap-brown and piss-yellow color filters might be what “real animators” would do to trick people into thinking that their show looked hideous and half-finished on purpose. As, like, a stylistic choice, or whatever.

This is an anime made by grown-ups, though, and even if the intent was to appeal to an audience of young, angry nerds who are too hopped up on caffeine and a lifetime of algorithmically sourced rage-bait social media posts…I mean, come on, y'all? Are you not bored with this, by now? Are you not tired of regurgitating the same tired cliches and ugly animation in the name of a quick buck? I know I am. If you need me, I'll be detoxing off of this overdose of cringe with a double dose of literally any other series that is premiering this season.

As the credits rolled on this one I was left with a question: Do I not like this show or do I not like Noel? After some thought, it became clear that it was the latter option. Noel is a dick. His drive to become the best has mixed with a misunderstanding of his grandfather's lessons to create a perfect storm of assholery.

To be clear: his grandfather had good ideas like that money is important because you need the best gear. It's advice to not skimp on safety but Noel sees it as more a thing of money denoting a person's worth. Likewise, his grandfather says not to let anyone push him around—a way of telling Noel to stand up for himself when it comes to his greater goals. Noel, however, just picks needless fights and looks down on others.

Now to be clear, Noel's personality is not a non-starter. I actually enjoy shows where, over the course of the story, an asshole becomes a good person. Is this one of these shows or are we supposed to side with Noel even now? I'm not sure, given the episode's ending.

That ending was something I saw coming a mile away. The whole “hero betrayed by party” trope is pretty common these days, after all. However, it did have two twists to the formula that I appreciate.

The first is that the reason for the betrayal was a mixture of Noel's uncompromising attitude and his party members' greed. It's not that they thought he was useless but rather that, by following his plan, they'd be gambling their futures and all their money. And if they rejected him, he'd still take a huge chunk of the money they'd been working their butts off for—and without him in the party, they'd be unable to do high-level missions and make it back. The second twist is that the person Noel clashed with the most is the only one who not only respected his goal but also didn't betray him. It speaks of a kind of character nuance so often ignored in stories like this.

So will I keep watching? Maybe for an episode or two to feel things out. It's certainly a mixed bag at the moment but it could become enjoyable now that we've got the setup out of the way.