Hey hey incredibly talented Mr Enter! ^^ thank you SO much for your kind words and for including my animatic in your video! I was really happy to hear your thoughts about it! 😊💫

I think what bothers me the most about the "I am transgender" scene (and later Snapdragon's arc) is that if changing your sex is as easy as drinking a magical potion, then why does the scene even exists in the first place? Why is it treated as a big deal? Gender transition is a huge thing in real life because it's expensive, takes time and can completely change your life, but in the world of HGS it's as a casual as drinking a potion, is the sorta of stuff I can see people doing for fun because it's that easy.

“I botched my mother’s legacy...” Her voice went from a bad Ash Ketchum impression to a stereotypical valley girl. lol

Honestly it would have been decently funny if, after Rosemary calls the sword the one thing that matters to her, you hear Sage from offscreen yelling "RUDE!"

It needs to be said cuz it's been bothering me all week: This's show's artstyle looks like Owl House if it fell down the stairs.

Here's a way to fix the implication that the secret of immortality is hidden in a first-year student's magic book; just make it the magic equivalent of headlight fluid, i.e. a prank that people use to confuse those inexperienced in magic. It took me all of 5 seconds to think of this; the show has no excuse to have a blunder like this.

Oh yeah transitional surgery is just like taking a temporary potion, they really nailed it

If new magic can do anything at no cost, why does Caraway have to keep taking potions to stay male? Why can't he just use new magic to permanently be male? Is this a subtle hint about Sage being wrong, and how new magic actually does have limits? Or is it just that the writers really wanted an allegory for real-life transitioning so they ignored the very rules they just set up? Couldn't be the latter, right? What happened with Snapdragon suddenly liking Sage is known as "having a type" or "having a kink". Long story short, there is a personality type, physical attribute, quirk, etc, that Snapdragon is heavily attracted to. Once Sage displayed she had said trait, Snapdragon basically fell in love (or in lust, it varies) with her regardless of her other traits. Considering Snapdragon is best friends with Amaryllis, an extremely rude and bossy person, it somewhat checks out that he's drawn to these types of people.

Do you know why the Roadtrip concept is so popular? It's because it gives you the ability to tell any type of story you want without having to worry about continuity all the time. Character's, Place's, Everything can be changed episode to episode, moment to moment. (within reason of course) This is why Avatar TLA worked so well. It created a small cast of character's and focused on they're Journey. Meaning that they could freely explore multiple plot lines character's, and experiences to whatever degree they wanted too. This show Desperately feels like it want's that, but screwed up by putting it in a school setting. Which is much more limiting when it comes to an adventure based setting.

You cannot grasp the true form of High Guardian Spice’s attack

I’ve heard a lot of people claim the “old magic vs new magic” thing was supposed to be some half-baked political allegory, but personally I think it’s a metaphor for the mindset of the show’s creators. Why put time, thought, and effort into creating a fleshed out fantasy world when you can just throw whatever you want on the screen because “it looks cool”?

How is the transition magic not permanent? *_Why_* isn't it permanent?

Rosemary not knowing who Karoway is makes ZERO sense he was the PARTNER OF LAVENDER, Rosemary's own mother when she herself is "supposedly" a GUARDIAN NUT how does she NOT know the partner of THE MOST FAMOUS GUARDIAN? The easiest fix would be to just move Karoway's transition to AFTER Lavender goes missing at least offering SOME logical explanation for why Rosemary wouldn't recognize him And what would remotely make this special in a world where transformation magic exists and according to Sage would have no cost literally what is the difference between "transition magic" and regular transformation magic except by being infinitely worse going by what this series shows later that you don't need to keep taking a potion to hold standard transformation magic?

"This is a kid's show, after all." Not according to the show's creators. They apparently don't know what they're doing.

One thing that really bothers me about Carroway being trans, is that the show doesn’t account for magic. The way he explains it, it sounds like transitioning process is similar to what we have on earth, you take a potion regularly in order to maintain the transition. First of all, what does this transition entail? Is it literally just like hormone treatment that we have? Does it change a person’s genital or does it change someone’s sex down to their chromosomes? If it can change someone’s biological sex why does Carroway refer to himself as “transgender”, wouldn’t “transsexual” be more accurate? Hell would this world just consider Carroway to be male if his sex is changed? If the potion cannot change one’s sex then…why not? I’m pretty sure they say in the show that new magic can do anything so I highly doubt that changing one’s sex would be out of the realm of possibilities (and if it is then why?) Does that type of magic exist but Carroway doesn’t want to use it? I am perfectly fine with a trans character being in fantasy setting but you have to take into account the world that you build and how that effects a character transitioning. Both in how they would transition and the level of acceptance that fiction society has for it.

This made me realize that most Anime's I watch don't usually have a subplot structure to their episodes, or if they do they are more closely tied together with the main plot. Having characters split off and do their own thing (without being forced apart and the plot is trying to regroup or work towards a common goal from different areas) and not group back together until the very end is much more western style of story telling.

Wait until Snapdragon's arc comes around in the next episode; it's so much worse -mostly because of Sage. 💀

What's really weird about the trigger warning being unnecessary for this show is Crunchyroll did not put any warning when they released the first episode of Goblin Slayer who contains a rape scene. It's only after people complained Crunchyroll decided to finally put a warning at the beginning of each episode. The weirder thing is they basically tricked people, with their announcement on twitter, into believing Goblin Slayer was a typical wholesome fantasy show about young adventurers going on quests. Why did High Guardian Spice was in need of a warning about violence and sexual themes for nothing, but a show having goblins raping and torturing people was judged not only not necessary, but also had to be kept a secret about its tone when announced?

That point about a photo giving a mystery to a teacher's identity. Where have i heard that before..... Oh right! Little witch academia did that exact thing in episode 3! Surprised they didn't use their "inspiration" to do something like that.

It’s funny how Sage talks about how Rosemary and her have been friends since they were kids, yet we never get at least one flashback of them interacting during their childhood. Where was Sage when Rosemarys mom disappeared? Did that happen before or after they met? When did they become friends? How are they even friends ? There’s barely any good chemistry between the two.

"Sage yelling is what makes the crush click." That's called a kink, Mr. Enter. This is a kid's show, after all.

8:38 I’m so glad I’m not the only one who instantly noticed this issue. Because I love magic systems, and I say a line from Once upon a Time from Rumpelstiltskin all the time: “All Magic has a price.” In fact, I would go so far to say that there’s two things about magic that there is a Price and there’s also a Cost. What it takes to cast a spell, and what happens because you cast the spell. The funny thing is in a competent writers hands, this whole concept of “new magic” not having a cost would lead to a terrifying or dark revelation about what the cost actually is for this new magic, and that it’s actually more dangerous because nobody realizes what it’s doing.

This episode feels like they had 3 different ideas for this episode and they thought "f*ck it let's do them all, plus a couple of flashbacks from multiple points of view"

High Guardian Spice never realizes how potentially depressing it is to say that even in a fantasy world where magic is literally real, you still have to do Hormone Replacement Therapy every single month and there isn't a way here to just switch your gender/sex and be done with it. By making it realistic they sort of took away the whole wish fulfilment aspect of a fantasy setting.

Magic is so op, that makes you wonder why are there warriors and archers when you can literally do anything with a terrasphere? Like if i where to hire a guardian ill just hire mages to fix my problems instantly

In a world where magic can literally do anything, couldn't they just use magic to get the body they want?

Rosemary breaks her sword while everyone is with her. Imagine if we'd simplified this episode by having Parsley offer to fix Rosemary's sword and they go to the smithy together, where it turns out Parsley's solution was to remove removing the broken gem altogether, which Rosemary refuses for sentimental reasons. Then the smithing teacher tells them to go together to find Professor Caraway. Boom, one subplot eliminated, both the same 'lessons' are learnt, and all characters still have something to do.

I always liked the way Final Fantasy VI handled the concept of industrialization and magic. Industrialization was a force that could be controlled but magic was an infinitely more potent yet chaotic. Attempting to merge the two resulted in chaos incarnate-Kefka Palazzo-when they experimented without understanding the nature of magic in that universe. Later experiments dialed back the potency of the magic, but by then the quest for power had corrupted the Empire's ambitions such that any and all moral limitations were ignored-excluding one which Kefka eventually ignored himself, which lead to the World of Ruin.

When we cover old magic and new magic, it should be obvious that anything old would be labeled as "problematic". I am confident this won't be the only time we hear of this.

The term "transgender" feels all wrong for a fantasy setting. It's clinical, it's modern, when Rosemary says "I don't know that word" the only real response would have been "it's OK, the audience does." Because that's what that conversation was, a scene that's there to say "look at our progressive values! Our all female writers room is sooooooo moral and good!" I'm not saying that a trans character in a fantasy setting is a bad thing, far from it. But you need to A, use the fantasy setting to inform that detail and B, do something interesting with the setting that couldn't be done in a non-fantasy setting. Going off the idea of a curse that Caraway and Lavender would need to quest to find a cure for: the way I'd write it would involve a curse that swapped Caraway's sex and altered Lavender or her sword in some way. As they quest Caraway comes to realize that he prefers the male form and sees lavender struggling with whatever the curse did to her, then when they get to the macguffin he uses it to fix Lavender's issue instead of himself and admits that he likes his new form, cut back to him and Rosemary and only the does he fix the sword a second time. Would you look at that we've gotten three character arcs for the price of one. The problem of course is that writing this would require subtlety and talent, something of which the writers room of HGS was clearly bereft. Better we just say a word that the audience already knows and just hammer a point into their skulls without doing anything interesting with it.

i can't get over Parsley's voice acting, sometimes it doesn't sound like a young character and sometimes it doesn't sound like a good performance, like the actress phoned it.

Mr Enter, can I call you John? (Anyway) The fact that your "new magic is a metaphor for industrialization" theory makes sense and would actually be kinda interesting means it was probably never intended. HAVE YOU SEEN THESE WRITERS!!! THEY ARE NOT THAT CLEVER!!!

HGS's creator (who also voices Caraway) said that part of why the show failed was that they couldn't afford better writers (ya know, that "all female writing staff" that Crunchyroll wanted to prop up?) And considering that his character is nothing more than "self-insert trans character", I don't blame him for throwing the writers under the bus.

One Thing about these types of stories that make them more fleshed out: SHOW, DON’T TELL.

So glad Enter brought up the alternative animatic version of the Caraway scene.

Remember how 'Phineas and Ferb' perfectly juggled three different (but still connected!) subplots in *every episode?* Good times.

What I wanna know is how long the rot has been going on? Cuz like, either the teachers haven't noticed it yet, or they don't think the use of "new magic" is related at all. If the latter is the case, what do they think is causing the rot? Have they looked into it at all?? Because they're promoting the daylights out of new magic at their school!

New magic feels like it was a "half baked metaphor" for multiple things and the writers were to blind to see how that did not work to be honest.

By the way, that’s Cam Clarke (Kratos Aurion, Revolver Ocelot/Liquid Ocelot, and Leonardo) as Neppy Cat. The show also has Wendee Lee (Konata, Haruhi, and Akane) as Parsley’s mom, Barbara Goodson (Granny Chiho, the Sector 7 slums landlady, and Rita Repulsa) as the potions teacher, Cindy Robinson (Kushina, Amy Rose, and Lady Butterfly from Sekiro) as Thyme’s mom, SunWonCho/ProZD as Parmel’s cousin and the demon, and Stephanie Sheh (Hinata, Orihime, and Sailor Moon) as Olive. Gee, I wonder where the budget went.

Its interesting to watch you break down this episode; the ones I've watched never went into how poorly paced and cut this episode was with the multiple subplots. Every other breakdown has always been on the animation errors, dialogue and Caraway's interaction with Rosemary.

I keep picturing Doug from Forged in Fire if he saw the sword's pommel broken. He'd say something along the lines of, "Because the pommel is broken, you've lost the counterweight to your blade. Because it has drastically changed it, it's a catastrophic failure." Again, that comes from a show on History about blacksmiths making weapons, and was on years before HGS was even announced. Even then, we've seen the importance of a weapon to character's, like Zoro from One Piece whose saw taking care of his blades throughout the series. At one point, it was even in an intro. I'm honestly confused with how this series seems to take "inspiration" from so many things, just to ignore other things that have been established in other series. Speaking of, if you're correct about the magic thing, then it sounds like how Mako and Materia works in Final Fantasy VII. Yes, Materia gives you powers, but burning Mako damages the planet the more you use it. Then again, that's assuming you're right aboutwhat they were going for.

My concern about Parsley's subplot is that I don't recall her needing to learn that particular lesson. Is it shown anywhere in the show that she has contempt for smaller tools? I mean yes, she looks kinda surprised when given the small hammer, but that's not enough! Why the teacher wanted to teach her and only her about something he couldn't suspect she needed? Did I miss something? =(

Dwarves are stereotyped to be stronger than humans. So a threat to humans wouldn't always be an equal threat to Dwarfs. Cats can learn words without magic.

The series feels like the writers thought "wouldn't this be cool?" and "wouldn't this be interesting?" but it's all scrambled together without giving it any thought beyond that. All ideas seem short sighted

Honestly, having a magic system with no cost is a problem in general because it's like a genie lamp with infinite wishes that also allows you to wish for more wishes, too. From the standpoint of having stakes in the show, High Guardian Spice has shot itself in the foot. Of course, the system clearly DOES have a cost, but why would you even go through with something like that? That's the kind of thing that would maybe, MAYBE be in the roughest of rough drafts. Then you'd be like "Wait, this takes away all the stakes and subsequent intrigue from our show. Maybe we shouldn't do that."

of course the trans creator of the show isn't trying to do anything wrong, the simple truth is that the poor writers needed a reason to justify the self-insert, but no one on this project was equipped to handle something like this with tact or professionalism, and god forbid a single drop of artistry make its way into a single word of the script. but i better shut up, i bet i already sound like an invertebrate

Sharp blade of sword can actually be touched, like for extra accuracy hitting at armour gaps, but you should not slide your hand against the blade, then it cuts easily.

Did the writers for the same episode even talk to each other? A first year guardian’s textbook has how to grant eternal life while gender swapping requires a potion every month to keep it working, even if eternal life requires a potion for every life threatening situation, a gender swap spell should be easier as a concept

Again, haven't seen the show actually, but given the comedic bent of Parsley's little interlude I think it could have easily been more effective as a punchline if her entire adventure was offscreen. Kind of like the Ricklantis episode, just open with her falling down the adventure hole and returning at the end of the episode to regale all of the cool stuff she did when no one was looking.

Damn, imagine if this show had the same love and care The Last Air Bender had?

14:05 most video games have a weapon sharpening/repairing function for a reason. And watching Rosemary's plotline (If you can call it a plotline) I'm only just now realizing how much this show was deliberately trying to be like Steven Universe but you know? Being everything people feared it would be instead of actually a good show. Again I swear this show was written by AI it makes about as much sense.

you know you're a bad show when family guy is better than you at tackling a serious issue

Thats why the alchemy In fma is so interesting because of the equivalent exchange because unlike the new magic in this show it has limits and rules

it felt as if the writers are shoving the information down the viewer's throat instead of showing hint or clue.

I hope there's a " Technocracy" style compilation after it's finished

It baffles me that the easiest solution for this episode was just focusing on Lavender and Carroway and drop everything else. Start with the whole sword pummel being broken, have Carroway notice or be asked to help by Lavender, they go to his office, Lavender comments about the girl next to her mom, have Carroway mention that he was a girl in the past, flashback to school days or something while also fleshing out Lavender's mom in her youth, show Carroway have some sort of doubt or odd feeling about herself while also having interactions with Lavender's mom to build some relationship, move to the fight while Carroway was still a woman, get cursed or something, and them go back to the present with him mentioning that at first he was distraught with the curse effect at first, trying to find ways to revert it, but noticed that the strange feeling he felt when he was a girl seens to had gone away, so he accepted that he was trans without name dropping it the term while repairing the broken pummel as Lavender is rather awe struck or something about his life story while also being interested in him for his connecting with her mother. Like, I'm not a writter or have anything, but that type of stuff is just the most common type of deal you could pull off while being tasteful about transgenderism and they decided to botch the whole thing with three other subplots that amount to nothing in the episode.

The thing is about is the show the writers treat the audience like stupid little kids who need to be told what to do if you want to put in social issues in a fantasy show you have to be subtle not shove it in people's faces rosemary missing her could've been good but did not explore the subject itself

10:10 - The "New Magic" vs "Old Magic" thing was done better nearly 20 years earlier by anime _Mahou Shojo Tai Arusu_ (known in English as _Tweeny Witches,_ a very underrated show in my opinion which ALSO delves into sexism and slavery)

Honestly, throughout all the reviews that I've seen on this show I'm surprised that no one's brought up the missed opportunity that is this show's magic system and how it isn't based around cooking and baking. Then again, that requires something this show barely has being common sense.

here's a 2 minute brainstorm fix on "old magic vs new magic" that could even connect with the overarching plot old magic when used releases back the particles or energy it uses. esentially making it create an equalibirum of energy use. the enrgy used is restored. new magic doesn't release back the energy it uses and is both easier and more powerful. the cost is very miniscule but there is a loss. the problem is that the more you rely on new magic the less enrgy is restored. so we have the rot starting to appear. because everyone is constantly relying on new magic for being easier and more powerful. pick 1 apple from a full apple tree and you won't notice a thing. but if you keep picking apples then that tree will have no more apples left. like i said it was a 2 minute brainstorm but it's better then what we have

8:35 No; Sandersons first law is “An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic."

I would also like to say that Guardian HQ's take on the trangender scene is good too. It doesn't really focus on the trans part but it takes into account the reason for their meeting while giving cool characterization to Rose and Caraway

I dont have any issue with a trans character I have it with the world building they make with this "potion" the character takes once a month related to "new magic has no consecuences" they have stablished that a person, any person, has a 30 or 28 days on a face and body no one will recognice with no drawbacks if the person returns to their original body, beyond the fact that this particular character doesnt want that in Harry Potter they set the potion to change form as a type of potion that is hard to make, has grave cons if done wrong, doesnt last long, and is under heavy scruteny here, it looks like any assasin or just a thive can change their body, cause misschiff and get away when the potion wears off

So far, the biggest problem with your reviews of this show are that you don't feature the Mentos theme song in them. Or Reese's Puffs. Not enough of that, either

The transgender point reminds me of a similar thing done in Hogwarts Legacy. The owner of The Three Broomsticks in that game is a transgender witch named Sirona Ryan. There's no explicit mention of how she was able to achieve this or whether her transformation is permanent or not, but there's a disturbing lack of taste in reducing gender transitioning down a spell or potion, especially since Sirona doesn't bother to change her voice.

The one thing that has always baffled me is that they have Caraway use a potion to temporarily stay as a male each month. Rather than fulfilling (what I assume to be) the creator's wish of being an actual male by just oh I dunno Using the New Magic to permanently transform Caraway into a dude forever. What, is Caraway really bad at magic? Is it that hard to create a spell to permanently change gender? Yet somehow a spell for eternal life casually exists. It's the tired that sleep can't fix. These people just can't help but turn everything into a lecture.

I think the two words "talking at" explains so many things here. The correct way do it is "talking with", or at least "talking to", but this is described as "talking at". This is not a writer who is able to handle a sensitive issue like this.

The last 4 words of the title. quite a tongue twister, lol :)

Crunchyroll slapping that content warning onto High Guardian Spice was a dick move.

My God, trying to keep up with all the plot is exhausting just hearing about it. And, yes, the way they handled the trans character, just... yikes. Calling it bad doesn't feel strong enough. You also make a really damn good point about how they should've handled the explanation of HOW he became trans and the fake that the NEW Magic potion being limited to needing to be taken once a month from a lore standpoint makes no sense

Hopefully you'd have the same complaint about IDW Sonic Issue 50. " Either heights are a threat, or they're not. " Sabrina the Teenage Witch was beloved since the 60s and it has its magic able to do almost anything, the only limits are we assume witches can't cast a spell to change the entire world, at least not without the head witch getting involved, and witches can run out of magic for weeks.

About the episode warning: When you are promised sexual content, but there isn't any 😅

What disappoints me so much is that Carroway is probably the only instance of representation for trans-men in current day media. Hell, any well known media, even. Because as much as modern pop culture has strived to create more transgender characters (regardless of whether or not they succeed) I’ve noticed that the overwhelming majority of them are transgender women (i.e. male to female), which isn’t a bad thing, don’t get me wrong, it just seems like trans men aren’t getting the representation they deserve when there’s already slim pickings. So to have what basically amounts to the only character representation for trans men in popular media come from this feels incredibly disappointing.

It is very worth noting how this show even exists. I'll try to make this breif. But basicaly, this show got on crunchyroll for a very strange reason. If you receall a few years back, Little witch Academia? That show was THE reason to have Crunchyroll and was super popular and beloved. However the creators only did 1 season beacuse they only wanted/planned for one season. While CR wanted more. Around the same time, the creator of HGS was pitching their show around to various networks but none of them would take it, mainly beacuse they refused to make ANY changes and wanted it to be exactly their own vision and nothing else. Nobody would accept that. Execpt for Crunchyroll. Beacuse they were desperate and wanted a show that would keep the Little witch fandom around and HGS is very similar in concept to that. You can tell this is what happend at LIttle witch ended in 2017, but HGS was first announced in 2018. Barley months apart. Given how Little witch turned out so great beacse CR let the creators do everythng their own way, they were the only ones willing to accept these terms of not changing anything and only requesting things to be added in? We got HGS. The funny thing is CR actually knew how bad it was. As this show was complelted years before it was even released to us, but they shelved it for good reason as they realized it was going to bomb badly and was a mess with the creator not knowing what they were doing.

The crazy arbitrary editing reminds me of that scene in The Christmas Tree where they keep cutting between a poker game and orphans being told about Christmas. Except that movie at least had a Windows Movie Maker-tier wipe to indicate a transition between the two scenes.

Them talking about transgenderism also didn't feel earned nor did it really make sense for him to explain it to Rosemary. This should have been saved for a few episodes later, when there is actually a character that would need to hear about it. When Rosemary asks who was the girl in the picture, Caraway should have hand waved it by saying "that was a lifetime ago" or something because Rosemary wouldn't really push the issue.

Vincent from the webcomic _Rain_ is honestly how Caraway should have been written. Add in elements of Remus Lupin from Harry Potter, and you're good.

I think the meddling does make some sense in this case, because while Crunchyroll does have children's anime on the service, anime as a whole is usually seen as a "Older kid to young adult" type thing, so it isn't inconceivable for Crunchyroll to want their first original production to want to line up with that target audience. I say inconceivable because while I can imagine that being the case it is still very stupid, for multiple reasons.

I’m honestly getting tired of characters that only exist to be self inserts of their creators. Not like you can’t make it work, but more often than not, they suck. Caraway isn’t as bad as say, Mindy Kaling Velma or Jessica Gao She-Hulk, or Mariko Tamaki Bitch, I mean Mandy, but he is boring and the lecture about being trans was intolerable (and this is coming from someone who has never actually watched the show except in reviews like this)

so at one point i took a crack at rewriting old and new magic to have decent mechanics, that fit into what little we learn about them in the show. first off everyone has mana, no more no cost, you have mana and if you drain all of yours you could fall unconscious, or even die if severe enough. old magic is considered safe, but difficult and slow to use. new magic is the opposite, risky but quick and easy to use. as a basis, the way to cast spells is through some form of runes, the more runes, the more complicated the effect of the spell, but the more mana it costs. example: to make the wind blow, use a wind rune, but it blows in it's natural direction at a normal speed. to choose the direction, add a direction rune, and to change the wind speed, add a speed rune. old magic: runes are inscribed using mana infused ink onto mana infused paper. the quality of the ink and paper are proportional to the strength of the one who made them. in order to cast the spell, you channel mana into the inscribed runes, and once said runes are full the spell goes off. pros: you can prepare even very difficult and powerful spells far in advance the paper is stable enough to partially fill a rune, then save it for later cons: you are limited by the spells you physically have prepared, and it can take a while to suddenly prepare a new one applying mana to an inscribed rune can take longer than a spell focus not just knowing the runes is enough, you must also create your ink, paper, and actually physically draw the runes new magic: runes are 'hand drawn' in free space by mages within spell foci. wands, staffs, orbs, even enchanted weapons. concentrate on the shape of the runes, channel mana into your focus, and it will draw the rune automatically inside it, casting once complete. pros: you can do anything! provided you know the spell runes and have mana, you can cast any spell you want at any time. applying mana to a focus is quick, requiring no prep time and filling up fairly quickly cons: no way to 'pre fill' a spell focus with mana, the spell must be filled 0 to 100 when cast if you lack the mana to cast a spell, it will either keep draining til it kills you, or you must cancel the channeling cancelling a spell early causes the mana to fire randomly back out of your focus into the world around you, with highly unpredictable and possibly dangerous magic effects and the last point of spell failures would the a source of conflict, and possibly the source of the rot. too much wild mana accumulating in more magic but rural areas like the fairy woods from inexperienced new magic users. and since the guardians tend to be quite skilled, and the guardian academy has many skilled guardians in it, these effects arent really known as a skilled mage can more easily 'clean up' wild mana spills without having them cause the long term problems. also there's something called sparks, if i remember right, which are basically spell grenades in the show. and my explanation for those was they are a combination of both types of magic, a spell focus permanently engraved with spell runes and filled with enough mana to trigger the spell, then sealed shut. breaking the seal, either by using magic to undo it, or just smashing the focus physically, releases the spell instantly. these are much harder to produce, and often have to be one use if you dont have time to carefully undo the seal, therefore these tend to only be used for incredibly complicated and incredibly powerful spells.

Like they say in Once Upon a Time, "all magic comes with a price". It should be a standard thing in fantasy because, like you said, otherwise it removes all sense of stakes.

Yeah, I imagine you wouldn't Rosemary, as - even if the _concept_ of "transgender" is not necessarily new, the *_term_* is, as it was developed out of academic and/or scientific lexicon, supposedly in the 60s. What are the sciences in your world, Rosemary? What psychological and biological studies exist in High Guardian Spice? Is this like the "Demon" thing, with the succubus teacher? This is PAINFULLY bad worldbuilding. I don't specifically go out of my way to find examples of this, but when _I_ think of a trans character introducing themselves, I tend to think of the character Alice from the anime "Chivalry of a Failed Knight." When asked specifically about her gender (as Alice _is_ trans) she replies with something to the affect of being "a maiden born in the body of a man." This is _much_ more organic and natural-sounding for the world the story takes place in. High Guardian Spice, your storytelling is bad and you should feel bad.

... Honestly, at this point I'm just glad to see my boy Parasect getting some love.

How does Mr.Enter get to the computer for video uploads while carrying around the weight of his gigantic balls?

- Wait, Rosemary really thought Snapdragon was "the rudest" after one interaction? All he did was react to her bothering him with her random doodle. Ugh, what a childish twerp! Well, no, I already thought she was childish. This is merely another proving point. - I know Sage has said, on two occasions, that New Magic's casting power feels "unlimited" and has "no cost". But besides the speculation that it's connected to the Rot...in Ep5, Redbud's terrasphere explicity runs out of energy - THAT sounds like a cost, a limit. So I can only take this as Sage exaggerating (just like Parsley saying she was in the catacombs "for hours"). - I should point out that Snapdragon does join Sage in calling out Amaryllis for making the potion go volatile. It's just a bit hard to hear him over Neppy's mutated groaning. I'm just bringing this up for a later point in Snap's story, but I guess it does help somewhat justify his developing crush on Sage. - It's hilarious how this show tries to make Rosemary seem similar to Lavender just because they both broke Flowering Thorn's pommel...even though in Lavender's case, it happened because the manticore flung her into the ground, and Rosemary merely lost her grip on it while trying to slash a fly. (By the by, if she was trying to kill it for "ruining" her sandwich, I'd say she ruined it more by throwing it away.) - Surprised you omitted Sage's "comeback" to Thyme. Seriously, haunting an old clock tower? Sage, are you referring to Thyme as a...something that rhymes with "kook"? - I wonder which aspect of Caraway's transgenderism is more insulting - the fact that it's as easy as taking a potion (and all magic can be reversed, as stated later), or that he isn't even trans for HIMSELF in this story. What first made him realize that he didn't feel like his true self? How has changing genders affected his life? How did Lavender support him through the choice? Oh, I know the real reason he's trans - because he's blatantly Raye's current self-insert, and he's explaining it to Raye's previous self-insert. (Oh, and keep in mind that Caraway's comfy enough to allow a picture featuring his past self in a public hallway. There's very little discrimination toward someone like him. Keep this in mind for another character later.)

After I saw this scene, I could easily imagine it playing out with the MC losing interest in the teacher's speech and saying her line about wanting to see her mom again while the teacher continues to ramble about the potion and "being the real me" in the background, and it wouldn't skip a beat. That's how big of a disconnect this moment had from the rest of the scene.

im gonna get made fun of for this but i thought the invertebrate joke was pretty clever

Fun fact: Neppy Cat is voiced by Cam Clarke; the OG voice for Leonardo in TMNT, Chase from Monsuno, and Ronaldo Kuriki in Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2.

HGS is truly a show of all time.

Oh, dear... How the subplots are handled seems confusing. I can't imagine how much worse this show can get. I also see the resemblance between the Trappers and Parasect, how Snapdragon gets a crush on Sage seems weird to me, and I don't see why Caraway being a trans male couldn't be permanent. On a side note, I have some issues with the R-rating myself, but that's another story that I don't really have time to explain here, so I recommend "Is The R-Rating Overrated?" by Center Row.

18:34 so many series do that. Like following a fad

14:27 that would of been a really funny joke if it intentional. Cutting to sage after saying that. But its dramtic scene so...

It feels like this show was created by AI.

A small budget doesn't explain why the writing was all over the place here.

Hope your having a fun spooky month so far mr enter

As well done as this review goes, I have to fight back a bit on the idea pitched of the monster being the reason the character changed sexes for like a better reason per se.. ..Like the main reason being that it's supposed to be their choice, not something they were forced into. ..Otherwise that would ironically be the opposite metaphor where you feel like you're in the wrong body, and you come to accept what you are in this body per se. ..And granted, there are people out there that could benefit from a story like that because we all go through different walks, but the show wasn't going for that approach. The show was simply conveying that they weren't connecting to the body they were made in, so they decided to change themselves to fit how their they feel about themselves. Hopefully I got my message across properly here, but nonetheless, hope it helps. 👋

i didn't mind carroway being trans' but it could've been done better.

There's a subreddit for this show, and they unironically seem to believe the show was unfairly maligned by the masses.

12:12 Yeah spoiler (not that it affects story) Thyme never uses these again cause "the plot demands it" they use a bunch of bs and never use it during moments it matters

It's like this show high guardian spice it's like an abridged anime series then an actual anime series