Published Oct 10, 2026, 12:05 PM EDT
Hannah covers horror, sci-fi, and games at Collider, where she writes news and features, reviews new releases, and interviews the people who make them. She’s helping build out Collider’s gaming coverage, with Pokémon as one of her specialties. If she isn’t writing about a monster, she’s probably watching one on a tape from her VHS collection.
Fantasy anime has no shortage of ambitious heroes who want to become the strongest person in the room. Getting there usually involves discovering a remarkable ability and finding someone willing to help them control it, but** the more interesting challenge comes when everyone else seems better equipped for the journey**, leaving the hero with something to prove before the first major fight even begins.
That kind of story can keep audiences invested for years, but a lengthy break puts their patience to the test. Returning viewers need a reason to pick up where they left off, while newcomers face the prospect of catching up on a substantial adventure. A successful comeback has to turn the excitement surrounding an announcement into people actually watching the show.
Black Clover is doing exactly that following its October 3 return, reaching No. 1 in seven countries on FlixPatrol’s Crunchyroll Amazon Channels charts. Those markets included the United States and United Kingdom, with France also among the territories where it took the top spot. The fantasy anime remained near the top of several charts in the tracker’s latest available snapshot, dated October 8, when it ranked No. 2 in the U.S. and No. 1 in Spain and Italy.
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
This is a developing story. Please refresh your page for updates from Collider.
](/tag/action/)
](/tag/fantasy/)
2017 - 2026-00-00
TV Tokyo, TV Osaka, TV Aichi, TVh, TVQ, TSC
Matsuo Asami, Rokou Ogiwara, Tazumi Mukaiyama, Akira Shimizu, Fumio Maezono, Daisuke Chiba, Toshihiro Maeya, Yoshimitsu Tsuda, Toshiaki Kanbara, Takahiro Enokida, Yasumi Mikamoto, Kenichi Maejima, Chihiro Kumano, Naoki Horiuchi, Yoshino Miwa
Kanichi Kato, Mio Inoue, Masanao Akahoshi, Momoko Murakami, Kunihiko Okada