I see. Popp’s soul quality was actually sexual frustration courage.

And that's the power of sexual frustration courage for yeah.
To be honest and muster up what's deep inside of you to do what needs to be done when you are scared shetless.

well better he starts using performance-enhancers :D

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Don't you see? Pop is the coward character. And yet his insignia shines when he takes the courage to do what he's so afraid of. Dai has no fear, that's why he has no courage, because courage is the power that overcomes the fear, if you have no fear, you have no courage. Nobody there has more fear than Pop, and yet he has the courage to move despite it.

Yeah but I don't agree with you saying Dai has no fear. He's literally been scared and concerned for a few episodes throughout the show. Especially after the Vearn fight

Agreed

i see, Popp had the power of culture as well

Time to use his magic wand

love this comment🤣🤣

Never symp boys, this is what you become, a POPP. ehh poop

power of boner always wins

That's why SAGE

giggle

Hahaha! I've never thought that idea though.

Seriously….Pop needs to choose Merle…

Merle supremacy man

The kung-fu rat has really come a long way as a Pokémon trainer.

Pokemon being pokemon trainer is unheard of

Mewtwo from movie, Mewtwo Strikes Back

Watch episode 9 again (around 4:00 to 5:00), you will see Popp's insignia glow when the mage from fake party hero talk about courage

wow didnt see that

So Popp fking lied... he really needs to grow a pair.

Im sure Hadlar and company will show up to the scuffle soon and damn my boyy Popp about to pop off he looks majestic af

Dai: How many times do I have to teach you this lesson, OLD MAN?

It took a deathflag moment to bring out love confessions in the open.

Could you see it happening any other way with characters this dense? lol

Not really

The absolute most gut wrenching scene in the show thus far. Merle sacrificing herself for pop brought tears to my eyes. As soon as she detected Zaboera powering it up along with her thinking how she could be useful to Popp I knew she was about go jump in front of it. But dammit seeing it happen still hurt so much. Thinking she was gonna die right there in Popp arms wrecked me. Popp himself almost screwing up big time not being able to light up the Avan insignia. It looked very dark there for a few minutes with Popp expressing all his misgivings towards being apart of the spell since he couldn't get it working. Popp saying harsh words but I can see where he's coming from, feeling lesser than your peers is a hard thing to deal with. Its not the easiest being at the bottom of the totem poll surrounded by people more exceptional than yourself. Especially the words Maam said to him, not intentionally trying to be hurtful but hearing the person you love say they only basically look up to you and nothing else would be a gut punch on top of the inferiority Popp already feels. Him having the face his fears with courage as Merle last request finally awakening his soul and the insignia. Looked pretty badass going sage mode at the end.

His fear wanst not being on par with his friends, it was losing his relationship with Maam with her not reciprocating his feelings

He simply couldnt Popp the question.

Overcoming the fear of Maam not reciprocating the feeling was what made the insignia glow, but he already accepted he was not on par with his friends.

Ughhh!!! 🤦🏻‍♂️ What can you expect when you try to save the world with a bunch of teenagers?
-i can't say i'm in love. (Boom the world explodes)

Pop best written and best character for sure. Peak moment this was.

Pop got an upgrade from Sadge to Sage. I see what you did there

what?

Just google sadge emote lol

If Popp's insignia is courage then wtf is Dai's? Nani?!?

According to the wiki, innocence

thats so dragon ball lol just like goku XDDD

I read the manga years ago and forgot the details but I knew that Dai being courage was bullshit. Dai never had to constantly face his fears. Standing in the face of challenge is something that's natural to him.

plot armor

Maybe hope since he's the hero?

Mage to Sage

Clown to pound town

A brief little nugget of info taken from u/Khetrak64 in the episode discussion thread on Reddit:

random trivia: when this manga started the last Dragon Quest game that was released was DQ3 and so a lot of this manga takes inspiration from it, by the time we get to this chapter DQ4 is already out and im not 100% sure but i think 5 was also already released. the new army of "unknown" monsters are actually new enemies from DQ4/5.

For the people who are confused about sage, in DQ3 you can recruit allies for your party and they are defined by their class, one of the classes you can select is the clown class.

the clown is a special class, he doesn't do what you ask, he keep wasting his turn doing nothing, his only good status is his luck (and if you check the manga at the end of some chapters you could see the status of the main characters, guess how Popp’s status looked like) and every turn in battle he has a good chance to be scared and run away leaving you behind. the special thing about the clown is that if you keep using him until he reach lv 20 he can change class from clown into a sage.

the sage is the most powerfull spellcaster in DQ, arguably the best class in the game in general, not only he can cast any mage spell but he can also cast any priest spell and he also has access to his own list of sage spells that are basically powered up version of the mage/priest ones.

if you ever wonder why a lot of isekai that has a hero also had a sage character that always follows him and it’s the hero’s best friend? well let me introduce you to the hero/sage duo called Dai and Popp.

Popp really popped off in this episode...

wtf popp got his job upgraded

"Sorry sir"
"Uh excuse me, it's Maam"
🤣

oh boy another friendship episode with bizzare love triangles