Weekend Otaku and I continue our coverage of Black Clover. Both Asta and Yuno have finally made it to their new teams though blink and you’ll miss Yuno’s appearance this week. If you haven’t been following along you can check out our previous posts here.
Karandi’s Review:
It has been a very long time since I had such a mixed reaction to an episode. I really think I could draw a line down a page and write all the things I enjoyed on one side and all the things I hated on the other and the list would end up pretty evenly split. Basically, every new character we met (pretty much the Black Bulls) have all been introduced as one-note comic relief characters and to be honest their one note didn’t even manage to make it part of this episode before I was pretty much over it. And the only scene we get with Yuno… Yep, he’s already being looked down on for being a peasant from the boonies. Big surprise. And can these characters please get some new words in their vocabularies soon? At least be creative when you look down your nose at someone.
But, I also enjoyed Asta’s genuine joy at having made this first step toward his dream. I enjoyed the other characters finally telling him to dial down the yelling. I really enjoyed the moment when he realised he was going to die and then his genuine shock when he didn’t. There were these fun and great moments sprinkled throughout what was a really ordinary group introduction episode. My biggest issue is that next week I may have to put up with the newly introduced characters and unless they flesh them out fast, that’s going to hurt. I’d hope to see more of Yuno but despite him being set up as the rival this show is doing a great job of benching him at every opportunity so I’m not overly optimistic there.
Weekend Otaku’s Review:
Karandi pointed out what we would like to see from this show (more in depth look at Yuno, less Asta yelling) but I think it’s a longshot at this point. Black Clover seems content for the moment to continue down Asta’s loud and unusual path toward making a name for himself, but this episode has sort of shaped what kind of series it plans to be.
Keeping Yuno on the sidelines for now reinforces the show’s focus on the underdog. The Black Bulls as a whole emphasize this further, with the late reveal that Magna is from “way on in the sticks” as well. Asta as a misfit in a whole squad of misfits, all of whom probably possess some special quality that others overlook. This seems to be the predominant theme of this introductory arc, if not the entire series. Like Asta’s simple desire to become the Wizard King, I wouldn’t be surprised if the show kept its ‘message’ so straightforward.
The class divide that I had hoped to be an interesting facet of the world has turned into the same repeated gag that Asta’s lack of magic did. It does bear some resemblance to how predominantly nobles could wield allomancy in Bandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series though. In that respect I would like to see some interesting reason as to why magic tends more strongly toward them. Next week promises to feature the noble girl who got talked down to by her brother in the first exam episode, so we may see something regarding this soon; but let’s not get our hopes up. This is Black Clover, so it might just be an entire episode of her making fun of Asta and the boonies.
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Thanks,
Karandi James.
Hmm, I’m not as optimistic anymore. Actually the series is beginning to really get annoying for me. I’m sick and tired of Asta’s screaming. It looked like it was even worse in this episode. The new characters are okayish I guess, and could end up as some comic relief. But I don’t know. It just sees that the only thing that’s going on so far is passing trials in some form or another. I will stick with it any way, but I can’t say that I’m really enjoying this.
I’m still on the fence about whether this is enjoyable or not because I keep thinking that as long as they do something with the set up, I’ll end up liking it, but the longer it takes to get to them doing anything, the less I think it is likely that I’ll end up liking this overall. I still want to though, so I’m sticking with it and hoping for the best.
Yeah, I can understand that. I’m sticking with as well, hoping a change is going to come. I only hope that it won’t be on the final episode lol 😂😂
Oh, that would hurt so much if it got good just as it finished.
Haha, yeah that would definitely not be a good thing lol 😂😂
At this point I’m kinda just hoping Asta develops some other skill than being strong with a greatsword. I get ya on the Black Bulls thing though. Half the characters seem potentially interesting, but I get the feeling the other half will just be quiet one-liners.
I also tend to like when anime shows class divide, but it doesn’t seem like they plan on going anywhere with it aside from punctuating Asta’s belief that it doesn’t matter where you come from. Or if you’re poor…. or you don’t have any magi… oh god he’s in my head!
There is still a lot of potential in the setting with the class divide but like so many other things in this show, so far other than hitting the same point over and over they aren’t doing much with it. Hopefully they flesh out this and a lot of the other ideas soonish.