Asta

Welcome to the final post for Black Clover that Weekend Otaku and I will be writing together. We’ve mutually agreed to end our joint coverage of Black Clover here. While I don’t think either one of us have fully committed to dropping the show, we both know we aren’t really enjoying it and there’s only so many ways you can say that before it becomes repetitive. However, we will be continuing joint coverage of The Ancient Magus Bride over on Weekend Otaku’s site (link at the end of the post if you haven’t checked those out). Meanwhile, you can check out our previous posts of Black Clover if you have missed them.

Karandi’s Review:

This week brings us some more brilliantly nuanced character performances as the noble characters subtly display their disdain for Hage and its residents before valiantly offering to protect those beneath them who are in need. Oh wait. No, that isn’t right.

Okay, we get Salim play acting as the nice noble though due to the poor writing quality and the absolute lack of subtlety in this show it is quite obvious where this whole mission with Yuno is going before we actually get there. As such the audience is asked to endure a fairly painful meal in the church where Klaus continues an internal monologue of disdain while Salim plasts false smiles across his obnoxious face. It is almost a relief when the sister gets kidnapped.

What made this scene worse was Yuno’s reaction to Asta sending money. Yuno, due to lack of screen time and contrast with Asta, is about the only character I haven’t actively disliked in this show and then we get the scene this week where he reveals clearly he is every bit as stupid as Asta, he’s just quieter about it.

Then, just in case you were still hoping for something from this story, we get a standard sequence of Yuno flying/walking toward the very cleverly chosen location where Sister Lily is being kept captive and facing off with one bad guy at a time. Because of course, when facing someone really strong your best option is to individually take him on and spread you forces out so they can’t back each other up.

This show is just kind of painfully stupid to watch. The story does do what most other shounen shows would do and you could almost write out the plots of several stories that would use this exact sequence and yet here there is nothing fun or interesting to distract from the poor quality or simple nature of the story. I honestly can’t see me getting to the end of this show.

Weekend Otaku’s Review:

I half expected the detour in Hage to be simply that, given this show’s propensity for drawing out unnecessary sequences. With that said, I can appreciate the attempt to draw intrigue into some of the things going on in Clover Kingdom outside of Asta’s small point of view. As is usually the case with Black Clover though, the execution fails to impress.

The plot being more or less predictable isn’t too much of a disappointment, given that it led toward some more magic battling – something I’ve been wanting more of from this show since the end of the first episode. The problem here is in the lackluster experience, stemming from the gauntlet style one on one fights that Yuno spends about ten seconds on for each. Like every fight thus far (except maybe the one against Heath), there is no flash, no sense of the stakes, and no real tension. It’s just another set of scenes to get through on the way toward wherever this show is going.

On that point: with this episode coming in at the end of the winter season I had dared to hope that it would lay some groundwork for what’s to come. The most I could take away from the last couple episodes was that the Wizard King is interested in the brothers. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I missed any other major point among the tedium in between.

In the end there just isn’t enough to justify the time spent, at least in writing about it if not watching. I’ve enjoyed parts of this show more than I probably should have (I could be tempted to watch an entire season of Petit Clover), there isn’t much more I can say about it that I haven’t already. While the show may deliver something over the course of many episodes, one of the few reasons I may continue to watch, there simply isn’t enough substance to it on an episode by episode basis. Even for viewers who love shounen, Black Clover’s superficial approach to the genre’s tropes and lack of narrative leaves too much to be desired.

 Thank-you Weekend, it has been a pleasure covering this show with you (and that was probably the best thing about the show). Be sure to check out Weekend Otaku’s blog for our reviews of The Ancient Magus’ Bride.

Karandi’s Random Reflection:

It has been so great following Black Clover and The Ancient Magus Bride this season with Weekend Otaku. I have a lot of respect for Weekend Otaku and his opinion so just knowing that he were going to read my random thoughts on episodes made me think about what I really wanted to say and saved me from just writing ‘Make it stop’ over and over again during the early episodes of Black Clover.

I’ll admit, the first half of this season was particularly challenging for me due to my work situation but having this ongoing project really helped and I want to thank Weekend for offering to work on an extended collaboration. I know both of us had weeks where viewing the shows and getting a draft of the post to the other and then reviewing was quite the effort and yet for 13 weeks we’ve both been there for the other.

However, this project has also made me shift my focus a few times because I would realise both Weekend and I had picked up identical points so then we’d have to think about what else could be said about the episode or whether there was anything else to be said (and sometimes we’d come up empty). I’m really glad we did this 200 Word Anime project during Autumn and I’m really happy that Weekend Otaku was the one I started this project with. It is definitely something I’d like to do in future seasons though one thing I have definitely learned is to not over-commit myself because it isn’t that unusual for my work situation to go crazy and I was really struggling some weeks. When I review by myself I just shift my post order around at will if I fall behind as there’s always something scheduled later I could move up (that’s a necessity if you are going to keep daily posting long term), but even with the couple of days we left as a buffer between the episode airing and when we wanted to have our post out sometimes it was a push.

Basically, a huge thank you to Weekend Otaku and everyone who has followed along with this series of posts.

Thanks for reading.

If you enjoyed this post and like the blog, consider becoming a patron to support further growth and future content.

Thanks,

Karandi James.

Weekend Otaku and I continue our coverage of Black Clover as we move on from the fight and… go shopping? Check out our previous posts if you have missed them.

Karandi’s Review:

What little hope I had left for this series kind of shrivelled and died over the course of attempting to watch episode 11. There were just so many groan inducing moments and places where I had to pause and walk away from my computer before convincing myself it wasn’t actually that bad and attempting to continue. But, I’m kind of done making excuses for this show or pretending it will eventually pick up.

Black Clover is decidedly mediocre. Even at its best, which arguably was episode 10, it barely managed to be slightly better than average with many examples of similar scenes played out better in other anime. And then we are reminded of everything that is actually pretty terrible about this show in the very next episode.

Repeating bad jokes does not make them better. They might have been tolerated the first time, groan worthy the second, but by the time we get to episode 11 and the captain breaks yet another wall while telling the other members of the bulls not to break things (twice in the space of five minutes) all you can do is shake your head and wonder why you are still giving this show any of your attention.

Magna’s screeching about Asta not knowing the Magic Knight’s salute (first I’ve heard about it either) seems really out of place given neither Asta nor Noelle even knew what a magic knight was supposed to do and the Black Bull’s clearly have done nothing to actually have any kind of orientation program for new knights (which you would think would be pretty standard protocol for any organisation).

We also get a rehash of the Sister Lily joke and Magna gambling, the guy with the little sister crush, and so on and so forth until we end up shopping in the castle town. Basically, this show has no charm or appeal and this week it didn’t even manage anything that might resemble action or excitement. At this point I’m just accepting that the show isn’t going to get better and while it remains watchable it really isn’t enjoyable.

Weekend Otaku’s Review:

Whatever hope last week’s episode instilled in me was fairly dashed this week . Perhaps hope might be too strong a word, as that possibility faded about halfway into the season. Call it ‘mild expectation’ instead, that a shounen battle show would do shounen battle things, or at least attempt to work toward a plot that leads to whatever this story is trying to do.

Instead we get yet another episode where virtually nothing at all happens. I’m not sure I’ll understand or accept Pierrot’s reasons for whittling away time like this. I’m not at all opposed to more mundane moments in action series, but when said moments don’t do much to develop characters, don’t add to any framework for the plot, and barely add flavor to the world, what can you say about them? The only things we learn from this episode are: missions get you gold stars (but because the Black Bulls are awful they’re hilariously behind everyone else). and missions also get you money (but because the Black Bulls are terrible they spend it poorly). Also that nonsense with the three finger salute (despite the four leaf clover being a well known thing) that Karandi mentioned.

Everything else that happens is symptomatic of the same problems this series has had from the start. Humor continues being forced upon the viewer, eg: Asta reaching for Noelle’s waist on the broom immediately after she tells him to back off just so she can knock him off it, or Magna setting Asta’s hair on fire because what else could have resulted from his William Tell practice session? On the other hand, I genuinely laughed when Agrippa said they should all hang out and everyone walked away because they couldn’t hear him. A shame they don’t do more to use these characters.

Really, aside from peddling jokes I don’t know what this show plans to do. A little research indicates that manga readers like Black Clover (or at least don’t hate it) because it gets to a compelling story in relatively short order. You can’t say Pierrot has any intention of following that pattern when the cliffhanger of this episode is a petty robbery. If this series is going somewhere, it probably won’t do so before most viewers have given up on it.

 Thank-you Weekend. Be sure to check out Weekend Otaku’s blog for our reviews of The Ancient Magus’ Bride. It you’ve missed our posts be sure to check them out.

Thanks for reading.

If you enjoyed this post and like the blog, consider becoming a patron to support further growth and future content.

Thanks,

Karandi James.

Weekend Otaku and I share our thoughts of Black Clover. This week we see Asta settling in as Black Bull and a two second glimpse of Yuno.  If you haven’t been following along you can check out our previous posts here.

Karandi’s Review:

It is very hard to defend a show, even a potentially long running one, when you get seven episodes in and you still feel like you are stuck in the introduction. For all the character development and world building we’ve so far gotten in this story, we could have fit most of the things that were necessary into about two episodes. Endless repetition doesn’t make for a deeper or meaningful experience nor does dragging things out for the sake of showing every step in a journey when not every step is particularly interesting or note worthy.

This week’s example is the tour of the Black Bull’s castle. While we kind of learn a tiny bit more about Magna, this is basically a series of fairly weak punch lines as we get shown around a castle that apparently changes anyway. Prior to this we had the short clip of the church receiving Asta and Yuno’s letters, but do the reactions of those waiting back in the church mean anything to the greater narrative?

Finally the story gets to introducing the other new recruit to the Black Bulls and she’s as stereotypical as every other character we’ve met so far. Rich and snobby but with a massive chip on her shoulder which they try really hard to make us feel sorry for her and realise she isn’t such a bad person by the end. In a show with better writing and characterisation this trope can work just fine but here, like most everything else, it is serviceable at best and enough to string us along because of the possibilities of future improvements. And that’s really all this show has going for it. Currently untapped potential.

Though, in case it isn’t obvious, I’m really tired this week so my tolerance of mediocrity is a little lower than normal.

Weekend Otaku’s Review:

Karandi hit the nail on the head in pointing out the pacing problems this show has. The most glaring indication of this is in how dragged out the most insignificant scenes are. Introducing Asta to the Squad’s castle, several minutes of disbelief over his letter back home, and another useless sequence with Yuno are just the latest set of a long list of scenes that could have been heavily shortened or even omitted. The titular “other recruite” actually makes her appearance quite late because of this, but given how quickly the main conflict of the episode is resolved maybe that was for the best.

Noelle’s story is decent on paper. Where Asta’s desire to prove himself against all odds is standard shounen fodder, the theme of the disgraced upper cruster (think Neji from Naruto) can often provide an interesting foil. The overly straightforward narrative style of Black Clover, however, leads it along predictable lines. It’s kind of fitting to think that Yami took her in based on her sheet power, but her backstory and characterisation lack gravity because of the show’s simplistic handling. She’s just another element that may get interesting eventually, but for now is little more than a generic piece.

More than half the season in and there isn’t yet a compelling thread to follow. If studio Pierrot is intentionally going at a snail’s pace to milk this story for all its worth, doing it like this risks losing any semblance of interest from the portion of the audience that wasn’t drawn to it by the manga.

 Thanks Weekend. Be sure to check out our posts following The Ancient Magus’ Bride here.

Thanks for reading.

If you enjoyed this post and like the blog, consider becoming a patron to support further growth and future content.

Thanks,

Karandi James.