Review of Black Clover

Note - Review of the show actually starts in the second paragraph Black Clover has a lot of the typical aspects of a Shounen that we all would come to expect and while I was watching a friend of mine brought up some clone qualities to Naruto I didn't pick up on during my watching experience except one which is that Asta has the same tendency to scream "never give up, never surrender" type things that Naruto does and has the desire to become "wizard king" in his world which is the same as Hokage in the Naruto universe so be ready for that when youstart watching. That is really the only thing that I think it consistently "borrowed" from the Naruto franchise which I think really is a part of a lot of Shounen its just not to the level used in Naruto.

I think Black Clover does a whole lot of things well and deserves to stand on its own in the Shounen mega category of titans. There is some decent build in terms of lore of the universe, its not just "hey we have innate magic and a book and I am gonna duel you to the death. I like the idea that the four kingdoms are based on the theme chosen and theres also some nice nuance within the magic types as well. Four typical elemental magics as anyone would expect, all of which can be used for attack/defense/recovery purposes it seems and after that there are some unique magics also that have their own affinities strengths and weaknesses

The show itself is certainly centered around Asta and his circumstances but in the bigger there is some good expansion of the Black Bulls as a whole. While not everyone gets a whole lot of time to shine, I do think the show does a good job expanding on a good number of the Black Bulls for most of the series. One or two certainly fall off or seem super rushed toward the end of the 170 total showing so far so I hope you don't feel too bummed out if your favorite happens to be one of those.

One of the shining stars of the show is the fight scenes and action that we get to see. A lot of the fights are done really well in my opinion. I have to say that a couple fights in the series certainly make a run for my top 5 in all of the anime Ive ever watched. Another great thing for me in Black Clover was the arcs themselves. Sure they weren't all 10/10 amazing but nothing ever is. Doesn't change that a good amount of them were really enjoyable for me. It kind of reminded me of my Yu Yu Hakusho or Hunter x Hunter (2011) experience where almost all the archs were good in their own way after the initial build up.

If you like Shounen I think you will enjoy this show. If you are looking to get into Shounen and dont know where to start I actually recommend Black Clover over a lot of others that may first come to mind. I say that because it doesn't take as long as some of the other big boys of the genre to get going and like I said most of the archs are enjoyable and fights within are pretty top notch.