Review of Black Clover

I didn't like Black Clover at first, actually I hated it, but now it's one of my newly favorite anime. After a while I really started to enjoy this story and Asta's diverse journey. Black Clover started poorly with poor production values and a messy story and everyone hated it but now it's one of the most loved anime with over 80 countries watching it and with a great MAL score. How is that so? Well, let's start with the key aspects. Story: It is very formulaic at first and it really doesn't bring anything new to the table. For the first 90 episodes it's messyand all over the place, going from one arc to another without coherently connecting them. However, once all the dots are connected by the amazing Reincarnation Arc it all starts making sense. Scenes that apparently didn't serve anything to the story but were only made for character progression or as excuses for fight scenes are now interconnected. The Reincarnation Arc is by far the peak of the show and a perfect mix of action, drama, comedy, good character moments and great storytelling. Once I reached the Reincarnation Arc I realized the whole show was building to this point and man was it worth it. 9/10

Art: Just like the story the animation also progresses in quality as the show goes. At first it was incredibly inconsistent, stiff and characters looked broken down from up close but once the animators from Twitter came in it all changed. To be honest, I almost dropped the anime because of the horrendous animation of the first 70 episodes, luckily I didn't do that because the payoff is more than worth it. The animation went from horrendous to one of the best animated fights in modern anime history at episode 167. 7/10

Sound: I don't despise the soundtrack of Black Clover but neither do I like it very much. Sure, it fits the action very much but it's not my cup of tea. I like more symphonic epic soundtracks. Nonetheless, the openings are almost all bangers and very stylish with a lot of interesting visuals, amazing animation, and they tell a small self contained story. 10/10

Character: Once again this aspect gets way better as the show goes on. At first the characters fall flat with a thud. They only have one feature that defines them, but, unlike Naruto (please don't hate on me I love Naruto it's great), the supporting cast doesn't become useless. Instead all of the supporting characters from The Black Bull receive a backstory and a mini progression arc. That is the beauty of the characters. They start flat, they evolve but still retain those flat features when comedy is needed, which I absolutely adore. 9/10

Now let's analyze the less talked about features.

Power System: The power system, magic, is great and efficient in what it does. Basically every person has an affinity towards a type of magic. You'll find every kind of magic in Black Clover, from the most basic like fire magic and water magic to the most outrageous like paint magic and dream magic. There's also this thing used for defensive and offensive purposes called "mana skin" which is kind of like Nen's defensive ability called "Ten". But, as a youtuber put it, the magic in Black Clover is influenced by character development, which means it smartly integrates plot armor into its ability system. Basically, it finds a smart excuse for plot armor that actually works. 9/10

Dialogue: The dialogue is made of extremely repetitive jokes and lines for the first half of the show but it gets better as the characters progress. Nonetheless it still remains pretty formulaic and uninspired. Especially the background characters from flashbacks have extremely boring dialogue that just serves as exposition dumps. 5/10

And finally I will give my final note on it.

Enjoyment: I didn't have a blast at first but it quickly caught my attention once things got going to the point where I was at the edge of my seat at episode 167. 8/10

Overall: Black Clover is not perfect but neither is it the bottom of the barrel formulaic shonen trash. It doesn't deserve as much hate as it gets and overall it's a fun watch, especially if you don't mind about poor animation. Almost everything started poorly but look where it's now! 8/10