Review of Black Clover

I feel like I'm strapping in for a long review here, but at the same time, I'm not sure there's a whole lot to say. Black Clover is one of those series that got such a bad rap when it started only to become a mainstream favorite. There are still plenty of criticisms to go around among Shounen fans about the series, but so too are there hard-lined supporters of the series. I'm going to go through the most common complaints about Black Clover and give you my take on them. Hopefully, along the way, I'll say all I want to about it. One of thecomplaints I've heard everywhere, and one that kept me from watching the series right away, is that Asta is an annoying main character. I will say that this is absolutely true for the first few episodes. His boisterous personality is super off-putting initially, but I promise it goes away very quickly. Actually, Asta has some of the best dialogue in the series, and his seiyuu does brilliantly with him. It's a short-lived period where Asta makes the series difficult to watch; after that period ends, Asta is the best character. And if you're watching a Shounen where the MC isn't your favorite, or at least, second favorite character, the Shounen isn't good enough.

Another big one is that Black Clover is a basic Shounen that's highly predictable. Unfortunately, this is kind of true. A lot of Black Clover harkens back to Naruto when it comes to Asta's values as a character and the general plot points that come and go, as well as some of the built-in features of this anime. As far as predictability goes, a series can only be predictable in a very general way, but not really enough to make it unsurprising. So, yes, the general format of Black Clover is predictable. However, you can use the same bones for a hundred stories, and as long as you change the details, it'll be unique. That's how Black Clover is. The tone is quite different from other series in the genre, and the way this series does suspense and action is probably close to the best in the genre.

The animation being subpar is, sadly, a pretty accurate criticism of Black Clover. While the general character designs and movements are fine--especially after the newer episodes started airing--the battle scenes were rarely as beautiful as they could have been. The choreography and details of the battles were always amazing, but any large-scale fighting would look like the Pain fight in Naruto. You know what I'm talking about. It's really unfortunate because that took a lot of immersion away when watching these wonderful action sequences.

To go on a tangent here, the biggest battles you'll see in Black Clover can honestly rival any popular Shounen. Not every battle had the same excitement associated with it, but the important battles always felt amazing to watch. In fact, I'd go so far as to say those battles are the highest quality content you'll find in Black Clover. In case you need to be sold on it a little bit more, the first big battle I got to in Black Clover made me momentarily think Black Clover was a better anime than anything else I've seen.

The pacing in Black Clover has also been criticized, and truthfully, this is probably my biggest gripe with the series. When a full-blown arc was happening where characters were fighting, basically, every episode, the pacing was fine. Black Clover didn't divert its attention from the main characters too much, but it also let the supporting characters develop through their battles. However, in between arcs--especially during the anime canon material--it became a project to watch Black Clover every day. If I'm considering the anime canon in this review, I would say that I don't know if it was entirely necessary. A lot of the developments that occur would have been more impactful had they been seen without having watched the anime canon, but at the same time, a lot of the stuff that happened after the anime canon wouldn't have made total sense without the anime canon episodes. Anyway, the pacing definitely could be bad at times because Black Clover was really bad at maintaining the same quality consistently throughout every episode.

There are also some general gripes about characters and character development, but I think Black Clover did better with their characters than many other Shounens. Yes, there were some odd points where character development felt out of place or unnecessary, but as fair as the characters' training and their backstories, I thought Black Clover did a decent job. I've definitely seen anime that go in on backstories and whatnot, but Black Clover balanced the present day plot quite well with everything else.

I've pretty much said everything I wanted to say except when it comes to emotion and plot build-up. I wouldn't say Black Clover is an anime that's going to make you cry and connect with the characters, especially since a lot of it is very PG. That's sort of a disappointing aspect to this series because one of the best parts about a Shounen is really connecting with the characters. Which is something you should be able to do after 170 episodes. However, the character relationships that were built over the course of the 170 episodes did make it easy to connect with the characters on that front. For instance, the relationship between Asta and Yuno was really unique to me since their rivalry is friendly, rather than tense like most Shounen rivalries. That made me get really invested in watching how they interacted with one another as the series went on. As far as building the plot, I don't think Black Clover was good or bad at it; I will say that it could have been improved by slowing the plot down around climactic parts. Black Clover had a bad habit of slowly building up an arc to have it all conclude within a short period. Of course, that's mostly a criticism of each arc, though, because overall, the plot builds quite nicely. If you look at how one arc influences the others in terms of storyline, Black Clover did pretty well with its connections.

I can't give Black Clover a perfect score because it was a bit of a chore to watch it sometimes. However, I do think it has great potential, and it realizes a lot of that potential in some truly remarkable ways. The direction it's heading now will offer a lot of opportunities for this plot and its characters to shine, so I'm excited to see where this series goes in the future. If you're conflicted about watching this series because of all the criticism surrounding it, my advice is: watch it. It's a good bit of fun, and a lot of it is incredible. I wouldn't say it's quite as revolutionary as some of the original, big-name Shounens, but I still think it's revolutionary in its own way. I absolutely think you should give Black Clover a try because you'll probably end up loving it. Just remember to give Asta a few episodes before you write him off as an annoying MC.