Black Clover

Asta and Yuno were abandoned at the same church on the same day. Raised together as children, they came to know of the "Wizard King"—a title given to the strongest mage in the kingdom—and promised that they would compete against each other for the position of the next Wizard King. However, as they grew up, the stark difference between them became evident. While Yuno is able to wield magic with amazing power and control, Asta cannot use magic at all and desperately tries to awaken his powers by training physically.

When they reach the age of 15, Yuno is bestowed a spectacular Grimoire with a four-leaf clover, while Asta receives nothing. However, soon after, Yuno is attacked by a person named Lebuty, whose main purpose is to obtain Yuno's Grimoire. Asta tries to fight Lebuty, but he is outmatched. Though without hope and on the brink of defeat, he finds the strength to continue when he hears Yuno's voice. Unleashing his inner emotions in a rage, Asta receives a five-leaf clover Grimoire, a "Black Clover" giving him enough power to defeat Lebuty. A few days later, the two friends head out into the world, both seeking the same goal—to become the Wizard King!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

The series' broadcast went on hiatus following the release of episode 132 on April 28, 2020. Beginning May 5, the series was rebroadcast from its first episode until further notice. The series continued its broadcast from episode 133 on July 7th, 2020.

Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Black Clover
Alternative version:	Black Clover: Jump Festa 2016 Special
Side story:	Black Clover: Jump Festa 2018 Special, Petit Clover Advance, Black Clover: Mahou Tei no Ken
Other:	Mugyutto! Black Clover

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Asta

Main

Kajiwara, Gakuto
Japanese

Silva, Noelle

Main

Yuuki, Kana
Japanese

Yuno

Main

Shimazaki, Nobunaga
Japanese

Sukehiro, Yami

Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi
Japanese

Vermillion, Mereoleona

Supporting

Minagawa, Junko
Japanese

Voltia, Luck

Supporting

Murase, Ayumu
Japanese

Novachrono, Julius

Supporting

Morikawa, Toshiyuki
Japanese

Nero

Supporting

Sasaki, Hitomi
Japanese

Papittson, Charmy

Supporting

Yasuno, Kiyono
Japanese

Ideale, Zora

Supporting

Midorikawa, Hikaru
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Yoshihara, Tatsuya

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Animation Director, In-Between Animation, Key Animation, 2nd Key Animation

Tanemura, Ayataka

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Assistant Director

Takakuwa, Hajime

Sound Director

Taguchi, Tomohisa

Episode Director

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Opening Theme

	1: "Haruka Mirai (ハルカミライ)" by Kankaku Piero (感覚ピエロ) (eps 1-13)
	2: "PAiNT it BLACK" by BiSH (eps 14-27)
	3: "Black Rover" by Vickeblanka (eps 28-39)
	4: "Guess Who Is Back" by Kumi Koda (倖田來未) (eps 40-51)
	5: "Gamushara (ガムシャラ)" by Miyuna (みゆな) (eps 52-64)
	6: "Rakugaki Page (落書きペイジ)" by Kankaku Piero (感覚ピエロ) (eps 65-79)
	7: "JUSTadICE" by Seiko Oomori (大森靖子) (eps 77-94)
	8: "sky＆blue" by GIRLFRIEND (eps 95-102)
	9: "RiGHT NOW" by EMPiRE (eps 103-115)
	10: "Black Catcher" by Vickeblanka (eps 116-128)
	11: "Stories" by Snow Man (eps 129-140)
	12: "Eien ni Hikare (永遠に光れ)" by TOMORROW X TOGETHER (eps 141-157)
	13: "Grandeur" by Snow Man (eps 158-???)

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Ending Theme

	1: "Aoi Honoo (蒼い炎)" by Itowokashi (イトヲカシ) (eps 2-13)
	2: "Amazing Dreams" by Swanky Dank (eps 14-27)
	3: "Black to the Dreamlight" by EMPiRE (eps 28-39)
	4: "four" by Faky (eps 40-51)
	5: "Tenjou Tenge (天上天下)" by Miyuna (みゆな) (eps 52-64)
	6: "My Song My Days" by Solidemo, Sakura men (桜men) (eps 65-76)
	7: "Hana ga Saku Michi (花が咲く道)" by THE CHARM PARK (eps 77-89)
	8: "against the gods" by m-flo (eps 90-102)
	9: "Jinsei wa Senjou Da (人生は戦場だ)" by Anzai Karen (安斉かれん) (eps 103-115)
	10: "New Page" by INTERSECTION (eps 116-128)
	11: "Answer (アンサー)" by Kaf (花譜) (eps 129-140)
	12: "A Walk" by Gakuto Kajiwara (eps 141-157)
	13: "BEAUTIFUL" by TREASURE (eps 158-???)

More theme songs

More reviews

Reviews

Mar 30, 2021

Marinate1016

Recommended

No long running show and fanbase has got as much disrespect as Black Clover(ok, Boruto probably has got more). Yet, the fans have stuck by it for years and as Black Clover’s story continues to surpass its limits, their loyalty is finally paying off.

Black Clover is a show that is in many ways the literal embodiment of its protagonist’s struggle. Asta goes from being the laughingstock of town to the literal saviour of the kingdom. During that internal journey, we also watched the anime gradually evolve and get better as time went on. Production qualities seemingly increased as the popularity increased as well. Asta’s journey ...

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Mar 30, 2021

LordSozin

Mixed Feelings

Black Clover is not for everyone, I’ll admit. It’s the trashiest to mid-tier Shounen series out there that manages to gravitate to a certain group of viewers with its cliches, tropes, and generic power fantasy. It lacks anything substantial or impactful. It doesn’t reinvent the Shounen wheel or elevates it. It’s a lackluster written series that exists purely for entertainment for people like me--who self indulges in battle shounen without a second thought--even if it’s the same type of blueprint that I’ve seen before, but with its own modifications. Thus, I don’t have any hate or resentment directed towards this controversial series. I simply can’t. ...

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Mar 30, 2021

KANLen09

Recommended

This is the first time that I'll be reviewing a long-running series, so spare the pardon if there's any for pleasantries. But without further ado..."Please marry me, Sister Lily! I won't give up until I've hit my limits!"

"If you flip the 10, it becomes a 01!" - Some Jerk a.k.a remember how Black Clover was despised by everyone?

Black Clover is one of the many myriad of Shonen shows that Weekly Shonen Jump has been banking on imitating the success Shueisha once had since the diminishing of the Big 3 (One Piece, Bleach, Naruto), alongside many other WSJ titles that have constantly received headlines for breaking ... sales and adaptations that make up the modern age of the anime landscape. Unfortunately, at a time when the Big 3 were all but fizzled out of the community's eyes, there was but one mangaka amongst the many other Shonen authors who were trying to get the attention of Weekly Shonen Jump to have their works publicized...his name is Yuki Tabata. Being a sophomore into the manga industry, his first work of the short-lived and then cancelled 3-volume long Hungry Joker was not received well, and if you know anything about the intense competition of Weekly Shonen Jump: "If your manga doesn't sell well, we will take it off indefinitely without trial. We have more titles that we are ever ready to sink our time and resources into promoting new material and publicity to the large population who are always ever hungry for more." OK, shame on you for the first try. But take a look at his second work...and yet it still doesn't sell when this came out in early 2015 when it was serialized in WSJ. But Shueisha at least had a good idea that while this work started off being blantantly and averagely similar to the Big 3 in terms of the story and plot, and so they released the first volume thereafter in June of the same year. And to say the rest is history is an understatement, because even in the Oricon charts, Yuki Tabata just couldn't do enough to maintain the growing popularity of his work, only selling within the Top 25 and not even cracking the Top 10, even after the anime adaptation came out (at least for the 1st year running). It's only through the sheer talent of director Tatsuya Yoshihara and his production team at Studio Pierrot that would propel this "then infamous, now famous" work into the greatest of great oblivion with the passing of time, that Yuki Tabata finally can breathe a heavy sigh and continue developing Black Clover into one of the many modern Shonen juggernauts that we know today, selling from the thousands to the millions.

I'm not gonna say that what Yuki Tabata did here was plentiful, the story plot was rife of a roller-coaster ride of the usual Shonen tropes and cliches that quickly garnered attention as one of the worst series to be published and then through Studio Pierrot's infamous low-budget visuals, another strike as one of the worst modern Shonen shows that aired back in 2017. Heck, I probably would not want to include what Black Clover is all about, you can refer to the MAL synopsis or even Wikipedia to read it. In a nutshell, think of the Big 3 and the main MC's aspiration of "I want to be <fill in the blanks of the usual Shonen archetype>", add in a fellow rival, and there you have it. It feels just as awful as any kind of minimalistic story from the start, and the usual shenangians from some heavy power fantasy action to the occasional comedy that just doesn't feel as cohesive, and that's not to mention the immense boredom that quickly sets in if you're not the type to stick around for just "one more chapter". Not gonna lie, the first thing that everyone will remember is the crudely annoying MC that is Asta, especially in particular towards newbie VA Gakuto Kajiwara at the time when he first debuted with Asta. Try to compare the criticisms from Day 1 of the anime to now, and most people will say: "I still remember the days when people hated his voice days after his debut on Black Clover. Although I also wasn't very fond of it too, I found it very funny later, gotta love him and his voice acting now." or "I used to think that he (Gakuto Kajiwara) did a bad job with Asta...I take back what I said. His voice matches Asta completely and it's not bad at all, I've gotten used to it overtime." We've come a long way, friends. To see a rookie VA on his first debut getting flamed for all the wrong reasons, to now seeing the light that no one can replace Gakuto Fujiwara for the long-term investment.

Overtime, we get to see the extensive character cast of Black Clover, and I'm still going to rely on my gut feelings here: each and everyone of them feels like cardboard cut-outs that are worth surmising to invoke the feelings of just blantantly plagarizing from other Weekly Shonen Jump works, and that's where Yuki Tabata can be faulted with trying to make do of the cliches and tropes of the Shonen genre that worked well at the time. The problem is with his way of execution of character traits that we've seen way too often to try lifting inspirations from one source to another, so much so that it becomes overbearing and full of cringe. Let's say Asta's rival Yuno. He's a skilled Wind Magic user, blessed by the gods to have magnificent power for OP prodigy powers, and as indicated by the magic books known as Grimoires: he's the four-lead clover magic user. Now tell me if any of those traits are lifted whether in and out of context of similar characters you might have seen throughout your read list of Shonen lookalikes. But as further evidenced, it's with the passing of time that helps distinguish each and every character to their types and whatnot, giving us the audience enough time to digest about what makes them tick and work, and appreciate them for their presence to the different progressing story arcs of the main series.

You know me, I'm very critical when it comes to studio productions, and Studio Pierrot to me, stands as one of the worst studios to ever exist, even if they adapt works that often lose out on the quality of the source materials that fans so desired to see on the small screen. Black Clover is no different with the stigma that Pierrot productions tend to have, and for 1001 good reasons. But once again, like I've said at the beginning, it's thanks to director Tatsuya Yoshihara for helming this long-running project that has seen its fair shares of highs and lows. Black Clover might've started on the wrong foot for being the similar case towards Studio Deen at being decades-old studios with variable quality, for the test of time stands between the production staff team to stand in the gap and make their efforts worth it, and the payoff was certainly worth it in the long-run that was only destined to run for the full length of a year, that subsequently got lengthened and amounted to 3.5 years worth of time that increased the hype with some episodes having the Asta trademark of "I will hit my limits!" that expressively shared the experience of sticking in the long-run. AND BOY, DO THOSE EPISODES DELIVER with at best 9-turned-10/10 ratings that even trended on Twitter. YES, Black Clover IS BIG in both Japan and the West, and with Crunchyroll being the biggest benefactor that this show has garnered the No. 1 top spot in 80+ countries, you can't certainly lie at where Black Clover is now with the insane popularity. To that I say, great job Pierrot for making me love a show that I now endear as one of the many Shonen long-running series that I can recommend.

Even the music can't be understated. For as many as 13 sets of OSTs within the 3.5 year long run of Black Clover, we've definitely heard some "diamond in the rough" gems that we've gotten used to overtime, with many songs that really stick out to be the series' representatives when it comes to recognizing that it originated from Black Clover. Sound director Hajime Takakuwa certainly did wonders at what he does best, but for this one I have to give props to the many artists that have contributed cult-classic songs, from the OPs: Kankaku Piero's "Haruka Mirai" to Vickeblanca's hit songs "Black Rover" and "Black Catcher", and EDs: Itowokashi's "Aoi Honoo" to Faky's "four". These are just some of my top favourite songs from Black Clover, but there's just too many to list them, because most of them are bangers in their own right (with some just being decent at best).

Like what @Goober-fish has said: "Whatever the case may be, Black Clover is my ultimate guilty pleasure and I wave that 10 with pride." And I reverse the words of some jerk that said the sentence at the beginning: "If you flip the 01, it becomes a 10!" Black Clover may have started with being a score of 01, but looking at it now, it's definitely worthy of the 10 score in every possible way: the story that got better overtime with the characters, the insane Pierrot animation quality and right down to the fantastic OSTs that we are graced with to our pairs of eyes and ears.

Never have I thought that I will return from a hatred of a stigma to loving them for Shonen shows, and even if I or you have never watched the Big 3 before, Black Clover is EASILY the best recommended entry show for anyone wanting to dive into Shonen shows...that's if you can last all 170 episodes in one go. Thanks Black Clover, now it's no longer just a guilty pleasure, and I'm an addition to wearing that 10 with pride.

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Black Clover

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Characters & Voice Actors

Asta

Silva, Noelle

Yuno

Sukehiro, Yami

Vermillion, Mereoleona

Voltia, Luck

Novachrono, Julius

Nero

Papittson, Charmy

Ideale, Zora

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Synopsis

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Episode Videos

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Reviews

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