"If you flip the 10, it becomes a 01!" -Some Jerk
Let me preface this pre-review by saying this, I am in love with this series, but for all the wrong reasons. Black Clover, or, Black Clover as the gringos say, is the sophomore effort of mangaka Yuuki Tabata, and it is a far cry from his debut work, Hungry Joker. Hungry Joker had the unfortunate fate of being axed by the higher-ups at WSJ, thus is the fate of most new kids on the block who don't have a proper sense of what they are doing or are given little time to spread their wings.
...
I'm not attempting to white-knight Hungry Joker or anything, but the politics at WSJ are as murky as the Academy Awards Committee. While it wasn't exactly a Dostoyevsky or Hemmingway, Hungry Joker on a conceptual level at least had a fun gimmick to play around with. Couple that with some pretty unique character models and a good sense of panel-work, it easily had the potential to grow into something much greater than it ever did.
I imagine Tabata's frame of mind when conjuring up the idea for his follow-up was one of both pragmatism and...a cheeky disregard for creativity. Black Clover is one of the most creatively bankrupt series I have ever had the pleasure of watching or reading. I am utterly convinced that Tabata wrote this as a cheeky retaliation/statement against the higher-ups at WSJ, and no amount of rationalizing or fanboying can change that perception for me. Black Clover is terrible, it's like the shonen equivalent of The Room except it gets away with convincing people that it's good. The only thing Black Clover is good at is highlighting how by-the-numbers this style of series can get.
Briefly touching on the technicals of this series, the voice acting is god awful. Asta's voice actor has one setting and one setting only, although that has been covered ad nauseam. He makes Junko Takeuchi's work as Naruto seem warm and inviting like Morgan Freeman. It is probably the only time watching a series that it actually elicited a physical reaction from me. Although, as a small caveat, if you attempt to watch this series from the perspective of someone knowing what they are signing up for, the subbed version adds an extra layer of grease to this disgustingly satisfying sandwich. I.e. if you want the genuine Black Clover experience, the voice acting is like icing on that cake.
The animation is in a middling ground of both extremes. It can be good when it wants to and it can also skimp on its budget when it needs to. I feel that Tabata's art style wasn't properly translated from panel to screen. I have conflicting feelings on the animation though. Had the source material been in more capable hands like Bones or Madhouse, I feel that it could've been leaning more towards "beautiful spectacle" territory as opposed to "beautifully terrible". So despite my compliments to Tabata's art style, the mediocre animation mostly serves to its benefit.
Now that the technicals are out of the way, I feel I shouldn't even have to harp all that much on the story and characters. If you've watched Naruto, if you've watched Fairy Tail, if you have even a basic knowledge of writing propensities when it comes to shonen and fantasy, you've already gotten a taste of Black Clover. The story is bereft of shallow gimmicks and instead opts to stuff itself full of cliches and archetypes. The overarching storyline and subplots all have parallels to other works and the characters all have doppelgangers floating around in some other manga.
So why the 10? Honestly, I'm not even really sure myself. They say that there are certain series that require you to take a step back or a dumbed-down open mind to enjoy. I don't even really feel either of those things are required to watch and enjoy Black Clover. I've seen what it looks like when it earnestly feels like Tabata is trying, and he has a lot of genuinely good qualities to the way he draws and writes his manga. In fact, I have no doubt that this series has the potential to grow into something greater than the sum of its parts considering that it hasn't been given the axe at this stage. Black Clover was not a labor of love or a passion project, that is apparent to me. From my perspective, Black Clover is a frustrated and rebellious statement on the current status of shonen manga and the politics that goes into publication. Because honestly, it takes a real genius to write something this stupid. Or perhaps I'm just reading too much into it?
Whatever the case may be, Black Clover is my ultimate guilty pleasure and I wave that 10 with pride.
Alternative Titles
Japanese: ブラッククローバー
More titlesInformation
Type:
TV
Episodes:
170
Status:
Finished Airing
Aired:
Oct 3, 2017 to Mar 30, 2021
Premiered:
Fall 2017
Broadcast:
Tuesdays at 18:25 (JST)
Studios:
Pierrot
Source:
Manga
Demographic:
Shounen
Duration:
23 min. per ep.
Rating:
PG-13 - Teens 13 or older
Statistics
Ranked:
#4182
2
based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.
Popularity:
#65
Members:
1,542,316
Favorites:
43,330
Available AtResourcesStreaming Platforms | Reviews
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Your Feelings Categories Dec 7, 2017
"If you flip the 10, it becomes a 01!" -Some Jerk
Let me preface this pre-review by saying this, I am in love with this series, but for all the wrong reasons. Black Clover, or, Black Clover as the gringos say, is the sophomore effort of mangaka Yuuki Tabata, and it is a far cry from his debut work, Hungry Joker. Hungry Joker had the unfortunate fate of being axed by the higher-ups at WSJ, thus is the fate of most new kids on the block who don't have a proper sense of what they are doing or are given little time to spread their wings. ... Mar 30, 2021
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 ... Mar 30, 2021
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 ... Mar 30, 2021
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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Dec 5, 2017
We used to have Big 3 when it comes to anime including shows like Naruto, One piece, and Dragonball. Throw Fairytail in there also. Now as those shows are going away we look to replace them and this show was supposed to be one of those shows hyped to the point it crashed streaming websites when it released. The thing is all this show has are the bad parts of the Big 3. The story also wants to be compared to them and since it is I'm going to compare them here.
The story is about a boy who can't use magic but through some stroke ... Mar 30, 2021
Black Clover has probably had the best and most significant turnaround in quality of any anime series I’ve seen so far, and it surely deserves all the praise and hype that it gets now as it trends worldwide more often than not, earning itself (in my book) the title of being a quality shounen series.
I think we can all agree that Black Clover started off quite poorly. Bad voice acting, bad animation, it was just overall shit. Having started later throughout the series’s release (around episode 120), I decided to stick around in the promise of it improving thanks to word of mouth by fans ... Aug 11, 2018
Short review about this show= Overall 9/10 (raiting fluctuates around 7-9) why? ez I just like medieval epoch with magic, dungeons, adventures, actions, some hide romantic= My era my dream world. (DONT forget read the bonus especially those which are gamers and like this anime).
Story 8/10 very good atm, I still hold my thumbs up about what will happen next and it's worth it. Art 7/10 I would like more detailed art not only in big fights(8-9), but..... all the time, but still the feeling that it would be 2002 year with art drawing style, but you can still watch if you liked like me (dungeons, ... Jun 26, 2019
I hate this show. It’s horrible. Don’t watch it.
The story is a horribly crafted compilation of clichés I’m 65 chapters in and I still don’t know anything about the world. What is magic? How does it work? Why sometimes a grimoire is needed to do magic and sometimes not with no apparent reason? Why mana usage is only relevant sometimes and others is completely ignored? How does mana work? How is it used to do magic? The kingdom has 2 kings the normal king and the Wizard king, what do they do? Which one rules over the other? Is the wizard king just the head ... Apr 18, 2020
Holy F the anime has gotten so much better. I dropped the anime when it was at ep 30 or so because i found it kinda boring and annoying tbh. I picked up again and damn 100 ep 2 day binge. GUYS DON'T MISS OUT ON THIS ANIME. First few eps are legit kinda bad but its all for the character development(I mean it ALOT of character development for a lot of characters in the show). Don't fall the heapload of negative reviews as they are all from 2017 era. Sort by recent and you'll see a lot of 10s and 9s. Peace
May 11, 2019
Black Clover, possibly one of the rockiest starts to an adaptation there is. Once you hit episode 13 or so however, the show becomes this train barrelling at full speed, and god damn it works.
Why? It's not hiding what it is. Black Clover is a generic, campy Shonen series that has done EVERYTHING you have already seen if you've watched a good amount of Bleach, Naruto, or One Piece. But the execution. Black Clover has single-handedly made me enjoy Shonen again, and that's a tough thing to do because I lost almost all interest once Bleach got the axe. What are some simple reasons of why it ... Apr 20, 2019
I don't know why people keep saying that this anime sucks! I personally enjoyed it and I think that it is underrated. I think that the story is good even though there are many other animes that are similar. I think that art is done nicely and I liked the voice acting even though some people thought that it sucked. I don't know why but people hate this anime because they think that Asta's annoying. Sure he screams a lot but that's what makes me like Asta more. I personally think that Asta's fun and likeable and is not annoying just because he screams a
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Mar 30, 2021
This past season of anime has been full of adventures, romance, and a bit of strangeness, with the likes of Attack On Titan, Horimiya, and now Redo of the Healer as we have drawn curtains on this action, comedy, shounen adventure show “Black Clover”. This particular anime has stood out as an example of hope during the gloomy snowy days, since it started giving an adventure shounen with a different type of storytelling it’s been quite the journey of 170 episodes. “Black Clover” is an anime series that has been written and illustrated by Yuki Tabata, if you liked “Fairy Tale” then I’m sure you’ll
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Mar 30, 2021
Black Clover has received tons of hate and criticism, so my role here is to make it clear; why someone should go for it or ignore it. Of course, there are many flaws, but it is undeniable that some things were handled well for a battle shounen anime.
Starting as an adventure of two brothers who dive into the world of magic, Black Clover introduces us to a world full of colour, battles and a big number of characters. But aside from that, Tabata Yuuki tries to deliver political and moral messages in his own way. The main arcs revolve around pacifism, trust, hope and positive ... Feb 6, 2018
I dont know why this is given a 6/10. Like ever since the first couple episodes I loved this show! With all of Asta's badass moments it just fuels me. I love anime were the mc is just so badass and everyone thinks so too. Too bad thats not what everyone thought in the beginning but it does get better especially the recent episodes. Just give this show a chance and watch it the whole way through. Its just so cool how the mc has the power to negate all magic!!! And in future episodes everyone is going to know that and either think of
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Dec 30, 2017
I don't know what happened, but the anime to me is a complete joke. I enjoyed the manga alot, and to be fair i did like different things like the art and how everything was animated, that wasn't bad. However the sound, the progression, transitions were all disgusting for what this could have been.
Sound - it felt like the voice actors came cheap and they picked whoever offered to do it. It sounded terrible it didn't feel like most of the voice actors even fit with the characters -The sound gets irritating as well from basically how bad it all played out. Especially if their shouting ... Jul 24, 2018
Let me make it perfectly unequivocally clear that this anime, Black Clover, is a gargantuan pile of hot hot salty garbage. It is also perhaps one of the most successful unintentional comedies it has ever been my pleasure to enjoy. Or is it intentional? After 41 episodes, I still find myself unable to say. That, ladies and gentleman, is the magic of Black Clover.
Story: Imagine the most basic Shounen anime ever. Congratulations, you have just imagined Fairy Tail. Now make that just a little more seedy, and you have just gotten a good handle on what Black Clover is like. Fairy Tail but with ... Feb 27, 2018
What I don't understand is why some people give this anime so much shit. They talk about how it's unoriginal and the same thing as Naruto. Honestly, who cares! An anime doesn't have to be original. In my opinion, it should just have a good story, characters, and animation in general, which Black Clover has! There is a reason why animes like Naruto succeed, it's a story platform that works and appeals to the audience. To me, this show is the ideal shōnen anime and everyone should give it a chance. So everyone who gives this show bad ratings should just stop their whining and
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Nov 7, 2018
Black clover is really underrated on MAL. Let me explain befor you judge. The story starts a lot like naruto and fairy tail but thats only the start.
Black clover is about a boy who is really special. He has no magical power in a magical world. Just like the guild he will join he is strange. The story is about people who have strange personalitys or powers and overcome it or even use it as an strength. There are guild members who cant control their magical power (even when the power level is really high), are addicted to fights and can get really violent because of ... Jan 28, 2020
I started to watch this show from the very beginning. At first I thought that it will have a lot of potential, but it had a very slow start and it got kinda boring. After I took a break and came back to it I was mindblown and it quickly became one of my favorite anime among: Dr. Stone, Demon Slayer, MHA Season 4 and others. Don't listen to the haters saying that the animation of some episodes it's garbage. Maybe it is for them because they are probably watching at a very low quality, but for me every single episode, aside from the 5
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Dec 30, 2019
I think it's time I wrote a review of Black Clover. At the time of writing, I've watched a horrendous 108 episodes. I've really given it my best shot.
Here's the short of it: Black Clover is an anime for people who don't watch much anime. Black Clover really, badly wants to be one of the big boys. You've got a bit of Naruto and Fairy Tail, even One Piece influences. I haven't watched much of the extremely long-form shounen series, with Naruto being the only one I enjoyed and completed, so I'm sure that there are influences from others as well. There is a whole cast of ... |