Black Clover

Dec 5, 2017

10 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 1

Colorly (All reviews)

774 people found this review helpful

This review is going to be short as possible and try to explain why this anime is fucking horrible.
I don't even need to break down in different sections to explain how bad this anime is. The story is pretty much your run down the mill trying to be achieve high status so people can praise him. It's similar on how Naruto wants to be Hokage while Asta trying to be the wizard king. The fucking story is bland and it's literally FAR from original. Unlike Naruto, Asta is fucking pitifully annoying always running around and screaming like a maniac at least 100 times in read more

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Dec 7, 2017

10 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 10

ManicStylo (All reviews)

249 people found this review helpful

"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.

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Dec 7, 2017

10 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 7

MurasameKills (All reviews)

202 people found this review helpful

UNBIASED REVIEW TO BALANCE OUT THE HATERS

Are there many shounen clichés here? Yes. Is it a groundbreaking anime that will have the anime elitists praising the very ground the characters walk on? No. Is it still a fun, comedic, action-adventure/magical-fantasy and enjoyable shounen? Yes. I give this anime a 7, good on the MAL scale, because it is. It's not trash like some other reviewers are claiming here.

To start, I will respond to the haters: Personally I don't think that cliches are all that bad if done right. There is a reason that cliches, or as we call them in the business "genre stereotypes" exist, and that reason is because they work, they are enjoyable, and people generally like them when done right, and Black Clover does it right. It is true that it's nice to see something break the mold from time to time, but without a mold to break in the first place, then nothing would be ground breaking. In this way, not everything is meant to push the boundaries of the anime elitist's groupthink (ironic I know), some things are simply meant to be fun, easy, enjoyable, and follow our expectations. Again, there is nothing wrong with a "mold" a "cliche" or "genre stereotypes" when done right and Black Clover does indeed do them right, so far. And finally TO BE CLEAR! In my reviews, I never judge an anime by another anime, I never compare the anime I am reviewing to other anime, and I immediately disregard ANY REVIEW that does so. Period. I always judge an anime on it's own merits as I see them. Anything less, to me, would be disrespecting the time, energy, and effort that the creators put into creating a TV show to entertain us, as well as disrespecting you, the reader, as you are looking for a review on THIS anime and not a list of my favorites, as you can check out my profile for that should you so choose. To put it quite simply, you, the reader, deserve an impartial analysis of this anime based only on this anime, and not how it compare to others.

Minor spoilers ahead, nothing anime breaking, all receive a "(spoiler)" warning before it.

Story 7, good: Interesting world and magic mechanics. I am eager to see how it plays out given the backstory about the wizard king destroying the demons and how it resolves itself with the fact that Asta (one of the protagonists) utilizes a demonic grimoire.

Art 7, good: Nothing really more to say here, it's pretty standard for a 2017 shounen.

Sound 7, good: Enjoyable opening and closing songs. The foley sounds are well done, and voice acting is good. Regardless of what the haters say I find Asta's voice and antics amusing rather than annoying (though this is just opinion, cannot be objectively verified, and thus everyone is entitled to their own. So I hold nothing against those who do find it annoying). Asta is a good counter point to his more serious brother/rival which brings us to. . .

Character 7, good: Unlike what the hater elitists are saying, there is character development in this show, and the characters have a good motivation for doing what they are doing. The only reason that some don't like it is because it's been done before, but that doesn't make something bad. There is nothing wrong with a good underdog story when done right, and when you realize that they (Asta and his brother Yuno, the two protagonists) are not simply fighting for themselves, but fighting for their class of people (the poor peasants vs the rich nobles) their character motivations are very clear. I really do think that the reason the elitist haters hate this is because they are comparing Black Clover to other animes instead of on its own merits, because this character motivation is a very honorable one that makes sense given where our heros Asta and Yuno come from and the world they find themselves in. In other words, the world, story, and characters are all internally consistent which is exactly what you want to see in any work of fiction. You see, there is a reason that the underdog story and fighting for others is a genre stereotype. It's because people like it. The final character (and third protagonist) we will talk about is Noelle. Her story is different and interesting (minor spoiler), as she is a noble who (presumably) chose to join the worst/lowest of the magic knights squads. Unlike Asta and Yuno, her character and backstory is not completely revealed yet, but it appears that she too has something to prove, untapped potential, and may just end up developing into a noble who is worthy of the title unlike so many other nobles in this series, who seem to be just horrible.

Enjoyment 8, Very good: I give the enjoyment an 8 because all of these other good factors come together to craft a story that I can't wait to see the next installment of in the coming weeks.

Overall 7: No, this anime isn't going to be a game changer, win any awards or be the next thing that the anime elitists get together at their social meet ups and sniff each others farts over (south park reference there for all you normies), but it is a fine addition to the shounen genre and if you like magic action adventure comedy fantasy shounens that are light and don't try to hard to be something that they're not, then you will likely enjoy Black Clover as I am.

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Dec 9, 2017

10 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

YukiMisa (All reviews)

154 people found this review helpful

I watched 10 episodes, that I can say, a great classic senen, like Naruto, HxH, etc.
Characters typical for this genre, the protagonist (hyperactive, eternally screaming) and his best friend (a genius, always serious) dream of becoming a local "Hokage" despite their origins.
Art does not cause disgust.
Opening and Ending are normal.
Only one misfortune, if you looked at many long senens, then you will not see anything new.
In general, if you like fighting senens, look bravely.
It looks easy, 10 episodes looked at one go.
P.S. Why does the Hero Academy have such a great rating, although in fact it is the same typical Senen.

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Dec 5, 2017

10 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 3

BlueEclispe (All reviews)

27 people found this review helpful

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 of determination and luck gets a powerful magic only he can use. I purposely manipulating this to sound like Boku no hero academia. Both main characters don't have something commonplace in this world just to get one of the strongest options somehow. Now we can compare it to Naruto, where all they did was replace Hokage with Wizard King as that is our main characters main goal to be the one over them all. Then you have Fairytail's magic elements on top of the fact he basically joined the Fairytail guild and yada yada yada. You have probably had these comparisons drilled into your head by now. All you need to know is this show doesn't do any of things nearly as well as the others except for maybe Fairytail that one is being debated by everyone. And before I move on when the second episode is filler that tells you this show isn't going to have good things to come. The pacing of the show is horrendous as it starts off super slow then starts moving very quickly and slows down again. They even negate some things turning some episodes into nothing but filler that added nothing to the characters development. (No saying it won't make you like a character more or not but objectively it adds nothing.)

The art is good. I don't love it but it's not bad at all the magic looks really good but that's the only thing I really like about it everything else I find around meh.

The music is all that special to me either. No songs still out to me as good or bad because I can't even remember them as it really isn't anything special. But there is one thing that I will get into with characters. The japanese voice actors are perfectly cast and that's not exactly a good thing. ( more on that later.)

Time to let loose the characters.
Asta is the main character of this story and like I said before he can't use magic but you need magic to pretty much do anything in this world as people without it are unheard of except for him. Honestly, all he knows how to do is scream at the top of his lungs I mean listening to him makes me want to blow my brains out. This makes Dragonball look tame and people joke about that all the time. You might grow numb to his voice over time or you might not, either way, you might want to seek out the dub instead. But he is determined although he can't use magic he trains his heart out all day working on his physical abilities and ends up with a grimoire something signifying magic in this world. But his is special as these books all have clovers 1-4 usually 4 being very impressive but our magicless protagonist gets a 5 leaf which means he as the power of the devil or something like that which lets him use a huge sword like another story we know that cuts down magic and negates it completely. Overall his character is super annoying and his ability just leaves me bored as this isn't the first useless main character is actually useful story and I would rather watch any one of those at this point.

The other main character I'm going to go over is our token overpower rival character Sauske... sorry I mean Gray, No Yuno, yeah Yuno. Yuno gets a 4 leaf is naturally good at magic and our main character uses him as a motivation get stronger. He is a rather emotionless character that looks up to Asta determination because he saved him this one time. I'm just going to cut it there and say this character means nothing to me.

The side characters (guild members.) can be very similar to fairytail, We have a chick that drinks a lot and wears rather lewd clothing like kana. a overbearing and energetic character like natsu. a powerful and serious like gildarts occasionally can be, etc.

Overall, unless you love shonen anime do not touch this with a ten-foot pole. Watch the shows this wants to replace instead at least you don't have to wait for new episodes. and you have watched them watch them again. This show has nothing redeemable so far maybe it will and I'm going to keep watching because I'm shonen trash. But so far this is a complete garbage can of a show. I'm not saying you can't enjoy this but it's really not good.

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Feb 25, 2018

20 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 2

KurataLordStage (All reviews)

25 people found this review helpful

Black Clover Review Episodes 1-20.
When Black Clover anime was announced in 2016 I was personally excited because I wanted to see another series from shounen jump get adapted into an anime. Psyern, Black Clover and The Promised Neverland were Shounen Jump Mangas that I wanted to see get adapted. However, as I looked deeper to the Black Clover announcement I started to get scared because for starters it going to adapted by Studio Pierrot who are notorious for having bad filler. The worst example of this was in Naruto Shippuden or as I now like to call it Naruto Fillerppuden where in 2015 only 8 read more

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Feb 2, 2018

17 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 2

Schkob (All reviews)

21 people found this review helpful

Black Clover is probably one of the worst shounen shows I have ever seen. The plot, to the filler, to the art design is so dreadful that I find it hard to believe that this show was made in 2017. The structure is simply nonexistent and the characters are as generic as possible, with little to no empathy attached to them. I highly recommend NOT watching this pile of garbage, and watching literally any other show ever made. (Even Pupa is better honestly)

Without question, this anime is by far one of my least favorite shows I have ever seen in my life.

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Feb 26, 2018

20 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

biswambhar (All reviews)

16 people found this review helpful

Ok , i will start with saying ,
The anime is quite good. The rating doesnt clearly reflect how good this is,
The rating is such cause of some butthurt people who cant aprreciate its charm and cant get out of their narrrow minded thinking,

Most poeple reason of rating this one really low is cause the story is same with all previous one like naruto.

But , let me say onething,
Every (Most) people in this world wake up in the morning , wash their mouth, eat breakfast and then do their lunch , wash teeth, etc,,,etc, and sleep only to repeat the same thing,
All of the people read more

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Feb 6, 2018

18 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 10

Cabadula (All reviews)

15 people found this review helpful

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 read more

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Dec 30, 2017

13 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 1

HerroThere (All reviews)

15 people found this review helpful

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 read more

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Feb 27, 2018

21 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

tleonardo (All reviews)

11 people found this review helpful

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 read more

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Feb 27, 2018

21 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

ntnyfranky (All reviews)

10 people found this review helpful

When black clover came out everyone was dissatisfied. We all expected an exciting magic adventure...but instead got large doses asta's super annoying scream. However, like other great anime:Naruto and Hitman reborn the anime gets way better after 10 or so episodes. It's at this point. that asta becomes a full blown badass crushing the expectations and ribs if all challengers. Reminiscent of Guts, asta won't let anybody stop him taking all challengers head on. It's gotten to the point where I can't wait to see him just destroy another punk mage who thinks he is the bee's knees. Now I won't lie those first read more

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Feb 1, 2018

17 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

yanphi (All reviews)

10 people found this review helpful

People were already shitting on the show before it was even fully out. The first 13 episodes or so are pretty boring/trash but everything has been progressively getting better.

Episode 17 was amazing. That is turning point of the show. I guarantee that people should watch up to that part of the show and they will see how amazing and how good it is.

During episode 17, the animations were significantly better along with a whole lot of other things so watch all the way up to episode 17. If you like it, I told you so its good. If not then i really suppose its read more

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Dec 8, 2017

5 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 5

Brother_Nero (All reviews)

10 people found this review helpful

Black Clover has a large problem that seems endemic to the Shonen category in general, it spends entirely too much time trying to make things easy to understand. Whenever anything happens on screen, the exact way you should feel about it is conveyed by dialogue specifically addressing it. Rather than building up context to form a straightforward underdog protagonist, the writers would rather just have enough people say it in enough circumstances for us to believe it to be the case. Like, Asta did not just pathetically get rejected by a girl that he likes for the Xth time in a row, he needed to read more

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Dec 7, 2017

10 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 7

AbyssAnime (All reviews)

9 people found this review helpful

As of writing this review I have only seen up to Ep.10, mild spoilers may occur containing information up to that point.

TL;DR: The story is nothing unique but is still solid. Characters and the fact that Studio Pierrot are the ones adapting this are Black Clover's biggest flaw. Black Clover, despite these flaws I do still find very enjoyable though.

It's disappointing to see how lowly ranked this is and some of the stupid reviews that just call it trash. Yes, Black Clover has many flaws (just as any anime have flaws), simply based on these flaws i took a guess at what studio made it, and to no surprised I was correct. Studio Pierrot strikes again with its bad adaptations!

Characters (5/10) Mediocre
The main area of Black Clover's flaws lie in its characters. This is not limited to Asta and how he yells approximately 37 times per episode, but nearly all the characters with some sort of gag. What I mean by this is they use and reuse the same jokes with each character to the point where it is no longer funny. Some anime struggle with having every character act differently, this one however greatly over-dramatizes each character with the same jokes.

This however by no means makes it a terrible anime, in fact Black Clover has quite a few of those moments that get you excited and make you want to watch the next episode. Moments like when you first see the demon behind Asta and him using his sword, and when Asta gets his Magic Knights cloak had me pumped and super excited.

Story (6/10) Fair, Enjoyment (8/10) Very Good
The story itself so far is pretty basic and doesn't stand out as unique, its just a typical but solid story and world, but as mentioned above does have big moments which make me really enjoy it.

Art (7/10) Good, Sound (7/10) Good
The art style and sound track are nothing special and pretty normal but tie into whats going on well, the OST is not good enough that I would listen to it in my free time.

Aside from the characters, one big complaint I do have though is that you are treated to repeated scenes prior to the opening that just goes over the setting or what happened in the previous episode, this basically makes me feel like Studio Pierrot was lazy and stalled out 40 or so seconds of content and new animation every episode. They also reuse a picture of Asta twice in the opening, while some may find this silly, it just makes me feel like the studio was lazy and simply tried to limit the amount of work they had to do.

On a side note, I believe having Asta be able to do more than just swing his sword would make the anime much better, since I dont see him growing or changing as a character. Maybe if he learned a spell (but of course he cant use magic so maybe the sword/demon would come into play and increase his physical capabilities or something.) At one point in the anime, they mentioned that when a magic user matures, grows emotionally, or so forth they will "unlock" new spells from their grimoire, I would like to see something like this for Asta's case.

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Feb 3, 2018

17 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

TalkingAkuma (All reviews)

8 people found this review helpful

This anime is very good.
Whatever you have heard, you should ditch it.
The way I see life is this: you don't experience anything without an initiative.
Whether that initiative be wrong or not, you should at least give it a chance.

Overall:
This anime has a lot of potential. Me personally, I would give this anime a 8/10 so far in its current state. If it follows the manga to an extent, and improves on its characters emotional stances, I will recommend it to other people. With all that happens in the manga it will be an interesting ride, for anyone willing to watch it. However people thinking this is the next Naruto, you are in for a ride. No, Black Clover has its own unique stances on the trying to accomplish becoming the Wizard King. In Black Clover Yuno and Asta are having a competition in who can become the Wizard King first. Yuno doesn't discriminate against Asta because he has 0 magical ability like the others, because Yuno knows all the work and effort Asta has put into his dream. Asta works towards a goal even though he doesn't have the status to do so.

Story:
I would give the story a fair 6/10 though that's being harsh. Considering I have read all of the manga to the current release. I look forward to watching the anime through and through. I don't know what you've heard, but nothing bad has happened so far, we have an interesting story getting set up and from the reviews I have been seeing, people act like all anime has a 100% unique story line. Yes, I can understand how easy it would be to set up a story that is 100% unique but having an evolving main character is very difficult in its own right. Considering this, the anime itself follows the manga pretty well so far, and if it continues it will most likely get more and more people to come watch it.

Art:
I would give the art a 6/10 and that's being lenient. I personally love the art style of the background, environment, characters, etc. However I do not like how they set up the way the abilities look. When you come across them, they seem abstract and as if they are cut from something else. This being said, I get past it and love a good story. Considering I watched another anime not giving names with even worse special fx.

Sound:
Sound fits well, sounds good however there is delay you can tell in some spots. I give it a 9/10.

Character:
Character development is going to be a huge factor in depending if this will become a good hit. I loved the personalities of the characters in the manga, however I hope that occurrences like in episode 16 don't happen too often. When one of the somewhat cutoff main characters(Luck) has a somewhat touching event and brushes it off like it was some sort of stupid happenstance. It bothers me very highly. I don't know if that was a fluke or some sort of, "meant to be" scenario. However,I guess whatever, and that was my only issue while watching so far.
I give character development a 9/10.

Enjoyment:
In the end this is the only thing that matters. The enjoyment of an anime. I love Black Clover so far, I hope they make it to the current issue its at in the manga. So many good arc's they can mess around with. Good character development, good everything. The anime seems to tie in with the manga so far with some filler content on the way. As well gives us viewers something good to look foward too after a long day at whatever the heck your doing for a day job.
I give it a 9/10.

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Mar 12, 2018

20 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

asampsell (All reviews)

7 people found this review helpful

I am not finished with this series however I am actually really enjoying it so far. I've noticed from other reviews you either love it or hate it. This show is about these two orphans who grow up in a small village in the Clover Kingdom. This world is full of magic and people are usually born with it. However, Asta one of the main characters is born with no magic and struggles to keep up with the others as he grows up. Yuno is the other orphan that was born with magic power and alot of it. These two are always competing and read more

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Feb 25, 2018

20 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

superjaru (All reviews)

7 people found this review helpful

I have no idea why lots of people rated this animation with low scores. I love all of this animation. I think this kind of animations , we can see other animations like this. I mean animations with main powerful character like SAO etc. No doubt I love it. But only the thing I hate in this animation is Astra's voice. It's kind of annoying beccause he always shout every time, but it's just a little bit mistake of this animation. But overall is good.

We can see growth of main characters in the ways of mind and skills. They can improve their skills potentially. This read more

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Dec 25, 2017

12 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

Swifty9748 (All reviews)

7 people found this review helpful

(Spoiler Free!)
Hello there! I just want to say but this is the first review I have ever done.

I am going to make this a quick review and to start of, I want to say to the people who hate on this anime because of the main character's shouting, you are stupid. As generic as Black Clover is, it is still very enjoyable and I am going to continue watching each new episode as it airs.

I don't really want to go too in depth into talking about the story, but I will say it is very good, it is not amazing but it is read more

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Dec 5, 2017

10 of 51 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 7

DensetsuNoJack (All reviews)

7 people found this review helpful

I'm not sure if this is a review as much as it is a rant. If you're still interested in reading what I have to say after being told this, thank you. Thank you for reading. Gratitude is one hell of a virtue, and cultivating virtues should be a part of learning how to live in a civilized society. Patience... other great virtue, but extremely overlooked in MAL. People seem eager to "being opinionated", which is not the same as "being knowledgeable". "Knowledge" is pretty much subjective when you're watching an anime, though. Evidently, it helps to know a few things about Japanese contemporary culture/history when you're watching something like Gintama, which is full of small fast jabs and complex relevant references alike... but Black Clover? Not so much. So that leaves us with "opinionated".

After this short introduction, which we'll go back to later on, let me begin with something that should be conspicuously clear from the very beginning: Black Clover is mostly a fast paced battle shounen (especially the manga, since the anime seems to be stretching some parts to slow it down a notch... which, in my opinion, might be actually a nice thing in the long run).

Set in a fantasy world, where magic is everything, our protagonist is a boy named Asta, who, as far as we know, might be the only person in that place who can't use magic. At all. His dream? Becoming the "magic emperor", which seems like an impossible task for several reasons:

a) He's an orphan, raised by a church in a village situated in the outskirts of the kingdom of Clover (we progressively get to know exactly what that means).
b) The "magic emperor" is the most important person in the kingdom, apart from the king himself, and having that position means you're the most powerful mage in the whole country.
c) Did I already say Asta can't use magic?
d) At all?

This story is pretty simple, and it uses a great deal of anime tropes, something that many other reviewers have spoken about, stressed, underlined, discussed extensively, etc. Going back to the introduction, it's all about "having an opinion". I would even go as far as saying that their assessment focuses almost solely on the "lack of originality", which baffles me. Perhaps Black Clover is, ostensibly, a story that follows the formula popularized by other famous shounen like Naruto, Bleach or Fairy Tail. There's no subtlety in the premise, characters, world-building, and plot development. Again, this is an unpretentious battle manga, which people who like the genre might find enjoyable. It's not a masterpiece, by any means, but it's pretty solid, and it has its own merits. So, please, keep all the pretentiousness and elitist fanfare to yourself when you're watching something like Black Clover. If you take a couple of minutes browsing its background, you should know pretty well this is not artsy, clever, philosophical... nor it tries to be. But original? Let me ask again, originality? In 2017? Let alone in shounen? Good luck with that. Good luck finding the "1 in 1000" anime, the one that brings something completely new or fresh to the table, and stick with it. Maybe it's Inuyashiki this year... but someone who watches Black Clover might not necessarily like Inuyashiki. Which is perfectly fine as they bring pleasure to different palates. Enjoyment *should* be a big priority when watching anime, because this is mostly a hobby for the majority of us, and hobbies are all about leisure. Putting yourself through a chore, that gives you no enjoyment, in a field that tends to serve entertainment, is called masochism. Pure, uncut, raw masochism.

However, I must say, Black Clover does have some flaws, even if you like the genre. Firstly, and as I mentioned before, this adaption slightly differs from the manga. In the future, it might be seen as a good thing, since there are parts of the story where the author clearly lacks refinement in the way he puts together the story arcs, and even in how he structures the character development. Sometimes it feels way too forced, or even clunky. Hopefully the anime will make things smoother. Nevertheless, the first few episodes were too uneventful, and they might be a bad way to introduce someone to Black Clover, since they stretched the events a bit too much. The introduction of the Black Bulls and the subsequent arcs that follow this rowdy group of mages is where Black Clover begins to shine.

You might also be put off by Asta's voice acting, and... I guess most people are. The seiyuu's pitch is particularly annoying, and I just hope he improves... it's his first gig, so he has a lot of room to grow. As of now, he's got a long, long way to go, and easily wins "Worst VA Performance" of all time, as far as I'm concerned. I can't remember someone having such an unpleasant voice doing such an high-profile role... so there's that.

All things considered, if you like this genre, you'll probably like Black Clover. Give it time, have some patience. Many characters have nice backgrounds, the art and animation seem decent comparing to the average shounen, and the action is pretty cool. Overall, it's not mind-blowing, but it's pleasurable. Don't expect it to be as good as One Piece or HxH and you'll probably find yourself enjoying BC.

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