"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:
#4422
2
based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.
Popularity:
#58
Members:
1,662,602
Favorites:
46,430
Available AtResourcesStreaming Platforms | Reviews
Filtered Results: 540 / 559
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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
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
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 ... 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 ... 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 ... 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 ... 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 ... 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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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 ... 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 ... 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 ... 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 ... Jan 9, 2021
Black Clover has quite possibly made me a professional autist... if I wasn’t already one before.
DISCLAIMER: Read the review at your own risk, be wary of not spoilers, but the possibility simply reading this will have your body next to my grave after the light of our souls are extinguished by the cultists. The approaching critique will shatter your mind harder than Sister Lily’s did in our favorite Black Clover doujins. Let’s not drag things out any further or else it’ll stay much too canon to the show’s pacing and likely piss off the limited attention the fanbase has for anything good enough writing to qualify ... Dec 25, 2017
(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 ... Sep 3, 2022
This anime definitely doesn't deserve an 8+ score. I hate myself for watching 170 episodes of this garbage. The plot is garbage. The characters are copy and pastes from other shounen anime, but they have somehow managed to screw that up also. Dialogues keep repeating far too many times, it's nauseating. After a dozen episodes you can guess pretty well what the characters are going to say and do in a given situation. Power of the protagonist is a literal cheat code. They have taken all the tropes of shounen anime and made them worse. The characters and the plot is so boring. Can't decide
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Mar 30, 2021
The trickling sound of raindrops echoes throughout your room as you stretch your legs under the covers. Looking through the glass panes on your window, you unfurl the overcast sky with your eyes. A sense of sloth weeps over your body while you sift through the potential ways you can entertain yourself on such a gloomy day. You weigh your options and eventually stumble on some reality show from the mid 2000s. As you begin to watch you realize that there’s something almost reminiscent about it. It’s like you’ve seen this scripted story play out before. You let yourself be guided by the charm of
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Feb 25, 2018
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 ... Oct 2, 2018
This is my first review.
I personally wanted to write a review because everyone demerits this series. Story: 8+1=9 An orphan lad with no specialties except hard work thrives to achieve his goal. Neither his dead father is a hero nor he has support from powerful people. Only person that acknowledge him is his childhood friend and rival with very special abilities. +1 point because I personally like anime, movie or anything when 'start with a goal and how it is achieved' theme. Art: 8 The manga is very good but anime follows a dull color theme, which may or may not satisfy everyone and some mistakes to. ... |