Black Clover

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. ...

I’ve been following the series since its inception. I’ve read and re-read its source material and, I can say it does improve--for a Black Clover standard, that is. This series received hate, backlash, and terrible reception since the onset of its TV anime. And to nobody’s surprise, it’s the most hated series of modern Shounen--2014 and onwards, right after the era of the big three. If there’s any advice I can give for people interested in watching this series, it is to go into it for pure entertainment. Be open-minded, have low expectations, ignore the hate, and watch it for yourselves.

Black Clover anime started ugly. The pacing, sheer predictability, genericness, and the dreadful usage of Shounen tropes turned off people--understandably so. But for me, I loved it. I loved it not because it was good, but because it was the purest generic anime that was not afraid for what it was. It knows its production was constrained. It knows its plot and characters took “inspiration” from previous works with few tweaks here and there, and most importantly, it knows its target audience. With this, once the show solved its pacing issues, it quickly flew from arc to arc with hype moments after hype moments, and all I did was to turn off my brain and enjoy the shit show.

To provide some examples, after the dungeon expedition arc, Asta, Noelle, Yuno, and some other magic knight squad members were summoned for recognition medals. In that banquet, the show introduced more of its supporting casts. It demonstrated its power system, characters’ abilities, showcased some of its societal structure and prejudices, and then jumped straight to the Clover Kingdom’s invasion.

Throughout this invasion arc, it entertained me by never letting go of its accelerator. All the Magic Knight captains that were introduced previously got their moments to show off. Whether be their magic or personality, it showed all of it. The show then exploits each of its newly introduced characters to the limit by having them interact and fight alongside each other. The dynamics between characters such as Fuegoleon and Nozel, Asta, Yuno, and Noelle, Yami and Jack, provided the fun. It’s cheap, it’s lazy, but it worked so well for a braindead like me.

The other aspect of Black Clover’s storytelling is the seamless transition from an arc to another. If some terrorists brutally wounded a beloved character, the most logical route is for the main casts to go after them. And they do. If the vice-captain of the Golden Dawn is acting out of character, the most logical thinking is to seek out the true identity. And they do.

How do they do it? They do it by the classic shounen way: Tournament arc--my favorite aspect of mindless battle shounen.

But along the way, the show plants some seeds of suspicion--there’s something more sophisticated with the adversaries that the Clover Kingdom were up against. It’s these careful hints here and there that made the grand finale of Black Clover’s first saga a memorable one. And it is in my humble opinion that the first saga of Black Clover is one of the best of modern shounen. The finale wrapped up every plot point presented up to then, it concluded characters’ development until that point, and it answered every question along the way. Not to mention, the final plot twist was a phenomenon to be held.

Yuki Tabata’s writing isn’t anything revolutionary. He takes inspiration and does his own twists. He utilizes whatever skills he has got at his disposal and tells his own story within the Shounen genre’s confinement. And I enjoyed every second of it. I have no regrets.

As I aforementioned, Black Clover’s production was severely constrained. From the start, the anime lacked staffing--specifically, key animators and animation directors--and had an unsustainable schedule. Before the first episode of Black Clover even premiered, the Black Clover anime production team was given only 5 months of pre-production, for a long-running battle shounen. To put it into perspective, a 12 episode regular anime usually takes a year of pre-production. Thus, it’s no surprise that the animation in Black Clover declined significantly soon after it began airing. As that happened, it’s also reported that some of the staff working on the anime had gone through physical and mental exhaustion, which they eventually fell ill.

Now, why does it matter?

Well, it doesn’t--at least from a show’s quality standpoint. But then I don’t want to clown on Black Clover’s animation either because of this information. I know the animation and art are inconsistent; the consensus is that Black Clover’s animation is inconsistent. It can be mindblowing for a single episode, and then for the next 10 to 20 episodes can range from unbearable to mediocracy. I can list every single flaw of Black Clover’s art and animation, but then that would be repetitive since I’m sure those aspects have been talked about over the years. Lastly, I’m fine with it. I’m okay with its inconsistency in art and animation because I love this series. I grew up with it, I enjoyed it, and I’m willing to forgive its flaws.

If you have read this far, I just want to thank you for taking your time.

Score: 5/10

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 ... major characters and a world full of unique side characters that really is the strength of the show. Unfortunately, the characters are mostly one dimensional, with very little complexity behind their motivations.

The art is pretty atrocious most of the time and it's clear that the anime is on a tight budget. Some of the best most important scenes of the anime were completely ruined by some of the worst animation I've ever seen.

In my eyes, the sound is the most important part of modern entertainment. People really don't even notice it, but it makes all the difference. I strongly believe that Black Clover could be three or four times better if it had a good soundtrack. The music is absolutely atrocious and I don't know what they were thinking. As a side note, although it didn't bother me as much, the main character is extremely loud and annoying, pretty much all the time.

If you want an example of how important music is, go watch an intense scene of Naruto, and then go watch one of Boruto. Then go watch the Boruto arc where they go back in time and all of the music is switched back to the original anime. It's a stark and obvious contrast.

That brings us to the most important part of any anime. The story. Bad news, the story of Black Clover is boring. Yeah, there's a big twist in episode 115 that changes the meaning of the last 70 episodes, but it's not big enough to make those episodes worth watching. The story arcs are usually focused on uncovering one of the major character's powers or dealing with their 'struggles'. But the arcs are very simplistic and don't have a lot of depth to them.

The only positive note about this anime is that there is little filler. Things move pretty fast although some of the arcs were too long for what they were trying to accomplish in my opinion.

Black Clover is hamstrung at every turn by it's poor animation, boring story, flat characters and appalling soundtrack.

HOWEVER, you're also going to read a lot of glowing reviews. I strongly believe these are coming from people who don't watch much anime and don't know any better. That or young teenagers, maybe even children. If you fall into any of these categories and don't have more refined (or jaded depending on how you look at it) taste, then this anime might actually be for you.

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 ... the heavily-edited storyline that the producers set up for your entertainment. At times you even question whether they know that everyone can see through the conspicuously manufactured storytelling. Nonetheless, you let the Hollywood producers that orchestrated this show and its motley cast of characters take you on their journey... and you end up kinda digging it?

Black Clover is like that reality show that you binge on a rainy day. It’s not a sophisticated or groundbreaking piece of media, perhaps it’s even your guilty pleasure; however, the anime manages to be entertaining enough to make you stick around. Let’s be real, any one of us can come up with Black Clover’s plot. I’m sure I could pick out one of my friends at random to create a story of equal depth and detail as Black Clover’s premise easily. That being said, the execution of said plot is still entertaining and somewhat successful. Don’t get me wrong, just because the story isn’t some intricate narrative full of complex themes doesn’t mean it can’t hold its own against its peers. We don’t need to consume revolutionary media all the time, it’s fine to let your mind take a break and engage with straightforward storytelling; in fact, I think Black Clover allows its viewers to do this quite well. The dynamic between the characters becomes more endearing as the story progresses. The plot also contains some nuance that gets fleshed out as you move through the episodes, with the peak being the Elf Reincarnation Arc.

In terms of production quality Black Clover has its ups and downs. There are times when the animation is not up to par with modern anime whereas in other instances it excels. In general, Black Clover manages to successfully adapt the source material despite fluctuations in quality. My favorite part of the show is probably the opening and ending themes. Almost every OP/ED delivers a fantastic musical performance with visuals that are just as good. This is ultimately one of Black Clover’s strongest points.

Breakdown
Story: 5/10
I’ve penalized this category mostly due to originality. Since most people I know could come up with a story of this caliber I can’t give it more than a 5. I don’t mind watching an archetypal shounen plot unfold, but some of the naming choices make me wonder if this was written by a middle schooler.. “Princess-Healing Flower Robe”?? “Curse-Breaking Blood Cocoon”? whose kid came up with that, please lmk. The first few episodes are also a little bit insufferable, relying too much on shounen tropes.

Art: 7/10
As mentioned earlier, there are some fluctuations in the animation’s quality, especially during the Royal Knights Arc. Overall Black Clover still maintains a competent level of animation with a nice art style.

Sound: 8/10
The openings slapppppp, that’s all I have to say.

Character: 6/10
The characters are charming and fun to watch, some of them are annoying but what can you expect from a long-running shounen. Other characters remain a bit questionable (I’m looking at you Gauche) but overall they’re well thought out.

Enjoyment: 7/10
If you’re looking to sit back and relax while watching a straightforward action anime I think you might enjoy this pick. Black Clover probably checks every box on the list of Generic Anime 101, but hey, when did returning to the fundamentals become so bad?

Overall: 6/10

Review (reuploaded)
This is my first review so here goes¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (*Contains minor spoilers*)

"In this world, magic is everything" - Miyazaki Hayao

Black Clover (TV) is an adaption of the manga of the same title created by Tabata Yuuki and the studio in charge of its production is Studio Pierrot (Naruto, Bleach, Tokyo Ghoul...).
Despite being heralded by Crunchyroll as the "new king of shounen", does the anime adaption of Black Clover live up to the hype?

The short answer is no, not really. Where should I start?

... Story - 4/10
The premise of the story is that two kids (Asta and Yuno) promise each other they will be the next Magic Hokage. However as they grow up they realise that while one of them is a prodigy with magic (Yuno), the other one can't shut up.... At the grading ceremony where each person gets a grimoire based on their natural talents, Yuno gets a cool book while Asta gets none. But it turns out that Asta did get a book, and it turns out he got a super powerful anti-magic book.

If this premise seems to you like a complete generic shounen mashup of other series like Naruto and Blue Exorcist, then we'd be in the same boat. Even if these shows tend to centre around "I wanna become stronger to protect my friends" I don't think there's anything wrong with liking these type of so-called cliché shows . The story of Black Clover fully embodies the essence of shounen to a fault, which is that it can be fairly predictable and uninteresting at times, although this isn't the main problem. The big issue so far (to me) seems to be the pacing and large amount of filler.

One of the initial attractions to the Black Clover manga is how fast-paced it is. Despite the large amount of clichés and simple characters it is still somewhat entertaining (if the premise interested you at all I highly recommend reading the manga rather than watching this)

However, the anime has managed to slow down the pace until everything starts to feel dragged out. Moments that don't need elaborating on as well as the amount of filler in the first few episodes occur way too often to be healthy, especially at the start of a show. [As I read someone point out, filler should be in the middle of a show to take advantage of the audience that the start of the show has already garnered, not the other way round. (The first 6 episodes of the anime cover 4 chapters from the manga? Seems about right.)]

Characters - 3/10
Unfortunately, as I pointed out earlier, there is a lot of filler early on in the story and it seems to revolve around the characters. The characters themselves are all defined by their traits, and somehow that means that until future development in the story happens, they can only repeat what we know about them so far. This is especially evident in the other members of the Black Bulls. E.g. in episode 8:

Did you know that Gauche is a siscon loves his sister after hearing it for the 20th time?
Did you know that Charmy really likes food after hearing it over and over?
Did you know that because Noelle is royalty she doesn't like doing menial tasks after hearing her repeat it over and over in the same episode?

Repetition does not constitute for character development and it shouldn't. This does occur in the manga, but nowhere near as often is it mentioned in the same scene. At some points its painfully obvious that the animators are padding for time, and it's a lot more irritating than endearing.

Art - 5/10
The background art looks remarkably good, and the character designs and drawing style stays quite close the original manga art style. The animation is mostly smooth and doesn't feel unnatural or out place. The only real issue I could see was the fight scenes; if you paused at some points during the action shots there was a lot of poorly drawn scenes. I found this out accidentally when I paused at the wrong (right?) moment.

Sound - 6/10
The first opening and ending aren't particularly memorable, but I think they fit the 'feel' of the show quite nicely.
Voice acting - do I even need to talk about Asta's Japanese VA? One may get used to it after a while, but it can be a really big turn-off for people to hear that guttural screaming. IT does seem to fit his character, but it's a little too annoying for my taste. I have no qualms with the other characters' voice actors, and the background music is decent, but not particularly memorable.

Enjoyment - 4/10
I'm honestly quite close to dropping the series. So far the pacing has been rather slow, and the story has put a lot of focus on very mundane scenes from the manga

Overall - 5/10
In hindsight, this review feels a lot more like a comparison between this adaption and the manga, but honestly if you were interested by the premise, I highly recommend you read the manga instead of watching this.

Well, well, well, what do we have here? The anime that I thought that would be the next Naruto in terms of length, already got to an end.

Black Clover is an anime that I started watching right after I ended watching Naruto, so you may understand my confusion when, back in 2017, I started this anime with a friend after school and I asked him “why is this so much similar to Naruto?”. It was like my tenth anime, so I was actually and purely confused. However, we promised that we would watch it together in my house, but then college happened and we had ... to drop it. This year I retook it by myself, by the 15th episode, I think? And it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

The premise is as classic as a premise shounen tends to be. Asta is a young boy that wants to become the next magic emperor, but he doesn’t have mana nor magic powers; his adoptive brother (let’s say) and rival, Yuno, is a prodigy boy that is the mangaka’s favourite one. When they go through a ceremony where they can see whether they can or not be magicians (by receiving a magical grimoire), the mangaka’s favourite gets the best grimoire ever that only the chosen ones can have, so you can’t forget Yuno is way better than Asta, and even than you. Asta, on the other hand, is the poor little thing that ends up having some sort of evil grimoire. From that moment, they decide they will be magic knights in order to be the next magic emperor. They have always declared each other their rival, but from that moment they actually become rivals.

As the story continues, we get to see how Asta screams all day and says the same stuff about not giving up and that he will marry a nun once he become the emperor. At first it is unbearable, but you eventually get used to ears pain. Meanwhile, we get to see how every person in that kingdom falls for Yuno and how indredibly he is and how Asta is a loser, and of course, when they have to be chosen for a captain from an organization (there are like 12) during the the exam to become magic knights, every captain asks for Yuno as some sort of The X Factor move when everybody press the buttom for the same guy and he gets to decide which one he wants to join. He, obviously, accepts the offer of the biggest organization’s captain; Asta, at the same time, is not chosen by any captain, except for the poorest one, at last moment. After this they start their lives separate and they start this adventure.

As the viewer can appreciate, Black Clover falls in every possible cliche. The beginning is completely predictable and doesn’t make any effort to try to add new nuances to such a classical shounen story formula. It’s a beginning made for beginners. If you watch Black Clover as one of your first animes it is fun, but if you watch it after that you have seen a lot of shows, this starting is rather boring and insurmountably generical. As I always state, I’m not against generical animes, but please, at least try to change a personality, a motive, a rivalry. Anything would have add anything to this, but it didn’t happen. Even talking about characters presentation are poor. Asta screams and shouts and claims he’ll be the next Hokage, Yuno doesn’t talk at all and has a resting face all day, but he is perfect and has whatever he wants and you are not (in case you didn’t notice). It does not only falls in story’s cliche but in characters. Most of them are a walking stereotype: the incestuous unbearable character that is disgustingly obssessed with his little sister, the shy one, the womanizer, the glutton that only fights when there’s food in the middle, the tsundere one that falls in love with the main character because he treats her as a person, and the lazy leader (captain) that is a bastard.

However, the interaction between them has also its pros and contras. The rivalry between Yuno and Asta is forced, lacks of interest and depth, and comes off as a bad use of a cliche: they want the same thing, and clearly Yuno is the blessed one that has more chances to win. They appear, they say “I’m going to beat him and become the magic emperor!” and that’s it. The rivalry is weak because their both motivations are weak. Asta’s motivation is to marry the nun and to demonstrate that he can win without magic powers. Yuno doesn’t have motivations because he doesn’t have any development. You see Yuno and you can’t tell if his face is because he is sad, because he is motivated, because he is happy, or because he is just hungry. He is just too overpowered to care for anything.

On the other hand, what I do like about their interactions is how the partnership is handled. The Black Bulls are not good characters as such, but their friendship and union is managed with subtlety, is gradual and is pretty natural. After 100 episodes, when you see them support each other, it becomes touching because trust was slowly built and is something the mangaka succeeds in. Maybe I’m such a crybaby and that’s it. I liked the Black Bulls, and I liked to watch them grow. I like the way Vanessa becomes a elemental character; I enjoyed the background of Finral; I liked the way the incestuous guy opened up to his comrades. I like the annoying thing between Luck and Magna, and I liked the way they helped Noelle to grow as well.

One thing that I like about series like this, is that its world has a big amount of characters to know and care. Although, at the same time, in a world like this where everytime there’s war and figths, this big lot of characters must be reduced. That’s how it is. In Game of Thrones you have more than one hundred characters, and when you make a list of your favourites you just have to enlist thirty of them at least, but eventually they die like some sort of ant that is crushed by the author, and that’s how is supposed to be. If we have a lot of magic knights, most of them will have to die since they have to fight all the time and not everytime they are going to win, won’t they? A lot of battles in Black Clover don’t have useful conclusions. A fight can endure eight episodes, and by the end of it, no one is going to die and the enemy is going to retrieve “haha, I’ll see you soon” (This Licht guy does that like three times). I don’t say that the author have to kill them indiscriminately, but he shouldn’t be afraid to kill some of them either. That’s a problem to me. Even in the hardest situation, at least in the first half of the anime, all of them survive, most of the times and battles, and that’s a plot armor that I dislike, not only because it becomes a bothersome, but because every fight comes off as irrelevant. The enemies don’t die, but the main cast don’t either; the enemies don’t win, but the main cast don’t either. If there are going to be arcs with fights that involve ten episodes (or more), at least make it juicy and with important consequences. Captains injured to death survived in ways that it shouldn’t be possible; also the enemies, even the secondaries. Please, dude, killing Fuegoleon in that first fight would have been a good impact, but no. An author must not be afraid of killing his characters in good moments, and that’s essential.

Villains leave much to be desired. Villains without substance that are just full of hate. They don’t have ideals, they just want revenge and to exterminate. The same speech is repeated a lot of times. We get it, the elves hate humanity. We get it, we saw that flashbacks a lot of times.

Female characters are... well, average. They are not that bad, since they are, at least, useful. Nevertheless, what is, actually their weight on the work? How much do they add to this, more than being in love with the two male leads? Noelle is a character that I personally like a lot, I don’t know why, I just have affection for her, but the 80% of her character is being in love with Asta and chasing after him, and being jealous and tsundere type. An exaggerated tsundere type, I must admit. However, she gets a gradual development that is clearly notorious, and is not forced. She starts being the clumsy magician that gets bullied by her siblings because she belongs to royalty and it’s the weakest of the family, and ends up being an interesting character that has a noticeable development as a magician and as a piece in this work; she demonstrates that she can be a lot more than Asta’s fangirl.

Mimosa is like Noelle (is funny because they are cousins) but worse. She is way dumber and is a lot more undeveloped. She falls in love with Asta because of a fight and his great abs. She starts to blush and that’s all she does. She has a protective abilitie, but that’s all she does, again. I like her though.

Charlotte is a captain that I thought would be different, but at the end of the day is a woman that is in love with Yami, Asta’s captain, and that behaves almost the same way as Noelle, synthesizing her personality around her romantic attitudes.

The same goes for every woman in this anime that meets Asta. Two words and they fall for him. Almost the same case with Yuno, but he doesn’t need to speak at all, since he is perfect as Sasuke. Sasuke misstreats a woman and she swears etern loyalty to him. Yuno doesn’t misstreat them, but he sees them as the same way he can see a tree. Everything applies for every woman in this anime, except for Mereoleona, and maybe Vanessa. Mereoleona, however, THAT IS A HELL OF A WOMAN: interesting backstory, explosive personality, imponent, strong. My favourite, by far; she may be the stereotypical overpowered, but she is so charismatic that I could hear her scream all day and I wouldn’t mind.

The comedy in Black Clover is really poor; is VERY repetitive. When I say VERY, I mean it. Jokes about Charlotte correcting her subordinate is repeated like 10 times per episode every time they appear. When some sort of sensei to Asta appears, they make jokes about him being naked like… I’m sorry, I can’t recall how many times they did it. You could even see it coming. Yami threatening Asta by pressing his head is another thing that you get to see too many times. Jokes about Noelle and Charlotte acting extremely tsundere are on another level of repetition. Nonetheless, when you have watched like 70 episodes, you just get used to it and pretend to laugh when they repeat the same joke for the 3rd time in the episode, but that’s how they are; if you like the characters, those jokes won’t be a bothersome for you, like it was in my case. The humor is mediocre? It is. Did I have a good time laughing at it? Well, of course.

At the same time, Black Clover is not only full of filler episodes, but it’s also full of plot armors and incoherences that complexed the story without apparent reason. I’m talking about all the entire White Eye arc and its elf-revenge stuff, with reincarnations and pasts lifes and so; some things made sense, at least a little bit, and some things were just too much convenient for them to actually bother. Some evangelisms were forced, like Finral’s brother, like half of the guys that Asta touches. That true reason behind Nozel’s contempt towards Noelle was so ridiculous. I like Nozel because he is a stoic character, but I would have preferred him as a cold brother, rather than the “I wanted to protect you” brother. Ruining your sister’s self esteem because you wanted to protect her is not allowed in this house.

As I said in other reviews, I hate studios Pierrot. After I watched Akudama Drive I thought “definitely, Pierrot improved a lot”, but then I returned to Black Clover and I knew why I hated them. Fights’ animations are lousy, character’s movements are inconsistent and in one frame you have Noelle and in the next frame you have N0ell3. In a moment you see Yami and in the next moment you see Yami without eyebrows and with his muscles like made of paperboard. There are animes that make bad frames in the middle of a fight because that way those can sleep by unseen; however, Black Clover has those stinky frames even when they are talking about the weather. There are a couple of fight that nobody knows what they wanted to do, like Asta vs Ladros. That coreography is so terrible that the viewer doesn’t have a clue of what’s going on. It seemed like a Devilman Crybaby fight that didn’t go well.

In conclusion, I’m not going to lie: my friend also retook it and we both had good laughs talking about this anime, we both shared fun experiences while watching this and we never suffered it. Black Clover is an anime full of flaws, filler episodes, not the best characters ever, and with a lousy animation and some things more that make it an average shounen, but if you like simple things without paying attention to mistakes and cliches, or if you aren’t tired of shounens, you should watch it. Besides that, I want to add that the second half is a lot better than the first one. Generical mediocre shounen or not, I don’t regret watching this.

No matter how stupid you are if you are a protagonist of a story you will get your harem. You ask "I am the protagonist of my own story then why I don't have my harem?" Maybe because you are not stupid enough, try to be more stupid and annoying.

Jokes aside,
Everything about this show felt generic, especially in the first few episodes. Watching Asta, Yuno was like watching Naruto, Sasuke all over again. Asta being, more Annoying version of Naruto, and Yuno being, a rip-off version of Sasuke. Overall, it lacked originality!

Right from the start, this show is extremely unappealing, Reason being It's filled ... with cringe, Predictable dialogues. The most annoying thing was the Crappy voice-over of the MC. Literally, He was screaming every time he opened his mouth. Can't remember the last time I found an MC who was this much annoying to watch. I think this is the only anime where Eng dub is way better than the original dub Lol...(Haters will say it's a Shounen anime!)

However, as you progress through the story, You will find the MC more tolerable and also likable, At some point, you will get used to his annoying voice-over and start liking Asta as the Main Protagonist. Most of the Antagonist character development was good and well-written. Some of my favorite arcs from the show are "The witch's Forest Arc, Eye of the Midnight Sun Arc, and Elf reincarnation Arc".

We can all agree on one thing, This show ain't for everyone. It had the potential to be the best modern-day Shounen but It isn't. At least, for me.

This is really hard. Black Clover is kinda shit, but I'm strangely addicted to it.

Don't misread the score. It's a 6, which means it's slightly above average. I don't hate Black Clover, in fact, I enjoy it a lot. But there are some glaring issues that really need to be addressed with the show.

The once-a-week schedule cripples the show in terms of content. If we're counting overused flashbacks, the 3-minute intro and 3-minute outro, and sometimes recaps, we miss around 6-8 minutes of runtime every episode. The showrunners know they're missing content for a standard 23 minute episode, so they stretch out fights and pad ... everything to the maximum. It sucks.

The overall quality of animation is pretty shit. There are a few episodes where the animation is really well done, but it's not Ufotable good. The CGI isn't great, and a lot of the dialogue is cringy.

However, many of the characters had interesting arcs and backstories. I liked most of the main cast, and they play off each other well. Furthermore, the villains are characterized well, to where they have good reason to attack the kingdom. And when everything lines up and the main characters shonen-style save the day, it's fun.

Asta's screaming still sucks. Avoid Black Clover like the plague if you don't like it.

Black Clover's generic. It kinda sucks. But it delivers on the shonen tropes well, with good characters and sometimes good action. 6/10 not bad

At some point, we have to stop entertaining mediocrity.

I have never met another series that falls so squarely into the "mediocre" category more than Black Clover, and this is not meant as an insult. It is an absolute, as objective as can be, accurate description of this series quality level. Never as good as to get you properly engaged and give you strong emotions, never as bad as to rage drop it. It simply, exists in between and offers a good service when you want something to watch and not pay much attention to when you eat your lunch.

A big part of this is ... the direct result of the Pierrot adaptation of 170 episodes that could have easily been reduced to one third of it. Instead of elevating the material to help the manga's best qualities to shine, they buried it under a ton of poorly paced antics and bad animation - especially in the beginning. Now, not that the manga had much more to say, but it could offer some beautiful action scenes to keep you hooked. Unfortunately for its anime adaptation, it was chosen to replace Naruto Shippuden's endless cicle of Action Anime for Little Boys by WSJ TM, consisting of what I am hoping was the last attempt to "endless" shounen battle anime. But, judging by the content, would you really blame the staff for choosing this one to sacrifice?

Black Clover has only one original thing to offer to its audience: That there is remarkably absolutely nothing original about it. Every character bit, every plotline, every flashback, absolutely freaking everything about it, has been copied shamelessly from other better manga that came before it. The one common characteristic of successfull series is that, even when they borrow themes from previous ones, they all have something of their own they want to say. When the author gives out something to the world, it is because his sense of self has something he wants to convey to a larger audience, and that is becoming obvious as the series presses on. The one question we always think of, is: "Why do you write? What do you want to write about? What do you have to say to the world?"

Well, Tabata just wanted to draw cool magic battles. That's it. That literally is all there is about it.

Black Clover pretends that it has other ideas (classism, racism, etc) but it ultimately is just that: play pretend on what made One Piece popular. Black Clover knows that rivalry as a theme is very well received to wider audiences (Naruto), but it honestly, purely, fundamentally does not understand the reason why, nor is it trying to. It just uses it to sell itself, without ever owning it. Also for some reason somebody told it that a number of female characters having inexplicable feelings for the mediocre non-charismatic protagonist also sells. So here it is, take it and no explanation or reason needed.

The characters are another exactly mediocre point of Black Clover - they are all likeable. But they are all also one-trick ponies. The cast is huge, so when somebody goes off screen for a quite big amount of time, you literally forget about their existence. I sincerely forgot that Yuno, the aforementioned rival, existed, more than once. One trick ponies as they are, when you make one "the cool, quiet, capable, few words man" he is automatically forgotten about the moment he leaves the screen. Asta, the protagonist, is less of a human and more of an amalgam of shounen MC tropes. Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you. "Mada madaaaaaaa" he constantly screams as a catchphrase. Why do we still bother with such low writing efforts in the 2020's.

Nevertheless, Black Clover is quite humorous. Asta really works best when he puts in his screaming into making tsukkomi (=retorts) towards the rest of the cast's stupidity. Noelle is also a good tsundere lead - as the heroine she was doomed to catch feelings for Asta from point 0, but she has a storyline of her own, she fights for her female friends and is treated as an equal to Asta and Yuno narratively, even though she doesn't aim to be the "Wizard King". (Really, how shameless. I can't even begin to count the series Black Clover is copying. Just think of literally every other well-known shounen.) Yami is also quite cool a character. Some episodes with serious battles also got exceptional animation efforts, and there is a filler mini-ark towards the end of the series that is surprisingly deep, dark and complex. That is because Tabata didn't write it, and it is becoming so painfully obvious because the entire atmosphere of the series suddenly shifts.

All in all, some people wil still like this. It's like comfort food. Familiar beats, nobody dies, plot explanations are horrendous and don't matter but nobody really cares about that. There is no twist that surprises you, there is nothing you haven's seen before, and even if you are new, it's very unlikely that absolutely anything in this will manage to move you a lot. But it is still watchable I guess. And sometimes, it's what people are looking for. Though I would recommend they should rewatch much better series, sometimes you need updated character designs. You have nothing to lose, but also nothing to gain if you watch this one.

In the 2000s people called the biggest 3 manga at the time the 'Big 3' thus when said manga ended people took to replacing them to fill the void in their hearts with My Hero Kimetsu no Yaiba and Black Clover.
Black clover is undeniably the worst of the three and generally not that good and I will try to prove my point with this review.

Story:(7/10)
Black clovers story is unoriginal and filled with arcs that have the same structure as any other shonen in existence, Besides that the story is one of the good points with a good take on magic and how kingdoms abuse and ... oppress people while some arcs are bad and boring the rest are honestly what drove to continue watching this show.

Art:(4/10)
The art is one of the biggest demerits as it's quality is absolute garbage, we got one decently animated episode every 20 or 30 some of the fights that had quite the importance in the story had been butchered by the horrible animation and seeing this from the studio that made Naruto and Bleach hurts me in my core.

Sound:(6/10)
The sound design isn't anything crazy but consistent though their choice for music throughout the episodes gets quite repetitive very quickly.

Characters:(5/10)
Most of the characters in this have the personality of a peanut, their only bit of character is the joke that they repeat every GODDAMN EPISODE (looking at you Gauche), Besides Yami I don't like a single one of them Asta shouts into your ears till they bleed for like 80 episodes Yuno has one single word that he can say and the rest do nothing but repeat the same joke in the same order like some mechanical robots that replaced the dead kids in Apples factories in India.

Enjoyment:
I tried I really tried to enjoy this show I have given it so many tries but I just couldn't get hooked on it due to the overly repeating tropes and uninspiring effort on animating the show overall I couldn't enjoy this show and will say that this is the most OVERRATED anime of this generation.(ps I quite like the manga)

Originally, I gave this series a 10 as my first review. After I analyzed some shows that I have loved for a long time (NHK, Sakurasou), I realized this show was lacking in detail. While the atmosphere of a show can carry far, Black Clover can't compete anymore.

I had to skip half the episode every time. This show was so boring, but I stuck in there because of Asta's positive nature. I was at a depressed point in my life wherein I failed, and was drawn to his light. I realize that besides Asta, every character lacked depth and I ended up with barely ... any understanding of human psychology or creative writing from this. I cut down ~800 words so I must have been highly emotional when I wrote my review.

Asta has two traits: he is persistent and he never gets caught up in emotions for long. He never changes, but rather the situation does. He gets injured whilst fighting, but decides to work around that injury. He never gives up. Sometimes we prescribe our own fates or make our own despair. The roller coaster of life we build ourselves. Something like that. Sadly, our sadness is another's entertainment. We have to chase a positive reality by being alert and move with the merciless world.


Block Clover is actually just a mediocre shounen.

Review for Black Clover (TV)

Story: 6
Art: 6
Sound: 4
Character: 5
Enjoyment: 3
Overall: 5

Intro: Alright, So as is obvious this is the anime adaptation for Black Clover, a neat little story about 2 boys rivalling to become the Wizard King, The boys names are Yuno and Asta. Let me start by saying im currently caught up to the Manga and that im considerably biased towards it as it is probably one of my favourites (I mean, I dont tend to read manga I dont enjoy, my mean score is above 8 for Manga lol) So I will likely refference that in this review, Your obviously free to take ... this review any way you please however understand that this is all my OPINION and its meant for people like me, or who want a review from someone who read and enjoys the Manga.


Story: Ill start this review off by saying this score is a 6 for 1 reason and 1 reason only, I know what happens through the mangas story and hope the anime will at least follow closely and not pull a Tokyo Ghoul on us, As far as the first 11 episodes go, its decent at best, Things that have been shown did not need to be, or took up far to much time, to be honest, the entire second episode basically never happened in the Manga, there was no walk no nothing, they cut straight to being at the city, litterally in Chap 2. I found this very displeasing as it not only wasted my time but it also shunned me from enjoying the show as I knew if they were doing filler like that it would not be a good series starting out, So far, that holds true, it doesnt even start to pick up until Epsiodes 10, and even then it barely does so, the pacing they decided to make this series obviously will go on to have a second season, under the stipulation it gets better. which I again hope it will. the story for the animation is not whats keeping me watching, that much must be made clear. so overall, 6/10 with knowledge on the future, fix pacing and will more than likely feel better, dont fill with scenes that never took place. :)

Art: I have art also at a 6, The main reason for that is I just dont enjoy it as much as other shows, its got some nice flair to it but overall it could be done better, The characters and scenery dont look nearly as fluid to me personally as the manga and the magic elements are definetly not what I was hoping for, However as previously mentioned, Ep 10 does make it feel a little better, Maybe not for 1 thing but it doesnt look horrible, so, 6/10 make things more fluid and there would be improvment (Bonus: Its not nearly as bad as DBS has been :D )

Sound: In my original review made around Ep 7 I had sound listed as a 7, Here I have changed it to a 4. for the most part this change was caused by 1 thing. Asta, His voice is neigh unbearable for a large portion of the story, constant screaming constant annyoance etc, this is FAR from what I would have thought whed reading the manga, I never got the impression he was THIS level of loud, basically -3 points for Asta alone. The rest of the sound in the animation, honestly they arent bad, most voices feel fitting to characters, the sounds in the atmosphere feel appropriate and the OP and ED are actually fantastic. Not my favourites but most certainly enjoyable. so 4/10 Remove Asta voice <3

Character: Overall I cant say I even want to give more than 5/10 for characters, they just dont feel right, they are undoubtedly the same characters from the manga, however I dont get the feeling of attachment for their animated versions. I know what happens to all of them and yet knowing that its going to be animated doesnt make it feel great, It just puts worry that they will mess up some crucial parts for characters in the future, It's not that they arent neccisarilly true to the manga its that I dont feel anything for them, not to mention WAY to much focus was put on Asta and Yuno when there is more than just them. The nice part, They kept the first real backstory you see damn near perfect and im so happy for it, For obvious reasons I cant say who but just know its there. All in all 5/10 Please make them feel like they do in Manga senpai !

Enjoyment: Finally, As a certain LOL youtuber would say, the only real catagory that matters, My personal enjoyment, 3/10 Yes, it is a very pitiful score, I am severly dissapointed in this adaptation and I wish they would have scrapped the script, gone over it more and made Asta way less annoying, genuinly find a different voice actor.. seriouslly..

Overall: 5/10 but... why 51 episodes? pick up the pace at least !

Outro: All in all it isnt the worst thing you could watch... there are so many better things but at the very least its not Green Green and for that I commend it.

I don't normally write reviews, so forgive me if this one don't contain the right info in a manner that is normally how reviews are written. That said, I did want to give my impression for those who wish to read it.

At first, I was enjoying the show. The animation was ok. It wasn't "OMG, this is the best animation ever" nor was it "this is terrible." It's just, ok. To me, it's normal quality for a typical shonen. The sound is also ok. There is nothing here I would want to down load and listen to over and over. The OP and ED are ... good. Nothing bad and all the music fits well. Again, exactly as you would expect of a shonen. Nothing poor, but nothing spectacular. As for characters; once again they are typical shonen. Always yelling, making tasteless jokes, etc. Overall, nothing new here either. I could keep going, but I think you get the point.

To me, this is Bleach 2.0 or maybe One Piece 2.0 or, honestly a 2.0 of any other long running shonen. So much so that it starts to get boring after awhile. It feels like the same old same old. If your looking for a good "turn your brain off" anime, this will do. If your looking for something that puts a new twist on shonen, this ISN'T it. If your looking for a shonen with a new story to follow along with, this one is honestly forgetable. All in all, your enjotment will vary on what your looking for. I stopped watching at episode 124 because I am bored with it. I know some will tell me it will get better by some episode or other, but I highly doubt it. It's too much of the same. So, I come back to this when I can't think of anything else to watch, hence why I also haven't dropped it, but there also isn't enough here to keep me either.

Hi, for starters let me just say this. If you've come to see this expecting something completely new and amazing that only a truly original artist/story maker could think of. Well... I'm sorry to say that you've come to the wrong place. This anime isn't "horrible" as some would put it. It's obviously not just shit out to make a quick buck. It's your classic Naruto spin-off, It'll never be as good, it will never live up to the hype. But honestly, unless you make an entirely new genre of anime out of thin air. Which mind you, is close to impossible by now. There ... will always be a comparison, there will always be people who are pissed off because of the similarities, and there will always be a group of people to try and give a reason why it's different. It's not. It's the same as any anime in its genre, just as the next hundred anime to be made will be as well. Does that mean its a bad show? No, its very simple why it doesn't actually. Because at the end of the day the same people who hate it for being the same old same old. Will hate any anime that actually changes things up. You've got a solid story, good animation, acceptable sound quality, good fight scenes, characters you'll love and characters you'll hate. And it does this well, it builds on a well maintained formula that's honestly really hard to fuck up. So don't go into this anime expecting something different, don't judge this anime for sticking to whats safe and making it work. Enjoy this anime for what it is, a good 51 episodes of an anime that'll give you something to watch, and wont make you want to blow your brains out.

An anime that I like a lot but deep down I know it's crap.
That is what I feel about black clover, I would fool myself if I said that I do not enjoy seeing him because it is true that he has a lot of horrible things but in general, one gets hooked quite quickly with the anime and ends up enjoying it.
As for his good points, he would say that when he has good chapters and knows how to do them well, they are simply epic and his battles are quite good, accompanied by a soundtrack that is also quite good, including the ... openings, which the vast majority are very good.
Now the many bad points:
- History: Typical cliche story, there is not much more to say, same script benefit, same deuch ex macchina, my plot voids. I think that there is simply no effort to make a story that is intertwined correctly in each of the arcs of the anime without contradictions, whether speaking of the demon king, the origin of asta and yuno, the forbidden arts, the grimoire of asta, elves, etc.
- Characters: Flat, stereotyped, without depth, not much to say, very few notable characters that have a good development, as an example could be yami, the rest simply do not save. Oh by the way, the demon king was a garbage of antagonist at least what was seen so far, period, or even a character who among many quotes mentioned him since chapter 1 did not give him an acceptable development, almenls something better than it was.
- Animation: As much as it is not so bad being that Pierrot is the one in charge, knowing how the last works of it have been, it is still a very enjoyable animation with few moments worthy of praise. In short, it has many reasons to be criticized as bad, because yes, I cannot consider it a good anime, but even so, this kind of anime always has something that, however bad they may be, you end up charming or at least you like and enjoy them. In my case I don't love black clover, but I can't deny that I have enjoyed it so far. Qualification Until Cap 122: 6/10.

It’s basically a Bad made cross between Naruto + Fairy Tail + Bleach + My Hero Academia.
The real question is should you watch this show??? Do you like anoying main characters??, do you like yelling main characters???, if you want to watch a copy of fairy tail then go right ahead.
The amount of yelling, lazily written world, exposition dumps, bad writing, Naruto copy cat with a lot of it’s central elements, lazy villains and antagonist, flat characters, a story that doesn’t do anything new, lazy magic but with more flare, having to tell us that characters are, “friends” when it’s pretty bad when the ... writing HAS to tell you!, a poorly made magic system with nothing insteresting inside of it, the pasting of the show is garbage but that’s more subjective and taste, personally Inget burnt out by plot and story dumps, characters being gifted insane power and punching harder instead of thinking.
This show doesn't have characters, it has stereotypes and cliches that pretend to be characters. I'd say there's only two to three actual characters in the show, the rest are just one note cliches that barely emote and their interactions consist of them reminding you of what their trait is before moving on to someone else.

At best, the characters are simply boring, at worst they're horrible.

OVERALL:
There is so much hate because Black Clover is awful. It’s a watered down Naruto clone that tries to be like My Hero Academia quality, but will never reach it, and a copied plot of fairytail. The animation of the show is BAD. Horrendous. The best animation are the openings which are 1 minute long, and then after the opening its almost like they ran out of money for the animation, turns out to be really bad, mostly due to poor timing and planning for long running shows which they love to adapt because it brings in the cash, and then just keep adding more filler. Secondly, the story of Black Clover is unappealing to many people and when you can’t grab the audience in the first 30 episodes, why even bother to continue? If you want great shounen with fantastic animation, voice acting and plot progression, watch My Hero Academy. The Best part of this anime is the tournament part, but after that it just keeps getting even more boring and boring.

The hate on Black Clover is high, yes, it's initially a cliche show and has nothing to add on the shounen genre. But when you get further on the anime, it becames something more. It's a good shounen, but it lacks on animation budget, the animation only gets a descent budget when it comes to important fights in important arcs, and when it doesn't get it (every other episode), it gets so freacking bad.
Another point is the openings, openings can be hit or miss, but when it comes from black clover is always a hit, gosh, I never seen a big show with so many ... good openings.
Yes, the story can get better as the anime goes, but the characters are just not appealing, nobody have a descent personality, nobody have descent flaws, nobody have a good development (some get no development), and let's talk about Asta, he is a very poor character, all he do is scream, all he do is never give up, he is the type of protagonist that i hate the most, that's why I don't like Black Clover that much, despite having good arcs.

This anime is a mystery. Maybe an experiment even. And we are - the viewers - the guinea pigs. Take the young main hero for example : after only a few minutes of the very first episode, I wouldn't be surprised if you confess it took all your strenght and willpower to avoid screaming at him to - please, oh please ! - just ... shut up.
God he's yelling, this young boy. All the time. Every 10 sec (average, at worst : it's 2 sec), he's yelling because he's happy, because he's sad, because he's in love, because he's hurt, and whatever he does,it ... begins with him yelling at something or someone.
And he's the hero. So he's already a painful experience all by himself.
I honestly have no idea what sort of creativity it takes to create a character so uniquely unable to express himself in any other way than yelling.
To add to this incredibly annoying main lead comes the setting : the world this hero and others characters are evolving within. There it becomes better, maybe even a lot better (at last !) because it's a strong world, simple, plainful, with its own rules and the dangers that lies ahead.
But strangely, again, this anime in its whole looks as if it was "computer-generated" : it feels as if an AI had tried to come up with a good setting and script to back up these characters, and doing so by making a mashup of others shows. Unfortunately, with very uncertain success.
And then here lies the mystery about this anime : each episode becomes a standalone anomaly, each episode could get its own MAL score, from a lowely 2 to 3 to an unbelievable 6 or 7 (maybe even a 8, sometimes).
I'm not saying this anime is confusing in any way (on the contrary, it's quite simple to follow), but there's just an incredible mismatch of qualities between each and every episode.
So... should you watch this show ? I don't know. Should you not watch this show ? well, I have no idea either. Did I enjoy it then ?
Seriously, I still have no idea, but I can tell this : I've watched (so far) 54 episodes so this might be watchable (in a fashion). There's no way I would have put up with this annoying brat during 54 episodes without finding something to see for myself,
and maybe you will, too. If you're patient enough.

First time reviewing, and why this anime for first review?!

Because it tries to be the new naruto, and how you ask?!

with shitty filler in the middle of the action, for no reason at all!

I had a 8 on this anime before episode 82, with this i gave it a 6, hope dont they dont make this filler mistake again so i can raise the score.

P.s. Not the best anime ever, not the worst either. watch it if you have 20-22min to spare every week...
P.s.2 Bare the first episodes, you just have to lower the volume, with get better in time

I've rarely been as conflicted about a series as I am about Black Clover. In it, I see the parts of what could one day become another Shonen mainstay, but at present all the parts never seem to come together in harmony and work together. 73 episodes in and I can count on one hand the moments that have been truly worthwhile. And to Black Clover's credit, those 3 moments were pretty freaking satisfying. But that's where you run into the One Piece (anime) problem. (Please note I am specifically talking about One Piece's anime adaptation.) How long should you have to wait for a ... series to get good? What's more, is it worth it if the show doesn't STAY consistently good? Can a series be truly worthwhile if it routinely makes you endure twenty mediocre episodes to get to one great one? If patience is one of your virtues, you could very well find a lot to love in this series.

The openings and endings are generally quite good, easily contending with other Shonen known for their catchy intros and end credits. If you were swept off your feet by Naruto and Bleach's OPs then I imagine you'll find a lot of new favorites in Black Clover's rapidly growing catalog. That said, the actual show's ost often ranges from bland to lacking. Of the show's 3 or so amazing moments so far, one of them relied HEAVILY on the series' 1st OP to bring it to the level of satisfaction it reached. That isn't to say Black Clover's soundtrack is bad, but you won't likely be adding it to your playlists anytime soon. (Excluding openings and endings, which again, are surprisingly good.)

Black Clover's art is generally inoffensively adequate. You won't find much to write home about, but it's not mediocre or bad enough to prove increasingly distracting as with productions like Berserk (2016). Though, on that note, Black Clover suffers from a similar problem as the infamous Berserk (2016). A COMPLETE AND UTTER LACK OF APPROPRIATE IMPACT. Again, there are 3 or so exceptions to this rule and they are among the few saving graces of the series, but when your protagonist's main weapons are dual swords, lack of impact becomes a glaring problem at points. If you've watched shows such as Bleach, Samurai Champloo, and FMA: Brotherhood, you'll easily see where Black Clover comes up short in this regard.

While Black Clover's animation and soundtrack are mostly adequate, I cannot say the same of its threadbare characters. The main mentor Yami is incredibly likable and will no doubt become a renowned modern anime badass, not unlike Escanor and All Might, but you unfortunately don't get to see near as much of him as you would like to. Though I can appreciate not wanting to give your audience too much of a good thing so that it can be all the more special when you do, when it concerns one of your few good characters, you simply cannot afford to use them so sparingly. Other standouts include the main heroine Noelle and the decently intimidating main villain Licht. Neither are particularly revolutionary or super memorable, but in a show littered with terrible characters, the average and above stand out all the more. It would be hard to express how fatigued I am with some of the supporting cast. Do they even write dialogue for Luck? I feel like a bot wrote every line the guy's had. "I wonder if anyone here wants to fight." "Wanna fight?!" "Let's spar!" "Hey! Wanna fight?!" For fuck's sake, is there ever going to be anything more to this character? Characters addicted to the thrill of battle can be phenomenal. Hisoka, Kenpachi, Vegeta, you name em, there are dozens more. But when you've seen this trope done well so frequently, seeing it done so horrendously is painfully annoying. Don't even get me started on the nosebleed prone sister lover or Captain Charlotte's nausea-inducing catchphrase: "Call me Captain, Sol.", which I'm confident they've used at least 30 times already. As for the protagonist of the series and his rival... there's a reason I haven't mentioned them once thus far. Asta and Yuno... they're alright. It's a Great Value yogurt trying to parade itself as vanilla ice cream. Not terrible, but the difference is night and day. I never see this rivalry being remotely comparable to the most famous in Shonen that Black Clover has most desperately tried to emulate. Goku and Vegeta, Naruto and Sasuke, Deku and Bakugo, Asta and Yuno. One of these pairs is not like the other. Can you guess which one?

Though I plan to continue the series, it's difficult not to watch and think of what could've been. The world and power system are interesting enough. If everything else weren't so consistently mediocre, they could have really had something nice here. But hey, if mainstream Shonen is your bread and butter or you're new to anime, you could do worse than Black Clover.

Fight scenes and animation good, especially towards the end of the anime (which it is where it actually starts to get really fucking good, tensions are high, people actually die, etc.) However the first 75% of the anime as a whole is quite unbearable. Loud annoying main character, 2 dimensional side characters that barely get any personal growth other than their power increasing, some braindead dialogue (count how many times ''I'm going to become the Wizard King" is said in the first couple of episodes holy cow. The constant flashbacks and filler episodes made the pacing and overall presentation pretty jarring and repetitive, some episodes ... wouldn't start until the 6th minute with how many recaps they made. Twist and turns were made super obvious leaving little to no suspense, but that could be down to a younger audience being the target for this anime. Overall story was interesting enough (even if somewhat derivative), combat was great, it's just a lot of the characters that ruin the potential of this anime for me.