Black Clover

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.

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 ... of the knights? At one point they state that the society is merit based but they treat Asta and Yuno like commoners constantly regardless of their achievements just to make some characters look like assholes. And a lot more inconsistencies like Asta’s power and how it’s underestimated despite it being the most OP power of the show because he can LITERALY CANCEL ALL MAGIC IN A WORLD WHERE MAGIC IS THE CENTER OF SOCIETY. I could go on but I would be here all day.

The art is simply the worst I have ever seen, the animation is generic at it’s peak and horrible most of the time.

The sound design is horribly irritating and I’m not even talking of the voice acting the sound effects and the OST are annoying as hell specially the silly trumpet theme they play at every poor attempt at comedy.

Every character is a waking cliché with little to o development and some of them just change their personality dramatically just for the sake of the plot. Asta is just the good for nothing shonen protagonist that wants to be the best in the world but has a disadvantage that has to overcome which isn’t necessarily bad but it’s so poorly executed that it makes it infuriating just to watch. Noelle is just the proud tsundere that is insecure in the inside. And the side characters are just a joke repeated over and over, Yami is always taking a dump, Vanessa is drunk and half naked Charmy eats a lot Luck wants to fight and so on, some of them have had flashbacks explaining why they do this things but they are so generic and boring that they only make it worse.


It personally amuses me that this pile of trash is being broadcasted in TV at it’s current state and absolutely no one says anything. This show is a waste of time, don’t throw away hours of your life like I did.

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 ... energy; the villains are the complete opposite, thus the protagonists will either end up changing their mind or destroying them. In addition, the hierarchy and political systems are interesting in this one; the satirical presentation of the kingdom’s king, the arrogance of higher-ups and the – unfair – rankings and labels of the Magic Knight squads.

One of the biggest minuses is the power system, how the main characters suddenly gain unreal power and defeat their villains. But the battles are mostly used as fan service and the result includes a moral message that watchers do not care about, and it is not their fault. Although there might be good meaning behind all the fights, it is not easily spotted.

The main reason people like me do not like Black Clover as a whole (don’t get me wrong, some parts are likable), is the ridiculously repetitive comedy, which is not even funny to begin with. Many characters are mostly used for comedic purposes and have their own comedic patterns, and this approach ruins the character part too in this show - even if there are a few exceptions and some good character backstories (Zora, William and some more). And it is not surprising that everyone has heard negative comments about Asta and some main characters, because their repetitive behaviour may end up irritating. In terms of Black Clover comedy, there’s also Petit Clover, which is the short chibi scene at the end of each episode. Fans of chibi anime may check Mugyutto Black Clover too, a short ONA with a good opening song…and nothing more.

The animation is nothing special, but it is colourful and leads to an enjoyable experience. The kingdom’s medieval setting, the different forms of magic and the squad colour patterns are the pros, while the lack of details and spectacular animation are the cons. Mixed feelings on voice acting too, since there were amazing performances and awful ones too. Some of the most noteworthy ones are Suwabe Junichi’s as Yami and Koyama Rikiya’s as Dante.

Soundtrack for dessert, because my words about it can only be sweet. Starting with an amazing combination of OP and ED - kankakupiero’s Haruka Mirai and ITOWOKASHI’S Aoi Honoo – Black Clover never disappointed us with its exceptional opening and ending songs. Many of them are listed on youtube playlists, even by people who have never watched the anime. The battle OST is decent, and the only soundtrack that is poor is the goofy / comedic one, but I don’t take it into consideration since, like I said, the comedic scenes in Black Clover are bad.


To sum up, as far as I’m concerned Black Clover has definitely not been a bad experience overall, but not a good one either. Sometimes it was fun, though the writing and execution lacked a lot and could have done much better. If you ask me if Black Clover is one of the worst shounen anime like many people say, though, I would reply that I’ve seen much worse, and this is the main reason I wrote this review. Any questions and discussion topics will be gladly accepted, feel free to text me.

Thank you for reading!

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 ... or screaming is annoying, ASTA.
-music decent, wasn't bad
Progression
-There is no feeling of progression that you typically see in these types of shounen animes where the main character grows with experience. we're just left with some kid who bring out some swords from a book, feels like the real progression are left with the side characters.
Transition
-this mainly ties in with the sound, but adding onto their terrible voice acting the way it shifts lines from character to narrator to character is stupid, i hate it.

Story- it's your typical generic shounen type of setting of hoping to achieve something great with hard work and overcoming obstacles. It is not a bad type of story and has alot of potential to be interesting.
Art- The magic looked really cool, the fighting was well animated and smooth.
Characters- generic but interesting characters, tsundere good for nothing rich girl, naruto like attitude big sword wielding kid, OP do it all magic rival, etc. yep, not that bad.

Enjoyment- really low, the voice acting just totally strips any type of immersion. you start to get into it "maybe it's not that bad" terrible voice acting, bad transitions, and Asta annoying screaming "nevermind"

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 ... what the worst thing about this anime is, because there is just so many things to choose from.

Please save your time and watch something else.
Don't be fooled by the score. This anime sucks ass.

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 ... as a literary work. First and foremost, let’s start at... the show’s start. Were it up to the aforementioned fanbase, the start may vary from zero to twenty, or from zero to ninety episodes. Some may say it really doesn’t start until it’s somewhere near one hundred twenty alternatively known as the arc starring the Elven tribe (the reincarnation arc), and gains one more shocking layer of writing called “connections” to add coherency into the bootleg long-running shounen copy, raising the complexity to generous 1 out of 10. You may ask what to make of everything before?

“It’s just a little slow and starts off on the wrong foot.”

This, you might hear from a delusional fan that mumbles to form a proper sentence as he chokes on whispering to slight his favorite c*ck sleeve of a show. Consequently, such little negativity may have you bamboozled into thinking to watch one of the more recent and fresh long-running shounen’s readily available on your screen to gouge out your eyes, ears, brains, and heart for much else. The show resembles ASMR were it the ear-splitting screams of a pre-pubescent boy every time he seeks to conjure up more than a single fucking brain cell throughout the entirety of the monstrosity. The brilliant argument-annihilating and most certainly surprising response to this particular attack goes toooooooooooooo:

“youll git USED too after round 30 or 60 episodes to Asta moan, bro.”

You may notice the degradation of a fan’s lingual proficiencies in the struggle to defend Black Clover’s Omniscience. No, it is not the show that shall change to be nicer to its fans. It must be the viewer base, drowned in the sea of garbage repeatedly until your hidden masochistic urges emerge. This show, the one that had access to a voluminous plethora of content to kick-start itself decides to include filler in its first six episodes or half a cour to the average Anime watcher. The quality of its production value varies harder than the mood swings of a heroine featured in a highschool romance. From the MS Paint drawings we sketched in our spare time thoughtlessly to a few seconds of the rare well-angled shot in the forty hours I’ve witnessed. These above-average scenes you may find bombed in all of your searches when, god-forbid, questioning its art. Asta is, after all, a certifiable short-tempered muscle midget. But that isn’t what the antagonists are afraid of in the first sixty episodes. No, not at all. It’s them pissing about in wonderment for the sixty-ninth time that they find out the little fucking goblin protagonist’s got Anti-Magic. Tails between their legs, they’ll scurry in fear now that they’re practically useless. And may I comment that the subject of the show’s power system is conspicuously skirted everywhere? It’s fucking terrible, by the way. I’m sure you’d guessed by now. Faulty “real-world” logic to cover unbalanced diarrhetic scales of magical power.

In the end, I suppose it’s actually around a three to a four out of ten right now. Personally, as the average anime-watcher and my expectations tricked by the seductive lure of shounen and the show’s fans, I waltzed straight into watching. Only to be raped like one of the heroines in the Hentais that embody a tornado of cum, piss, and shit obliterating their consciousnesses ever so slowly. Therefore, I’ve given it a (I’m sure my score must surprise you) one out of ten. Most people seem to judge only by its latest arcs. Which are better but don’t raise the show’s score past a four. The show’s openings are pretty nice if there’s merit to be had. Otherwise, it’s a veteran all-rounder that had properly followed the 101 guides to be a shitfaced long-running shounen written and directed by the fantasies of a four-year-old's version of literary elements, such as character interactions and dark turns. I’d doom the show to be watched only by the most desperate of long-running shounen cultists if I should have the sudden urge to troll them. I’ve heard that it’s manga is a little better, so try to check that out. Apparently, the show only magnifies everything bad in the manga by a dozen. Expect only proper logic in Black Clover’s Anime quinquennially.

Black Clover is your cookie cutter fighting shonen, which was heavily promoted as the KING OF SHONEN ANIME because the industry really wants your money. It’s nothing more than ideas from older shows. Naruto wants to take part in the Hunter Exam, gets chosen by a Shinigami Captain, and enters the Fairy Tail Guild, so he can become the Pirate King. Despite occasionally doing some things better than its predecessors, such as having boy protagonist who was ACTUALLY training for years to be strong as opposed to be given the ultimate power right away like in My Hero Academia, it’s largely typical and by the ... numbers. The protagonist still relies on some demonic power he was given out of nowhere for not dying five minutes into his first mission. So yeah, it’s still another one of those stories that give the ultimate power to losers just for the sake of bottom tier empowerment fantasy. That wouldn’t be a problem for most casuals, since it was never aiming to be more than easily digestible, but the early episodes were a slog to get through. The first impression you get from the main characters is a boy who screams nonstop and wants to force himself on a nun. Right off the bat you get pedophilic antichristian deviance with a lot of terrible screaming, which alienated a big portion of its potential audience.

So, the protagonist is your Naruto clone, who begins seemingly weak and lacks something for making him sympathetic to the viewer. He remains an obnoxious loudmouth with no redeeming qualities until a lot more characters are introduced into the show for mitigating the suffering via comedy and other types of personalities. And by other types, I mean making most bad guys to come off as one-dimensional evil freaks, just for making the obnoxious protagonist to seem heroic in comparison. They are always acting like bullies or sexual deviants or coward rulers, just so Naruto Clone can jump in and tell them how mean they are, thus getting the moral high ground despite being a nun rapist.

So this Naruto clone (some call him Asta for some reason) has a rival, like all shonen do, but there is no reason for the rivalry to exist. The emotionless pretty boy (some call him Yuno) grew up with Asta as if they were brothers. They are super friendly with each other and constantly save each other in the battles, so you see no actual rivalry going on. It’s like they are best buddies, but call each other a rival for the sake of ticking the square on the must-have list of shonen clichés. A similar issue appears when Naruto clone gets chosen by the Black Bulls because of his attitude instead of his skill at magic. It’s like hiring the guy who directed and played in The Room just because he has guts. Anyways, Naruto clone goes to a guild where everyone is as annoying as him. They all have one-trait personalities and are defined by one gag, which they repeat as often as they can. For example, there is a guy who is obsessed with his 5 year old sister. She’s the only person he talks about in the whole damn manga, and even has nosebleeds whenever he looks at her. Eventually, these Pokémon like characters get fleshed out once they do various missions later on, but their personality remains the same one liner and their power ups are mostly the result of willpower instead of some sort of tactic.

Anyways, the main appeal is obviously the action, which at certain highlights can be pretty awesome because the animation is not the typical lazy crap studio Pierrot does all the time. But for about 80% of the duration you are stuck with subpar animation that makes the show to be completely passable in terms of entertainment compared to Demon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen. Even so, there are battles that can last for dozens of episodes and which seem to be epic because of their duration, but to the most part they are a waste of time since they come down to spars between minor characters. No joke, there are parts where you can skip twenty episodes and nothing will be lost since it’s just nobodies fighting nobodies (I’m looking at you, people in the magic tournament, and you who got possessed by elves, and the rest of you who were given powers by the Dark Triad).

And even when you get to the finales, which are the good parts of the fighting, you still get typical magic conveniences that always trigger when some nakama is in danger. The battles lose most of their impact when you know it all comes down to ‘whatever dude, it happened’. For example, there is a part where all you see is this: one bad guy teleporting in, attacking, getting blocked by a good guy who also teleports in, powers up, attacks, then another villain teleports in, and so on and so on for a dozen times. It’s literally like the imaginary wars children are playing, where they make up attacks and the one being attacked says why it doesn’t work and how he counters it with more imaginary attacks. As for the end of that battle, the villains just teleport away, aka the exact same ability they have been using for several episodes that allows any battle to begin and end in whenever way the author wants.

The resolutions feel very cheap in general. Examples include:
-A bird comes out of nowhere and gives a macguffin to the good guys, who didn’t even know the villains were looking for.
-A sprite that appears out of nowhere and saves the good guys with hax magic, just because.
-They expose a traitor amongst the captains. The traitor is someone we haven’t seen before and know nothing about, thus his reveal means nothing to the reader. The method they used for exposing him was magical mind reading, which makes the reveal to feel easy and cheap. Also there is a second traitor within the same group and for some reason they don’t find him, despite having the ability to mind read him as well.
-Yummy (easily the best character in the show) is trapped inside an unbreakable barrier. What does he do for escaping and for saving his teammates? He… breaks the barrier with a new power up and easily saves the day. No tactics whatsoever.
-Naruto clone has his arms disabled by a curse and there is nothing that can heal them. What does he do for still being useful? He finds a witch and she cures him. Just like that.
-How do you stop a crazy woman that wants to kill everyone? You unlock your hidden familiar out of nowhere, which resets the plot however it wants, so anyone who gets killed is instantly returned to life. As deus ex machina as it gets.
-What do you do after the wizard king gets assassinated? Nothing. He returns to life on his own. Such a shame; his apparent death was the most tragic scene in the whole show.

Anyways, you are not supposed to think when you watch this show, because if you do nothing makes sense. It’s a dumb action flick for ten year olds, so don’t bother asking why they are sending rookies in S-difficulty missions. Oh, hey, here is a dungeon that can potentially destroy the world with the artifacts stored inside it. It’s super dangerous and only the strongest wizards must go there. Which is why we allow the worst guild to send its worst members who never work as a team, nor are that strong. Don’t forget to get molested by a plant that looks like a vagina, but do forget to use the magic barrier you asspulled out of nowhere in the previous arc. In the meantime, the rest of us will do absolutely nothing, and we won’t even give you a promotion for saving the world. Yeah, that’s how you prove how serious the situation is.

Eventually, Naruto clone gets a promotion. Not for saving the world, but for getting captured with magic while he can counter magic. And he gets it from the wizard king himself, who is the strongest mortal in the whole show, but never does anything in the missions because that would make everything to run on easy mode. The first time he eventually does something is for saving the protagonist and for giving him a promotion, which is followed by the protagonist forming a large harem of fangirls and lots of episodes about girls in bikinis or naked in spas. Because that is how empowerment fantasy works.

After the promotion, the show becomes far more predictable, as it’s just the Naruto clone constantly being taken over by his hidden demonic power, which obviously they want to make you think it will lead to him killing his friends. And obviously it never happens, because it’s a show for kids. He always regains control and always befriends his enemies and always gets more powers that make him look more and more like a demon. And the show never forgets to give us double standards, such as that he has no magic, despite having the most powerful magic, or that he never gets rewarded for his actions, although he is one of the strongest in the kingdom. He even goes as far as telling you the moral message of the whole show comes down to: You are nothing special, and that is what makes you special. I am not joking; this is an actual quote in the story. The author is literally promoting loser mentality. Being last makes you the best of the worst, well done.

Anyways, I wouldn’t mind all that so much if the show wasn’t coming off as pretentious. And it did. It kept shoving this anti-racism message down our throats and we were supposed to take it seriously when the presentation was as childish as it gets. Supposed, humans hated elves and that led to a big war, only to be proven it was just some demon brainwashing them into acting like that. There is no free will involved, which means there is also no depth to the theme as well. What anti-racism? It was brainwashing all along! And what a great way to solve the conflict by having both the elves and the humans to be teaming up against a one dimensional evil demon that is laughing like an idiot and even outright called everyone a fool for falling for it, just to make it even easier for the audience to hate him. Oh, and all the hatred the good guys were feeling towards the elves and the assassin of the wizard king are erased from existence, because thereafter everyone is friendly to each other and act like they never harmed anyone.

As a whole, Black clover is a pile of mediocrity. It just rehashes ideas of earlier shonen and does nothing special with them, thus forever being stuck at a demographic for ten year olds. Plus it looks subpar 80% of the time and the protagonist is a screaming idiot who wants everything to go his way because he is not special... and that is supposed what makes him special XD.

Black Clover is a Shonen that feels like it was written 12 years ago and has taken none of the lessons of its predecessors.

Most of my time watching Black Clover was spent watching it to mock it and laugh at how bad it is. Because this show is bad. Really, really bad. The nicest thing I could say about it is that it's painfully average and has one or two good moments but they're not worth sitting through the rest of this dreck for unless you can have a chuckle at it.

Story is bare bones Shonen plot. I wasn't exactly expecting a stellar and ... captivating plot for this kind of show but but it's clearly not trying that hard. It's a simple setup that allows for various fantasy missions, usually involving the villains and ending in big stupid fight scenes. It doesn't ever get too complex, the world building is pretty lackluster likely due to holding onto key information for twists later on such as why the Diamond and Clover kingdoms are at war. As is it's not hugely engaging and doesn't throw you for any loops or if it does try to fool you, it usually gives no buildup at all, or it kills the tension afterwards.

The art is awful. The animation has numerous errors in continuity and in lip syncing, the fight scenes lack good choreography and often resort to lazy shortcuts to avoid putting the effort in. There may be occasional bursts of good animation but for a series releasing an episode every week with no breaks, it's hardly a surprise. Studio Pierrot doesn't have the best animation reputation either.

The sound is bad. By now everyone has heard Asta's infamous screaming voice and whilst it does get better the further you go, it doesn't exactly become anything near quality. The music is pretty forgettable and none of the other VAs stand out or exhibit anything particularly good.

Character? What character? This show doesn't have characters, it has one note 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 what their trait is before moving on to someone else. The protagonist suffers from this immensely, they try to go the 'boundless determination' route but it never feels earned and they hardly emote beyond that so it hardly matters all that much. At best, the characters are simply boring, at worst they're insufferable.

Like I said, the only enjoyment I get out of this show is ironic. It's just kind of entertaining to watch and laugh at for how much the show runners misunderstand about the tropes of Shonen anime and just throw them in there for the sake of them rather than giving them the time or buildup they deserve.

Overall, this show is a mess. I've been told the manga is better but I honestly don't care. Unless you want to get into Shonen and see one of its worst examples, steer clear.

If Naruto and Fairy Tail had a child that would be Black Clover:

Asta is your typical loud shounen MC who doesn’t develop or have any depth. He’s literally no different than Luffy, Natsu or Seth.

BC is filled with one dimensional, gag ridden, underdeveloped caricatures. The BBs are literally defined by their few personality traits e.g. battle freak Luck, Sis-loving pervert Gauche, Henry’s dyslexic speech patterns, one- dimensional food eating Charmy. There’s only a few good characters in this show. Noelle being the best of them because despite her tsundere moments and being a love interest, she’s had the most growth, has a character arc entirely ... separate from Asta (unlike Yuno) and is consistently relevant to the story.

Yuno is a bland Mary Sue who spends more time developing offscreen and pulling powerups out of his ass than being a character

The dialogue is terrible and repetitive: “AsTa, iM gOinG tO bE tHe WizArD kInG”, “No YuNo, I’m GoInG tO bE WiZaRd KiNG!”

The villains are generic, undeveloped and have little to no motivations e.g. Fana and Beast man repeating the same dialogue: “DESPAIR!!, DESPAIR!! HATE HATE!!” Ladros was such a generic evil villain that he was forgettable.
The elves are ALL copy and paste of each other with no variety. I got bored of hearing elf #121 scream “I hate ningens!”. The Devil is the big bad guy of the first saga and yet he’s the most bland, one dimensional plot device of a villain I’ve seen since Zetsu. He has no motivations to do what he does, he’s literally “I’m evil because plot”.

The fast-paced pacing is NOT a benefit as fanboys would like you to believe. Instead of taking the time to flesh out the world or develop characters, the plot always opts to go straight for the fights which have no substance because there’s no emotional attachment to these characters.

Black Clover has the worst power system. It’s basic, doesn’t have definitive rules or limitations and is entirely plot convenient. For example, Noelle could acquire a new spell at the right time, which is exactly what she wanted because Tabata wanted her to. She’s done so with her battle suit. Yuno does it EVERYTIME. It doesn’t have well defined rules like FMA or HxH that are set in their power system so it’s rarely broken. BC’s method of learning new spells is entirely deus ex machina.

If there was a list ranking every shounen, then Black Clover would be at the bottom of the barrel.

In my opinion, Black Clover is a fairly overrated anime which has major issues in many different aspects of its production. Having watched it until it's completion it was a huge disappointment for me, considering that the original idea sounded intriguing. I've also heard the manga is much better (though at the time of writing I've not read it), so I'm rather miffed that they studio put this low a quality into what probably was a fairly decent series.

Worldbuilding: 2/10

While the writers of Black Clover did create a somewhat extensive world to work with especially when it comes to the magic system, the application ... was overall underwhelming.

The entire universe only consists of four countries, and the relations between them tend to be very basic. We know the Clover Kingdom and the Diamond Kingdom are at war, and we know that the spade kingdom is struggling for resources, but we've never really gotten to see enough to completely understand why they would be willing to literally abuse and mutilate children in order to gain more military power. Blatant terrifying acts like that only hold weight if we are able to really spend time with some exposition about the country as a whole. That being said, we only learn about the Heart kingdom extremely late in the series, and we know perhaps even less about it than the Diamond kingdom. Why would the Heart Kingdom isolate itself if it objectively had more military might than probably the Heart and Clover kingdom combined. Granted that it seems to be run over an absolute monarchical rule, It doesn't make sense that all of the ruler's have been benevolent for some reason. That goes against the most blatant weakness of authoritarianism, which is that it is extremely prone to corruption. And the spade kingdom is barely mentioned at all until the very end of the season when it becomes the capitol of the dark triad.

As for the magic system, although it might appear to be extensive at a first glance, it's only complex at face value. Yes, there are different types which can counter each other (which in and of itself is a rather basic concept of a magic system which includes types), but the overall adaptability and application of each power is limited heavily on a person's grimoire. The extent to which they can use their powers and their special abilities are specifically limited to spells written in the grimoire. And their powers are only ever used at face value, no one is stretching exactly how far they can take their powers and using that to develop new ones. And although we see people 'train' or try to develop emotionally, the correlation to them getting a new spell is non-dependent. The character isn't developing their powers themselves, the new spell just appears out of thin air, and the character had no say whatsoever in what the power does. It's extremely uncreative and really does a magic system injustice, especially considering the potential it had to be good. Imagine if through training you could write your own spells in your book. Or if we saw powers being adapted in uncanny ways like Finral's portals being used to easily accelerate objects.

Plot: 1/10

The plot in the anime is rather generic and cliched especially for shonen which is already oversaturated as is. We've seen it so many times, a character doesn't have any powers, but then it turns out he either has some huge innate power, or inherits the power from something. Examples of this are Fire Force, My Hero Academia, I could go on. Some of the arcs were interesting, personally I enjoyed the fairy arc with Licht the most out of all of them. Honestly if it had ended there my score might have been higher. However with the introduction of the demons as antagonists the quality just went down. The demons became an escape from proper pacing and power scaling.

The pacing of the series itself is fairly decent up to the end of the first demon fight. I'm saying that purely in terms of new plot though. The amount of flashbacks and narration is an obvious attempt at trying to stretch the length of the series as much as possible. new plot doesn't start until 6 minutes in most episodes. If you count the outro as well that's about 8 minutes of the show doing absolutely nothing. considering 24 minutes episode times that's only a 16 minute actual episode length, which is ignoring that flashbacks in some episodes might take around half of that time (especially nearing the end of the anime).

Before the last arc of the anime (dark triad), the timeline skips an entire 6 months, during which time most of the characters have apparently become ridiculously overpowered. And then we're thrown suddenly into fights with a ton of new enemies which we had not seen before and have no emotional connection towards, and somehow they are just as powerful, or even more powerful than asta and the commanders. Not to mention, 3 episodes from the end a new mentor is introduced.

However my biggest gripe, is that the series ended.... WITHOUT THE FINAL FIGHT. Yes, I know it's getting a movie sequel. But still. A 170 episode buildup, and we get a corny ending about how they are going to get stronger and defeat the dark triad. Yes, I'm getting a little emotional here, but seeing the ending really upset me. It really upset me.

Characters: 1/10

I of course don't mean to say that all of the characters are bad, but unfortunately most of them are extremely 1 dimensional and based on cliches. Asta has one goal, and one goal alone. He's unrealistically optimistic, and he never goes through any substantial character development. Most of the time, the show portrays him as completely perfect. Maybe not in physique, but in character. People who throw any actually valid criticism at him about his mantra of 'never giving up', even when realistically he ought to have died several times over are generally thrown under the bus at some point. That's essentially the definition of a Mary Sue. Why would I like Asta when he essentially is constantly screaming, and believes that if he swings his sword faster, and rushes at his enemy in a slightly different way than before, and for some reason the writers say that it ought to work. There's no way people would enjoy Asta if he was a person in real life.

Yuno isn't that much better. He has the exact same goal as Asta, and the two are said to be in a rivalry over it, Yet we don't actually see much of a rivalry. Maybe this is a mistranslation of the original Japanese meaning, but rivalry generally implies conflict and a distaste towards the rival which we don't see. Another problem is Yuno's power scaling generally happens off screen, so we generally don't have any emotional connection with him. This is further amplified by the fact that he's portrayed as being stuck up and somewhat elitist. And I don't want to spoil the fine details of the plot but there are some very very cliche explanations for Yuno's past which is a letdown because it was hidden from us for most of the series.

As for the Dark Triad, their personalities are probably the most one dimensional out of all the villains in the series. They embrace evil for the sake of evil. One is a megalomaniac, one is a narcissist, and the last is a masochist. If you've seen it you probably already know which characters I'm referring to. Their underlings have the same one-dimensional personalities (often time relating extremely obviously to the actual power they have like the tongue dude being a pervert). But the largest problem is we only get to see them extremely late in the series. They don't have time for any character development at all, Especially when compared to Licht.

That being said, I'd say Licht was my favorite character because he at least seemed to have more than one motivation for his actions and ideals, and you couldn't just lump him in there with the notion that he was completely evil. Although, the same can't be said for his minions.

There are plenty of other side characters I could talk about as well, but the cast is so broad that it would be impossible to get into all the details in this already long review.

Art/Animation: 3/10

When the anime tries, it does well. Still scenes look pretty decent, the animation quality is nice. However, in the fight scenes, where arguably the most effort ought to be put in, the quality greatly diminishes. Lazy fails to describe it enough. Ground ceasing to have any texture whatsoever. Characters loosing some discernable features occasionally. It completely breaks the atmosphere of the fight scenes. This problem becomes much worse in the later arcs of the anime.

Sound: 5/10

Of all things, the sound gets rated the highest I'd say. Mainly because the music wasn't that bad. Sure it was somewhat generic in terms of compositional style, but for the most part the music matched the mood of the scenes, and the production quality was up to standard. It's forgettable, but it serves its purpose.

However the voice acting for asta in particular wasn't that great. I know a lot of other people have mentioned this but his screaming is just ear-grating and there is no real point to it at all.

Overall: 3/10

Unfortunately I just can't recommend this show to a new viewer. It has extensive flaws in many aspects of production that just ruins its potential. It relies heavily on cliches, and generic plot devices to drive the story forward, and the ending is extremely anti-climatic. If you decide to watch please keep these points in mind. Don't go into it expecting an innovative shonen or a great plot.

Black Clover, or rather Mid Clover is one of the worst shows to come out ever. How this series has any popularity is mind blowing to me. It's like the people who like this anime have never seen anything other than the big 3 and Dragon Ball Z. Like please, watch anything other than trash shonen kids shows to realise how bad this anime is. Here is why it's trash.

Story: 1/10
What is there even to say about this. Take naruto's goal of becoming the hokage, replace hokage with wizard king and boom, there's the plot for the story. It's painfully mediocre and completely unoriginal. There's ... nothing bad with having an average or simple story, but completely copying other anime is where the line is drawn. Mid Clover really has no originality. It is so painfully mediocre, predictable and boring. All of that screaming Asta does would make you think he's powering up like Goku does, but he just screams for no reason.

Art: 1/10
The art in this show is terrible like everything else in Mid Clover. The characters look like they are drawn by kindergarten kids. It's the most boring art I have ever seen in an anime, even worse than Attack on Trash. The latest episodes are the worst,. The animation in Black Clover was always average, but it was at least bearable. In the latest episodes it legit looks like they stole the animation of the 1997 snake game. Like what the fuck was that. This show has disrespected and disgusted me with it's terrible art and animation.

Sound: 1/10
The music in Black Clover is not terrible but it's so overhyped. Every time someone talks about the new Black Clover opening being good, I trust them and listen to it since I always skip them. They're always the same mediocre openings.

Character: 1/10
This is the worst part about the anime after the story. Asta is a kid who just gets stronger and stronger like any shounen. His only personality trait is screaming. He's a dumb kid who is so incredibly mediocre that you could literally replace him with any shounen mc. Other characters like Yami are just there because they are "cool". Shounen fans think that a character is deep off of one little shitty flashback. Seriously you people need to watch some real anime. I'm an elitist genius intelllectual so I advice you to go to my profile and watch my favorites.

Enjoyment: 1/10
The first episode had my ears bleeding. The others had me falling asleep and just cringing at how bad and mediocre this anime was. How do you people seriously enjoy this crap? Need some tips on how to not fall asleep. Terrible anime.

Overall: This anime is garbage. Have you seen Naruto? Or maybe bleach? Then you've basically seen Black Clover. Do you struggle to sleep? Do you have insomnia? Then Mid Clover is perfect for you. I went from sleeping 4 hours a night to now waking up 6 in the morning thanks to this anime. Works even better than weed.

I really wanted to like this one because I keep seeing cool battle scenes. I started reading this after Naruto ended and dropped it around chapter 100, couldn't remember why. Recently I decided to give the anime a chance and restarted from ep 1 this time. I just finished ep 60 and I have to say I can't force myself to sit through this anymore.

Every character is a very one-dimensional anime trope whose entire personality can genuinely be summed up in a single photograph of the character. One-dimensional tropes are fine in the beginning as long as the characters continue to grow in complexity and ... nuance but each time the author attempts to expand on a character the backstory or development is shallow and even hollow leaving you wishing for more interesting material to care about.

Asta: The main character's personality is a marriage of Naruto and Rock Lee(with little more than the worst of both of them), and the offensive repertoire of Kenpachi Zaraki(he has two attacks). I'd say he is overly optimistic but to be real, he hasn't taken a single L this entire show. He has no business defeating anyone he's fought, and yet he comes out on top every time. His training does not appear to be anything besides push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups and swinging a sword from above his head to the ground. This would be entertaining if the show used this trope in a comedic sense like One Punch Man does, but it seems to be as serious as a Naruto Talk-no-jutsu, BELIEVE IT!
While his swordsmanship is mediocre, his ability is unique in this world. His swords have the ability to nullify any and all magic. And in a world where magic is everything, this turns out to be pretty overpowered. With nothing but physical strength and a pair of magic-nullifying swords he is able to defeat enemies said to be many times more powerful and intricate as he is. None of his injuries amount to anything at all. Even the time his arms are diagnosed as irreparable, he quickly and easily regains the full ability to use them within days, using an instantaneous healing spell from the Queen of Witches.

Yuno: The other "main" character, or rival, is written pretty unremarkably as well. The quiet, pretty boy who is astonishingly overpowered thanks to fate, joins the best group due to his God-given abilities. Basically he's a more quiet Asta. Interestingly, he has yet to turn "evil" but with the amount of tropes in this show I wouldn't be surprised. The only time he ever does anything interesting is when Asta is involved. Contrary to Asta, everything comes easy to him as he gets power-up after power-up which isn't exactly a bad thing but we never see him earn any his power. He just re-emerges in the story stronger or more recognized than ever(like Gary Oak) This is a bigger problem with the whole show.

The supporting characters are not as generic but quite one-dimensional. I will not get into all of them as this is getting long but 1 major issue is that virtually every female character in the series is the same person: outwardly mad at a man but secretly crushing on him*yawn*.

The animation can get good at moments during fights but a shocking % of the budget must go to animating comedic moments that are repetitive and stale by episode 10 at the latest. These moments of good animation really only seem to happen when we are watching a fight between two characters vastly superior to the main characters in strength. An 'Ooooo' 'Ahhhhhhhh' approach. Sadly none of the main characters moments get the same level of animation as the Big Boys fighting.

I need to go to the gym at this point so I'm going to stop this review here. To summarize there is nothing that this show does that is remarkable and you can certainly find many anime out there that do every one of these tropes better. I mean I'm 60 episodes in and I don't care for anyone. By episode 60 One Piece had told far less story but made you care infinitely more about the world, the journey, and it's characters.

Allow me to speak on behalf of all the people who enjoy watching an anime. The main character Asta is probably one of the most cliched characters created. Not to mention he is super annoying in the fact that almost every sentence he says is screamed. It makes it an awful watch for someone who is actually trying to just enjoy anime. The story is decent however the character makes it a hard watch. Until an episode comes where Asta shuts up with all his yelling then this anime is only going to become garbage. I personally do not enjoy this anime, and do not ... see how or why it is getting 52 episodes. If they wanted a good story they would spend more time focusing on the brother of Asta, Yuno. Whose character definitely seems more interesting and less annoying.

Black Clover...what happened??
You were supposed to be the next big shounen, to fill the void Naruto left, to kill my time until Boku No Hero Academia season 3 came out, to make me feel better about Dragon Ball Super's unexpected demise, to push shounen forward as a genre. You were supposed to be my weekly ritual. Black Clover should have and could have been a lot of things, but it saddens me to say that it is none of those things and beyond. This show is flawed on a very fundamental level, it is no doubt trying to replicate the feeling of Naruto but it ... does that so shamelessly that it reeks of unoriginality, this is a forgettable and irredeemable show not worth anyone's time.

Black Clover's story is the definition of basic, it introduces a derivative shounen setting, a world of magic where the more mana you have the stronger you are. So far the story arcs in this show are forgettable and bland, they serve as exposition for the large land of the Clover kingdom. There's a good amount of flashbacks which attempts to flesh out characters and make them more empathetic but goddamn is it just so badly done and overall kinda cheap since it comes out of nowhere and feels pretty irrelevant. There's a big problem with the narrative, especially since the protagonist, Asta is endowed with probably the most overpowered ability in shounen history, it requires no mastery, it doesn't carry any risks, it doesn't introduce an intrigue as to the origins of such a rare ability, it's just there as a bat for Asta to wield making fights uninteresting since it has the overpowered ability to repel all magic and makes the fights last not more than a minute or so since it entails sword bashing everything, requiring no strategy. The protagonist is way too strong rendering even respectable "magic knights" and well-feared villains of the Clover kingdom useless in front of Asta this not only makes fights pointless but also will no doubt be a detriment to the protagonist's character development since he doesn't need to evolve beyond a sword-wielding barbarian.

Black Clover's animation and art seem cheap and unbecoming of a modern show, especially since it only has a limited amount of episodes, you'd think more time would be put into making the show look beautiful but goddamn there's no effort put at all in presentation. It has washed out and muted colors making any landscape look drab and forgettable, the art style is a bit rough in my opinion, it might be a stylistic choice but it doesn't captivate me in any way. There is seemingly no animation work done at all for this show, as I already mentioned, the fights are short and require no strategy or hand to hand combat it entails sword bashing a bunch of badly rendered CGI stuff for maximum 30 seconds, so there is no need for complicated movement animation and zero sakuga animation. This is extremely disappointing especially for a battle shounen where fights are supposed to be highlights. The most animation you'll see are recycled walking animations, most of this show is filled with close-ups for talking.

Sound design is decent, you can hear clangs of swords. Soundtracks are forgettable for the most part except for one piano piece which plays at the climax of each fight.

The characters in this show are one-dimensional clichés that don't build on this genre at all. Asta is a loud annoying brat complete with a never give up attitude and a simpleton that knows nothing of strategy in combat, he's not smart at all and is way worse than most shounen protagonists, like even Goku and Luffy aren't really smart and so dense but when it comes to combat they are geniuses, Naruto wasn't really even stupid. Yuno, his brother is introduced as his rival but it doesn't make sense since they don't even try to compete with each other and Yuno doesn't really act as his rival at all, they are more like friends, I don't know why he's even introduced because they do their own thing and no one really affects the other. The side characters are just one cliché after the other, wholly forgettable, I barely remember their names. Black Clover isn't a shining example when it comes to character writing, it's derivate of other shounen shows but somehow does them a lot worse.

Overall, a terrible shounen show that shouldn't have been even hyped up to begin with, it reeks of unoriginal and derivative writing, an uninteresting, overpowered and rather stupid protagonist in a group of walking cliché side characters that are mostly irrelevant and lazy animation work. This show is irredeemable. I am surprised it is rated so high as it is.

ok, that is one of the worst animes that i have ever seen, is not the worst but even so it is very bad

at start, the story is full of conveniences, generic things and scenes that wanna be good and epic bot finally it has some interesting moments but it is only 10% or 20% off all story, its very simple and even sometimes its a little boring

The characters are so mid, there are some interesting or decent like zora, Asta, Nacht o yami but they are only a 10% of this history, the others are very simply and basic

The production is quite standrad, ... at least the music is good, the animetion sometimes are so bad and sometimes are nice, the best of this part are the openings, almos ever opening are very very good

Haha, I can't really write this review without laughing.

We can start with the fact that each episode has a massively long prologue (the same for every episode), has 3 minutes dedicated to repeating the previous episode, 1 minute dedicated to a spin-off, a long halfway-through animation, 30 seconds of next episode preview, and of course an OP and ED. Each episode only introduces maybe 15 minutes of actual content, and even those few minutes is just very little actual content stretched out as long as possible through meaningless dialogue, the characters repeating their catchphrases, crappy animation of generic side characters, or some other technique.

This just ... gets progressively worse. I have never seen something as blatantly lacking in actual story as this.

I don't think I even need to comment on the characters. They're all bad, and annoyingly so. And I don't mean simply that they resort to tacky anime tropes. No, its worse than that. Their tsundere is the most boring, typical tsundere copied off of the most overused tsundere template, and not a shred of originality was added.

The animation is dreadful. Way too often they resort to CGI to render spells, but it's obvious that no effort was invested to at least make it blend with the rest of the art (or even make them more than just spheres or generic projectile shapes). The sound effects are also the most typical ones, by which I mean it's clear that they use the same sound over and over for most of the magic.

Haha, and it pains me to say this: at first I somewhat enjoyed the show, but over time you just feel like you've sunk deeper and deeper into the mud.

If you think that you can enjoy this anime as long as cliches don't bother you, think again. There's a reason cliches exist- when done right, they work. The problem with black clover is there literally nothing there OTHER THAN the cliches.

The characters are very hollow, 1-dimensional and completely unrelatable representations of your usual cliches. Not one character brings any unique flavour to the anime. They are merely sock puppets repeating the same lines every episode, who were made only to complete the typical character checkboxes to get the series funded. You have to watch this for many episodes to really ... appreciate how dreadful they are, as nothing has changed in the 22 episodes released so far. THEY STILL RINSE AND REUSE THE EXACT SAME 1-liners AS THE FIRST EPISODES.

The voice acting becomes uninspired as there is no reason for the voice actors to become invested in these excuses for characters. The back stories are shallow, the main character is as bland and boring as you could imagine with a dreadful screaming voice used for 95% of his lines.

The art and animation gets worse with every episode- to the point that poorly drawn stills are used for "action" scenes in what is supposed to be the CLIMAX fight of the arc. Frames are reused on loop to save time and money. The fights are terrible and poorly conceived. I recommend the viewers save their own time and money and stay away.

Black Clover is a Japanese fantasy shounen manga series, which was written and illustrated by Yuuki Tabata. The series is published in Shueisha's Weekly Shounen Jump magazine in Japan, and Viz Media is publishing it in their Weekly Shonen Jump digital anthology magazine in the US. At the Black Clover Jump Festa event on December 18, 2016, an anime television series adaptation by Pierrot was announced. It is directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara, with Kazuyuki Fudeyasu writing scripts, Itsuko Takeda doing character designs, and Minako Seki composing the music. The anime premiered on October 3, 2017.The series was initially listed as running for 13 episodes, ... but was later expanded to 51 episodes, which is one of the mistakes this review will center on, but later about it.

Asta, a kid living in poverty is determined to become the next Wizard King of his country. The problem is, in the world where magic is everything: it determines your position in society, Asta has absolutely no magic at all. However, his determination to become top 1 in the kingdom helps him get into the kingdom's elite defense forces, the Magic Knights. He, together with his brother, start their journey to become the most respected, as well as the kingdom’s most powerful man.

How one should assess a story-line that crawls with clichés and unoriginality? While it is not a bad thing, it is not a good thing either. Many anime series have done this before, but the problem here is that putting all these overused clichés together is a very difficult thing to pull, because you will have to get rid of these clichés and make your work original. There should always be something your viewers will remember you for. Black Clover, however, does have originality about its story-line, but it is not enough to call its story-line original. Those who are not new to the industry will have a ‘I have seen this already’ feeling, when watching Black Clover. And at some point it gets somewhat annoying, because you already know what is going to happen. Of course, it is not the only negative side this anime has, there are far too many, I would like to touch upon another thing, which ruined this series. As I have already mentioned in the first paragraph of my review, the series was initially listed as running for 13 episodes, but was later expanded to 51 episodes. This is the biggest mistake this anime has made: you are being shows far too many unnecessary details and nothing really happens. Black Clover has only enough material for 13 episodes. With 13 episodes it would not be that bad as it is right now.

For any anime that has magic as its main theme, I would hope for a simply flawless, charming animation that will make my heart stop beating for a second. Black Clover’s animation is sometimes fluid and dynamic, but it happens not as often as one would love to see. Indeed, the dark color schemes of the animation help promote the idea of the type of the world full of darkness and evil, and it is really awesome, however, character designs leave much to be desired. There is also nothing to comment on the sound. It does not have any memorable music pieces and voice acting is just… listen to Asta’s voice actor and you will know. It is like you want to relax and you constantly hear ‘Leeroooooy Jenkiiiins’, which drives you mad.

To my big disappointment there is nothing original about any character in this anime, even supporting characters are full of clichés. The main duo of this anime resembles Dragneel Natsu and Fullbuster Gray: their design, their ideals, their attitude towards each other, they are very similar. And not only do the main characters have clichés, but also the whole supporting character cast: there is absolutely nothing original about them. Imagine Dragneel Natsu constantly screaming with no reason, imagine Kamijou, Touma ability to nullify magic, and finally imagine Luffy, wanting to become the pirate king. Bingo, that is the whole concept of Black Clover.

Awful, what a disappointment! Even after 27 episodes this series is still bad. As it has already been mentioned many times in my review, there should have never been 51 episodes; this anime has enough material for 7-11 episodes. Okay, even 13 episodes will do. But, for some reason, the creator decided to make it 51 episodes. In result, most of the time you are being shown some absolutely pointless and unnecessary scenes, with jokes that are just dramatic because of the fact that they are absobloodylutely not funny. On top of that, this series is absolutely unoriginal; it has bloody nothing to offer its viewer. However, this anime is great for kids and for those who are totally fine with clichés and are able to literally ‘turn their consciousness off.’ This is a number one quality to watch and to finish this anime. I, alack, do not have it and I will have to give up on it after watching the 27th episode today.

All in all, I am sad to give this anime such a low overall score, but I have not found anything good, anything original about it that will help me appreciate this series, there is nothing good about it. If you want a good battle-shounen, Hunter x Hunter, One Piece, and Fullmetal Alchemist are ready to help you. Black Clover, however, is nothing but a guide on what you should not do to make a good battle-shounen.

Grade-
Overall (sub): 1
Story: 1
Animation: 5
Art: 6
Music: 5
Voice acting: 7
Enjoyment: 2

(SPOILERS FOR AIDS)

Black Clover: A series hated by many, loved by slightly less but still many (apparently)

I started watching Black Clover because I heard Black Rover (OP3) and thought it was soooo good, and that surely the series would be good too. I grinded out like 30 episodes in like 3 days and was really confused as to why SOOO many people were bagging this series so much, and why it had a score of under 7 on MAL. I didn't really find Asta's voice actor that annoying after like 2 episodes, and I thought although the story was a little unispiring and cliche, it ... was still entertaining. I defended this show extensively in comments, reviews forums etc. Hell i even scored it a 9 for a while on MAL. Let me just say that (obviously) I know longer think this at all.

I'll start with the good: black clover's sound design. The OP's and ED's of this show are incredibly good, like ridiculously good in my opinion. Haruka Mirai, Black Rover, Guess Who is Back just to name a few are all ABSOLUTE BANGERS with sick videos to accompany them, and the others are all very good as well. I also think that for the most part, the VA's have all been casted very well, and do a very good job in spite of horrendous lines they are given at times. A Special Shoutout to Asta's VA, he got a lot of hate for screaming and what not, but I think it actually really fits the character and Asta for the most part is one of the only redeeming parts of the show.

Now the bad; excluding the Yami vs Licht fight, Studio Pierrot's animation for this series is absolute dog shit, and anyone watching the current Royal knights arc will agree with that.

Next, the characters are the most boring ass shmucks ever put to the screen. In now 77 episodes, excluding Asta and Yuno our two mains, none, I repeat not one, of the black bulls and other side (but very prevalent) characters has gone any sort of development or change throughout the series, except for maybe vanessa. Every time someone does something, hearing all the character 1 by 1 say there same cliche line is the most aids shit i've ever watched, Finral says something about dating, Noelle says bakasta or some stupid shit about him, Luck wants to Fight, Vanessa is a drunk, Yami doesn't care, Gordon is quiet and weird, Charmy wants food, Gauche loves his sister more than anything - It is so fucking cancerous. Couple that with more cookie-cutter reactions from our other characters, Yuno being edgy and not caring, Wizard King just wanting to see cool magic, EVERY ONE OF THE CAPTAINS BEING JUST A SINGLE PERSONALITY TRAIT.

Finally the story, Whilst quiet unoriginal as a typical shounen, it is a functional plot I suppose, But the main problem is that the plot pushes the characters for nearly the entire series, and god is it boring to see them follow it so mundanely.

As per Enjoyment, The show has some really great highs in terms of enjoyability, i.e. Asta in early days overcoming shit (before he became OP and the story got boring) such as magic knight trials, Licht fight, and Black Asta Reveal, which are incredibly entertaining for me personally. But the lows are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring and uninspiring, and let me tell you there is a lot less highs than lows (Filler xd).

I'm not sure exactly where the point was that I stopped defending this show, nor am I sure the point where it became a fucking chore to watch this show, but Jesus do I hate it nowadays... pce out

I will make direct anime criticism. The story is basically a beautiful and classic story. However, the story setup in the anime is very clumsy and cheesy. The drawings did not appeal to me. They may have made the drawings this way because they had to, so I think it would be unnecessary to say good or bad. I think the battle plots in the anime were so bad that I got annoyed watching every battle because the characters weren't allowed to do even the simplest moves. While the characters had great advantages in battles, the characters preferred to say cool words instead of ending ... the war. That's why I never understood the opinions that say the story and war fiction are perfect.