English Dub Review: Black Clover “Capital Riot”

The wizard king should really invest in some guards for these banquets.

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Asta has taken the distinguished service banquet by storm, jumping onto a table of food and declaring (as he so often does) that he’ll prove every one of those arrogant nobles wrong and become the Wizard King someday. The room is speechless until the nobles decide they’re going to teach Asta his place. Two of the Silver Eagles, Nebra, and Solid, start laughing at Asta’s passion but then decide to get a tad violent. Each of them uses their water-based magical abilities to try and pacify Asta, but he cuts through their water dragon and obscuring mist spells with ease. One of the Golden Dawn knights, Alecdora, recognizes Asta’s strength and summons a sand golem to lock Asta in place so he can’t use his anti-magic buster sword. It looks like Alecdora has the pesky commoner locked down, and Solid summons a holy water bullet to try and finish Asta off. But Asta surprises them yet again, by summoning a second anti-magic sword from his grimoire and cutting through both the bullet and the sand golem. This only enrages Solid further, and the two wizards are set to duke it out one on one.

Their battle is interrupted, however, when an incredible ice-cold pressure descends upon the room. It emanates from none other than the captain of the Silver Eagles, Nozel. Right away, it’s clear even to Asta that the two are in over their heads with the arrival of this frighteningly powerful captain. Nozel chastises Solid for foolishly fighting with a commoner, and soon his steely gaze falls to Asta. Just before Nozel is about to punish the upstart mage, the voice of Fuegoleon Vermillion, captain of the Crimson Lions, breaks the tension. He tells Nozel to back off and criticizes all of the mages involved for ganging up on Asta in such a dishonorable way.

The fight is effectively over, but another Crimson Lion, Leopold Vermillion, steps forth. Impressed by Asta’s resilience, he declares himself Asta’s new rival, and orders Asta to celebrate their newfound competition. The embarrassed Asta tries to explain that Yuno is already his rival, but its no matter to Leopold; one can have more than one rival after all. He challenges Asta to an arm wrestling match to commemorate the occasion.

But things aren’t finished with the captains just yet. Nozel and Fuegoleon star each other down, each livid at the unruliness of each other’s actions. The powerful eagle and fierce lion are about to face off when they’re interrupted by a messenger proclaiming dire news. The royal capital is under attack, and the magical knights are needed to save the citizenry on the streets below.

The city burns as zombies roam the streets terrorizing the townsfolk. A madman with a peculiar sash over his left eye cackles as his zombie hordes devour the populace; clearly, this is the man responsible. A few nameless mages step forth to try and stop him, but their magic is ineffective against the reanimated corpses in the madman’s service.

Back in the castle, one of the Golden Dawn mages, Shiren, uses his magic to create a stone replica of the city below. The model is a perfect replica, even using magic to recreate the voices of the frightened citizens below. The wizard captains quickly conclude that this intruder must have gotten teleported inside the city somehow, which is concerning news, considering that there is a magical barrier in place to prevent just such an attack. The mages try to devise a plan of defense, but Asta isn’t having any of that silliness. He charges off to the streets below, and Leo, not to be outdone, chases him to see his new rival in action. Fuegoleon sighs at his pupil’s recklessness, but quickly rallies the other knights into action. They all separate into teams and fly off to different sections of the city to deal with the undead threat. After they depart, who should emerge from underneath the tables then, Charmy, the resident gourmand of the Black Bulls? Apparently, she sneaked into the banquet to get her hands on all that tasty food, but now, she realizes, is a perfect time to make her grand entrance into the world. That is, of course, until she gets distracted by a tantalizing smell which she hurries off to investigate.

The different mage groups all arrive at their respective districts to deal with the zombies. Each of them showcases their magical abilities, dispatching zombies this way and that, but of course, its Asta who gets to take on the big bad. As the evil undead mage is about to attack a defenseless little girl, Asta charges into action from behind, and bursts forth to put a stop to the wizard’s spree of destruction.

Our Take:

Last week’s episode left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I’m pleased to say that this week’s foray into the world of Black Clover fares a good bit better. While I find it silly that the magic knights are so quick to just magically beat the crap out of one of their own, simply because he’s not nobility, their fight did create a pretty tense scene. Furthermore, the emergence of Fuegoleon as the antithesis of such arrogant attitudes provided some much-needed diversity of character to the otherwise monolithic nobles, and his protege Leopold is a legitimately funny addition to the main cast. While this episode still shoulders the same problems Black Clover has routinely had before, I was pleasantly surprised to find this to be a much more enjoyable time.