English Dub Review: Black Clover “Assembly at the Royal Capital”

I guess being a noble automatically makes you a relentless buttface.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The Black Bulls’ foray into the dungeon has ended, and our heroes are all gathered back at their hideout, debriefing from the whole affair. Asta, in typical shounen protagonist fashion, has slept for a whole week, and he’s hungry as a horse to boot. Conversation is lighthearted and mirthful, and soon Yami kicks down the door and takes his seat at the table to bring them the news for the day. The Knights Headquarters wants a debriefing on what happened in the dungeon, so Yami needs to send a couple of mages to report the news to HQ. The duty falls to Noelle and Asta, and soon the two are off to the capital city.

Once they arrive, they run into Yuno, Klaus and Mimosa, also sent there to report to HQ. Things are friendly between them, but Mimosa can’t bear to look at Asta and runs off away from the group. Noelle goes to talk to her and learns that surprise surprise, Mimosa has developed a crush on the rambunctious mage. Noelle, who’s developed her own romantic complex over Asta, can’t believe her ears, and it’s not long before two are gushing at each other over their tangled-up feelings. While those two go at it, it seems that Klaus has developed a fondness for Asta, despite him being a lowly, no-good commoner.

The group continues along, until, much to Klaus’s shock, they are greeted by the Wizard King himself, Julius Novachrono. Asta doesn’t recognize him, spurring Klaus’s anger once again, but what more can you expect of Asta? The knights deliver the ancient text Yuno found in the dungeon to the king, which leaves him quite pleased. Julius is a huge magic geek, and he’s head over heels for the text, which seems to be related to Sylph, a magical embodiment of wind. He looks over Asta’s new text next but finds that he can’t read its contents. Trying to show off, Asta presents Julius with his new anti-magic sword, which the Wizard King also gushes over.

Their presentation concluded, Asta and Yuno can’t help but ask Julius for advice on how to become the Wizard King. Klaus immediately scolds them, but Julius interrupts him to impart the one true virtue the Wizard King must achieve: results. To stand at the top, one must be the strongest and earn the trust of the people. It’s exactly the advice Yuno and Asta want to hear. Julius then informs the knights that there is to be a distinguished service ceremony to be held, and they’re invited to take part.

They soon arrive at the palace to find a group of other mages waiting for the ceremony to begin as well. Then, the narrator explains to us that there are five classes of rank among the magic knights, and this ceremony is to award the gathered knights with a higher rank. One by one, the Wizard King calls up a series of knights, awards them with a new rank, and gives a convenient exposition of their names, defining character trait, and magic type. Once the ceremony concludes, Julius announces that there is to be a dinner held for them all, with Yuno, Asta, Noelle, Klaus and Mimosa to be guests of honor.

The feast carries an awkward tension in the air, with the snooty gaze of the awarded knights looking down upon our heroes. They all share a collective arrogance, and dismissively drop passive-aggressive remarks about Asta being a commoner. Of course, this doesn’t bother Asta much, who’s too involved with stuffing his face to care. These pompous dirtbags decide to just be the biggest jerks imaginable, giving Klaus crap for hanging out with commoners. In a moment of even more infuriating arrogance, Noelle’s own family, (Two of the knights awarded bear her family name) even make fun of her and pour a glass of water on her head. This enrages Asta, who jumps on the table and starts railing into the other knights, declaring he doesn’t care what these fools think of him. One of them tries to shut him up with his sand magic, but Asta cuts through the attack and stands tall announcing that he’ll become the Wizard King someday.

 Our Take:

It’s a fairly typical episode of Black Clover this week, continuing to peddle the cliches and cardboard characters I’ve come to expect from the show. The arrogance of the nobles depicted near the end of the episode is pretty unbelievable but does evoke something of an emotional response, so that’s something that works in this episode’s favor. I actually enjoy Julius Novachrono, who’s one of the few actually funny characters in the show, so it was nice to see him for a little bit. Similar to last week, it feels like the show is straining its budget, as the animation is extremely dialogue heavy and stiff. If I had to guess, they blew all their money on that big fight scene a few episodes back, though I don’t think more money would really help with the awkward writing.