English Dub Review: Black Clover “Blackout”

Black Clover’s spiral into mediocrity continues.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

With the help of the Crimson Lion magic knights, Asta and friends have defeated Rades. While Rades laments his loss, Leo and Noelle combine their magic to put and end to Rades’s final zombie servant. Rades is on his last legs, and soon Fuegoleon locks him in place with a cage of fire. While Rades is helpless, Fuegoleon decides to take a look at his grimoire, which, strangely enough, only has one page. Rades protests, embarrassed by how sparse his grimoire is, but is chastised by Asta for being a huge jerk.

We soon learn that a mysterious figure is speaking to Rades through an earpiece. The sinister voice is disappointed with Rades’s performance, and menacingly states that they’re going to change their strategy. Meanwhile, throughout the city, the magic knights are cheered by the townspeople, and the mysterious voice notes that he’s got the knights exactly where he wants them. Immense black pools of dark magic emerge through the city and engulf the magic knights. The pools soon recede into nothing, and with them, the magic knights, who are deposited out into a grassy field somewhere in the hills. The knights that a powerful spatial magic-user must be working with their enemy.

The only magic knights who aren’t teleported are Asta, Noelle, Fuegoleon, Leo and Yuno, who didn’t get engulfed by the magical pools. But all is not well, the witch from last episode deploys some powerful curse magic that sucks the life out of the poor citizens of the royal capital. The witch’s vanity is unmatched, as she drains the youthfulness of the townsfolk to make her look younger. Her terror goes unchecked, until Yuno steps in to put a stop to the old hag. Not one to be mocked, the witch fires a poorly animated barrage of curse bullets at Yuno, who starts flying around with his wind magic to dodge them.

The chase is on, and these two powerful mages face off flying through the air. Down below, Fuegoleon continues interrogating Rades, but the stubborn necromancer isn’t talking. He persists in pushing Rades to reveal why he attacked the city. Cackling, Rades reveals that it was, in fact, Fuegoleon they came here for, just as a pool of spatial magic teleports Fuegoleon away.

Yuno’s fight with the witch isn’t going well, as he starts getting hit by the curse bullets, which have negative effects on his senses. He can barely hear, he’s half blind, yet continuing to persist in fighting the witch. Yuno feels the fear of losing creeping into his thoughts and reaffirms how he needs to be an excellent mage to defy people’s expectations of a commoner. Yet, Yuno has been unable to control the new power he found in the dungeon, and this frustrates him to no end, as it makes him aware of his own weakness. Yuno gets hit by one too many curse bullets and loses all his senses, being immersed in a world that numb, dark, and quiet. But, unable to use his senses, Yuno can sense the power of the magic stream, and use that to sense his surroundings. Coming back to reality, Yuno unleashes the full power of his four-leaf clover grimoire, which summons a powerful typhoon around him. He is no longer just wielding magic, but controlling the magic stream itself, using his wind spirit magic to control the raw energy of the universe. With this newfound power, its over; Yuno fells the witch in one massive blow.

Our Take:

Here’s one of those episodes that try to give us a big character moment, but has failed to set the groundwork leading up to it. Yuno’s ability to control magic essence should be so much more impactful, but it lands weak since this internal conflict of Yuno’s hasn’t really been set up. The rest of the episode reeks of filler and has plenty of half-baked animation to take you out of whatever tension this episode might have had. Goodness gracious, Black Clover, step up your game.