English Dub Review: Black Clover “Proof of Rightness”

Yup, its another ugly episode.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The Black Bulls have returned home from their time at the Underwater Temple. Though they’re ready to get some rest and relaxation, Yami has to head to the capital to meet with Julius Novachrono, the Wizard King. He brings along Asta, Finral, and Charmy as his squad.

Julius congratulates them on retrieving the magic stone and informs Yami how proud of him he is. Things are getting all warm and fuzzy when the Diamond Kingdom attacks a border town of the Clover Kingdom. Watching through the use of clairvoyance magic, they stand by and watch as the Diamond Kingdom forces dominate over the city’s defenders.

Things look bad, but the Golden Dawn is deployed to stop the attackers. Captain Yami volunteers to go as well, with the help of Finral’s teleportation magic. Yuno, a member of the Golden Dawn, goes toe to toe with one of the Diamond Kingdom generals, and the rest of the Golden Dawn knights gear up to get their fight on.

Our Take:

Following the ending of the underwater temple arc, we’re given an episode that’s little more than a glorified filler, spending plenty of time to recap and explain things we already knew while just barely getting into the next major story. In addition, this is easily one of the ugliest episodes we’ve seen so far, and one of the most unfunny. It’s a terrible combination and one that makes for an episode that’s a complete snoozefest. A story not worth your time.

Get ready for a lot of bad jokes, and I mean a lot. Basically, every scene is stuffed to the brim with the tired, repetitive character shticks that have been drilled into our brains since the Black Bulls first arrived. The essence of comedy surprises, but Black Clover seems to think you can make people laugh by having them make the same jokes over and over and over again. Gauche says some weird shit about Marie, Jessica drinks too much, Charmy likes food. Wash, rinse, repeat. These episodes basically write themselves, it would seem, as there’s very little to distinguish the qualities of one episode from the rest.

The next major problem is just how completely terrible this episode looks. Everything, from the magic animation, to the simple things like Asta’s face composition, is completely bungled. Face and eye sizes change from scene to scene, characters have blank, un-detailed faces with strange features that make them look more like Easter Island statues than anything else. It makes the episode something of a chore, not something that was made to be enjoyed but to is endured.

There is very little to enjoy here, even for Black Clover fans that have stuck with this show for so long. If you’re looking for plot, you won’t find it here, in one part because the show bogs things down its wretched sense of humor, and because there’s far too much recap, which waters down the episode in the interest of meeting runtime. Furthermore, one can tell just by looking, that the animators of the show did not put a lot of love or effort into this episode. It’s easily one of the ugliest things I’ve seen in a long time and is double awfully because it’s just downright annoying. There is an attempt by the episode to do something interesting by having a battle start to take place at the end, but the villains are so wacky and over-the-top that they’re little more than loud, cackling pieces of cardboard. Please, avoid this episode as best you can.