English Dub Review: Black Clover “Smiles, Tears”
(Possible Spoilers Below)
After the ass-whooping of his life from the previous episode, Luck’s consciousness has regressed into a childlike state and is distracted by hallucinations of his mother. It’s a nice introspective look at how the Elves possess people, but Rufel (The Elf who’s currently possessing Luck) plans to kill everyone, including himself and Luck in the process. As Asta tries to apologize for all the suffering Rufel endured and begs him to bring back their friend. In a shocking twist, Luck finally hears his friends and decides to leave his mother hallucination behind and return to his friends saying that he’s found a place to live without her.
Rufel at one point even recalls that he once wanted to be friends with humanity and if things were different, maybe would’ve joined the Black Bulls too. As the spell breaks, Rufel disappears and Luck finally wakes up back to his old self. And is welcomed by Magna in a fairly comedic fashion. Having realized that the elves are all suffering Asta decides to use his new swords power to set the elves free from possessing people. They head back to their base and find it is still in pieces after an incident where Henry transformed it.
They learn from Gordon and Grey that Gauche got possessed but left without hurting them. Before they can plan anything they are approached by a presumably possessed Charmy, though they quickly realize she is actually just furious her vegetable garden is destroyed from the disaster, and her elf facial tattoos are just condiment. As they are all out of magic Charmy has her sheep chefs force feed them to recover. With their magic returned Henry re-configures the base into a large-ass vehicle called the”Raging Black Bull Charging Style”, and the episode ends on a hopeful note as the entire Black Bulls Squad proceed to ride off to save the Royal Capital.
Our Take
Well looks like Luck is finally back to normal and the reunion scene was easily one of the more emotional moments in the show. Asta has some fearsome communication power lol. Also, Charmy is really scary when she is hungry, thou her mana recovery skill is really helpful. It had the right balance of comedy and action with moments where you actually feel for characters and that’s saying something.
I even had a good laugh in a scene where Luck with his newfound powers after being possessed, makes him leap casually great distances like he’s Pepé Le Pew. The fate of Yuno remains uncertain however as he also split up with Asta in the previous episode, but let’s hope we find out what happens next.
