English Dub Review: Black Clover “Battlefield: Heart Kingdom”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Back at Black Bull Headquarters, Dante explains the Dark Triad’s plan to enter the Underworld, which they apparently need both Vangeance and Yami’s magic to pull off. Meanwhile in the Heart Kingdom, Charmy and Leopold face two more Disciples, while Vanica enters Loropechika’s throne room.

OUR TAKE

Man, if last week was scattershot, look what we have this week. Well, I guess it’s not as bad, since it didn’t try to fit in part of a high tier fight, a low tier fight, AND a random backstory flashback. In this case, it’s a brief check in with the Yami and Dante fight, followed by a bunch of fights in the Heart Kingdom, as the title suggests. The problem here is that this is considerably more boring because we’re just watching minor characters (major supporting characters at best) taking on disposable goons who have barely one dimension of personality and are beaten with basically no struggle. I understand the narrative purpose of this, it’s to show how these characters have grown in strength during the sixth month time skip, but I don’t think we’re getting anything more for them than just an obligatory next power up. Luck is even more electric, Charmy does her rip-off of Choji from Naruto and integrates more food and eating into her attacks, and Leopold is slightly better at being more aware of his surroundings. I don’t feel like I’m getting much more sense of their characters or how they’ve grown as PEOPLE. And considering this the last time we’ll be seeing them getting the spotlight for the rest of the anime, I think we just have to accept that we just aren’t going to.

In terms of the actually important fights, the only thing of note between Yami and Dante is us getting a tiny glimpse into Dante’s backstory…and the main thing is that he was so bored by life that he killed a bunch of people and decided to help get into the Underworld, which is what the Triad as a whole want. And it turns out that they conveniently need Vangeance’s World Tree Magic and Yami’s Darkness Magic in order to do so. They’ve already got Vangeance, so Yami’s next on the list, which I imagine is where this fight is headed. That just leaves Vanica who is off to, presumably, take out Loropechika so they can complete their takeover of the Heart Kingdom. This will lead into the other big important fight that will play out alongside the one against Dante, and since Noelle is there and she’s one of the more important characters, we can at least hope for both how much stronger she’s gotten AND perhaps some sort of character development. But I guess that will have to wait until next time.