English Dub Review: Black Clover “Black Oath”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
In the Heart Kingdom, Vanica captures Loropechika in order to motivate Noelle to get stronger. Back at the Black Bull base, Asta makes a literal deal with his inner devil in order to get a boost in power against Dante, using his anti-magic to land a mortal blow and negate Dante’s regeneration. The Black Bulls get a moment to breathe and take in the victory, but this is quickly shattered as Zenon arrives to capture Yami and retrieve Dante. Asta and the others try their best to stop this, but can only watch as Yami is taken away.

OUR TAKE
So ends both the Vanica and Dante fights to close out this part of the arc. I mean, I say that it’s the end of a part of an arc, but mainly based on the Black Clover Wiki classifying it as such. But it is definitely the end of these fights which serve the purpose of, as I have previously mentioned, establish that the Dark Triad aren’t something to sneeze at. Black Clover can put in a lot of effort into fight scenes when they want to, and considering there is only about an hour of content left in the series, I guess they thought they might as well pull out all the stops with the Dante fight. I actually watched these last few episodes as they came out back in February and March when the cancellation was first announced, and I honestly did not remember that Yami and Asta do actually win their fight, compared to Yuno and Noelle who end up totally dunked on. I guess having his own devil to tap into and get energy from was a really big edge for Asta to make use of, which will only be that much more clear in these last few episodes.

And sorry if this is me just repeating myself again, but it’s all the more disappointing and frustrating that the anime is going to be ending in a scant few episodes, leaving a lot of plot threads dangling. However, when you take a look at the amount of chapters that the manga now has in their increasingly lead, you can see why they decided to take a break. Currently, with the Japanese release of these episodes having ended in March, the manga only has three full volumes, or around 30 chapters, ahead of where the anime has led off. This is actually a similar situation to where the Bleach anime was when it ended, with the following arc only a few chapters in by the time the Fullbringer arc was fully adapted. In this case, however, Black Clover’s manga is still making its way slowly through the arc that the anime had to stop on. Bleach only last year announced it would be getting back to its anime adaptation, though with no clear release date, at least a decade since that adaptation ended. I would say we should expect to way at least that long for Black Clover to get back on screens (aside from the already announced movie). But it’s not over yet!