English Dub Review: Black Clover “As Pitch Black as It Gets”

(Possible Spoilers Below)

Due to a set series of events orchestrated by Damnatio in an effort to make Asta the scapegoat for the Elf incident, the Wizard Parliament demands Asta’s execution. With Damnatio even going as far as to threaten the people who raised Asta in the Orphanage and kill everyone including the orphans and Sister Lily unless Asta surrenders. All this at first seems decidedly bleak due to the compromising position Asta was put in to reveal his Black Devil powers which were ironically used to stop the real menace, but The Parliament is suddenly intercepted by every member of the Black Bulls’ who make demands for Asta’s freedom, or they will go to war with the Parliament.

As Secre tells them to take Asta and leave her, Yami refuses, claiming she is a full team member, and the fact they even give her a Black Bulls robe is also a nice touch, However Damnatio uses his Scale Magic to shrink the Bulls spells, but Asta easily nullifies this. Yami tries to defeat Damnatio but is stopped by Fuegoleon and Nozel, who announce their support of Asta, shocking the Parliament. Fuegoleon in an effort to keep the Parliament from escalating things even further, tells them that the Wizard King has ordered the Bulls to investigate the black devil species in an effort to prove Asta’s innocence.

With so much influential support, Damnatio is begrudgingly forced to let the Bulls investigate, but warns Asta he will still face execution if he fails. For appearance’s sake, Nozel places a spell on Asta to track his position at all times which puts him on a magical house-arrest, While Damnatio visits King Julius, already knowing about his reduced power, and is advised to trust the Bulls. Damnatio warns Julius that if this devil crisis gets any worse or the kingdom is invaded, he may have to pass judgment on Julius as well. But the episode ends on a note of uncertainty when a disbelieving Julius to begin the paperwork required to begin returning the kingdom to normal after Damnatio leaves…

Our Take
This episode was great, though I’m not really shocked at how broken Black Clover’s judicial system is. The scale judge magic doesn’t directly judge from the true value or have any sort of Jury, but more like Rotten Tomatoes where it collects opinions from elite critics and judges if that person is “fresh or rotten”.

Aside from the court-drama, the whole scene of the Black Bulls literally breaking into the trial to save Asta was great. I guess you could say Asta was rescued by the power of friendship which was properly conveyed when When everyone was talking about him and why they couldn’t just let him die. Though he at least earned some time to find evidence to change the nobles’ minds, which won’t be easy…

Overall I don’t know how far they’re going to take this direction but what exactly is Asta supposed to prove? They’re claiming he’s responsible for the incident, but the “person responsible” (aka the black devil) is already dead. What, do they want to bring him back to life and confess? Why would investigating other devils not related to the incident have any correlation to Asta? There’s so much I’m confused about. I just really hope future episodes don’t go to shit and actually give a really good unraveling mystery for the later episodes.