English Dub Review: Black Clover “Becoming the Light That Shines Through the Darkness”

Overview

As Asta manages to escape with Noelle and Secre. Nozel and Fuegoleon arrive, causing the Believers to try attacking them; unfortunately, this summons a dragon from the strong magic region. Dazu and Bow are shocked when the Bulls save them and defeat the dragon. Vangeance arrives with Damnatio which at first the Devil Believers fear Vangeance means to execute them until Vangeance points out most of them have committed no crimes leading to an unexpected yet bittersweet conclusion…


Our Take

I’m really glad we got a story arc like this. If you’re gonna do filler it should be something that works on a world-building scale and lore expansion. The ending was somber, and perhaps a bit idealistic on Asta’s end, but I thought it was fitting for the last words of the Devil Believers to be about history repeating itself if nothing is done.

I had the feeling Dazu and the other Devil Believers wouldn’t get away so easy after all that they did. But Damnatio’s decision was surprising, but also pretty fucking stupid to let a group of wanted domestic terrorists roam free, but it would be 100 times worse if they show up later down the line and try to get “revenge”. If the writers really wanna ass-pull and keep these guys alive, it’s gotta be some kinda redemption arc thing down the line, especially Dezu which during the credits we understand her thought process a bit on what really happened to her family and how they really felt about her as a person.

Overall, this was a nice filler arc. You don’t see this kind of conflict that much within shounen anime or manga where the enemies are common people wanting to fight against the oppression they live instead of monsters or magical supervillains, and was a nice insight into the whole conflict of discrimination in the Clover Kingdom, apart of not being too long. It had such a somber ending yet it was fitting and I don’t think they could have ended this in a traditionally happy way. After the less than stellar attitude of the Magic Knights in the past, it’s reasonable for the commoners to distrust them, needing some persuasion from their most famous hero of the kingdom (Asta) to abandon their ambitions, Now it remains to be seen within future storylines if the magic knights can really change something within their own society especially their upcoming arc involving the “Spade Kingdom”.