English Dub Review: Black Clover “Beyond Limits”

Overwhelming despair.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Asta has just plunged his anti-magic sword deep into Vetto’s chest, presumably ending the battle with the beast mage. However, with a cackle and a wicked smile, Vetto looks down and Asta and proclaims Asta hasn’t even come close to taking him down. Vetto then proceeds to go back on the offensive, having flashbacks to his past and trying to bring a sense of overwhelming despair on Asta.

Asta is nearly broken, but he and the other Black Bulls dig deep down to find their determination and turn the tide against Vetto. The battle pushes them beyond their limits, but Asta’s inner demonic power awakens and, combined with the other magic, takes back the fight and puts Vetto’s back to the wall. With overwhelming speed and fury, Asta manages to fell Vetto, much to the delight of the ocean dwellers and Captain Yami, who was watching on a screen from afar.

However, Vetto isn’t about to let it end like this, and activates some kind of magical self-destruct inside of him to destroy the entire temple and take everyone there down with him. It looks for a moment that this might be the case, but Captain Yami shows up at the last moment to save the day. He gives his magical knights an encouraging pat on the head and turns to face Vetto. With a new “Dimensional slash” ability, Yami slices Vetto in half, ending the battle once and for all.

Our Take:

Black Clover tries its darndest this week to bring this swamp of an arc its been stuck into a dramatic finish. While its effort is admirable and better attention is paid to its animation here that has been in a long time, the episode still suffers because of the poor development leading up this finale.

Surprisingly, the best thing about this episode is the animation. One gets the feeling that this is supposed to be “The big one”, the episode with all the budget and attention poured into it, and it really does show. It’s a jarring departure, but it does create an entertaining episode, something distinctly more enjoyable than what most every other episode Black Clover has tried to pull off.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that the storytelling elements here are any stronger. Though the animation quality is much improved, there isn’t much of a payoff to the story here. Asta, even though he’s increasing in power levels, is just repeating the same tired “I’ll never give up” business that he’s always done. Yes, this is a shounen anime, and I understand these things always involve “Not giving up” as an important theme, but there must be complexity and depth to that theme. Not just that, the show has to do things that other shounens don’t, but Black Clover doesn’t even try to break new ground. It just retreads the same thing other, better shows have done to try and score points. Maybe, if this is your first shounen anime, this will all be new to you, but it falls apart when set against other anime.

This episode is supposed to be Vetto’s swan song, his big villain moment where he gets to show off how much of a badass he is and how much deep shit Asta is in. Unfortunately, Vetto continuously shouting “Despair” at the top of his lungs has the opposite effect; he just felt ridiculous. The writing, the voice acting, it’s just not coming together to make a compelling villain. instead just creating a very angry muscleman with sharp teeth and three eyeballs. There is some attempt to generate empathy for his character after he gets defeated by Asta, but it comes a little too late to really matter.

For all my criticism, I had a better time watching this episode that I have watching Black Clover for a long, long time. If I were a fan, I’ve no doubt this episode would bring swell my blackened heart and lift my shrunken soul, so I imagine there will be a good response here from its fans. Sometimes, when Black Clover actually tries, it can do some good.