English Dub Review: Black Clover “I’m Home”

Expect the worst.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The battle with the Queen of Witches is over, leaving Asta and friends to recover and lick their wounds. Yet, surprisingly, in a twist of fate, the Queen of Witches decides to renounce her sinister intentions after coming to the bizarre realization that Vanessa being “Imperfect” makes her “Perfect”, in her own way. This Disney revelation, bizarre as it is, is good news for our heroes since she decides to completely heal them, as well as Asta’s cursed arms.

Everyone regroups and meets with the Queen of Witches in her throne room, where she gives them her earring, which also happens to be a Magic Stone. She explains that the Magic Stones are only powerful in the hands of elves, who were an ancient race of magically attuned people who were wiped out by humans long ago. As it turns out, the demon that the Wizard King defeated was summoned by an elf.

The Black Bulls depart with Mars and Ladros, who, in another surprising turn, decide to back to the Diamond Kingdom and work together to change the kingdom for the better. In addition, Mars also has a life-lengthening serum, which he thinks will help with their reforms by saving their king from the machinations of those beneath him.

Asta and the rest of the Black Bulls return home, where they meet with all their other comrades. Two by two, the other Black Bulls arrive, each with their own shenanigans in store based on what they did to try and save Asta’s arms. After some fooling around and some chores performed by Asta, everyone joins together to celebrate his return. A sense of peace and joy washes over everyone, as they reflect on the adventure they’ve just had and anticipate a brighter future.

Our Take:

I’m not even sure where, to begin with this. Sometimes an episode comes along that is so baffling, so strange, that it makes you wonder just what exactly the creators of this show were thinking when they decided to release this for public viewing. It’s not so much like I’m watching an anime, but a bad fanfiction that tries to imitate an anime, without putting in the time to make a script that makes sense and follow a sense of some kind of internal logic.

What am I talking about here, specifically? Namely, the fact that in the strangest turn this series has presented so far, the Queen of Witches has decided to just be a good person now, and everyone is just okay with it. The Queen of Witches, the sinister, blood-magic wielding, hostage-taking, mind-dominating, monster of a woman, who, just last episode, tried to mind control Asta into murdering his friends one by one in cold blood, has decided to, because she lost the fight, to become the ally of Asta and friends. That, already, is strange enough, but what’s worse is that our entire main cast does not mind this in the very least.

Here’s a hypothetical: if someone tried to stab you to death on the street, and you managed to stop them, and they then said “Oh hey, I’m sorry, let’s be friends,” would you just accept their good will? No. Absolutely not. So why is it that Asta, who just had his very soul set to slaughter his friends, and Vanessa, who had been held prisoner by the Queen of Witches for almost her entire adolescence, are okay with this? This is insane. There is nothing about this makes sense, and what’s worse, our heroes do the same thing with Ladros, who also just tried to murder everyone two episodes ago. I’ve seen characters reform themselves in anime before, its a well-known trope, but it usually comes after we see some kind of backstory that victimizes them, and makes us see that they weren’t so bad after all. I’m sorry, but there is nothing like that here, and a 20-second flashback to when Vanessa was a kid and made a doll out of string for the Queen of Witches does not justify the monstrous actions that the Queen of Witches has just performed.

This is enough to make the episode commit suicide because it completely butchers the ending of this arc. The rest of it is just silly comedy relief with varying degrees of hilarity. Your mileage will vary as to whether or not you laugh, but for the record, I thought it was overdone. As for the rest, throw this episode in the trash where it belongs.