English Dub Review: Black Clover “Infiltration”

Well, this was a disappointment.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Vanessa has returned to the land of witches in search of a way to heal Asta’s arms. The land of witches is a curious land where only women practice magic and mainly specialize in hexing or spirit magic. Furthermore, those that leave the Forest of Witches are considered fugitives, making Vanessa’s return to the forest all the more tenuous. Dominante explains this to Noelle and Finral, and offers to accompany the two of them to the Forest of Witches to help Vanessa. Not to be outdone, Fanzell also offers to accompany them as well. On their way out, the crew grabs Asta as well.

In the Forest, Vanessa stands before the Queen of Witches, who chastises Vanessa for leaving the Forest to follow Captain Yami. In response, a confident Vanessa demands that, in exchange for returning to the Forest, the Queen of Witches teaches her how to dispel ancient hexes. The Queen, unamused, decides to teach Vanessa her place.

Back outside the Forest, Dominante explains that the power the Queen of Witches has protects the forest from intruders, and that to enter they’ll have to be stealthy. To that end, Dominante offers a sort-of invisibility cloak that should shield them from Forest’s defenses. Meanwhile, The Eye of the Midnight Sun makes their moves, as Fana swears vengeance on the Black Bulls for killing Vetto.

In the Forest, the Black Bulls sneak their way inside under the protection of Dominante’s cloak, until a passing sentry discovers the men under their invisibility cloak and immediately opens fire on them. The team tries to escape but keeps getting interrupted by Fanzell trying to give his number out to passing witches. Conveniently, they land in the throne room of the Queen of Witches, who is not at all happy to see intruders in her home. Vanessa is KO’d on the ground, and Asta charges at the Queen in anger. He immediately gets trapped by a swarm of crows and the Queen explains how Vanessa has done all this for Asta.

Asta is surprised to find out this trip was all about him, (Dumbass) while the others engage with the Queen in combat. Before things can get started though, the Queen uses some kind of future-seeing magic to foresee that the Bulls will lose and that the Eye of the Midnight Sun is fast approaching.

Our Take:

Here’s an episode that tries to do too much in one episode, and ends up accomplishing extraordinarily little. I have to admit that before this episode, I was fairly hyped up to see what this “Forest of Witches” thing was all about. It seemed like this was a new and interesting location for the series, somewhere that might serve really well in this setting and present a mysterious place to explore. I’m sad to say that after this episode, that couldn’t be further from how things went down. What we get is a rushed, shallow mess that doesn’t deliver much of anything for anybody, as its way to quick to push the plot forward as fast as it possibly can.

Looking at the setting, the Forest of Witches advertises itself as being a reclusive home for a mysterious sect of magic users who specialize in the kind of hexing magic that defines a witch. Immediately, we have some problems, because, by the rules of the universe of Black Clover, magic is an entirely individual affair based on nothing more than random chance. Remember that, Black Clover? How your system of magic distribution is completely arbitrary based on, I don’t know, how much the universe likes you? Well, I do, and that makes this whole idea silly from the get-go, because how could a place like this even exist? What qualifies anything as “Hex” magic, anyway? I’ve never seen two magic users with the same abilities, so I find it hard to believe that being able to “hex” has any real meaning here. What’s worse, is that once we get to the Forest, it doesn’t have any significant differences from every other place in this world except that it’s populated by women. It’s pleasant and generic, with nothing spooky or unique to give much-needed detail to this supposedly secretive society.

Because this setting is so lackluster, seeing our characters romp around in it is no fun. It feels like a generic chase scene where the show can’t decide if it wants to be intense or funny, given by how many breaks for comic relief we’re forced to endure. Not to mention, the conflict between Vanessa and the Queen of Witches is so half-baked I think its gonna give me salmonella poisoning. Their conflict is nothing more than “I’m a big bad witch and I don’t like you for leaving.” No subtext, no relationship of any kind to speak of, just an arbitrary villain acting for arbitrary reasons.

This episode seeks to burn through its material as fast as it can to get to “The Boss” without having to worry about all the fun stuff that makes a new arc in an anime interesting. It tries to do in one episode that should take five, and thereby wastes the viewer’s time by shoving this garbage plot down their collective throats. We’ve certainly had worse episodes of Black Clover, but this one is nothing more than lazy, and for that, it should be condemned.