English Dub Review: Black Clover “Overwhelming Disadvantage”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Sol buries Julius’ corpse at Yami’s request while Yami narrow avoids getting killed by the possessed Charlotte, who wanders off to find more comrades. Meanwhile, former Purple Orcas captain Gueldre and Revchi (from the first couple episodes) feel the chaos going on outside their prison and attempt to make a break for it, but are stopped by another possessed Magic Knight who has water magic. Using Gueldre’s transparency and Revchi’s magic-sealing chains, they make short work of the enemy and escape.

Back at the hideout, Noelle and Kirsch fight against two more elves, one of them possessing Luck. And Asta, Zora, and Mereoleona end up against both Rhya and a possessed Rill, now going by Lira. It also seems that Asta’s anti-magic can’t undo the Reincarnation spell, as it is now complete and taken hold of the possessed bodies. With more forces gathering, Asta and Zora flee and leave Mereoleona to deal with things herself. As this happens, Fuegoleon’s unconscious body twitches a bit.

OUR TAKE

You know what this episode reminds me of? Back in 2009, there was this big comic book event called Blackest Night, where zombified versions of dead superheroes and villains fought those that were still living, which made for a bunch of interesting encounters that were chronicled in a rather expansive amount of issues and tie-ins. While they’re not exactly zombies, this episode did feel like a collection of issues about the less important fights between supporting characters that you’d see in the tie-ins, with Yami finishing his fight with Charlotte and two minor villains getting their own spotlight for a brief minute. I’m not sure it’s going to add much in the long run, but it’s kinda novel to see.

I’m also pleasantly surprised that we’re getting some differing reactions from the possessed characters, who are noticeably happy to see other elves to contrast how harsh they are with humans. It’s good that these are definitely different characters than the ones who originally had those bodies, but I think I would have appreciated it more if they had noticeably different personalities than their vessels too. Maybe that has to do with the actual reincarnation part of this, but it’s a bit irksome that some of these elves are just the person they possessed but EXTRA EVIL. It’s not as boring as I thought it was going to be, but it’s also not that far off. But then again we’re still pretty early in this phase of the arc, so that could change as things move on. However, we’re also STILL in this early part mainly because Black Clover likes to drag its feet at every possible opportunity, which has always always ALWAYS been a problem, but I’ve just become too tired to be all that mad at it at this point.

And no, I don’t think Mereoleona is dead because this story is nowhere near brave enough to kill off one of their most likable characters. Not that it would necessarily help things to kill her off now, just that knowing that she’s got plot armor pretty much robs this seeming “sacrifice” of much significance. I guess you could say that Julius’ death filled the quota of offing a powerful mentor figure to show the situation is serious (though if you do say that, I have some bad news for you later on), but I don’t think that means we have to exempt everyone from any and all risk for the rest of the arc. But let it never be said that I’m not open to being proven wrong if that turns out to be the case.