English Dub Review: Black Clover “Reincarnation”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

In the distant past, a young elf boy named Patry observes Licht get his four-leaf Grimoire, then follows him back to hang out with Licht and Rhya. Apparently, there are rumors that humans will attack them…not that we’ll ever see what most humans of this era were like in this episode. But Licht is optimistic that they’ll all be able to come to an understanding eventually. Just then, a tornado appears in the middle of their field, with a beautiful princess inside of it. Apparently this girl, Tetia (who looks like Mimosa from the Golden Dawn), left her castle and was chased by her brother, a mage with no name but whom the closed captions refer to as FIRST WIZARD KING, so…spoilers, I guess. Also, he and Licht both have four-leaf clover Grimoires, which I’m sure means something.

The three make fast friends, sharing a view that they can all get along, with Licht and Tetia eventually getting engaged and with a kid on the way that could be the way to unite elves and humans once and for all. All their elf friends, including Vetto and Fana, are overjoyed for them, though Patry is jealous and worried that Licht is spending too much time with a human. Those worries seem to come true on the wedding day, as a massive shower of light slaughters all of the elves, as well as sealing their magic. Patry immediately blames Tetia’s brother (because I guess there weren’t any other light magic users in that era?), but is soon killed himself. But he before he dies, he sees Licht use a forbidden spell while holding Tetia’s body.

He awakens in William Vangeance’s body sometime later, somehow with Licht’s face, and pieces together that all of the elves reincarnated as formless souls, which he assumes was Licht’s plan to save them all. So Patry, taking on Licht’s identity, uses more forbidden magic in order to revive his people and take vengeance against all humans who betrayed the trust of the elves.

In the present, Patry drains Valtos, Sally, and Rades to absorb their energy while all the chosen members of the Royal Knights become reincarnated elves.

OUR TAKE

The new opening starts this week! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I’m not a huge fan, mostly because it seems to just be going through the motions of what an OP this late in the show needs to have. We get some admittedly nice-looking sneak peeks at upcoming fights with the possessed Magic Knights and glimpse at Licht/Patry’s past and motivations, but more importantly, we also get a reminder that Asta and Yuno are pals and rivals!…which is kind of the theme of just about every OP and ED this show has ever had. Also that they’ll be fighting who I guess is the REAL Licht. I’m not sure this kind of upbeat song even fits what’s going on in this. I can’t say I hate it, but I also can’t say I feel much for it at all, which is arguably worse. I’m almost kind of glad that we might have a shorter time with this one than previous ones, considering it took a while to get here.

As for the episode itself, as much as this is supposed to fill us in on some important things, it raises more questions than answers. I don’t know how much of this is meant to be left ambiguous or a result of poor adaptation or even just poor writing from the source material, but quite a bit seems to rely on assumption or hinting that more information will be coming later. We had hints about Mimosa’s former life being involved in things, but it seems that learning the name of her brother would be too much of a spoiler, despite the fact that it’s kind of more spoilery to just tell us that he will be the first Wizard King. Also, while I know that this might have only been meant to be from Patry’s perspective, it seems kinda hasty to assume that the only one who could possibly be using light magic in the slaughter would be Tetia’s brother. Kinda makes him less of a tragic figure and more a needlessly hateful dummy that I still have no reason to care about aside from his immediate threat.

But hey, that’s ignoring the greater message at play here, which is that being a Wizard King means having the drive to unite divided peoples together no matter the time period. The first one wanted to unite the humans and elves, while Julius wanted to bring together the nobles and commoners!…which is why neither of those things has happened in the centuries that the position has existed. Though I’m sure that Asta will be able to use his increased lung capacity to make everyone deaf with his screaming, meaning they’ll HAVE to get along. It’s totally that easy.