English Dub Review: Black Clover “The Black Bulls’ Hideout”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

While all the cool stuff is happening at the raid on the Eye of the Midnight Sun, the remaining Black Bulls enjoy their timejust lazing about. Yami gets a letter to go meet Vangeance as apologies for the Langris matter, Vanessa goes to check on the still comatose Finral, Magna goes off to train, and Charmy goes off to hunt for food. That leaves Gauche, Grey, and Gordon, the most anti-sociable members, to protect their base. So, the nervous wreck, the Marilyn Manson mumbler, and the incestual pedophile. They’ll be lucky if the place is standing by the time Yami comes back.

And it might be harder than they thought, as the building has been changing its structure randomly lately, along with rumors of a ghost wandering the halls. But before they can focus on that, zombies made by Rades Spirito come barging in, with back up by Sally and Valtos of the Eye of the Midnight Sun. They’ve come for something in particular, but won’t say what it is, though they intend to destroy the base looking for it. Also odd is that Licht has instructed Gauche to be left alive for reasons unknown.

Surprisingly, the Black Bulls C-Team puts up a pretty good fight, with Gordon’s poison magic taking down the zombies and Grey’s transformation magic working in conjunction with Gauche’s reflection to stop Sally’s sticky salamanders. And bolstered by the powers of Gordan and Grey’s very own expositional flashback about how they were recruited, they manage to hold their own. Plus, to EVERYONE’S surprise, they aren’t the only ones left in the castle, as a long haired and slow-speaking magic user emerges from a hidden room.

OUR TAKE

You know, as underwhelming as the stuff with Asta’s group has been, I don’t think now was the time for an interlude to what the supporting characters were up to. I do tend to like it when a story is willing to put the spotlight on minor characters when the main ones aren’t around to show that the world exists even when the protagonists aren’t there, but I feel like we needed to reach SOME sort of milestone in the raid on the bad guy’s base before we cut to this. As of now, things have barely gotten started on either front, but the show seems so bored with everything that it’ll looking ANYWHERE for something interesting. That said, I WAS wondering when we were going to get that shot of Gordon and Grey screaming in the OP, and here it is. Also nice to finally know what the heck Gordon can do, in case anyone was wondering.

But yeah, it’s the battle of the C-listers as the least compelling members of their respective groups battle for last place on the popularity polls. Personally, I don’t really mind Gordon and actually like Grey’s design, as well as thinking their abilities are kinda neat, but everyone else in this tussle I either couldn’t care less about or despise with a passion. Like virtually every other side character in Black Clover, the Eye of the Midnight Sun goons here are pretty one note, with Sally basically being a shameless rip off of Hange from Attack on Titan, but they’re relatively harmless and tasteless as antagonists go, which is probably the worst thing an antagonist can be. I honestly couldn’t care less if any of them lived or died, which will make the rest of this battle pretty dull.

Gauche, however, I cannot find a bottom to my disgust for him as a concept. Through some odd twist of fate that is living proof that there is no God, the editor for Black Clover has somehow never told the story’s author, Yuki Tabata, that Gauche’s obsession with his little sister is not a valid source for comedy in the first place, let alone as every other line of the guy’s dialogue. But for the moment, he is our viewpoint character, which hopefully will stifle his urge to talk about these things, but I have no reason to be hopeful. We’ll get to the long-haired guy next week, where he’ll be front and center, but for now, I need a boiling hot shower.