English Dub Review: Black Clover “The Diamond Mage”

Despite his namesake, Luck really does get into a lot of trouble.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Our heroes journey through the recently uncovered dungeon continues; Yuno and his Golden Dawn squad had just saved Asta and Noelle’s bacon, while Luck ran off to find the dungeon’s secrets by himself. Their reunion is less than touching; Klaus gives Asta the usual berating that the Black Bulls get, and the two are quickly at each other’s throats. We also another member of the Golden Dawn, Mimosa Vermillion, Noelle’s cousin; a nice girl, but a bit dense when it comes to speaking her mind. After some more back and forth between Klaus and Asta, the Golden Dawn mages use their magic to fly off into the depths of the dungeon.

Noelle and Asta are stuck on foot, but now they’re stoked to show up their Golden Dawn rivals. Back at the capital, the Wizard King is holding court and receives word that a squad from the hostile Diamond Kingdom is also trying to uncover the secrets of the dungeon and that they’re led by a powerful mage, Lotus of the Abyss. Apparently, this guy is quite the tough customer, but the Wizard King is confident that his inexperienced, reckless young mages will surely do just fine. Speaking of crazy people making bad decisions, Luck runs into the aforementioned Lotus of the Abyss, and after dispatching with his minions gets into a friendly chat with the guy.

Lotus knows the Black Bulls well, having fought their leader, Yami, back in the day. Luck is excited to fight, but to his surprise, Lotus begins the encounter by running away! Luck swiftly chases after him, falling right into Lotus’s trap. In a poof of magic, Lotus sends out a swathe of black smoke to surround the electric mage. During all this, Asta and Noelle are up to more shenanigans in the dungeon, running across a living chest full of organs. Gross. Back to the action! Luck is pressing the attack of Lotus, but he’s playing defensive, dodging Luck’s attacks with ease. Luck keeps attacking, but something strange starts happening; his body starts to grow weak, and Lotus reveals the extent of his master plan. He used his smoke magic earlier to release a transparent weakening smoke into the air that Luck fell prey to, and it looks like he’s down for the count.

The Golden Dawn knights, meanwhile, find the core of the dungeon, but just as they’re about to claim its treasures, a mysterious mage takes out Mimosa using some fabulous diamond magic. Cut back to Luck, and all seems lost for the wacky wizard; but at the last moment, Luck starts listening to a voice inside his head, telling him to “Win, win, win.” Gathering his resolve, he shoots out at Lotus, donning an electric pair of gauntlets in addition to his electric boots, ready to begin his counterattack. But it will have to wait until next week because that’s all for this episode!

Our Take:

The last few episodes have exhibited an unfortunate trend of dragging out their episodes with filler. We get the exquisite pleasure of Klaus and Asta’s unfunny back and forth for a good 8-10 minutes or so, which eats up most the episode, throwing the juicy bits of the episode to the wayside. Luck’s fight, for what it is, is actually fairly enjoyable but lacks the kind of style and creativity I expect from shounen anime fights. Not your best work, Black Clover, better Luck next time, I suppose.