English Dub Review: Black Clover “The One with No Magic”

This week, Asta continues to make his coworkers look bad.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Three magic captains have shown up to help Yami and the other Black Bulls take on the Third Eye, the elite three mages of The Eye of the Midnight Sun.

The magic knights go back and forth with each other, exchanging blows and testing the abilities of each other’s magical powers. Witty banter is exchanged, and romantic tension is proliferated between Yami and Charlotte, who has a crush on him.

These two teams seem evenly matched until Asta and Yami launch a surprise attack on Licht, which overcomes the light-wielding mage and forces him on the defensive. Licht begins rambling about how Asta’s magic was stolen from the master of The Eye of the Midnight Sun, who apparently isn’t Licht after all.

After their attack on Licht, the magic knights have done enough damage to necessitate the retreat of the Eye of the Midnight Sun, who seal off Licht’s magical power and use their teleportation magic to escape. They return to their hideout and lick their wounds, readying themselves for their next strike at the magic knights.

Our Take:

We’ve had an interesting couple of episodes for Black Clover in the past two weeks. Yami’s fight with Licht has earned an interested eye or two from my bitter, cynical mind, and I was interested to see how things might turn out with the serendipitous appearances of these three magic knight captains. I’m unhappy to say that following last week, this episode pales in comparison; it is a complete, abject failure. Ugly, boring to watch, and no doubt embarrassing for all the people involved in making it.

One of the major flaws of this episode is how long this arc has been running as one enormous fight scene. Though it may seem like something of a minor thing to note, the fact that all this combat has stemmed from such a small, almost “Filler episode” styled conflict in this lonesome cave seriously reduces the gravitas of whats going on. I couldn’t care less about the people in this village and their issues. The big show, the long-awaited conflict between good and evil is about to be decided, so spending time with the villagers behind this “Pay the piper” scenario is a complete waste.

As I watch this series more and more, Black Clover feels more and more to me like the anime equivalent of a soap opera. A melodramatic, shallow affair that is more concerned with drudging out weak twists, laughs, and shock value more than anything else. Is there any other way to quantify the completely one-sided natures of these magic knight captains? Is anyone convinced that these guys share any resemblance to real people? These “captains” are just one-trick ponies who spout off predictable dialogue and off-brand comedy.

The nicely animated sequences we got in the last couple episodes are far and gone now. Clearly, they were only just a passing moment of quality in the endless drudgery that is Black Clover. These fight scenes…good lord, these fight scenes. Nothing about them can be taken seriously when their animations are this lackluster. I feel like I’m watching the class project of a college animation course, not the product of a professional animation studio.

This week’s episode is not good, not good at all to say the least. Whether its the terrible dialogue animation or the forced “Kek kek”‘s that Jack the Ripper forces out, a bi-product of the Japanese dub poorly localized to the United States, everywhere I look there’s an endless amount of problems. This is a particularly weak showing, even for Black Clover; one that’s sure to disappoint critics and fans alike.