English Dub Review: Black Clover “The Sleeping Lion”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

While all the other battles we’ve witnessed are taking place, the headquarters of the Crimson Lion Kings has not been spared, as their vice captain Randall Luftair has been possessed by one of the elves. With Mereoleona away with the Royal Knights and Fuegoleon still out of commission since the first attack on the capital, it’s up to Leopold to rally the remaining troops. It’s a bit difficult, since he’s fighting someone who used to boost his fire attacks with air magic, so Leo and the rest of the squad are basically getting their asses kicked.

But when things seem hopeless, a massive surge of mana drops from the sky and awakens Feugoleon, who classily steps onto the battlefield sporting a hot new arm made of fire AND in control of the Fire Spirit Salamander. With it, he makes short work of Randall, imprisoning him in flames. Afterwards, he recalls being incapacitated by William Vangeance, and so plans to stop whatever is happening in the kingdom. He’s also surprised to hear that Mereoleona has taken over for him, since she never even became a Magic Knight, but feels like she should have been picked all along.

Meanwhile, the entire Golden Dawn is revealed to be made up of knights who have now been reincarnated, including Finral’s brother Langris, who is now Patry’s cousin, Latry. Elsewhere, Yami awakens Finral and the two go to help out in the fight.

OUR TAKE

We have another diversion from the main fight this week, but it’s not that bad a choice this time. Checking in with the Crimson Lion Kings is basically just checking in with Leopold and the comatose Fuegolion since that team doesn’t really have any other notable characters there at the moment. And yay, Fuego’s finally out of his year and a half long coma! Seriously, the episode he was attacked, Episode 25, came out in March of last year and we’re only now getting around to waking him up. To the show’s credit, his return is given the appropriate amount of fanfare, given that he’s one of the more cooler characters (is that ironic? I’m gonna say no just to be safe). And I love J. Michael Tatum in pretty much anything, so to bring him into this is nice.

But I also can’t help but feel like Leopold got a little jipped here. Not that the fire arm isn’t cool on Fuegoleon, but it was Leopold who was leading the charge and keeping people’s spirits up during the fight, right? Shouldn’t that entitle him to getting Salamander, who apparently just kinda drops in at random? Is that how spirits work in this world? God, there’s so much about this we just have to guess here. And maybe once his brother croaks for real, then he can take Salamander for his own. Also when are we gonna get to see the other two spirits? Man, I did not think I would have this many questions when I started writing this.

Okay, what else? Uhhhhh it looks like we’re going back to the real battle again next week with more focus on Mereoleona’s battle with a bunch of elves, meaning the Vermillion family is really getting a lot of the spotlight latey! And you know what, I’m alright with that, I just wish we could focus on a single fight for a little while here. I hopefully get my wish based on what I’ve heard about the next few episodes, but it’s still pretty annoying that we’re still jumping around like this. It’s REALLY screwing with the momentum when we keep cutting to fights that don’t really move the plot forward. We might be just about done with those, though, since the loose ends are dropping off and everything is converging on facing the elves that are just in the hideout. But then there’s the Golden Dawn elves that have come into play, so who knows how they factor into things.