English Dub Review: Black Clover “The Water Girl Grows Up”

The power of friendship saves the day again.

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

While the Black Bulls are off enjoying their beach time, Noelle has to train herself to finally control her magic so they can all enter the underwater temple. While training, she runs into a water mage and aspiring idol, Kahono, who can use her voice to manipulate water and perform magic with incredible control and accuracy. Noelle asks if Kahono will help her train, and of course, she agrees.

Under Kahono’s teaching, Noelle makes great strides in her training, realizing that she needs to stop trying so hard and learn to relax when using her magic. She also realizes that her emotional baggage burdened on her from her cruel family is weighing her down. She tries to let go of it and has confidence in herself, but ultimately comes up short in her magical control.

However, just as she’s about to give up on her training, she remembers all the great times she’s had with the Black Bulls and how they’ve become her surrogate family. Realizing that she isn’t hopeless, she manages to control her water magic and create a new spell that will let the Black Bulls get to the water temple safely.

Our Take:

After its brief sojourn into a beach episode, Black Clover is sallying forth to get its plot back on the road. About as well as Black Clover can, that is to say. As the show gets sillier and sillier, Black Clover seems to be okay with throwing whatever drama it might have right out the window. Get ready for a lot of dumb jokes.

Kahono is the new addition to the Black Clover cast that is given way more attention than she deserves. She opens up the episode pretty well with the somewhat misplaced aria she introduces herself with, but her charm quickly wears out when she starts talking. Also, while this might not be a problem for other people, I think the idea of idols existing in this world seems downright ridiculous to me. Black Clover can’t seem to figure out what it wants to be, and having this modern pop star idea intrude on an otherwise medieval fantasy world is a bit world-breaking.

Noelle is a character in sore need of development, having been little more than a tsundere love interest for Asta since she was introduced. So I’m happy to see Black Clover take a little time to give her something to do. While her backstory is still extremely heavy-handed, at least its getting addressed in this episode. Unfortunately, Noelle’s training gets relegated to a montage instead of focusing on the ins and outs of controlling her magic. Its hard to really get into things when the show keeps shooting itself in the foot. Asta and the Black Bulls can’t seem to stop interrupting Noelle’s story, which can be pretty dark sometimes. This results in a lot more tonal whiplash.

While the episode fumbles for most of its runtime, Noelle does get a juicy character moment in the end when she finally breaks through and learns to control her magic. Seeing the others cheer for her as a member of their family is heartwarming, exactly the sort of stuff I expect from a shounen.

When all is said and done, this episode had more story going on it than I’m used to for Black Clover, which is definitely a plus. It has a lot of the same problems that this show always has, but manages to land its feet on solid ground, making Noelle more of an actual character than she ever has been before. Black Clover fans will certainly enjoy this one.