English Dub Review: Black Clover “Whoever’s Strongest Wins”

Protip: Yami is usually the strongest.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

A battle is underway at Kiten village, which is being assaulted by the Diamond Kingdom and its Eight Shining Generals, who are on the same power level as the magic knights. The Black Bulls hitch a portal over to the village with the help of Finral, but the Golden Dawn is making valiant efforts in their fight against the Diamond Kingdom in their own right. Yuno shows off his newfound powers as well, which have become quite strong with the help of his wind spirit.

The mages of the Golden Dawn use their considerable powers to dish out the pain, while their captain unleashes a powerful magical tree onto the city which decimates the Diamond Kingdom forces. Lotus tries to warn the others, but it’s too late, William’s “World Tree Magic” brings most of the enemy forces to heel.

It’s around this time that the Black Bulls show up, using their magic to guide civilians to safety. Meanwhile, Yuno goes toe-to-toe to Lagus, a powerful electric mage, in the skies above the city. With ease, he finishes off his foe and jumps back down to the city, where he runs into Asta once again.

Captain William faces off against Brocks, the clay magic user, and defeats him with ease. Lotus tries to pull off a sneak attack against the Magic Knight Captain but gets stopped by Yami. Lotus, being a sneaky coward, then retreats in his funky smoke car, leaving Yami and William to have a “Little chat,” where Yami, suspicious of William’s true identity, asks the Golden Dawn Captain to take off the mask.

Our Take:

Black Clover has just been renewed for another 50 episodes, and this episode marks the beginning of its “Season 2”, though it doesn’t mean a whole lot in terms of series structure. Things pretty much carry on as usual in this episode, but, admittedly, this week’s entry into Black Clover was a lot more competent than it usually is.

The animation quality is moderately improved here, which is vital to a fight like this where its basically all action. I was fairly impressed with the fight between Yuno and Lagus, who soar through the sky in a visceral, high-motion scene. Other than that, a lot of the episode’s fighting is just used to introduce members of the Golden Dawn or remind us of the important ones we’ll probably be seeing in the episodes to come. It’s functional and entertaining enough, but it doesn’t leave much of an impression.

The characters haven’t really improved, still being the Black Clover brand of cardboard people that have been around since episode one. Finral will always find a way to be trying to get girls even in a war zone, which might be funny if it wasn’t just the same joke over and over again. In addition, the magical powers of the Shining Generals are still lacking in creativity, even if one of them uses “Mucus Magic.” (Which is just as gross as it sounds) But, at this point, I can’t really expect creativity from this series.

All that being said, the final scene between Yami and William had some serious tension going for it. The absence of music, the pacing of their dialogue, the voice acting, all of it worked to the advantage of the moment. It actually made me a little bit hyped to see what’s coming in the next episode, which I haven’t felt watching Black Clover maybe ever.

This is a marked improvement over what I’m used to for the series, and I hope the show can keep up this level of quality and build off it in the episodes to come. The Golden Dawn are good rivals for the Black Bulls, and such a conflict might be a great way to flesh out their characters more so we can add a little bit of depth to this shounen. A good showing for the “Premier” of season two. With any luck, it won’t be the last.