Black Clover

Episode 51

With the quest for the Underwater Temple's magic stone having come to an end, it's time for the Black Bulls to report back to the Wizard King with their findings. The big event this week is that while they're preoccupied at the Royale Capital, the enemy Diamond Kingdom (who we faced in the Dungeon Exploration arc with Lotus and Mars) is waging war on the city of Kiten.

Now, I believe this is the episode that the series was originally expected to conclude on. However, as it stands this particular episode doesn't feel like it was ever designed to be a finale. It's introducing a new conflict, and it's unfortunately ugly. The Diamond Kingdom has brought themselves a flying army, which means doodles by the hundreds of floating men awkwardly copy and pasted in the sky as they launch their slow-mo attack. From weak character designs to flat storyboarding, this is an unflattering experience to say the least. Hopefully this isn't a sign that the seasonal expansion will impact production values negatively.

It's frustrating, because I'm still feeling the afterglow from that Vetto fight. I want to like this show. I want to believe it's going to be smooth sailing from now on, but clearly it's going to be the same rollercoaster of ups and downs as ever. As of now, this new scenario is very boring and unengaging. Obviously, I've learned enough times by now that how I feel at the start of an arc is rarely how I feel by the end, but these waters are rough nonetheless. As an audience, our foot in the door for this story comes with Yuno and the Golden Dawns showing up to kick ass and take names, all the while Yami and company are making plans to teleport themselves over as well. We spend most of our time watching the Black Bulls view the battle from a distance, and the intrigue doesn't truly kick in until Yami mentions wanting to keep an eye on William Vangeance, who's loyalty to the Clover Kingdom is still suspicious. The actual battle itself is ultimately just a backdrop compared to all the interesting places the story could go from here.

When Black Clover really shines, it makes the mediocrity taste that much worse. It's like I forgot how this show normally looks and feels and now my tongue is drying out. I don't want to be too hard on a new storyline for taking its time getting all its ducks in a row, but I'm currently lost as to what its current goals are. I wonder if we're maybe being set up to eventually sympathize with the Diamond Kingdom, since we've been touching on the Clovers' corruption lately and the most interesting potential conflict at the moment would be an in-fight between the Black Bulls and the Golden Dawns.

We begin this new storyline with an unmotivated turn of events featuring bland antagonists, poor animation, and little for the audience to get excited about. I'm going to refrain from setting my expectations either which way for the new season, but I have to take this show one episode at a time and this one was painfully dull.

Rating: D

Black Clover is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Sam Leach records about One Piece for The One Piece Podcast and you can find him on Twitter @LuckyChainsaw