Back on Black Clover again

I keep watching an episode or two and abandoning this anime for months because the few episodes I watch are so, so bad. This pattern continues with episode 40, the ugliest beach episode I have ever seen in my life.

Distractingly off-model animation aside, this episode was jam-packed with everything I completely hate about Black Clover: The Black Bulls, and the insufferably 1-dimensional characters therein acting out their tired, unfunny tropes while screaming and interrupting each other constantly. It honestly started to feel like I was watching a Collins Key video, which might be one of the harshest criticisms I have given anything on this blog thus far. 

I am baffled by this anime’s high score on MAL. I can’t parse if this title just has a lot of die hard fans giving it 10’s out of spite/delusion/irony, or if somehow Black Clover eventually becomes something genuinely good in its 170 episode runtime. Reading reviews offers no actual insight – claims it’s “the best written modern shounen” are completely absurd and penned by people that have watched even less than I have, and most reviewers giving it a 10 concede it’s a shameless copycat of various works that came before but that “the author is trying” even if the studio is ruining it with awful animation... so somehow that makes it a masterpiece? Is something pitiable seriously worth an 8.14? Make it make sense…

Then there are my own sensibilities to account for: I think Black Clover is the most misogynistic shounen series I have picked up since I checked out Fist of the North Star (which was made in the 80’s). I think it is wildly immature and its fear of indulging any story beat that is too heavy or too serious is frustrating. In 40 episodes I cannot remember an episode or a scene from Black Clover that left an impression or felt at all formative – I can still remember multiple scenes that make me feel something from pre-shippuden Naruto that I saw over 15 years ago on TV as a child. And that series is far from perfect, but at the very least it knew how to stop and let its characters breathe and feel their feelings and take something seriously. How the hell are we going to have this (extremely, pathetically basic) Teamwork Makes The Dreamwork theme in Black Clover when our protagonist group of misfits don’t seem to give a damn and don’t have to put any work into staying together?

It all just feels so lazy. Everyone’s together because they were assigned to be in a team because they’re all the same and they’re all a joke. Noelle is the only outlier because she is a royal but that doesn’t matter at all anymore because her only character trait is having a huge tsundere crush on Asta that somehow renders her just as “defective” as the other freaks. It has been such a let down honestly that Noelle turned into a willing member of the Black Bulls so quickly because she was like… the only person in the entire team that could facilitate some character drama. But no. She girl. Rich girl like dumb dumb country boy. Dumb dumb country boy say classism bad. Rich girl go ooga booga.

Literally had my head in my hands this episode while Noelle begged Asta to look at her in her bikini. They have massacred my girl. And every other girl in the series thus far.

sasuke_stanpdf you're the only person in the Crunchyroll comment section of episode 40 of Black Clover that even remotely understands my pain. Thank you.

The new OP made my skin crawl because it looks like we’re going into a Black Bull centric arc. (And because the digital zooms looked bad. Sorry.) But maybe the group will actually do something interesting. Better yet, maybe their characters will be challenged somehow. Maybe they will even have conflicts with each other! What a treat that would be in this barren wasteland of a narrative. And maybe, just maybe, Gauche will finally die. Surely, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel that is this arc, right…?