Black Clover

Episode 33

Such is the long-running shonen adaptation way to occasionally dip in quality before finding that fire in its eyes once more. I still wouldn't put any of Black Clover's best moments against, say, My Hero Academia, but comparing the series to itself still yields enough of a rollercoaster to keep me on my toes.

As of last week, our heroes are now pit against Sally from the Eye of the Midnight Sun, who's a significantly more compelling villain compared to the kidnapping brothers of the past few episodes. She's wild and fun, and her face contorts as she moves back and forth from the camera. Sally commands a type of Gel Magic, which she uses to summon big gelatinous axolotls to fight with. We were introduced to her near the end of the Royal Capital arc, and she appears to be the kooky scientist of the main villains. Asta's anti-magic ways are a source of obsession and fascination for her.

This episode is ultimately a solid see-saw between different types of drama. We get Gauche and Marie's tragic backstory, which is that they came from a family of nobles but when their parents died, their money was taken by competing families, leading Gauche to a life of crime to support his little sister before eventually getting caught and finding a home in the Black Bulls. Gauche is a creep, but this episode does a good job finding a story about what he can do for others. "You just protect what you want to protect. Someday, that'll help somebody out," is what Yami told him when he first joined. It's meant to sound kind of rough and tumble, the kind of moral freedom that a cast of misfits like the Black Bulls would find cathartic, but the show manages to get a proper arc out of that message. Gauche is here only for Marie, not caring about protecting the rest, but Marie's grown to like Asta and the other kids and asks Gauche to help them on her behalf. I really like the duality between Asta, who's been holding on to his principles from the beginning of this fight, and Gauche, who's still technically only here on Marie's behalf, getting to show a little pride as he turns back to assist with the fight once more.

As much as I haven't been enjoying this arc until now, I can see the pieces it's been laying out from the beginning. That little boy that Asta gave his cape to earlier wasn't just an example of Asta being a generic good guy; that scene ties elegantly into Gauche's emotional journey, since he's one of the kids that Marie became friends with (so Gauche is going to feel motivated to protect him), and a simple act of kindness from Asta feels all the more relevant when Gauche's petty anger transforms into something more akin to a friendly rivalry, where they're competing over who gets to be the cooler big brother for Marie. This culminates in a new spell for Gauche, which allows him to create mirror clones of Asta as opposed to just more clones for himself. Fitting.

The animation is a marked improvement over the past few weeks, looking fairly sharp and nearly living up to the show's current opening sequence. It's a battle between Sally teaming up with the mud monster that she turned Baro into, versus Asta, Gauche, and Sister Theresa all going nuts with their respective powers. By Black Clover standards, the action manages to hold together all the way to the cliffhanger where we find ourselves up against Licht once again, the leader of the Midnight Sun. With the villains, this arc has taken us through some mischievous but possibly redeemable schmucks, who were then usurped by the much more threatening Sally, and now we're facing off with an opponent who's way beyond our heroes' abilities.

I was pleasantly surprised by Black Clover this week. It's always difficult to adjust expectations for Shonen Jump power-of-friendship shows that are bound to go up and down in production quality, but one of my favorite things about the genre is how much focus remains on eventually bringing it all together. This new arc had a rocky start, and Gauche will probably never not be a problematic weirdo, but this is the kind of elegance of plotting and theme that I've always found charming.

Rating: B+

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