Black Clover

Episode 43

It's battle royale time! Or at least it would be if the Black Bulls weren't cleaning house with their opponents so quickly. I was kind of eager to see some classic shonen tournament action, since we've got almost the full team raring to go, but most of the underwater fighters turn out to be complete fodder aside from three exceptions. The surprise that the Black Bulls are winning so immediately feels like the kind of scene that intends to be punchy and dramatic, but the show just can't animate the spectacle at all. This continues to be a persistent problem throughout the episode.

This week's episode is an underwhelming mess. The most important story reveal is that the three strongest fighters working for the Underwater Temple are actually the perverted old man's family: one son and two grandchildren, with one of the grandchildren being none other than Kahono, who serves as Noelle's opponent in the game. Having the two of them compete in a just-for-fun tournament is all well and good, but the show tries to cut deeper by making it sound like they're competing over who gets to accomplish their dreams. Kahono is still a friend, but she admits that she coaxed Noelle and friends toward the temple because she knew her grandpa would want to play a game if outsiders came passing through, and winning said game is tied to whether or not she'd have a chance to go to the surface world and become a famous singer. Asta is going through something similar with his opponent, who I assume is Kahono's older brother.

I just don't understand the stakes here at all. If Kahono were to lose, how long would it be before she has another shot at going to the surface? If Noelle loses, she won't feel like she was useful to the Black Bulls, and that's the basis on which these two friends are fighting. Neither person's situation is so drastic that I can't imagine a scenario where they both succeed at getting what they want. The underwater people seem nice enough that they could probably be talked out of their magic stone if it were for a good reason, and just as the friendly drama between groups finally feels ripe for something interesting to transpire, the Eye of the Midnight Sun busts in and interrupts the whole game. It's like the author tried to do something a little smaller and more personal, couldn't get it right, and just said "Screw it. It's another Midnight Sun story." It's the big hairy monster guy from the Third Eye too, the one I'm least interested in.

I found myself very frustrated with this episode. The battle royale wasn't successful as a well-developed small stakes drama, nor was it an interesting diversion from the inevitable Midnight Sun twist. I'm probably even less interested in a billionth Midnight Sun story than I was in the battle royale. I get the impression this was going for an early Buu saga kind of thing, where you have a tournament that gets hijacked partway by something bigger, but the story goes by so quickly and with such little feeling that it's like the plot is just yanking you along willy-nilly. And at least in that case, the "bigger" conflict was something new. There's still plenty of time for Kahono and her family's story to thread into the larger conflict, so I'll hold my breath there, but these pieces do not fit together organically as they are. On top of all that, this was an action-heavy episode that had neither the direction nor the animation to sell it, making this week's installment of Black Clover a bummer.

Rating: C-

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