 Hey everybody, welcome to another exciting episode, another edition of A Week in Geekdom here on YouTube, and this time we're going to be doing something a little bit different. We're going to be talking about a series that, one, the original source material is not done, and two, the anime adaptation isn't finished either, so we're just going to be focusing on the first 51 episodes, or season one, if you will, of Black Clover. Black Clover, of course, a 2015 manga, if I remember correctly, written by Yuki Tabata. It's a wonderful, charming little series that could. The anime, however, has gotten a lot of heat, especially on the first season, and a lot of season two for some reason. I looked online, and a lot of people like to complain and criticize and basically tear apart this show because of its one massive glaring problem, which is its animation. I will get to that, don't worry about it. But for the most part, the TLDR of Black Clover, it is a world governed by magic. Everybody can use magic spells and all that stuff. There are wizards and magic knights, and there's this Clover Kingdom. Eventually you learn that at the beginning of the world history, or whatever, the first super-powered magic or wizard save the Earth, this kingdom, this area, from a giant demon that was terrorizing the land and killing people and all that stuff, eventually he was immortalized as the first wizard king, which in Shonen Jump Terms would be like your Hokage if you're a Naruto fan. So yeah, from that point you get some really nice exposition on a very, you know, at first it's a small world that gets presented to us, but it starts expanding as the story moves along and you start learning a little bit more about the kingdom and how it operates and the rival factions. There's other kingdoms outside that they fight with the Clover Kingdom. There's this huge war between everybody and all that stuff that I think will entice you to keep going, but the main focus of Black Clover is the story of our main lead. Unfortunately, Shonen Jump series all share very similar protagonists, they all share very similar tropes, so I find it funny when people start comparing Black Clover to say like Naruto, for example, because they aren't necessarily the best characters when the story starts and I don't mean personality-wise, more of a power-set-wise, but what's interesting about Black Clover and what sets it apart from the rest of the Shonen Jump series is the fact that unlike Naruto, unlike, I don't know, One Piece or Bleach or whatever other series you want to bring about, the main character does not have that main, or at least at the beginning, that main force, that main element that allows him to be amongst the other super-powered characters. Like with Luffy, you have different characters that have, you know, they got superpowers basically from the gum gum fruits or Naruto, they're all ninjas and they all use their chakras and all that stuff. But Naruto, Luffy, all those characters, they do have the power, if you will, and the potential to be great, whereas our main character, Asta, he is born without magic. He doesn't have magic, he can't use mana or whatever particle name that they're given for this, the main source of power, he can't use it, he just can't. And I find that really interesting, I hope that young readers can identify with the character in the fact that he has to overcome this adversity and he has to become a better version of himself. The character chooses, of course, to train every single day and become physically tougher and superior to his peers, because, well, he can't use magic, he might as well train his entire body to fight and have that stamina and resolve to continue his dreams of one day becoming the Wizard King. Now, why would he want to become the Wizard King if he doesn't have magic? He doesn't really know it at first, but I'll get to that in a little bit because I'm trying to condense the plot as quickly as possible so I can give you a concise review. Asta wants to be a Wizard King because there is this, the world of Black Clover, it's very ancient in its practices and you see the differences between the wealthy and the kingdoms and the poor living in the outskirts and random villages, backwards villages if you will, living off the scraps that they can farm and find and all that stuff. So he wants to bring a balance, he wants to bring equality so everybody can have better lives. Now to do this, there's going to be a problem because, again, you need magic. In comes, you know, his trope rival because every shonen, most shonen leads, you know, especially if it's an action series, they got to have a rival, somebody to bounce off that high energy go getter attitude and that, you know, they're striving for something, that type of mentality. Juno is a wonderful character as well. He was raised with Asta, they were both orphans when this priest found him and they practically grew up together, their brothers, technically their siblings. So it's awesome that they're rivals but it's more of a friendly rivalry if you will. They obviously care for each other even if they grow up and they become a little bit distant with their likes and they mature and stuff but they still have this bond that unites them regardless of whether one is stronger than the other or one might be in a different area and another in a different place. So the two of them want to be wizard kings for pretty much the same reason and that leads them to a lot of shenanigans which, slight spoilers, they end up becoming part of the fighting class if you will of the knights and all that stuff of the Clover Kingdom. In that kingdom with the wizard king and the actual king or governor or figureheads or whatever of political figures there are the knight squads which kind of reminded me of the bleach court guard squads or 13 squads, something similar to that structure where you have a captain and all the people below him and where it differs with Black Clover is that when you find out how this is run of course you're going to have squads that are better than others, some are considered the worst, others are considered where all the snobby high leveled individuals reside and it's sort of that type of action adventure story where you have characters in those type of situations. Asta ends up with a certain team called the Black Bulls and most of the character development that you're going to see is within this team and it's actually my favorite part of the series so far I love the characters in this squad the Black Bulls are fantastic they're led by their captain Yami and he is a hilarious and extremely badass leader every single one of them is so distinct they're the misfits of the story they you know other squads can't stand them simply because they're supposedly at low level and they're brash and obnoxious and just plain weirdos you know that that funny sandlot of characters so when Asta joins them they form this friendship of course getting to know them can be a little bit rough at first but they form this friendship this fellowship of characters and as the series progresses with different actions and arcs the characters evolve in a very satisfying way that's one of the things that compared to other series where the B listers and the C listers and the filler characters they don't get the spotlight or they rarely do something here most of the cast in that squad do get their shot at the spotlight and do evolve and progress as characters so I really appreciated that even if it's just a tiny bit it matters in the long run so yeah that in a nutshell is Black Clover I hope I didn't ruin it for you I know that several YouTubers have done too many videos talking about the series and how the animation and the sounds and the choreography and all that stuff how it compares to other Shona Jump series but before I can get to that there are some highlights I have them written here on a note so I didn't forget one of the things like I mentioned it's a very diverse cast there is a character progression I don't think the series can be compared to stuff like Naruto because like I said Naruto had the talent he just was terrible at using it and then later on becomes better Asta doesn't have the talent at first and has to acquire some method and he does acquire that method I'm not gonna spoil it but he does acquire it to level the playing field but in regards to that his weapon of choice is it's beautiful I love that idea that is sort of like the the anti-weapon for everything and it's actually the perfect weapon to stop everybody in their tracks that's that's wonderful I love that idea so one of the things that I it took me a little while to get used to is that the plot for it being Shona Jump series moves rather quickly and that can be good and that can be bad I say good because obviously you don't spend a lot of time fleshing out stuff that otherwise like another series could take like five episodes here you can do that stuff in like one and it's that type of fast motion that helps the characters move along at a quicker quicker space however several characters I've noticed that right from the get go when they're doing initiation exams and all that stuff they pull out moves out of nowhere and when I was watching I kept thinking when did these characters learn to do that I wanted to sort of you know the trope of seeing how the combat system technically works like for example one of the greatest manga ever hunter x hunter goes really in depth on how its battle system works here things are just introduced as if you know what they are already and I guess it's for the sake of moving the plot along but if you're a new character like Asta and you know you kind of want to go at a slower pace because you're still going through the motions of what everything is and how everything works they literally get their main source of weapon which are these grim wars which you know they house spells and all that stuff I thought we were going to see them practicing and going through that stuff but uh no uh you know he you know is a prodigy and he can do pretty much anything deal with it so uh you know I that's one aspect I didn't really appreciate okay so the animation the animation is done by studio piero they did the Naruto series they did the bleach series as well uh like the the manga is gorgeous to look at I love the the drawings from the original source material and for the most part they translate well but the characters are really well lit and and by lit I mean like illumination not not the jargon slang they're it's everything's too bright and I think the series could be a little bit uh the color palette could be a little bit darker so the shadowing and all that stuff could give the drawings a little bit more depth in my honest opinion also a lot of key frames and the fluidity and the kinetic motion that you see in the manga and the fluid movements and all that stuff uh there's a dexterity to the way Austin moves and all that stuff it sort of looks chompy in the anime and it sort of reminds me of uh just filler filler cartoons when you're watching an anime and you get to a filler arc and you give it to the b team in your production studio and they take a crack at it that's sort of what it reminds me of and I oh man I don't like it thank goodness the story is charming enough where you have this character that is trying to be better and and doing everything imaginable to get to that goal because also wants to be wizard king and all that stuff that is intriguing that's fun it's it's curious and makes you want to root for this character and makes you want to see what he's going to do but when you have sort of this filler stocky blocky animation where literally just you know random uh weird movements in crucial moments I might add because there are some really plot uh plot heavy scenes where action is going down and like okay I can expect um animation to not look as great when characters are talking on or where there's a zoomed out scene and there's not a lot of close-ups I get it you cut corners and you do what you got to do because it is a tiring process but however there is this fight near the middle of the series this large-scale battle and everything looks the same everything looks uh pretty meh you know what I mean if you've seen uh the show and you're looking at these images that I'm presenting then then you know what I'm talking about it just doesn't look up to part when you compare it to the other series that Studio Perot has done before especially Bleach where they do separate the key moments and and when and when you see that high quality animation you know like an epic moment it is about to uh arrive and it does arrive but I think it's like a little bit too late and some of the impact is lost and it makes the experience a little bit underwhelming overall the story of Black Clover is fun it's actually quite charming but really underwhelming uh anime relies a lot same with manga on the visuals and if your visuals are weak and kind of meh you're not going to have a very satisfying experience for the audience to revel in and enjoy because unlike a drama unlike a slice of life unlike uh let's say a sci-fi story or whatever shown in jump series that are action heavy like your dragon balls your uh hunter x hunter uh Naruto one piece all that stuff they rely a lot on the fighting it's a very important aspect to this title because it is an action adventure story and if it's underwhelming you're not going to really care about the consequences or you might not be paying your full attention to what's happening on screen I think that is the main issue with this series and I'm probably late to this because the series debuted back in what 2015 and I'm only talking about it now so yeah I'm late to the party um but yeah the plot is sort of this amalgam of things we've seen before but you know there's always that fresh twist thrown in there that makes it really interesting and at the end of the day I like Black Clover because of Asta's journey it's somewhat relatable if you take apart you know if you take out the magic stuff it's relatable you want a route for this guy um and of course the character progression you have a wonderful varied cast of characters each bringing their own personality and quirk to the story by the way Charmy bless her my favorite character in that whole series I absolutely love her so yeah underwhelming animation aside the package as a whole isn't as bad as some people might want you to believe give it a shot and if you can get past the first couple I'm going to say the middle portion of season one where things bogged down a little bit but then it picks up with the whole water temple stuff which I absolutely loved even though it had its issues here and there you're going to be rewarded with a quirky little anime series that is heavily heavily underrated compared to other series out there and other anime and manga as for um I don't know if I mentioned it at the beginning um I don't have a lot of space for long-running series or long running manga I might have to make an exception because at the end of the day while I do enjoy the anime I gotta say the manga is the proper route to take in this form I'd looked at a couple volumes the other day physically and it was like watching something completely different I hadn't paid attention to the manga drawings I just started watching the anime and I do agree it is the superior format of course it's the original format but sometimes you know animation can do uh can do a series justice and elevate it to another status in this case it kind of downgrades it a little bit so my recommendation if you don't want to read the manga and you're interested in the story it's fun there is a good shonen jump series in there but uh yeah do do do get the manga so overall the first season I don't really rate things on this channel I'm just gonna say it was perfectly fine it could be uh the presentation I mean it could be a lot better but season two picks up and it looks interesting and it's uh from what I've seen the animation gets better and the story picks up in a better and more uh accelerating fascinating sort of way so yeah uh those are some of my thoughts I know I rambled a little bit too much on this video but those are some of my thoughts on the first anime season of black clover hopefully you guys enjoyed this video tell me down below have you seen black clover or have you read the story let me know your thoughts on the series and if you haven't what are some other anime or shonen series that you want me to uh discuss or review on this channel let me know down below I'm very interested in finding out guys as always you can follow me on your favorite social media platform from facebook twitter instagram all that fun stuff thank you for liking commenting subscribing just being an awesome part of the community I love doing this and it's all because of you guys thank you so very much blessings to all I have got to go I will catch all of you on our next episode