I hate Black clover with a fiery passion. There
has never been a show that made me not angry, SAD with how bad it is and believe it or not, it
has nothing to do with Asta speaking in caps lock, a rocky start or 50 shades of everyone's face.
I’m talking about the fundamental systems, stolen ideas, entire scene sequences that can be
thrown away without affecting the result… Hell, go see the #1 reason why before you click off,
I’ll even give you the timestamps to make it easy. Hello comrade, my name is Mahis. Come, get
yourself a beverage and sit down with me, we got a long-awaited explanation incoming. Let me set the
stage and tell you about my experience with this show. First time I watched it, I barely made it
to episode 6 and stopped there. But then I thought to myself - it’s a shonen, a BIG shonen and I
gave Black Clover a very fair second chance. 50 episodes - that's 5 arcs, which is about 13 hours
if you trim all the openings/recaps. And in case you’re thinking I just skimmed through it… No.
I was paying attention and tried to get invested into the story, the world, the characters.
I did to a degree, yeah Asta was annoying, but he is good people. Sure, the plot is a bit
generic but he is good people. The magic system seems cheesy but, you guessed it, it’s still good
people. However, very quickly, I’ve noticed that I’m being lied to. Something doesn't quite compute
here. Take Luck for example. He was introduced as this energetic dude, always ready to throw down,
who had a nickname “Smiling Battle Maniac” for reasons of loving to go solo and winning fights.
Well, about that. Not only did he flop the very first battle we saw him in, he hasn’t done
anything significant in the next several fights, with the exception of one Fish Priest who he
defeated off f!@$ing screen! C’mon on man. If you hype up a character like that, the least
you can do is showcase a decisive W for once. Against Lotus, Asta did all the heavy lifting,
the other priest was given a dose of despair, and the grumpy orange Hank himself, suffered no damage
at all from Luck’s and Magna’s duo. Where is this “Smiling Battle Maniac” I heard so much about? In
approximately the same area as a bunch of scenes that are redundant or have no impact whatsoever.
We all know of the legend of the first Wizard King, that's all fine, what if we imbeciles forget
about that irrelevant piece of lore and can’t put it together when something new is revealed. I mean
2 things - the constant reinforcement of character archetypes or plot points and entire sequences
that mean nothing. I hate when I’m treated like a 4 year old who has to be reminded that Noelle
is royalty every other sentence she speaks, that our MC wants to marry Sister Lily or that
y'all need some despair, hate, whatever in your life. Seriously, if I was to take a half-shot
every time I hear a character mentioning their gimmick, I’d be f!@#$ing dead and that’s coming
from a Russian. No-one in the target audience, 10+ usually, needs to be reminded this much,
as it flattens the character to the point Same thing with a lot of scenes in this show, where
people either do nothing and watch things happen, or their actions have no impact on the outcome of
a situation. Let's look at the Despair-guy, since I’ve mentioned him. Who won that fight? Black
Bulls obviously, but who has really contributed to Vetto’s defeat? Here is the breakdown of
the fight: Mr Smiles engages Luck and Magna, they pretend to have a main character moment
but fail miserably, after which Asta comes in to save the day as usual. Backed by his new dancing
buddy, they try to show the villains some moves, only to be d*cked on too and needing to be saved
by another duo - Konoha… sorry, Kahono and Noelle. You’d think that something will change, but no,
their cheeks are clapped just as hard, if not harder than the others. Granted, her royal majesty
also attempted the fabled main character moment and at least got the boss to it's second phase,
so props to her I guess. Next, Asta realizes that too many people have tried to claim his role in
this show and jumps in to protect his teammate, moments after laying motionless on the floor.
He delivers a motivational speech, inspiring his allies, so ANOTHER duo jumps into the fray. Blah
Blah Blah, 3 more people, they distract, the show remembers that Asta is wielding a f!@#$ing sword,
not a club and, with a bit of early celebration, a true main character has a moment, followed
by Vettos quick defeat. BUT. It’s not over, since he is about to yell Licht is Great
and turn the Seabed Temple into just seabed, so Yammi, who was previously stuck with no way
out, pushes past his limits and saves the day, this time for good. What the f!@#? yYou mean to
tell me he had it in him this whole time? This show just basically took all the stakes it had set
up and threw them out the window, upsetting not only Guga, but me too! OK, OK, in order to go Plus
Ultra you are required to feel some type of way, so they all needed to lose in order for the
captain to go beyond, yet that would have been the same if they all just dropped without all
this extra curricular action. If I somehow, going through some mental gymnastics that would make
Inosuke proud, can justify everyone's involvement, Luck’s and Magna’s section, which is about 13
minutes of screen time, can be cut from the show without any losses at all. It won’t affect this
fight whatsoever, maybe that was the point to show that this is indeed a mighty foe that will push
our squad to the limit, but we already know that. This guy was posing a challenge even for captains
in the last arc, so all it did was further prove that these two aren’t sh*t in the grand scheme of
things and that the victory is achieved by some ass-pull bullsh*t. Yes. The whole power system
is built on plot convenient power-ups. And the main reason for why I dislike it - it invalidates
hard work and training as a whole. You can say, Mahis you dimwit, if Noelle didn’t practice
her waterbenting, she wouldn’t have never unlocked this spell in her book. Let me draw a
parallel that even people from freedom land can understand. If you’re experienced with an ar-15
and suddenly need to go against an armored target, AP rounds don’t magically appear in your magazine,
regardless of how dire the situation is. You need to bring them to use them. And what characters in
Black Clover do is carry a bunch of locked spells in their grimoire, that need to be purchased with
your desire to persevere when the plot demands it, like a bunch of dlc’s. Which, on a side note, is
even worse, because if you rolled a grimoire with only one page, no amount of character development
will help you. Look at some other shonens. Sure they do have moments like that, cause it’s cool
for f!@#$ sake. But Naruto had to grind like a motherf!@#$r to get Rasengan, and to upgrade
it into Rasen-Shuriken. Not only did it not work the first time, he had to spend even more
time making it safe to use. Here, some ungodly time-stopping power perfect for the occasion,
the user and in the exact location of the event, yeah no problem, not even a down-side to it. How
am I supposed to feel any danger for our squad, if at any point somebody can discover a spell that
will save the day. Yami, my favorite character in the show, was quite unsure of how to deal with
Patolli’s AOE attack just a dozen episodes ago, and now he can suddenly slash dimensions
in half several times in a row with very little effort. There is simply no satisfaction
here and it’s only half the problem, because, to my knowledge, Asta hasn’t lost a single fight.
Like legit, everytime there is some assistance, pushing past his limits or flat-out divine
intervention. Think about it. This newbie schmuck, who just joined the ranks and only went on a
single quest, who is wielding some weird sword that goes bonk and who has no experience nor
knowledge about how to traverse hostile magical terrain, is sent to investigate a new dungeon on
the border of an enemy Kingdom. I’m sure Julius knows what he is doing but on top of this, Asta
was a literal key to the magic door that held a huge upgrade for Yuno and 2nd out of 3 anti magic
swords that was located behind a damn wall! Again, I have nothing against the “at the right place
at the right time” trope, since it’s a good way to set up interesting plot points and character
prgression, but when the whole show is based on that, it defeats the purpose of said progression.
How’d you feel if Ichigo just randomly popped his Bankai in the middle of the battle without any
prior training? Everybody would have lost their mind, cause even the 3-day express course was
already pushing the ass-pull boundaries. Give me something specific to look for, so there can
be a satisfying payoff when it happens. Look what Demon Slayer did recently - Tanjiro was in
a pinch, couldn’t perform his usual routine and decided to give Thunder Breathing a shot. It’s
a totally awesome concept, where you can think of it as a natural progression of Slayers training
- master one style, then Uncle Iroh the rest. Yet with no prior build up, or any indication that
it’s something commonly done, it came out as another Tanjiro Mary Sue moment and viewers were
rightfully pissed about it. Speaking of Mary Sue, I’ve already mentioned Asta not losing a single
fight, but did you notice that he is literally a plug for every hole? Anywhere he goes, he is a
perfect solution for whatever problem. Granted, his power is quite unique and in the world
where everything is magical in some capacity, it makes sense that an ability to cancel it would
be rather useful. However, do we really need him to have an answer for every single struggle?
He stopped Noelle’s attempt to flood the area, avenged Magna’s friend, did all the dungeon things
we discussed, bonked the memory altering magic out of the captives, did the same to the poor kids,
accidentally unsealed Patolli’s magic stash, penetrated the water barrier… The list goes
on, and it seems like the only people who ever do something important are Asta, Yuno
and those captain level or above. What's the point of developing all these characters, quite
decently I may add? So that they help during some encounters? I always felt like none of the good
guys are moving the plot forward, except for the MC of course. Yet, at the same time, nobody
is acknowledging how abnormal this guy is nor trying to investigate his abilities. Dude has a
5-leaf clover grimoire, something that has never happened from what their people understand and he
wields Anti-Magic, while being magicless himself. What the f!@# are you all doing? There is literall
miracle walking around and not even the dude who examined his floating book does anything about it.
Oh I don’t know, let people in the Capital look at it… Are you sh*tting me? That's akin to Einstein
holding an Antimatter container and passing it to someone else because he has no idea what it is! It
won’t happen, every scholar worth their salt would line up just to get a chance to see a 5ve leaf
clover. How come Sally is the only one to do so? Sure, maybe they don’t see the clover itself cause
it’s so dirty, but Anti-Magic? In the world where everything is all about magic, you definitely
want to investigate such a phenomenon! O, and about that. We see people using mana left, right
and center, but as soon as something happens, only the Magic Knights are taking part
in the action. Where are regular guards, with at least a fireball or something? Or you
mean to tell me, that if you can light up a stove, you can't do that to a zombie? Seriously,
during the assault of the Royal Capital, the city where magic is everything, people
weren’t even trying to use magic when sh*t hit the fan. I’m not expecting them to solo all the
villains, but if some peasant kids can do this, the adults should be able to at least slow down,
barricade or otherwise impair these shambling sacks of necromancy. Does the show forget its own
rules? This ain’t Fairy Tail, EVERYONE is able to use magic! Piss off enough people and the sheer
quantity of spells you’ll have to deal with will be quite troublesome. And don’t give me this crap
about they are scared, they are not prepared and so on. These are superhumans, who have tools at
the tip of their fingers that we can only dream of, which they have used their entire life, so
instead of fight or flight response, they will have magic fight or magic flight. Which is rather
interesting, because I don’t see anyone using magic to escape either. Again, something just
doesn't add up. Now, it’s time to quickly mention the production value of the anime. Manga is fine,
I read it a bit and this section barely applies to it. Nevertheless, visuals are an essential part
of the viewing experience and we can’t completely ignore them. In the beginning, I’ve said that I
will not talk about characters sometimes being drawn like they belong in Mob Psycho, so I won’t.
Instead, we shall tackle this show's animation as a whole. It’s a clusterf!@#. I’m sorry, if you are
saying that this anime is drawn well, you need to check your eyes. I'm seriously concerned about
their health, because it’s borderline impressive how inconsistent and ugly this show looks. And
don’t you put your hands on the keyboard yet, since you probably don’t realize one thing
- Black Clover is one of THE MOST EXPENSIVE animes on the planet, with lowest cost per episode
I could find being a $100 thousand and the average cost looking to be about $140K. This is over
here was made with an average budget, which is about $80 grand an episode. I understand that
these numbers don’t represent the whole picture, there are many other things that go into
making an anime - staffing, script writing, voice acting etc etc. But, as much as I don’t want
to say it, in this particular case it feels like whoever animated all this had no love for the show
at all. I’m partially correct, since it seems like they had great troubles with lack of staff and
had to outsource a bunch of their work. Still, I can’t believe that this is the same studio that
gave us OG Naruto, Shippuden, Bleach… you’d think that they’d know a thing or two about making a
shonen. Let's look at some examples - Patolli Vs Yammi. The first half of their battle was a slow
paced slideshow of gifs in comparison to the next episode which brought in a bunch dynamic movement,
nice camerawork and frames. See for yourself: foreign [Music] [Music] foreign If episode 35 looks like it has been
produced by an experienced anime studio, episode 34 next to it looks like it was made by a
single student in between classes using some trial version of the editing app. Because what in the
name of Adobe After Effects is this? I know it’s a different episode, but I swear I’ve seen these
exact particles in Mortal Kombat 1995. Then there are plain animation errors that shouldn’t get
past quality control, like with Asta over here: Or Magna's glasses in this case. [Music] I
haven’t edited it, there are timestamps of those exact moments, you are welcome to check.
It’s simply disrespectful towards the audience. Can you imagine My Hero Aca, Demon Slayer or
Jujutsu Kaisen f!@#$ing up like that? Well, you don’t have to, because there is a recent
precedent with MAPPA and JJK specifically. I won’t go into the details, as even though
my heart does go out to their employees, this topic is outside my area of expertise, so let
me focus on what is. Animation. Obviously there is a difference, it looks raw and less polished.
BUT. The artstyle is consistent, emotions are properly displayed and action is still bombastic.
If anything, I got a bit of a One Piece vibe, with all these free flowing lines giving the
show a more artsy look. Although, I got to admit, I do see a lot of “cutting corners”, in a form
of static images, almost sketch-like sequences and aspect ratio changes, which is a smart move
that does save some effort and surprisingly makes these moments appear very cinematic. It’s clear
that there was a struggle during the production process, however, the love, the sweat, the tears
are still present and as a result, it’s beautiful, because the core of the animation is. Black
Clover on the other hand… it doesn’t have one. It’s a constant fluctuation of quality, style,
questionable design choices. Like, why is there a pixelated wave of sh*t in the middle of a fight?
It doesn't match the color scheme of anything else and is completely out of place! Then there is 3D
that looks worse than the Dark Young, movement with no force behind it, along with frequent
recycling of shots… which should never happen. Another thing that should never happen is
stealing ideas, aka plagiarizing. I’ve completed a university program and I’m well aware of what
“Paraphrasing plagiarism” is. It’s when you use someone else's writing with some minor changes
and present it as your own. Yeah, you can’t sue Black Clover over it, but you also can’t deny that
it took excessive inspiration from other shonen. For example, the first episode is Naruto in a
nutshell, everyone passes the selection process, MC doesn’t, so he has to go through some
shenanigans with a bad guy to unlock his whatever ability that he will then use every chance he
gets, while saving an important person in the process, who says that they have always believed
in our boi. Out of all the shonen I can think of, these are the only 2 1st episodes that share
so many similarities. And if you're saying, well, it’s an homage, these stories go in totally
separate directions… Maybe later, because Astas first mission happens in a village held hostage
by a bad guy who killed the hero of said village, there is a bridge, there is mist, there are ice
users and there is even a grave overlooking the area at the very end… You can’t make this sh*t
up. Well, one show did and the other sharinganned it. But wait there's more! Let me introduce you
to Gaara of the Ice. An emotionless war machine from a another country who was bred to be the
ultimate weapon from birth, who killed a person they held dear, who can use his abilities while
standing still, who can pilot an elemental mecha, who has a change of heart after the defeat
and who makes people around them surprised that they can say “Thank you”. Are you for
real? Ain’t nothing wrong with taking an idea, giving it an interesting spin and putting it in
your story. Jujutsu Kaisen does that occasionally with, let’s say, their version of Edo Tensei. Both
spells require a piece of whoever you resurrect, both take over a live human and both carry
certain risks, like a person overpowering the Jutsu. They even did the same “find inner
piece and f!@# off back to afterlife” type thing, sure it’s not a completely original idea, but
it’s implemented in a creative way, with the little spin I was mentioning. That's the Black
Clover’s problem, they blatantly take ideas from other shows and don’t improve them whatsoever.
Black Bulls HQ is practically Fairy Tail guild, Black Market is a less protected Diagon Alley,
Combo attack is literally a Unison Raid, it even looks the same. Then there's the cast:
Main duo is a blend of many cliches but they remind me of Hinata and Kageyama. Followed by in
no particular order: Kana Alberona, Hinata Senju, Tsundere Iida, Byakuya and Hitsugaya's love child,
Gil and Meliodas love child, Typical high school delinquent, Marilyn f!@#$ing Manson, Tinker Bell,
Nun from the Rip-Off Church, Kenpachi on weed, Hange on crack, Zeno on ecstasy, Ulquiorra on
meth, Clover Ghoul, Necromancer Nnoitra, Naruto the Wizard King, Another totally competent
King, 100% bad guy, 80% bad guy… Alright, I agree I got carried away there, but that's all
to cope with the situation, since we are about to get into what frustrates me the most about
this anime and why I even made this b*tch, which is turning out to be my longest video to date.
The number one reason that causes depletion of all serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine in my
nervous system is that this show can be f!@#$ing GOOD! You’ve heard that right, this piece of crap
has everything to be a good shonen and they even showed it to me, but then they spat in my face
by diminishing the entire thing to an annoying amalgamation of tropes, borrowed ideas, cheesy
systems, none of which bring anything new the table nor do they execute any of them well. Not
to mention the most abhorrent animation I've seen in all my 20 years of watching anime. You can’t
show me a cool magical world, ambition underdog, instant rivalry set up, fantastic soundtrack, epic
power-up, good f!@#$ing animation in the first episode and then make me watch this? Let me tell
you what's so good about this story starting with harsh topics that it covers. Immediately we get
racism, classism and other forms of discrimination based solely on what people can’t really control.
Magic, what was given to you, you have to deal with, and you’ll be judged along the way. Even
if you got the best sh*t, you won’t be praised by everyone, you’ll be pressed, because others don’t
like it when their position of power or authority is threatened by an up and coming prodigy. As a
result of that, there is a huge disparity in the society - Those who have great magic, look down
on those who don't and our MC being completely magicless, presents another level of challenge
that most other stories simply don’t have. Yusuke, Ichigo, Luffy, even Deku… all get that “magical”
attribute, while Asta , doubles down on his magiclessness and gets a tool to bring others
to his level. This is an incredible set up and a way more compelling argument for being feared,
hated, discriminated against than that of Naruto for example. Afterall, nobody knows how this is
possible or those who do, know that it comes from devils, either way it’s not a good look and should
be treated accordingly by everyone around him. By the way, who do we have around him? More beautiful
gems. Yuno might not have a story as elaborate as Sasuke’s, but he is a far better rival to the
MC because of their previous connection, their dichotomy and generally warm feelings towards each
other. Yes they get into some sibling-type fights, still, they care about one another and want
both of them to succeed. Next we have Noelle, a great addition to the team for reasons I’ve
mentioned before - she is royalty and comes with an appropriate package. She will have to perform a
lot of self-improvement to not only deal with her trauma, but to become a better person as a whole.
I really liked the direction she went during her first assignment - royalty is given all this
mana to safeguard their people, not to bring them further down. Then there is Yami who is just
awesome in almost every department, Black Bulls with their own struggles, who welcome and support
newbies regardless, followed by a stark contrast with Golden Dawn, where Yuno has to fight tooth
and nail to get even a modicum of recognition. As for the grand plot, there is the conflict with
the elves, devils, humans, other kingdoms. It’s all very interesting to read about in the form of
articles, but to actually watch it… I can’t. My expectations just don’t align with what I’m given
at all. I’ve brought up many examples already, a few more won’t hurt. Yami and Astas dialogue
after Vettos' defeat, which put a final nail in the coffin of my desire to continue watching. Our
main character expresses sympathy and attempts to understand his enemy, while the captain, instead
of contributing to his development and turning it into a mentorship moment, just laughs it off
and tells Asta not to think too much about it. What? We just got a bunch of hints that these
guys might not be some one dimensional villains we thought they were and you so casually shut it
down? The potential in that moment was so great, yet the show gave it the most generic “don’t
worry, follow your dreams” spin and turned it into some pathetic joke - Oh asta’s hands are f!@#$ed
up, he can’t remove his blindfold lol. I was so pissed, that I almost didn’t notice this moment -
Kahono’s song. That was so good, it made me sad, because the show clearly has the ability to
make something beautiful, but it just doesn't. They keep giving me mediocre crap, with simple
dialogue and even simpler animation. Another plot development that infuriated me was what they did
with Feugoleon. This is one of the few f!@#$ing nobles who has something resembling a head on his
shoulder and who gave good advice to both Asta and Noelle. What do they do to him? Remove him from
the show for a good while, who the f!@#$ need him. It could have been the d*ckface who lost his arm,
the plot would have been mostly unaffected and we would have had one more decent character in this
b*tch. Cause, he was the only person who gave this whole royalty some depth and served as a great
tool to explore the social issues highlighted in this show. Julius kinda does that, but he is the
Wizard King, his situation is a bit different and doesn’t suit this role as much. Lastly I want to
mention one more bane of my existence - fake out deaths. I already dislike when characters survive
the most bullsh*t situations and when you make it seem that they won’t survive, while they still
do, it makes my blood boil and I’m glad I never made it this far. Also, don't even get me started
on resurrecting people, Kabuto didn’t bring as many back in Naruto as the Elves did here. After
listening to all this, you must be asking yourself a very reasonable question. Why would you watch
50 episodes of the show that you claim to hate and then proceed to make this long ass video?
The short answer - I wanted to know what's up, because I kept hearing so many good things about
Black Clover. My first attempt at watching was out of pure curiosity, I didn’t like it and stopped,
nothing else to it. But on my second watch, I was determined to figure out what's going on. I
went as far as I could, stopping because this show made me physically depressed with all these things
we just went through. I just couldn’t believe that this show is being praised so much, when stuff
like My Hero Aca gets a bunch of hate. Oh it’s generic, follows a lot of tropes… Have you watched
Black Clover? It not only follows tropes, it blatantly copies them! Oh, half class A gets no
development, sure. But it's compensated for by one of the best villain evolutions in recent
years. I agree that Licht’s story is cool, though we’ve seen all that in Naruto and to an extent in
Bleach, f!@#$ even Fairy Tail. As for Shigaraki, I can’t think of any other villain who went through
as much progress as him. Geto is a contender, except that he was more of a “hero who lived
long enough to become a villain”. By the way, the reason I drew comparison to My Hero is
because they came out at about the same time, not because I use the story of Midoria as some
frame of reference. iIf you watched any of my critique videos you’d know that I try to stay
objective, compare things to other shows and support my arguments with examples. I needed to
watch this show, at least give it a fair try, so I can create an adequate picture in my
mind and be ready to defend my opinion. Yes my standards are high, though I do watch Demon
Slayer and it doesn’t make me feel sad, yeah, a little upset at times cause f!@#$ season
3. Still, my goal, always, is to understand the subject and express my own, unbiased opinion
while providing constructive arguments. I was I, Mahis, letting it all out into the microphone.
Have a great… whatever time of the day you have. Until next time, cheers. look at what Demon Slayer
did look at what de look at what Demon Slayer did recently
