Black Clover

Episode 20

So Asta's turning out to be quite the ladykiller, having two girls crushing on him now that Mimosa has developed feelings for him on top of Noelle's tsundere-ness. Mimosa seems to be more open about it than Noelle, so maybe there's a chance she could sweep in and claim him first! Or maybe nothing will happen because of course it won't. I'm still trying to fathom whatever charisma these girls are seeing in poor lil' Asta. Have they heard him speak?!

Oh, well. At least we know he works out.

Honestly, that's what I was thinking when the episode opened with its love triangle talk, but for what its worth, this week ultimately proves to be one of Asta's most shining moments yet. He gets to stand on a table and make a big angry speech against snobby aristocrats while he shouts about becoming the Wizard King, and for the first time in a while it feels one hundred percent natural. He's like a proper Shonen Jump protagonist, not just a pantomime of one. I also like how he shrugs it off when people are making fun of him (since he's so used to it), but he won't stand for other people receiving the same crap. It's actually kind of great.

The story this week is that the Black Bulls and the Golden Dawns are reporting to Magic Knight Headquarters about their dungeon adventure and finally meeting the Wizard King in person. I still really like this Wizard King guy, as he seems like a kind dude and it's fun to see him light up and get excited to talk about magic with others. This is mostly an episode of people standing around talking, but it manages to have the greatest net charm of any Black Clover episode to date. There's also a line about how Yuno has been chosen by someone named Sylph, a Wind Spirit, which implies the origins of his Four Leaf grimoire. The idea that Asta and Yuno are both "chosen ones" in their own right, just on opposite sides of the light and dark spectrum, has been apparent since the beginning, but I'm increasingly taking comfort in the sense that neither is necessarily characteristic of good or evil, and that we'll continue to see the two of them as friends united against the real injustices of the world.

The climax of this episode has us meeting Noelle's older siblings. Everybody we meet at the Magic Knight Headquarters has it out for anybody of lower class, but the Silva family seems to be the worst, humiliating Noelle for her inability to control her magic. They're also hard on her for being the reason their mother died, which I'm guessing was a death-by-childbirth type scenario. I rolled my eyes at the last few episodes of the Dungeon Exploration arc when Noelle got taken out by Mars comically fast, but it does get you to think about how she feels in a situation like this, where she's being horrendously bullied for her failures. The final scene where Asta sticks it to the man with an angry, impassioned speech is such an obvious beat for the genre, but you can definitely see why it's become so common. It just plain works.

Just often enough, Black Clover will surprise me and my defenses toward it will start to melt. It's easy to yawn about clichés all the time, and I want to give credit where credit's due when the show's adhesion to formula finally starts to work. This is an episode of effective world-building, but even that's a small compliment compared to how that final scene made me feel. I'm back to wanting to see Asta succeed. I want him to prove people wrong and become the Wizard King. The show has really grounded itself in exploring the relationships between people of different classes, which I think is becoming its most distinct quality among its peers.

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