×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
EP. REVIEW: Black Clover


Goto page Previous    Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
GoldCrusader



Joined: 25 Apr 2017
Posts: 1021
PostPosted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 8:03 pm Reply with quote
Sam has a really different opinions then like everywhere else I'm reading online lol. Fans of the series really liked this episode.

Shame he's not liking it, but I really enjoyed this episode myself. The climax with Mars and Asta going after Fana was amazing. The whole episode was a nice build up to this.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kokuryu Daimao



Joined: 04 Sep 2017
Posts: 115
PostPosted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 8:58 pm Reply with quote
GoldCrusader wrote:
Sam has a really different opinions then like everywhere else I'm reading online lol. Fans of the series really liked this episode.

Shame he's not liking it, but I really enjoyed this episode myself. The climax with Mars and Asta going after Fana was amazing. The whole episode was a nice build up to this.


All One Piece is shounen, but not all shounen is One Piece.
This is the secret geas one has to remember when reading Sam's critiques.

I'm not saying he's right or wrong, just that the main thought process running in the back of his mind when he's reviewing anything is to hold it up against the monolith that is One Piece and the pedestal he's put it on. Nevermind that One Piece has been at this years longer, has a metric ton of manga/anime and franchise material more than a series like Black Clover and that the two creators have different lives, levels of experience and storytelling styles and that what might work for one might not be how the other one wishes to do it.

Its like someone who says their favorite horror writer is Stephen King. They will end up comparing every other horror writer to King. Even if you mention another writer, like Dean Koontz who is also a very successful horror writer as well, to the King fan Koontz sucks just by being not-King. Even if the work is good, they will rarely acknowledge it. So any opinion is ultimately biased.

Sam doesn't even hide it in his review when he mentions things like "Luffy Moments" because it doesn't even occur to him that there are people out there who might not know or even have enough knowledge of One Piece to know what a Luffy moment even is. So even if Black Clover does something that is new to another, perhaps younger viewer and that viewer likes how it was done, Sam has already eye-rolled-sighed and halfway mentally checked out because One Piece did something similar years ago.

Like any review, the tricky part is separating the parts that are honest criticisms and which parts are protecting the favorite child.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
lossthief
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 14 Dec 2012
Posts: 1380
PostPosted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 9:13 pm Reply with quote
Kokuryu Daimao wrote:


I'm not saying he's right or wrong, just that the main thought process running in the back of his mind when he's reviewing anything is to hold it up against the monolith that is One Piece and the pedestal he's put it on.


Or, y'know, he uses it as an easy reference that a lot of fans of shonen would already know when he's discussing well-trodden tropes. "Luffy Moments" are by no means unique to OP but using it as an example is something a lot of people would get and offers context to his criticism of the show; that being Asta constantly just having the simple answer to complicated emotional problems without the series doing much to earn it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
feitan000



Joined: 19 Jun 2018
Posts: 40
PostPosted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 9:50 pm Reply with quote
what a shitty and biased af review about the best episode so far lol
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kokuryu Daimao



Joined: 04 Sep 2017
Posts: 115
PostPosted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 10:03 pm Reply with quote
lossthief wrote:
Kokuryu Daimao wrote:


I'm not saying he's right or wrong, just that the main thought process running in the back of his mind when he's reviewing anything is to hold it up against the monolith that is One Piece and the pedestal he's put it on.


Or, y'know, he uses it as an easy reference that a lot of fans of shonen would already know when he's discussing well-trodden tropes. "Luffy Moments" are by no means unique to OP but using it as an example is something a lot of people would get and offers context to his criticism of the show; that being Asta constantly just having the simple answer to complicated emotional problems without the series doing much to earn it.


Yes, but when he adds in parts like
Quote:
When One Piece does this, it's powerful because it feels new, like Luffy is saying things you aren't used to hearing from heroes
That statement assumes that one has watched OP before anything else. I know some that are not really fans of OP because they saw those referenced tropes in other shounen works Before they saw it on OP. So to them, the other work was powerful and new and OP is the cliche. its all about perspective.

Its equivalent to someone yelling "Simpson's Did It!!" every time a new show tries anything. It ends up derailing any meaningful conversation because any effort has already been delegitimized in the eyes of some.

But don't take this as me hating on Sam, I sometimes agree with some of what he says.
I was mainly postulating a possible "why" to GoldCrusader who noticed that Sam's reviews of Black Clover were really different from the opinions elsewhere.
The simplest way to figure out differences is to identify factors such as bias.
I'm a fan of shounen, I'm a fan of OP, but I'm nowhere near the level Sam is. Especially not one big enough to devote a noticeable amount of time and effort into a podcast based solely on OP. And anyone who devotes that much into any project is ultimately going to be biased towards things related to it. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, its just part of being human.
But figuring out a person's perspective leads to understanding their point of view, which we can then decide to agree or disagree with instead of just wondering why.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
SAG4



Joined: 22 Jun 2018
Posts: 37
PostPosted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 10:42 am Reply with quote
I understand its point of being forced to interact between all these groups in a single arc. But in fact, one led the other into the forest with motives, Fana and Midnight Sun knew that the Black Bull was going to the forest and that the queen had a gem, they had to get it before Clover, and Diamond knowing that invasion took the opportunity to attack and capture the witches for slave labor and the queen to know the source of their eternal life. The goals of each are clear, you can complain, but said that you did not understand why they are there, this is not forced but rather forgetting your part. You can complain anyway, but the word "fate" said by Vanessa in the fight against Vetto begins to gain even more force in this arc. Things happen by chance, but with a purpose. This arc presents new concepts and future conflicts for the series, as well as clarifying more about the Midnight Sun by Fana, as well as showing the universe that the series has to explore in the future, and its conflicts in this presented arc, as the leader of Diamond. About the episode itself, the moment of Mars with Fana at the end, which had long since been developed, and also some moments of him with Asta made the episode be at least medium, so I disagree with his "C-" and with justification that other battle shounen have already done this ... Each work is a work, it has to be worth alone, make comparisons but if it is to depreciate something good, within the work analyzed, loses its comparative value. For both works have their different contexts.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Gohanangered



Joined: 06 Sep 2018
Posts: 39
PostPosted: Mon Dec 10, 2018 9:49 pm Reply with quote
Why is this person still reviewing black clover. It's obvious he hates it. I keep noticing reviewers who review stuff tend not to like what they are reviewing. Get people to review stuff. Especially people who can be even slightly more objective then the media in general is. Also always going back to some kind of one piece reference and acting like one piece is perfect is a joke at this point. No manga / anime is perfect and to do so is willfully ignorant. I can even name a few arcs of one piece that i didn't overly enjoy. So either be more objective in your reviews or turn over the review to someone else who can. Also can this website get some reviewers to review stuff that don't hate the genre they are happening to review. I've noticed that as well too. lol
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Key
Moderator


Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18137
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 11:15 am Reply with quote
^
I have to wonder if the above comments still stand after the review of this week's episode. . .

Anyway, while I'm not generally a fan of alternative animation styles like much of episode 63 has, this was fantastic. I also find this to be a middling, highly derivative series overall, but I stick around because it occasionally pulls off peaks like this one.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
Scion Drake



Joined: 25 Nov 2017
Posts: 941
PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 11:40 am Reply with quote
I just love the diverse reactions to the episode.

One one side ya got the people praising it for reasons like its fluid & dynamic animation & the other lambasting it for reasons like the art looks ugly & that animation is too janky.

It’s all very interesting which makes sense cause the Studio went all out with experimental/alternative types of animation with multiple people each with their own unique touch on board, so of course the reactions would be wide & various because that’s what happens when you experiment especially to this large of a degree.

Again it’s all so fascinating.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
steelmirror



Joined: 22 Oct 2015
Posts: 342
PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 12:20 pm Reply with quote
I'm one of the people who sort of...hates this show, so I stopped watching waaay back. But a friend who likes Black Clover and has been trying to get me to watch it for ages sat me down and made me watch this ep, and it was...pretty good! Whole lot of shonen nonsense, but in a good way, and that was a pretty cool fight.

Still not my cup of tea overall, given how out-of-the-ordinary this ep seems to be for the series as a whole judging from what my friend (not to mention this review) has said, but a pretty neat ep from a show I had completely written off.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Neko-sensei



Joined: 19 Jan 2007
Posts: 283
PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 7:17 pm Reply with quote
Speaking of episode 63, I think y'all may be interested in this if you haven't already found it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
NeverConvex
Subscriber



Joined: 08 Jun 2013
Posts: 2267
PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 8:25 pm Reply with quote
steelmirror wrote:
I'm one of the people who sort of...hates this show, so I stopped watching waaay back. But a friend who likes Black Clover and has been trying to get me to watch it for ages sat me down and made me watch this ep, and it was...pretty good! Whole lot of shonen nonsense, but in a good way, and that was a pretty cool fight.

Still not my cup of tea overall, given how out-of-the-ordinary this ep seems to be for the series as a whole judging from what my friend (not to mention this review) has said, but a pretty neat ep from a show I had completely written off.


I had given up on Black Clover and not watched an episode for a while either, and on a whim caught this one. Very similar feelings -- I may check out the rare gem of an episode, but I can't see Black Clover ever getting me to invest enough to watch it regularly. I think my days of watching 50 mediocre-to-bad episodes per worthwhile watch ended when Naruto completed its run, heh.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kokuryu Daimao



Joined: 04 Sep 2017
Posts: 115
PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 8:30 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
^
I have to wonder if the above comments still stand after the review of this week's episode. . .

Anyway, while I'm not generally a fan of alternative animation styles like much of episode 63 has, this was fantastic. I also find this to be a middling, highly derivative series overall, but I stick around because it occasionally pulls off peaks like this one.

I'd say they all still stand, for now.
One or two outliers do not indicate a change in previously observed trends. So just because a reviewer liked An episode, does not mean that all the previous negatives are absolved.
Especially when they end the review with
Quote:
I'm sure I'll be unimpressed again in an episode or two
which strongly suggests that they'll be actively looking for something to criticize to justify their bias.

I will acknowledge Sam for not going for the expected OP comparisons, and I totally agree with his comparison to the first half of the episode to that of DEVILMAN Crybaby, but I disagree with his comparison of Asta's situation to that of Naruto. According to what was revealed by the series and characters such as the Witch Queen, Asta is not "one of their kin" which we can assume refers to the Eye of the Midnight Sun and their connection to the story of the Elves and magic. So there is no indication that a "nine tailed fox" entity was sealed within him.
Instead Asta's demonic entity seems like something he was born with, which would be more like the series Bleach and how characters had to deal with their "Inner Hollows". This concept is supported when Asta questions who the entity is and it responds back with being "the one closest to you this whole time."
While both are forced to interact within the Protag, the difference is that in one the entity is actually a separate being from the character, while the other entity is actually a deeper part of the character themselves. This could impact the story due to the varying motives of the entities and/or the development of the Protag.

I do agree with Key that the series has been generally middling and derivative, but then again All shounen works are just derivations of The Hero's Journey. The cliches, tropes, and whatnot have been done countless times before. But if we think about it, without those tropes, would the work still be considered shounen?

However, instead of focusing on the parts that are similar in other works, I've found value in the parts that try to be different and see if they add entertainment to the story.
Thats what separates the World of Ninjas, the World of Shinigami, the World of vast Oceans/Seas and the World of fighting Space Monkeys from each other.
Worlds of Magic are nothing new, but if that magic came at the cost of the genocide of another race, that might be an interesting twist. It can drive some to revenge, some to try to hide the past, and the fallout once the truth is discovered all make interesting plot points. So there is potential and I'm wiling to see how the story plays out.

While I did not hate the alternative animation sequences previously mentioned, I did find the interweaving of those scenes with then highly detailed charter still shots to be somewhat disjointed.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
NeverConvex
Subscriber



Joined: 08 Jun 2013
Posts: 2267
PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 8:33 pm Reply with quote
If you acknowledge "that the series has been generally middling and derivative," Kokuryu Daimao, then why does the reviewer's consistent dislike of it indicate a "bias?" Maybe they just correctly have identified it as generally of not particular high quality or strong execution.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
steelmirror



Joined: 22 Oct 2015
Posts: 342
PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 8:40 pm Reply with quote
Neko-sensei wrote:
Speaking of episode 63, I think y'all may be interested in this if you haven't already found it.
That was a great read, thank you very much. A lot more going on behind the scenes than I thought, I have even more respect than before for this rough little gem of an ep.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous    Next
Page 18 of 25

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group