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Black Clover
Episode 127

by Theron Martin,

How would you rate episode 127 of
Black Clover ?
Community score: 4.5

After spending almost the entirety of last episode messing around, the Black Bulls get down to some serious, consequential business this episode in their pursuit of clues about devils and forbidden magic. (That doesn't preclude some messing around going on, but it interferes less with the main task this time.) It happens through a split between two scenes: Noelle's visit to the capital and a visit by Asta, Grey, and Gauche to Gordon's home and family. Both turn up valuable and interesting revelations that point to a more definitive direction going forward.

Of the two, the shorter segments involving Noelle's visit to first her brother Nozel and then to Dorothy Unsworth, Captain of the Peacock squad, are more important concerning past events. Ever since her formal introduction back in episode 7, one of the storylines about Noelle has been that her mother, Acier, died from complications giving birth to her. Given that Acier was a royal, and thus should have had access to high-level healing magic, that has always seemed a little fishy, even more so when the series (much later) revealed that Acier was strong enough to be both a Magic Knights Captain and the one foe that Mereoleona couldn't beat. Now the truth finally comes out: Acier didn't die from childbirth, but other reasons that can't even be talked about outside of Dorothy's dream space. The actual cause of her death is a curse that can afflict anyone who even learns about it, and that she was already fated to die from it even before giving birth.

This raises a lot of questions, including whether Nozel is affected by it himself, but it also possibly explains why there has long been an assumption that Acier died in childbirth; people didn't know the truth because the truth was literally dangerous to know, and Nozel couldn't correct the false assumptions for the same reason. That left Noelle in the tough situation of having to bear all of the nastiness about supposedly causing her mother's death because the truth was even worse. Hopefully the series will take some time to explore Noelle's feelings about this in the future because this is a game-changer of a revelation. A name for the source of the curse also comes out: the devil Megicula, who sounds like the next boss villain for the series. The question now is why Acier was subjected to that curse; she crossed the wrong person in her duties as a Magic Knights Captain, perhaps?

The other front also bears fruit, albeit more directly for future events. Gordon has mentioned before that he comes from a long line of curse specialists, and it turns out they not only all look similar to him (including the emo make-up) but even sound the same; I think it may be the same seiyuu voicing all of his father, mother, senile grandmother, and younger sister. After a lot of The Addams Family-styled foolishness, the truth finally comes out there as well: unbeknownst to Gordon, who had run away from his family because he didn't want to do curse magic, his father has converted to practicing medicine instead. But he does have some family knowledge of ancients curses and is able show Asta and friends a maps depicting places where curses are concentrated. Unsurprisingly, Black Bulls HQ is one of them (probably Henry), the capital is another (the linger curse involving Acier, perhaps?), and the biggest concentration is in the Heart Kingdom. No surprise, then, that the Heart Kingdom is the destination mentioned in the Next Episode preview.

All of these revelations didn't prevent a few amusing moments from arising, such as Noelle's new expression in response to Dorothy's construct of Nozel getting affectionate with her. The series works at a higher level when it can find that kind of balance.

Rating:

Black Clover is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.


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