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Black Clover
Episode 38

by Sam Leach,

How would you rate episode 38 of
Black Clover ?
Community score: 4.0

Our most recent fight with the Eye of the Midnight Sun may have been a success, but we emerge from this arc with more questions than answers regarding their origins and leadership. Not unlike My Hero Academia, Black Clover is now introducing a traitor subplot where the Magic Knights believe a renegade could be among their ranks, leaking information to the villains. Unlike MHA, however, this show has one very obvious suspect in William Vangeance, the squad captain of the Golden Dawns (Yuno's team). William is put-together and aloof, he practices Light magic, and suspiciously we've never seen him and Batman Licht in the same room. There's the potential for him to be a red herring, or maybe he's confidently hiding in plain sight. Who knows.

Episodes like this are hard to talk about because there's really not much going on. The stronger material is in the connective tissue as we transition between arcs—the falling action with Rebecca and Sister Theresa, the Magic Knights meeting to discuss the aforementioned traitor, etc.—but it's also bogged down by filler-quality shenanigans. There's an exceptionally forgettable eating contest that the Black Bulls hold to celebrate Asta's recovery from battle, and even by entertaining fluff standards, it's completely disposable. There's an attempt at sweetness as Rebecca swoops in to plant a kiss on Asta's cheek and rile up Noelle, as well as a moment to repair Gauche and Theresa's relationship, but it all leaves the brain as quickly as it enters.

The most significant thing this episode sets out to do is flesh out the relationships between the squad captains. The meatiest scene is their meeting where they exchange pleasantries (and by that I mean they get on each other's nerves), but since we've only seen most of them in action scenes, it makes sense that we'd force them to sit down and actually talk to each other. A couple of them, namely Gueldre Poizot and Rill Boismortier, weren't apart of the Licht fight at all, so this is our primary chance to get to know them. Rill is the youngest of the captains, so he feels the most out of his element. Most of the humor comes from him trying to lighten the mood with impressions and failing to read the room. I got a good solid laugh at Yami snickering it up but then lashing out once the joke turned on him.

The cliffhanger ends the episode with the Wizard King becoming sure of his traitor suspicions, since he was able to use Asta's anti-magic to break a memory spell on the Midnight Sun henchmen that they held as prisoners. Whether this means Mr. Vangeance is in trouble right away or not will have to wait until next week. After that one really well-animated episode a few weeks back, I was totally prepared to see much more economic episodes following it, and that's exactly what this is. This episode is as visually conservative and narratively mild as they come, but it's not quite as boring as I know Black Clover is capable of being. The twists, turns, and intrigue are all pretty basic, but I get why the story would go in this direction, and the mystery does manage to offer that bare minimum of juiciness.

Rating: C+

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


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