Wallpaper cover of Black Clover
Video review of Black Clover
Black Clover, originally illustrated by Yūki Tabata, is an anime adaption from the manga by Pierrot. It is a Shounen anime with plenty of humor included, taking place in a world where everyone possesses magic, except for the main character Asta.
The Clover Kingdom is divided by 3 sectors: the royal realm, the common realm, and the forbidden realm. The royal realm is where all of the nobles reside, the common realm is where all of the middle class citizens live, and the forbidden realm is where all of the peasants live.
All wizards each possess their own books called grimoires. A grimoire is a book of magic spells and invocations. There are four basic elements a wizard may possess: earth, fire, ice, or wind. But there are a variety of other spells wizards may possess as well.
Whenever a wizard reaches the age of 15, a gathering of all young wizards take place where grimoires from the Grimoire Acceptance Ceremony choose their wielders. Almost all wizards receive a three-leaf clover grimoire; each leaf having a unique meaning: Faith, Hope, and Love. However, it's considered very rare for a wizard to receive a four-leaf clover grimoire; the fourth leaf representing fortune. And it's especially rare for a wizard to receive a five-leaf clover grimoire; the fifth leaf representing a demon.
Then there's the Magic Knights Entrance Exam where citizens from all across the Clover Kingdom come to the capitol where various trials take place to be chosen to join the Magic Knights. There are in total 9 squads: Golden Dawn, Black Bulls, Silver Eagles, Blue Roses, Crimson Lions, Green Mantises, Coral Peacocks, Purple Orca, and Azure Deer. Each captain is present during the exams to choose who will be in their squads.
Opening 1 of Black Clover
Opening 2 of Black Clover
Opening 3 of Black Clover
The anime starts off to where we see Asta and Yuno abandoned at a church located in the forbidden realm where Father Orgi adopts them. We get to see a taste as to how the brothers' day to day lives go on including their adoptive siblings and the caretaker of the church, Sister Lily.
Since they are both at the age of 15, they were qualified to partake in the Grimoire Acceptance Ceremony. Every wizard was able to receive their grimoire, Yuno obtained a four-leaf clover grimoire (considering his excellent abilities in wind magic), and Asta was the only one left without a grimoire.
But when the brothers were confronted by an ex-wizard knight, something awakened in Asta where a five-leaf clover grimoire appeared and thus was able to strike down the ex-wizard knight.
With his five-leaf clover grimoire, Asta is able to summon an anti-magic sword where it can negate any spell in combat.
Asta gets his five-leaf clover grimoire
Asta's big goal in life is to become the Wizard King, but is up against his brother Yuno to see who can achieve that goal. Along the way, Asta joins the Black Bulls Magic Knights while Yuno joins the Golden Dawn Magic Knights.
This anime is highly recommended for those looking for great shounen anime to binge watch as the show goes at an even pace with some episodes delving into story background such as episode 2 where you see the pact Asta and Yuno made to become rivals on who will be the next Wizard King. Not only that, but during times of combat we get to know other characters coming into play from their flashbacks to give us insight on their history.
Asta and Yuno childhood moments
Asta has great character development as he shows true determination and commitment towards reaching his goal of becoming the Wizard King. Also he is a very hard-working individual whenever building up muscle, training, and increasing his endurance. He does have his quirks such as being loud and obnoxious, especially when he gets introduced to new/exciting things that he never came across from being a peasant.
Funny moments of Asta in Black Clover
Combat and action are very intriguing to watch as there’s a great variety of magic users in the anime. There are some wizards that seem to stick out with what magic they have such as a noble named Mimosa Vermillion that has magical abilities based on plant. Her two main abilities are Dream Healing Flower Basket where there's a protective shell around the people getting healed and Princess Healing Kimono where she can directly heal a single person with great amount of magic.
Dream Healing Flower Basket
Princess Healing Kimono
Even though this anime has comedy in it, combat can get serious at some degree where death is something the wizards can't take lightly on. Asta may be able to negate magic, but requires teamwork to take care of enemies on the way as he does have his limitations. There is a bit of gore to the fighting scenes such as when a wizard takes a direct hit and may even cough out blood.
Every character in the anime has their own unique quirks, especially from the members of the Black Bulls Squad as they are an odd bunch of wizards hand picked by the captain Yami Sukehiro. A great example from the Black Bulls guild is Noelle Silva. She acts arrogant towards others and uses her noble background as an excuse for situations such as to not do chores in the guild castle. But does show some compassion for her fellow wizards, especially for Asta (even though she has trouble admitting it; thus a tsundere).
Her background story is that she was born being unable to control her water magic. She was looked down upon from her family; being told her life is worthless and is a shame to her noble family. She later on gets saved by Asta from the event where her magic blast backfired to her; creating a huge sphere of water suffocating her. At first, she didn't like him due to his low status but after being saved started to acknowledge him more; despite having trouble showing it.
Asta saves Noelle from her uncontrollable powers
This anime can be considered a great show to have a long lasting season where it's separated into different arcs featuring new enemies to face as well as showcasing some episodes of the humorous side of the Black Bulls in between to keep the audience from being bored and changing things up. It is expected that there will be a total of 51 episodes for season 1 (the 51st most likely being an ova). In the future, it should be expected that season 2 and 3 will be out in the future; each having 50-51 episodes.
You can legally stream Black Clover here: