Black Clover Season 2 ‒ Episodes 171-173
But I do. No joke, no kidding, I do. I like it when it's being good; I even like it when it's being bad. It delivers on being shonen-slop. This comes as good news. Especially now that the new season is such a huge improvement in the animation and art department! I'm digging it way more than I thought I would. Black Clover's Spade Kingdom is the perfect foreboding wintry tundra with its looming mountains, icy plains, gothic castles, and harsh blizzards, all draped under a thick cloak of darkness needed to give it the edgy, heavy metal look you need in a show aimed at edgy teenagers (complimentary). Upping the ante here are the demons spawned here, coming in looking sleeker and more refined than many of last season's baddies. Plus, the third episode boasts an awesome shot of Vanica pinning Charlotte to the wall with her thorny vines. Vanica's dark reds and greens cast against the ethereal light blue background is a great visual means of bringing out her villainy. It looks so cool. Remember that shot of the eye I talked about in the preview guide? Just when I thought that was going to be the best shot in this fight with Charlotte, another shot comes out of nowhere to one-up it. If a fan artist came by to retouch that scene up, I swear, it would be perfect desktop wallpaper material.
And the fights themselves. Whenever they aren't being interrupted by unnecessary flashbacks (lookin' at you, episode two!), they rule. Everything I said back in the preview guide, from Asta's fight with Nacht, to Mereoleona's fight with the kaiju, to Charlotte's fight with Vanica, I mostly stand by. I have to admit I might have been a bit more reserved in my praise for the first two episodes' fights. This third episode shows me I shouldn't have. Asta comes back into the fold to slice and dice his way through the giant kaiju that's been rampaging these past few episodes. It's easily the best part of the episode. Asta has a new powered-up design now that he's further tapped into his powers; a dark knight look with a very intense, devilish flair to it that very much has a thou-shalt-not-trifle-with-thee-ness to it. It's heavy metal, and it's sick, even if it looks a bit too Kill la Kill-y to me. I guess that matters very little when the fight itself boasts incredible fight animation that has Asta soaring around the kaiju like an intense fighter jet. He criss-crosses his way through the skies and leaves behind trails of dark energy that look so crisp and smooth despite their manic, ominous color scheme. The fight choreography is amazing, the pacing is flawless, and WOW, how about that music choice?! Instead of the usual barrage of heavy metal, we get this upbeat pop number that matches the action and intensity perfectly. Almost every fight scene these first three episodes have to offer has been so satisfying to watch and such a massive improvement from the first. I'm glad to see Black Clover not try to cut corners in the fight department now.
It's weird to find myself praising Black Clover like this. Because honestly, I'm still checked out on the plot. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Black Clover should have ended with the last arc. The Dark Triad doesn't seem as big of a threat as the Eye of the Midnight Sun was in the previous arcs, and Zagred had been given a one-way ticket to Palookaville some time ago. Julius should have remained dead, and Asta should have been crowned Wizard King so the series could have its nice, grand finale. Why did Julius have to come back from the dead? And why can he suddenly re-age himself all of a sudden? More importantly, am I simply missing the point here? I'm trying to make sense out of overdone shonenslop, for heaven's sake. Maybe I should roll with the punches and let it just be that. I'm only here for the fights at this point anyway. And this new batch of episodes is mostly that, so perhaps I doth protest a bit too much. Hey, at least this isn't Dead Account.
Black Clover seems to be revelling in its shonenslopness more than ever thanks to a huge bump in production. While this new season's start is far from perfect, it's at least a very, very satisfying watch.
Rating:
Black Clover Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
discuss this in the forum |
back to Black Clover Season 2
Episode Review homepage / archives
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.