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General Info:
Series Name: Black Clover - ブラッククローバー
Year of Serialization: 2015
Author(s): Yūki Tabata
Artist(s): Yūki Tabata
Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Shounen
Current Status: Ongoing
Moment of Reviewing: 79th chapter
Other Formats: /
Year of Serialization: 2015
Author(s): Yūki Tabata
Artist(s): Yūki Tabata
Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Shounen
Current Status: Ongoing
Moment of Reviewing: 79th chapter
Other Formats: /
Series Summary:
Aster and Juno were abandoned as babies at a church somewhere in the Clover Kingdom. The further away from the center you live, the worse the conditions become and the church was located all the way at the outer edge. There is however one way for people to escape their miserable lives and that's magic. Magic means everything in the Kingdom of Clover and the strongest magician is the Sorcerous Emperor, so Aster and Juno vowed to each other that one of them would become the next Emperor. However while Juno was a prodigy, Aster had no talent for magic whatsoever. To even the playing field he put himself through rigorous physical training. In the end though a grimoire, a magical book that chooses its owner, is needed to efficiently use magic. That's why on regular intervals the children of the kingdom are brought to magical libraries full of grimoires. If one of the books chooses someone, that child can keep it. Not surprising Juno immediately receives a grimoire, a rare four-leaf clover grimoire to be precise that are only owned by the strongest and most blessed magicians. And Aster? Well he didn't receive anything. Shortly afterwards they are ambushed by a fallen magic knight who wants to steal Juno's grimoire. Still lacking in actual combat the both of them are quickly beaten into submission, but then out of nowhere an old tattered grimoire floats towards Aster that allows him to summon a sword with an extraordinary magical ability and which he uses to dispose of the assailant. He and Juno then renew their vow, which marks the start of their quest to become the Sorcerous Emperor. Aster's new tome though is emblazoned with a black five-leaf clover....the sign of the demon.
Recently Bleach came to an end with that two of the three series that form the Big Three Shonen Jump manga have finished. The "Big Three" isn't a hereditary position nor title and was specifically used to refer to Naruto, Bleach and One Piece. That however has not stopped people from discussing which manga are this generation's Big Three as at this point we can clearly perceive a generation switch, a passing of the torch, in the manga industry. While authors like Kishimoto and Oda grew up with and got inspired by Dragonball, contemporary authors on their turn grew up with Naruto, Luffy and Ichigo and their influence is quite noticeable. Amongst the series that are often mentioned as a potential Big Three 2.0 member is Black Clover, with reason.
Similar to Boku no Hero Academia, another SJ series that has been gaining popularity rapidly, Black Clover follows the traditional plot-recipe of a talentless doofus of a main character with a seemingly impossible dream that everyone mocks him for. Sounds familiar? It should as the similarities with Naruto are rather obvious. Putting aside the overall character concept Aster is likewise parentless, has a strong rivalry with another character (unlike Sasuke and Naruto though it's a healthy one between best friends) and even a strange demonic parallel can be drawn between Kurama and Aster's grimoire. In the end Black Clover might be the best described as a Naruto x Fairy Tail crossover. Instead of a shinobi setting however it's a medieval fantasy world where people use magic in contrast to chakra. You can also easily draw a parallel between the guilds from Fairy Tail and the magical orders of knights in Black Clover and just like Natsu, Aster belongs to the most controversial order, the Black Bulls, that has a bad reputation and that largely consists out of outcasts and weirdos.
So at first this might sound like a mere rip-off, but that's a bit too much. As the saying goes 'never change a winning team' and this kind of plot is simply popular with readers. Its rising popularity is a testimony of that, but you shouldn't pull this out of proportion either. Below this superficial layer it still very well follows its own story with its own characters in its own world. Personally one of the biggest letdowns in Naruto was that it had a dualistic and deterministic plot. One way or another everything revolved around Sasuke and Naruto, which then got forced into a bottleneck perspective that was dragged out for way too long. It's of course still early on in the series, but Black Clover has much more liberty in which direction it wants to take the story.
There's also a strange ambiguity present in this series. One on hand it has regularly situations and dialogues meant for comic relief, kinda similar to how Oda does it in OP. This is largely centered around the Black Bulls and in particular the interactions of its leader, Yami, with his subordinates. There isn't any doubt that Yami is going to be this series cult character as the way he acts and speaks is flat-out hilarious. Essentially almost everything he says is some kind of an automatic half sarcastic come-back response, but always with a dead serious facial expression. Sometimes it even looks like the author is using Yami to mock these manga cliches, like sudden power-ups, but not in an obvious way. On the other hand 'death' is not a rare occurrence. Of course not so much for primary characters and it isn't too graphic either, still regularly random characters die and from time to time a more prominent one and this includes someone who committed suicide by impaling himself with icicles and another person who got sliced vertically in half. So if you became hesitant to read this series when you heard "Fairy Tail", don't be as it very well is has a different vibe.
Black Clover's most unique characteristic though is likely its artwork. In regards to the characters it can vary whether they're appealing or not. Personal tastes differ after all, but it has to be noted that there's a large variety in terms of age and body structure. Many manga tend to give the impression that there are only fit teenagers, but Black Clover is more realistic in that aspect. However what caught my attention the most, was the way how elemental (and other types of magic) are drawn. It's difficult to describe this, but I find it mesmerizing.
This is still a very young series, but it has all the qualities to become one of SJ leading poster boys. I wonder though if it ever can reach the same level as its predecessors. Using the traditional plot recipe provides a decent guarantee that a series will be at least moderately successful, however to become truly great in their own right it has to have something special that sets it apart from other manga and that something is still lacking. Time will tell if Black Clover can rise above itself or not.
Similar to Boku no Hero Academia, another SJ series that has been gaining popularity rapidly, Black Clover follows the traditional plot-recipe of a talentless doofus of a main character with a seemingly impossible dream that everyone mocks him for. Sounds familiar? It should as the similarities with Naruto are rather obvious. Putting aside the overall character concept Aster is likewise parentless, has a strong rivalry with another character (unlike Sasuke and Naruto though it's a healthy one between best friends) and even a strange demonic parallel can be drawn between Kurama and Aster's grimoire. In the end Black Clover might be the best described as a Naruto x Fairy Tail crossover. Instead of a shinobi setting however it's a medieval fantasy world where people use magic in contrast to chakra. You can also easily draw a parallel between the guilds from Fairy Tail and the magical orders of knights in Black Clover and just like Natsu, Aster belongs to the most controversial order, the Black Bulls, that has a bad reputation and that largely consists out of outcasts and weirdos.
So at first this might sound like a mere rip-off, but that's a bit too much. As the saying goes 'never change a winning team' and this kind of plot is simply popular with readers. Its rising popularity is a testimony of that, but you shouldn't pull this out of proportion either. Below this superficial layer it still very well follows its own story with its own characters in its own world. Personally one of the biggest letdowns in Naruto was that it had a dualistic and deterministic plot. One way or another everything revolved around Sasuke and Naruto, which then got forced into a bottleneck perspective that was dragged out for way too long. It's of course still early on in the series, but Black Clover has much more liberty in which direction it wants to take the story.
There's also a strange ambiguity present in this series. One on hand it has regularly situations and dialogues meant for comic relief, kinda similar to how Oda does it in OP. This is largely centered around the Black Bulls and in particular the interactions of its leader, Yami, with his subordinates. There isn't any doubt that Yami is going to be this series cult character as the way he acts and speaks is flat-out hilarious. Essentially almost everything he says is some kind of an automatic half sarcastic come-back response, but always with a dead serious facial expression. Sometimes it even looks like the author is using Yami to mock these manga cliches, like sudden power-ups, but not in an obvious way. On the other hand 'death' is not a rare occurrence. Of course not so much for primary characters and it isn't too graphic either, still regularly random characters die and from time to time a more prominent one and this includes someone who committed suicide by impaling himself with icicles and another person who got sliced vertically in half. So if you became hesitant to read this series when you heard "Fairy Tail", don't be as it very well is has a different vibe.
Black Clover's most unique characteristic though is likely its artwork. In regards to the characters it can vary whether they're appealing or not. Personal tastes differ after all, but it has to be noted that there's a large variety in terms of age and body structure. Many manga tend to give the impression that there are only fit teenagers, but Black Clover is more realistic in that aspect. However what caught my attention the most, was the way how elemental (and other types of magic) are drawn. It's difficult to describe this, but I find it mesmerizing.
This is still a very young series, but it has all the qualities to become one of SJ leading poster boys. I wonder though if it ever can reach the same level as its predecessors. Using the traditional plot recipe provides a decent guarantee that a series will be at least moderately successful, however to become truly great in their own right it has to have something special that sets it apart from other manga and that something is still lacking. Time will tell if Black Clover can rise above itself or not.
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- Reviewed by Caliburn
