Black Clover

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67 Recommended

20 Mixed Feelings

15 Not Recommended

Jan 8, 2026

GameSmashDash

It does the idea of having a Naruto rip off well; I consider it bad personally but if you like stories that rip off other power systems, has an edgy best friend, a main character that screams a lot and is enough of a blank state to fill yourself in his shoes, go ahead and read this. If you read or watched Naruto at first it steals a lot of the similar ideas and set up; that's your spoiler.

If you don't like these kind of manga then I'd suggest not reading this; he's annoying, stubborn and not in the fun way; but I find a ... lot of my coworkers that like power fantasies like him so, meh.

If you like these kind of stories then I'm sure you'll find yourself wanting more but if you don't really care for the lack of unique ideas and the frankensteining of better ideas into one narrative then this is probably not for you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 25, 2024

d_t_a0811

Black Clover both is and is not just another bland shonen fantasy adventure.

In terms of plot, Black Clover does an excellent job establishing mysteries to maintain interest, foreshadowing future events, and building to the bigger picture of the story. Within each arc prior to the end of the Royal Knights arc contains a few offhand, isolated interactions between major characters foreshadowing future reveals, while the Elf Reincarnation arc is the culmination of these occurrences and the catalyst for future story direction. Paying attention to these scenes can help offset the story’s primary weakness, which I will get to later.

It does take a ... while before things really start to set in motion (approximately 150 chapters). In the meantime, Black Clover is primarily driven through its incredibly drawn fight scenes. The sheer quantity of full-page, nearly double-page, and double page panels are astounding, and Tabata is extremely skilled drawing magic effects and battles. Also, in agreement with Geoff from Mother’s Basement, the ½ cloaks representing the Magic Knight squads are both cool and give plenty of space for characters to show off their personal style.

If there’s a drawback to Black Clover, it would likely be its character writing. While it would be dishonest to say that Tabata is a poor character writer, I think it is fair to say that it isn’t his strong suit. Tabata does a good job making characters layered, even if their one predominant feature (Asta’s determination, Noelle’s tsudere-ness, Veronica’s drinking, Charmy’s eating, Gaude’s sister complex) tends to peek through more frequently than not. Characters aren’t forgotten about and can hold their own, but Asta does end up pulling most of the weight in battles. Yet, compared to something like One Piece, Bleach, or even Fairy Tail, Tabata relies heavily on Asta’s unwaveringly positive attitude and ambition to almost mystically bring the Black Bulls together, rather than organically bringing them together through individual conversations, banter and surprising reveals in personality or character. Consequently, Black Clover leaves some gaps in the natural progression of friendships and romances. However, this isn’t to say that all the characters are relatively weak. Yami is a standout, as well as Luck, and Fuegoleon and Mereoleona Vermillion.

All this to say, Black Clover’s plotting and art alone are enough to justify giving it a read. Tabata has an impressive vision for the series, and despite its weaknesses is a unique addition to the shonen battle manga world.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Nov 5, 2025

Gary_Sue

Before I go in-depth with each category, some basic ratings on each of them. Reasoning will be given in the respective paragraph(s).

Story: 2/10
Characters: 2/10
Art: 7/10
Art/Panel Cohesion: 1/10

Before saying anything else, I want to add that I wanted Black Clover to be a little underrated gem. If I only had to describe it using two words however, after catching up to what is (as of writing this review) the current chapter, I would use the words 'instant gratification'. Let's move on with the category analyses to explain it one bit at a time.

Story - 2/10
- Asta and Yuno, two brothers from the boonies, start at the ... age of 15 when they're to receive their grimoires. Yuno ends up getting what's considered a legendary grimoire, while Asta gets none at all. In a world full of magic, he is the only one without it. Instead, he's the only human with the ability to use anti-magic, and this premise kicks off into how he's trying to still cut through the Magic Knights and become the Wizard King. From uncovering a hidden cult with an ulterior motive, the story escalates at a pace that's... conflicting.

It starts low stakes and with small investigations, and before you know it, it has become of national importance, yet the two new recruits find themselves starring every event that leaves even veteran magic knights with their mouths agape. Arc after arc, the story keeps gaining and gaining scale to genuinely no end. New kinds of races and systems are introduced constantly to serve whatever plotline the current arc is on, and at first, there's some setup for it. The first arc (Eye of the Midnight Sun) sets up a lot of key points that are relevant for the second arc. The second one finishes, and its end was already a little far-fetched for the world's limitations.

From the third arc onwards, it really becomes the powerscaling olympics as far as the magical system goes, with old concepts (like element affinities and interactions) getting replaced by the new measure of power we're rolling with (ancient or forbidden magic, arcane stages, mana zones and so on). A lot of the actual measures are being omitted to keep the review as spoiler free as possible, but... the story doesn't do much better either. Whereas Black Clover's premise is rather generic and begins as a parody of shounen, it eventually stops trying to setup story beats and gives itself less than a chapter or two of preparation.

Hells, later down the line plot-twists are set up and executed within pages of one another, and fakeouts don't even happen within more than a few panels of one another. Everything begins to lose gravity because there's no plan, the author is coming up with and executing concepts on the fly with little hints ahead of time, so why bother getting invested in the first place? And on the topic of pacing, during the very first arc of the manga, there's a few characters introduced out of nowhere with scenes never shown before in the manga itself.

That's because they originate from the supplementary light novel 'Stubborn Bull Book', and there's no attempt to integrate them in the manga despite featuring them out of the blue (for those who were sticking to just reading the chapter releases). They play a prominent supporting role only for a single arc and then are phased out, with this blunder thankfully not being repeated again. The story itself is handled poorly as is, but something done as haphazardly as a light novel being important to the canon from Chapter 82 (in a *currently* 386 chapter manga) is absurd.

It's not like we have it any better with the...

Characters - 2/10
- Tying in to the story, they are a key part of Black Clover. From the Black Bulls' main cast, to the supporting characters (like the coveted Captains and Wizard King) and the villains. Sadly, while there's a few standouts like Yami and Finral, most of them tend to be quite one note. A big part of the main cast is built off of tropes with little substance added further down the line. Anyone included in the story gets the standard starter pack of a backstory to explain why they are how they are, and a lot of characters that should be taken out of the story never are.

Instead, they are saved or somehow survive whatever they're going through, only to serve no purpose further down the story. Characters are almost never truly discarded here, instead left to obscurity and not even mentioned until there's a callback to be made in the final arc or some flashback. Even of my favorites, like Finral, there's only so much to do with a backstory that's been played out. How many times can I feel happy my favorite is on the chapter, only for the same joke of "pretty boy resisting flirting with women" to be pulled again and again..?

These are truly some of the best and worst this manga has to offer. They can really grip you, as much as they can remind you exactly what you are reading. A manga that doesn't want to take risks, nor displease. It capitalises on moments that add nothing to the broader whole, and this reduces its very vehicle to guide you through the story to little more than cardboard cutouts. There's countless characters that are introduced as the centerpiece to a story beat or arc, only to fade out of relevance once their backstory has been touched on and that's so, so much wasted potential.

Art - 7/10
- This is really the one saving grace* of Black Clover in my opinion. Although I'm not particularly fond of the style, the art is absolutely beautiful. The fights feel heavy, the chibi style is really cute and the expressions can be exaggerated both to lighten up scenes that got a lot of chuckles out of me, and to dim the mood down to however serious it needs to be. I think Tabata is an incredible artist and it shows in each and every panel. They are really well drawn, a lot of the designs in his works feel slick and well-put together, and some pages are really a treat to the eyes.

Art/Panel Cohesion - 1/10
- ... then why this rating? Once again, I will repeat: I think Tabata is an incredible artist, and it shows. However, the panels themselves come out underwhelming when the story is poorly strung together, powers go unexplained when they need to be delved into and the story has gone from low stakes to humans fighting at inhuman levels. The weight becomes excessive and you get absolutely lost in certain scenes, not knowing where you're supposed to look at. Especially in the latter chapters where powers go out of whack, it's impossible to tell what you're meant to be looking at and in all its grandure, a lot of the art just loses its impact.

The story is really hard to distinguish from the panels, and there's so, so many unnecessary spreads during certain fights. Pages that need to have spreads just don't, and scenes that have no right to have as many spreads as they end up having, just have that much effort put into them. I think much like the rest of BC, the art suffers from a 'pacing' problem and it became more of a visual mess for me than something I can wholeheartedly say I enjoyed. Do not take this as the art being bad. But the way it's presented in the final product really gets in the way and causes it to trip over itself.

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I really want to add some extra notes, but I feel really tired from reading this much of BC and seeing how much potential it had to be a fun underdog squandered. It started as a parody of all the crazy shounens, and it ended up becoming the very thing it made fun of. I forced myself to read the final few chapters, but it keeps getting more and more off the rails with no way back. I have gotten so tired of hearing "Right here, right now I'll surpass my limits" and "I'll be the next Wizard King", this print has been burnt into my retinas by the current release.

The very beginning of Black Clover, as well as the first arc or two are harmless fun, if not a little underwhelming in their resolution. I'm not entirely sure where it 'started going wrong', but it's definitely one of the most disappointing reads I've had in a while. I hope Tabata learns from this and if he ends up pursuing another manga after finishing this series, he does the next one justice.

Give it a try if you want to, but remember. Not every gem is a diamond in the rough.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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by Notjusta07

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