Black Clover

I read the big 3 of Shonen, One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach. When I was a kid, Naruto was the reason why I started to get into manga in the first place! It was the start of something beautiful which lead to more great manga's for me to read. It was a great gate way for me.
In that sense, I feel the same is for Black Clover. Although it does not have any unique-ness like its other predecessors it is what it is. An unlikely Hero in an unlikely world. Black Clover will most definitely be a gateway for kids to get into manga because of its simplicity and fast pace reading.
Although all the cliches are there, it really did not bother me as much.
What really got be involved in the story so much though was the concept of Family it had like One Piece. You get to know all the small side characters. All the side characters have their history in which you get o see why they are who they are and how someone like the Main Character helped them become better. Unlike Fairy Tail where there is so many characters imo I never really see any development towards them so I never really care if they live or die.
Overall, I enjoyed the fast pace, the love these characters have for one another, and the art is on point. I mean look at the boobs that are drawn, they are so damn sexy (off topic) but yeah, I enjoyed it even though its all the cliche in one, its something needed and great to always look back on.

Reading black clover got some potential but as the story goes it feels like it often seek an easy way out on the storytelling.

Story: 4
Nothing out of ordinary, blank slate got some unusual power yadda yadda. You could find it anywhere so it's not particularly unique. World building is quite good but the story flow feels a bit of a mess. Powerup here and there (where have I read that? Oh.... right...) to make the story progress is a bad idea, already proven. Some got unlimited powerloop which makes me questioning whether the power is made just so the background characters won't take fatal colateral damage from the main char's sugoi battle. The awakening of past life is also feels clunky and inconsistent.
Not exactly the worst. Just lack originality and creativity.

Art: 6
The art is probably the best point of this manga. Characters are easily distinguishable from each other.... just.... some got a really weird hairstyle which turn me off a lot of time. The battle is also feels static for some characters that don't even need to lift a finger to cast their attack.

Characters: 6
The characters got positive attitude and generally likeable but after the story progress they just become forgettable. Characters that get a highlight of that battle got ppwer reveal, past reveal or whatever then after that, just spamming that powerup in the background. Kind of a waste 9f potential.

Enjoyment: 4
Do I enjoy it? A little bit, but I got bored after a while. Loopholes makes me experience WTF moments from time to time that makes it tiring to read.

Overall:5
All in all it feels like any other average battle shounen. If you already here for a long time then there's really nothing new here.

If you have read tons of Shonen manga and you are tired of reading the same thing over and over again and you want something good and fresh this is definitely not your manga.

The art in this title is awesome, really detailed and consistent, so i don't have any complain there, but the story is something that we can found almost anywhere.
We have the protagonist who is energetic and have messy hair who wants to be the best but he has no talent and of course, is an orphan, and no one believes in him but he suddenly discover his mysterious potential. In this case the talented boy who is his 'rival' is also his friend and the only one who support him, so thats an interesting thing.
And like a lot of new shonen manga, the start is really quickly, they put all the plot in some few chapters and you know a lot of characters and all the background so they can start fighting even if there is no a deep meaning for that.

Art: like i say 10/10
Story: to date, pretty conformist 3/10
Character: in general pretty common, except for Juno i think 6/10
Enjoyment: 6/10
Overall: 5/10

This series is incredible. Pacing is really well done and there is never a boring stop. For art, it a weekly series so don't expect high-level art like berserk but it is still really really good. All the characters are great. The first saga has just concluded and there are more sagas to come. If Black clover continues with the consistency it definitely will be one of the top tier shonen of this time. I have high hopes for the manga for the upcoming arcs and sagas as there are many mysteries and plot points to be encountered. If you like shonen such as One piece or naruto this is a must-read.

Also, make sure to read the entire thing as the beginning may seem a bit generic for some but its a manga that truly gets better the more chapters you read.

This is my first time reviewing, and its based on my opinion.. I want to read the manga cuz the anime releases episodes really slow.

Story: 7/10
The story is completely random, the manga throws these op villain for them to defeat. One member escapes when the main cast squad is "too strong". But I liked the idea of Asta being weak at first and it reminds me of Naruto in some ways.

Art: 9/10
I liked the art style of this manga. The shading is really good, and the character designs.

Character: 6/10
Every character is very stereotypical. The black bulls remind me of Fairy tail with their cheesy friendship speech. We have the tsundere, psychopath, fan service girl, pedo guy who's in love with his little sister, badass guild leader, and etc.

Enjoyment: 7/10
Despite its terrible character development, it's a good manga to binge read if you're a first timer. If you like Fairy tail or naruto then this is for you.

Overall: 8/10

Black Clover has become one of my favorite manga from Weekly Shonen Jump. The fast pacing of the story makes the chapters great to read from week to week without feeling bogged down from slow pacing. The story itself is solid with a large cast of characters that get their moments of character development without feeling left out, countless references to European mythology, and a great MC in Asta and fantastic heroine in Noelle Silva. The art looks downright incredible at times and the paneling makes Black Clover very easy to read. Black Clover, despite being in a genre known for its action, has some of the best foreshadowing I've seen in manga with plot twists that keep readers on their toes. I highly recommend this manga to any potential readers who are fans of the shonen genre.

If you give this anything less than a 5 you either or the biggest nit picker or you are just a straight up hater. I have reader. A lot of manga and I do not have time to add all the manga I read on MAL. However, what ever you do. Do not drop this manga until at least chapter 60. When they say it gets betters later they mean it. This manga is a future master piece and the story and arc going on right now are some of the greatest I have witnessed in anime. I have read the likes of Berserk, Vagabond, Baki and Gintama. It deserves to be in the same convo.

if you want a giant cliche storm of like…naruto, harry potter, and fairy tail read this. some things are like just copy n pasted. honestly, even the character designs remind me greatly of hinata and kageyama from haikyuu. heck, the main character asta is like basically white haired hinata with a giant sword. still, im a sucker for the kind of “never give up” - type character that naruto and hinata are so I’ll keep going.
if you want to read a pretty decent, fast-paced, and very fun cliche storm with beautiful line art to relax, turn your brain off for a while, and binge read with, this might be for you. if you’re sick and tired of tropes and stuff that has been done in almost every shounen ever, it’s best to look somewhere else.

Black clover takes place in a world ruled by wizards and withes where magic is essential. The story revolves around an orphan boy named Asta born without magic who aims to become the Wizard king due to a promise he made with his rival alike friend Yuno, a natural talented magic user who also aims for the king title.

Black Clover is your average shounen manga that consists of every shounen trophies you can find in any other popular shounen manga (One Piece, Naruto, Nanatsu no Taizai etc.). The story, plot and characters are very average and I don't find them especially outstanding or interesting, but the art is fine and not poor at all. Although the concept seemed interesting at first, the story was a dissapointment, it was just too average and cliché nothing that stood out at all making it boring. However, it is still a good read for those of you who likes to follow longer adventurous shounen series, or if just bored and wants to read some random manga to kill time. (For me this junk is dropped.)

Score: 4/10

This manga is a work of art!!

For anyone that says it is a ripoff of Naruto i can't say that it does not have the similarities with Naruto but you cannot compare these two. In the Naruto universe everyone has chakra but Aster does not have any magic.

And Aster is a childish character as Naruto, but aren't all main protagonists childish (With a few exceptions of course), protagonist like Luffy(One Piece), Natsu(Fairy Tale)...

Yuno is serious because you have to have an different viewing of human nature in an anime so it balances out the other one. Yuno and Aster a long time generalized duo between seriousness and foolishness that brings us the enjoyment in reading it.

The concept of a duo of that type is given in some stories that were written in the middle ages, so you cant say that a duo like that was formed on the basis of Naruto.If you say something like that you just say that you are uneducated about human history... Thank you!

Let me cut to the chase since most of you just want to know if its any good, yes it is, not amazing, and worth reading, but not exactly one you want to go out of your way to read.

Let me start this review by saying, I don't understand the flack this series is getting lately. If you go into something expecting not to like it you mose likely will not like it. The story isn't anything amazing, but much like My Hero Academia this series seems to understand what made series like Naruto, and One Piece great, and sticks to something admittedly safe, but also honing it into something I find pretty enjoyable.

That said if you don't like shonen battle manga you will not like this as it's more of the same. If you like battle anime like one piece, Naruto, HxH, you will probably not like this. Though it doesn't do much new what it does do makes it an enjoyable read for shonen battle anime fans.

Also it doesn't do that thing I've been seeing other newer manga series do where they leave a lot of pages blank.

Something else to note is the extra pages are pretty enjoyable to read, where the author puts a lot of his teams personality in the book, which is much appreciated.

Seeing these reviews, I had to give my own. So I went into Black Clover almost completely blind, besides knowing the synopsis. I'm not too involved in the anime community despite being an avid reader of manga, so I hadn't heard anything about Black Clover prior to reading it.
Anyway, I did enjoy this manga. Yet after having its flaws/cliches pointed out to me, I could no longer ignore them, which is why it does not have an overly high score from me.

Story: 5/10
The story is kind of original. It's original in the sense that I haven't read a manga written about magic yet. In saying that, it gives me 'extremely toned down' Berserk vibes.
However, this gets the 'fair' rating because it's extremely cliche. Main character wants to be the best at something, check. Many love interests, check. Overpowered, unique ability that shocks all the bad guys, check. Hardly any character development besides 'I hit things with my big sword', check. Main character is more morally righteous than any other character, check. It's just mediocre. I did find myself on the edge of my seat or cheering on the characters, waiting for what's next at times, so it's not all bad. That being said, the fights can be extremely predictable. At times, the story can feel rushed too.

Art: 7/10
The art is nice and consistent. Not too much to say on this front, but it does work nicely for this manga.

Characters: 5/10
Like I said above, pretty run of the mill. I do see what people are saying about it being a rip-off of Naruto, too. But yeah, pretty bland. Personally, I hate the typical tsundere love interest, which is definitely present in Black Clover. I would have liked to see a bit more originality rather than 'idiot protagonist' and 'smart, naturally talented rival'. In saying that, I did quite enjoy Yami - the Captain of the Black Bull - in particular, despite he himself having some cliches.

Enjoyment: 7/10
Still enjoyable, if you can look past the cliches like I did. I only really took a lot of notice of them once someone pointed it out. It's a great time waster.

Overall: 6/10
I, in no way, think this is worthy of a 3/10, like so many people appear to be giving it. It's just... average. But I feel like the Art kind of gives it a bit of redemption from just a 5/10, and if you ignore the cliches, it's pretty enjoyable. Overall, its not the worst, yet far from the best.

When I was younger, I wondered why plagiarism was bad. When I grew up, I read Black Clover.

Yeah, this is bad. I'd say it's like porridge, but I have to admit porridge has flavor. Black Clover is as bland as they come. It's taking a bread shaped cardboard cut out, toasting it, and pretending it's toast. It's also inorganic. Kinda like cardboard toast. Did I mention it was bland?

It's a good thing we're on the topic of cardboard, because that relates to the characters. Which are also bland. In a cardboard cutout way. Almost everything they say or do feels like it comes out of the 10 Easy Steps To Being A Believable Character Stereotype handbook. The main character is going to become the pirate hokage, so that he can defeat the black wizard. Whoops, wrong series. It's easy to get confused when over half of this manga is ripped from more popular works. The main character is Uzumaki D. Natsu, his best friend is fujoshi bait, and the love interest is the overtly popular "called a tsundere but isn't a real tsundere" type that is popular for some reason. There's a colourful cast of supporting characters too, who occupy different roles to help the plot along or to look cool, but never really become characters in their own right, because who needs interesting characters, right?

Voice tone doesn't translated into text. Read this in a mix of overt sarcasm and exasperation.

Go read Boku no Hero Academia instead.

If you have watched the anime, you know that Black Clover has alot of problems with animation and voice acting. The manga fixes this, it's art style is amazing, and evolves as the story goes.

The story is generic, its a melting pot of cliches. However, the author manages to perfect these cliches, and makes it into something amazing. It should be said that shounen continues to copy off one another. It's impossible to find a manga that is doing something amazing and new. I think it's important that we do take these cliches and do them well, and the Author achieves this.
This manga works great as a shounen. It has moments of emotion, and wonderful battles. The story is something that can easily evolve, and you know what the ending will be, like you know with One Piece. It's something you can easily pick up, and simply enjoy because it brings stuff from other manga you like.

This might be a misguided statement, but it feels like Black Clover races with Boku No Hero to take over as the hot new Naruto replacement. Unfortunately, it does not do a very good job at taking over for an already fairly middling series.

I think the thing that most quickly gives you an idea of Black Clover is the phrase 'simple, generic shounen'. Generic shounen is not necessarily a bad thing, most fun series need to draw from generic cliches; they're cliches because they're known to have some sort of effect. The problem with Black Clover is that it does almost nothing at all to ever shake up it's cliches, and then executes said cliches to the lowest acceptable level.

Story: Like I said, cliches are fine as long as they're executed well. BC's execution leaves much to be desired. The story is probably the weakest part. The weakest aspect of it is the pacing. It's a constant barrage of meeting strong enemies, battling them in intense show downs, resting half a chapter, and then immediately heading to the next encounter. These encounters carry no weight; bad guys just show up to attack the town or interrupt training and then a huge fight breaks out. That's been every single encounter I can think of. I can't really see a overarching plot forming, I feel like every chapter just goes through the motions.

Art: The art is solid. The character designs are pretty good, the author has taken a fun take on a magical world and these band of wizard knights working to protect the kingdom. Magic attacks often have intricate, elaborate designs. The author can draw kinetic action and hot blooded fights quite well. Muscular boys, cute girls, etc. I take several points away because of the clarity. All these big magic spells aren't always drawn in the most clear, eye pleasing way.

Characters: All cliched, with some real bad eggs in the bunch, but also a lot of fun characters. The side characters are enjoyable. They fit what Black Clover excels at; turning your brain off and speed reading chapters. The problem is there isn't a single stand out character. Asta, the main character, is the big optimistic-refuses-to-back-down protagonist, but he makes it work. He's incredibly 2D, paper thin even, so don't expect anything out of him.

The thing that actually works with the characters is Asta's ability. Like in Boku No Hero, the series has taken an approach to having a main character with no unique abilities that then gain tremendous abilities. In both series the characters work hard for these abilities. Where it sets itself apart from BNH and actually surpasses it is the ability the character obtains as a result of the hard work. Asta is freaking ripped, incredibly strong and durable, and possesses Anti-Magic swords that allow him to cut through magic, reflect magic, and absorb magic. This is kind of atypical for such a generic shounen and is by far the most well executed aspect of the show. Even though Asta's power should theoretically cut through every problem, the manga still makes him have to work for his wins.

For some reason every character is absolutely in love with Asta. It's humorous at times, and it's overused, but he serves as a motivation for the other characters to improve themselves.

The villains are absolute dumpster fire. I don't want to grace them with too many more sentences but they are probably the worst villains I've read in Manga form. So cliche, so 1 dimensional, always blurting out literally the cheesiest most predictable insults at our heroes.

Another thing worth noting is his rivalry with Yuno. By all regards the rivalry is kind of shallow. But I give it some points because at least Yuno doesn't take the often used 'asshole, way better than you, dismissive rival' approach.

In summary, Yami is great, Magic King is great, Noelle is a good tsundere, Luck is fun, etc. Lots of fun characters, puddle deep depth to be found in all of them, though.

Enjoyment: It's a turn off your brain and speed read series. There's some moments that make you think it'll get way better but they're pretty quickly kneecapped. It's kind of offensive to the mind if you start thinking about it too much.

I literally never write any reviews, this will be my first. I just felt like I had to write one for Black Clover because of the unfair reviews it gets. If you look at the majority of the negative reviews for this series, you'll notice that the users are not very far deep into the story. If you see the user is only like 30 chapters in for example, I suggest you don't pay any attention to their opinions as they have no idea what the story is about. Honestly speaking, they have no right rating a series if they don't even know what it's truly about. Without spoiling anything, all I can say is that things are definitely heating up in the manga and the stakes have been raised. The story may seem unoriginal at first (but seriously, be honest, what do you expect, its a SHOUNEN. We all know what we're getting into), but now it definitely has distanced itself from other series and has it's own original story being developed. I HIGHLY HIGHLY suggest you give this series a shot if you are a lover of shounen. If your thing is Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, My Hero Academia, etc., then Black Clover should most likely be another series you'll enjoy. While it has your typical tropes as all the other shounen series I mentioned, it is original enough for you to enjoy.

Please try to watch the series or manga and don't hate it.
Most of the people have just presumed it's not and that's whats causing trouble.Firstly,how does it look like a Naruto rip off to you people.Except Sister lily part and getting rejected.and about Cheating from mha Yuki tabata already released a one shot where mp didn't have any power so go do some research.Also,about it's story line it's great too.....I mean we haven't even seen half of it would you let the story develop.for me it is one of the best shonen and if we show a bit support it might even be at the same level of Bleach or Naruto.Just support a bit guys....

Sorry for bad sentence formation English isn't my strong point.

First of all Black Clover is one of the series from SHUUKAN SHOUNEN JUMP MAGAZINE from Japan and being published by SHUEISHA which generally this magazine and publisher are popular for publishing alot of SHOUNEN MANGA for these past decades, so ONE PIECE, BLEACH, NARUTO and MY HERO ACADEMIA are also under this publisher soooo its not quite suprise why this manga is a very typical generic shonen manga compare to the big series from shounen jump right? so what with the hate? because the plot and some of the characters are kinda similar with NARUTO? oh I WANT TO BE A PIRATE KING, oh I WANT TO BE A HOKAGE, oh I WANT TO BE A HERO just like ALL MIGHT!! pfftttttt see they all are the same as for me it does not even matter at this point as long as im enjoying the whole series, the artwork is good and somes are quite epic, the plot is slowly progressing more interesting feature, the objective for the comics/manga is to make people entertain when they are reading it, so if you are not enjoy this manga just leave it be. THE ANIME ELITIST WANNABE NERDS thinks their opinion are superior than other people so they can spit at any manga/anime which did not meet their pleasure and act like an asshole(well they are) by saying some shit for this manga.

I WANT TO BE A PIRATE KING! -Luffy, One piece

I WANT TO BE A HOKAGE! -Naruto, Naruto

I WANT TO BE A HERO LIKE ALL MIGHT! -Deku, My Hero Academia

its just the same shit, just read it and enjoy the manga if you like it, if you didnt just fuck off and leave it be,simple af. THE ANIME ELITIST WANNABE NERDS get a life and stop stay in your parent`s basement.

"Naruto rip-off." Is it really? Yes, it is. Definitely. If you only read the first chapter. I'm not going to sit and pretend that the first chapter doesn't seem very similar to Naruto.

Asta and Naruto both are reaching for the top ranking status the Wizard King and Hokage. Asta cannot use magic and Naruto sucks at using chakra. Both are hard workers and are obnoxious. Can I continue now? No, sorry, I can't. That's about all I can think of that would make this a "Naruto rip-off." Mind you, that's all stuff that is contained in Chapter 1.

I've often heard people comment that Yuno is identical to Sasuke. I honestly just have to laugh at that comment. The two are both geniuses and the main character's rivals, but other than that the similarities end. Yuno has a positive look on Asta and considers him a worthy rival. To be honest, I think Asta and Yuno's rivalry is far more unique than what we typically see in shonen.

Now does Black Clover follow a certain shonen formula? Yes, I would say so. There are definitely similarities that can be pulled from My Hero Academia and Naruto as well as other shonen. But those aren't things that typically bother me. I think Black Clover and My Hero Academia have a more fresh feel than people give them credit for.

Now I was begged to not read this series and have been told so many things about how bad it is. But you know what, I finally decided to ignore it. I wanted to see just what this series was all about. There were enough fans of the series that I figured I could get in on it to. Wow, did I love the ride.

I keep an open mind when reading manga or watching anime. The only series I'm probably biased towards is Dragon Ball. But One Piece, Code Geass, Yu Yu Hakasho, and some others were all some series I thought looked horrible but I ended up loving.

Black Clover was a great surprise for me and has risen as one of my favorite series. It hasn't passed Dragon Ball or Naruto. But I do enjoy it more than My Hero Academia and Attack on Titan. I think this series has the potential to be better than Fairy Tail too, if it isn't already.

The story of this, well, story, is good. One thing I hear said about this is that Black Clover has good pacing. Which it does. It doesn't end fights too quickly and yet, the arcs seem to flow in a quicker manner. You feel fairly satisfied after each arc I would say. The current arc is very long, but its to be expected as this is something all the other arcs have led up to. But don't fret, the series won't end for a long time.

The art is great. There are angles that I've seen this artist pull off very well that others can't do. The amount of detail is beautiful and it might be the best shonen jump detail I've seen.

The characters in this series are a big success. I was very pleased with how they were written and have enjoyed many. Usually it's a little easier for me to pinpoint a favorite character in a series, but I can't in this one. There are just too many I love.

All in all, I really enjoyed this series. I would reccomend this to any fan of Naruto, Fairy Tail, Seven Deadly Sins, or even Berserk (latter Berserk, this isn't a dark series). And if you enjoyed Black Clover yourself, you should check out those series too! (Even though I only got into the first season of Seven Deadly Sins).

Thank you for reading!

Overall Rating- 8.8/10

After having seen many comments & thoughts on this work, generally gearing towards either of the hype (due to various shounen fandom) or the fact that this manga seemed to have quote "ripped off of the idea of other manga like Naruto", I wanted to add in my comments; in terms of how this manga is presented as a whole in terms of the author's writing rhetoric.

Having read many fantasy literature novels and as well as fantasy & kingdom setting manga, there are many stories out there that are similar to one another even within the kingdom world building setup stories. So it is no surprise to find that in a work such as this there exists magicians in this world, where they are the primary source of power in this setting. So if anything, I have absolutely no qualms in that Black Clover seems to have a similar feel of story in terms of what other people have accused and claimed it to be. If anything, Black Clover could have had the exact same story as Naruto and the others, for all I care. But then that would be over stretching things and the story would essentially become a work of fan fiction. The fact is, kingdom and world building are rather hard to come up with, given the material in all of the other works people have seen. And so rather in terms of the how similar the idea of this story is, I believe that this would have a lot of potential depending on how the author decides to go on about it.

But here then on lies my main problem with this work, in that straight from the beginning the story of this manga was not executed properly. I can only mention so much without spoiling too much of the story, but here goes.

From the first chapter the main characters are introduced, readers are introduced to their disadvantaged lifestyle living in the very outskirts of the kingdom. Everything of the main characters the readers should know at this point in the game are shown, including a random "flashback" of the two's promise - the kind which I believe should have been showed at a very later point in the story, similar to Luffy's childhood past "arc" in the manga One Piece.

Afterwards things happen, and the second chapter introduces the readers of the magic knight exam. And then the third chapter shows Aster's new life in the order. I'm sorry, did I miss something here in that the author had the potential of dragging out the magic knight exam - making it into a possible "magic knight exam arc", but instead decided to short-case or summarize it all in one chapter? There was a small antagonist character introduced which I felt could have been utilized fully in each rounds of the exam; each round of the exam could have been complex & hard if the exam part of the story was properly dragged out; and heck even potential rival characters other than the antagonist and Juno could have been introduced into the story if the exam was practically made into an arc. But instead, everything about this was summarized in just 1 chapter.

So in terms of writing & rhetorics, this is one example of what I mean. And afterwards this manga follows along the same pattern with its later arcs, where given its story content so far it should already have at least 60 chapters or even more. So personally, with this work only having at around 28 chapters says something.

In summary, like I mentioned before in terms of story, this manga had so much potential in dragging out some aspects of the story, but the author essentially ruined himself and his chapters short because he did not utilize his arcs to the best of his ability. Having read Bakuman, I could not help but question what on earth the author's editor and even Jump magazine was and is still currently thinking, since they're not able to point out that some elements of the story could have been dragged out and utilized much better. They probably have at one point, but following the demographics of fans and the audience implies them from further bringing these points to the bitter end. But the hype occurring in a work which cannot execute itself properly is just a matter of my opinion, in that I cannot understand why.

In terms of my official rankings following the schema of this site, they are... (all considered individually and not on an "average" side of things with the overall ranking of score).

Story: 6 / 10
Art: 5 / 10
Character: 8 /10
Enjoyment: 2 /10
Overall: 3 / 10

But other than finding myself criticizing this work due to how badly the author AND Jump presented itself in terms of writing & story telling devices and mechanisms, I found myself quite liking the characters and wondering about the use of magic in this world. Seeing Aster's "tome" made me wonder and refer to another work of a webtoon & theorize on my own. Aster's development in the order (albeit again, rather fast), and characters of the Black Sheep's Crook I came to like - with each having problems of their own and thus needing to solve them sort of thing. Regardless, as long as the author continues to make the bad points of his storytelling very obvious and on point, my judgement on this series will continue to remain on the low side.