Black Clover

Episode 130

After three highly consequential episodes in a row, Black Clover looks like it remembered that it was a standard shonen action series and so decided that it had to piddle around this episode to make up for it. The result is an episode which has a couple of important and necessary scenes but mostly just feels like it's killing time to make sure that it doesn't move along too fast.

A big part of the reason why the episode doesn't accomplish much is because the captains' meeting is used primarily to recap things that have already been revealed rather than provides any insights into future strategy. Granted, this is what should happen in a real-life situation, but commonly anime (and other media types) gloss over scenes like this instead of going into as much detail as they do here. And given that all of the Captains were either possessed by elves or on the front lines against the elves, it's not like a single one of them wasn't going to take the threat posed by another demon with the utmost seriousness. At least the scene did fulfill the reason why it had to happen anyway: to give most of the captains who got possessed the chance to officially express their doubts about their continued worthiness to lead and have Julius insist that he still needs them anyway. That William was also not wearing his mask in a meeting for the first time is also significant and shows how that incident has changed him. The meeting also added a bonus element by clearing up the fate of Gueldre, the former Purple Orcas captain: he's going to have to work for his penance to help finance the rebuilding of the kingdom. (He's so far in the background that the series wouldn't have been hurting for not dealing with him, but it does at least tie up one loose end.)

The nearly half of the episode prior to that point was even less consequential. The public address does clear up how the whole matter is being presented to the public and how public perception of the Black Bulls hasn't changed, but the only significant detail here is that Julius being de-aged is being kept a secret; he uses a stand-in to fool the public and even the king isn't aware of it. (Seems improbable that Julius is going to be able to maintain that deception for long, but whatever.) The scene is otherwise just reminding us how little-respected the king is, and this combined with the meeting scene remind us just how earthy Yami and Jack are compared to the captains from more noble bearing. Of course, the entirety of their presences is a constant reminder of that. . .

For as lackluster as the episode was, the only thing I was pointedly disappointed about is that Nozel didn't have more of a reaction when the name Megicula came up. But I guess they had already been briefed about that? Either way, next episode looks like an overdue return to Hague Village, which means that it probably won't accomplish much, either. I fear we are in for several episodes of lesser storytelling before things get back to meatier content.

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Black Clover is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.