So I think I might be getting to a moment when I need to step away from the action-adventure manga. I spent most of volume 26 of Black Clover being annoyed at how cliched everything seemed. Basically the whole storyline for the whole volume was people yelling cliches like “We are absolutely going to win for the sake of our truly kind friend!” and “Unless you take me down, they’ll keep right on coming back! Are you into this now, {character name}?” “You are absolutely….GOING DOWN!” or fighting continuously while making occasionally remarks about how they feel things area going to the opponent, and a few ‘surprise’ power-ups that are supposed to be surprises to everyone. Why do the women always end up basically fighting in their bras and otherwise scanty outfits? I’ve never understood this on the practical side; I know art/story-wise it’s sex appeal, but it’s still stupid. And naturally since the series is certainly still ongoing, the cliffhanger at the end that suggests trouble for the heroes, now beset by injuries and losses, except that maybe there is hope because of a mysterious new arrival?
Thankfully volume 27 made up for the total lack of interesting; the new mysterious arrival turns out to be at least a little interesting, especially since he does not like Yami, the Black Bull captain in spite of being a high-ranking member of the same squad himself. Thanks to Nacht (new guy), we get more information about the devils and how Asta’s power actually works; there’s also some sentimental backstory involving Asta’s devil connection, but this actually works since it doesn’t really focus on Asta, rather the devil involved, and the devil finally gets a name and some personality. It turns out Liebe is pretty astute where Asta is concerned, noting at one point “When he gets like this about ten percent of the time, his idea is sheer genius. {two panels later the thought concludes} The other 90 percent of the time, it’s crap.” Of course they don’t have time to fully figure out how to work together with a new connection Nacht teaches them, because major disaster/fight is upon them, but to be continued…
The addition of both Nacht and Liebe and some potential for some actual development of their characters and contributions to the plot, things might be a little more interesting for a while. Asta will likely never develop, and this is another of the stupid tropes that tells me that maybe I might need a little break from this genre for a while, so it’s not too annoying when I decide I want to see how things turn out.
