5 Point Discussions – Black Clover 40: “A Black Beach Story”

The Black Bulls go on vacation! …Or a mission. Or both? Will the beach be able to survive? Remember, if you like this article and 5 Point Discussions, please share it on Facebook or Twitter! It really helps. And if you’ve got any comments or questions, please hit me up @SageShinigami.

1. As predicted, with eleven episodes left we’ve plunged right back into filler territory. It’s still logical–the manga sees Noelle complaining about how much work it took to find a swimsuit, but bleargh. I understand the logic behind it–without a continuation this series will only have time to get through this arc, and without stretching things out they’ll have too many extra episodes left at the end of things. So we waste time watching Noelle fumble about trying to find a swimsuit, Yuno and his squad from Golden Dawn show up, and there’s a lot of wasted time at the beach.
Of course, I’m saying this now and of course in a couple weeks they’ll just confirm this series will be continued indefinitely a la Boruto and One Piece.

2. If I’m not mistaken, this is the first time we’ve actually seen Grey use their powers! All this time they’ve been going around as this giant behemoth but we haven’t seen them do anything. Turns out, their ability is to transform into other people! And despite being fairly unsociable in their standard form, they fit into the Black Bulls pretty well when they’re turning into Finral to go chat up girls or mocking Asta for being so absurdly muscular. It’s not really clear if they take on the personality of whoever they’re imitating, or if that’s just how Grey is when they aren’t in that huge behemoth form, but it’s nice to see their character actually get some development time instead of being in the background for the usual Black Bull one-liner gags.

3. And here we have another appearance of our beleaguered Sekke, master of the secret art of Bah-ha. I’d complain about filler, but this is actually a legitimate part of the manga–Yuki Tabata really didn’t want you to forget about this loser. He’s made a few friends in his time as a Magic Knight now, and apparently they’re about as skilled with the ladies as he is, because they have the bad sense to approach Noelle and Vanessa…which goes about as well as expected. Noelle calls them some form of insect, and Vanessa ignores them to continue getting sauced.
Y’know all jokes aside, Vanessa really makes being a Magic Knight seem like an awesome job. She does the occasional mission then comes back to the house to lie around in her underwear and get drunk all day–I’m legitimately not seeing a downside. Maybe Asta should learn some lessons from her.

4. This show’s been giving Noelle the short end of the stick for awhile now, but that’s about to change going forward. Yami comes back from gathering intel and after knocking around the whole team for goofing off, points out the magic stone they’re looking for is apparently underwater and the waves only weaken enough to try and reach it during a full moon.  The only way they’ll be able to survive is if Noelle can create a barrier large enough for them to travel down there.  Of course, Noelle is pretty crap with controlling her powers, so it’s on her to train and figure out how to avoid getting the entire team killed.
This is the start of Noelle being expected to pull her weight more and more, and one of the only sad things about Black Clover coming to an end is we don’t get to see her develop. Well, that and the introduction of the most awesome character in the show.

5. Next Episode: Even though the end of this episode seemed like we should be getting this show on the road story-wise, it looks like we’re back to more beach shenanigans for the most part next episode. I’d be lying if I said I was looking forward to this show spinning its wheels for another ten weeks, but that’s where we’re headed, aren’t we?
Black Clover is available for streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu.