C&C - Black Clover - "Asta and Yuno" [12/2]

Kitschensyngk

The kids are all wrong
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Oh, good lord, stop screaming.

Get two wizards together and suddenly it's a Grimoire contest.

He's got a scar and he's talking in an effeminate voice. I assume he's the villain?
 

tuatara1

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Let me guess. The kid actually has some sort of anti-magic ability, like in The Familiar of Zero, A Certain Magical Index, Maken-Ki!, Gakuen Alice, and a zillion others?
 

Kitschensyngk

The kids are all wrong
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Reach deep down inside you and find it within...oh wait.

NO ONE CALLS HIM A LOSER BUT ME!!

A great man is only as good as his rival.

"Hi. Sorry I'm late. What'd I miss?"
 

animePWNS

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What a surprise, he gets one after all.

Oh, it's the Devil's book. I thought I sensed a Blue Exorcist atmosphere in this episode.

JoJo's next, which means more yelling. MANLIER yelling!
 

marklungo

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Let me guess. The kid actually has some sort of anti-magic ability, like in The Familiar of Zero, A Certain Magical Index, Maken-Ki!, Gakuen Alice, and a zillion others?

As long as we're making predictions: The setting makes a big deal out of whether you're an aristocrat or a "commoner". Asta and Yuno are orphans who grew up humbly and whose parents are presumably unknown. Wanna bet they're both descended from some form of magical royalty?
 

AnotherRandomGuy

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And so Asta went well on his to become Hoka- I mean King of the Pir- I mean the world's best hunt-I mean Rave Mast- I mean Wizard King....yeah t-the last one.
 

Peter Paltridge

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"What's your name?"
"Yuno."
"No I don't, what is your name?"
"Yuno."
"TELL ME YOUR NAME!"
"Yuno."
"WHAT IS YOUR NAAAAAME??"
"Yuno."

This scene happens eventually, right?

Also, unless I missed something, Toonami never ran a promo for this before it aired. They've promoted all their shows in the weeks prior except for this one.
 

Master Knight DH

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So that second half is blah. I may as well provide my commentary about this idiocy.

The point of interest with magic spells, at least with me, is how they provide depth to the fantasy setting and especially its action. You can do a lot of things with magic without too much explanation to the mechanics beyond A Wizard Did It. Granted, if you want a halfway serious story, some logic can still help. Nevertheless, magic does add a potential for creativity if it's not reduce to firing spell balls that deal high damage.

Where does this leave Black Clover, though? Well, how about we talk about the damned loudmouth we call our protagonist. He managed to be obnoxious so fast my head is still spinning from the shock. I'm like...why? Oh, but wait, it gets better. Turns out in a world where everybody has magic, the protagonist has none. It's so blatant that it would be completely predictable if he got Anti Magic like @tuatara1 is guessing.

Oh, and yes, he gets Anti Magic. I looked through spoilers to find this out.

The underlying problem here? It's that by all indications we have yet another protagonist be a freaking meathead when we're supposed to see some damn intelligence. I've already vented about this sort of issue with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It's even worse here because it means if the protagonist gets Anti Magic, it will just become about the protagonist cutting through magic rather than simply outmaneuvering it. I'm like....*WHY?*

I'm wanting to make my own game with a story where all characters can use magic to varying degrees of efficiency, but the difference is, the protagonist there actually will be a Squishy Wizard, and charge-in attacks would be *WAY* more reliant on risk-reward assessment complimenting raw power stats even if they'd still be treated as perfectly valid to encourage bravery. That would definitely be more interesting when the main character still has to actually think to outmaneuver his enemies and it won't from the villains being OP beyond belief--although I will have certain villains, especially the Big Bad who BTW will prove to be a Complete Monster, be OP beyond belief. It would be because the main character would have to overcome or especially master his own weaknesses. Compare to this Asta guy who BTW doesn't even try to show some GD class or courtesy.

It's not even just Asta's behavior that is teeth-gnashing either, oh no. How about the aristocratic behavior from the other characters. As a gamer who recognizes that being a gamer is not an Omniscient Morality License, that DEEPLY offends me, that this show would think that somebody like yours truly would just look down on less intelligent people, never mind that I recognize that sagacity isn't everything just because I have no shortage of it. Heck, I did the YKTTW for Savvy Guy Energetic Girl for a reason.

Oh but wait, I just mentioned my annoyance with meatheads, so I'm being hypocritical. Well, what makes me annoyed with them is when they drag standards down. I will agree that yes, a certain villain contrasted with meatheads who will show up in later episodes of a certain other show currently on Toonami easily hits the exact opposite extreme--I'll let you guess who the villain is--but my point is that the problem lies in the Unfortunate Implications. Seriously, the Brawn Good Brains Bad trope needs to DIE. It shouldn't be killed in a manner that just causes the exact opposite extreme without remembering that intelligence is practically a dark power unto itself, when points like manipulation exist, but it's annoying when people get told to be brain-dead idiots in order to get ahead in life. What's also annoying is when these people who are ahead in life just decide to be sadists or whatnot.

You can also point out that what I complained about with a spazz client IRL also screams double standards. Thing is, I actually have held another reason to have anger toward the client himself, though it's one that believe me is equally stupid to his having low intelligence if not outright even worse but it is what it is. It doesn't change that there's a reason I took annoyance with the workplace willing to be not so proactive about making sure he doesn't get run over on a nearby country street. Ironically, that reason I allude to would have been MORE due cause for the damn place to not treat me like an idiot for how I felt about it, and I'd be far from surprised if they had been aware of the underlying cause in the first place. (If you want to know, I'll have to trust you.) At this point, I don't even know how to feel that I'm no longer dealing with the place in question. All the same, yeah holding a grudge happens, have I got stories to tell about the Advance Wars subreddit, but there's still an ideal to rise to, plus the place's mere purpose would be indicative enough of providing the point of bothering with the likes of the spazz client to begin with. Why should being astute and having faith in something that'd be welcome even when it becomes confusing enough be treated as mutually exclusive?

Really, Japan, why do you keep throwing about Idiot Hero? Even when it makes no sense at that, no less. Like, oh right, Black Clover. And by the way, may I point out that intelligence standards getting dragged down affects game balance, which has taken God knows how long to evolve to begin with, and the evolution process is STILL stagnant enough. People barely consider flanking maneuvers in *STRATEGY* games. The concept had eluded myself for too long. But oh right, ridiculous physical ability is better anyway, better nerf Greninja. ...wow, what a surprise that that meme, one that was spawned by a glitch being patched out, sounds stupid here too. It showcases, though, that the people who think Good Is Dumb don't even realize that intelligence is simply a tool, one that can be honed at that and especially one that can be used for better purposes. It's definitely like a body built for things like martial arts in that regard.

Really, we should see more Good Is Not Dumb, and less trampling over potential concepts like they're just cheap ways to make quick money.

(PHEW! Finally finished writing this.)
 

Radical

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Episode 1 was pretty sweet, Black Clover my favorite awesome new interesting anime,

The protagonists Asta/Yuno are orphans to be raised at a church was sweet, the priest the best stepfather.

Asta/Yuno, great new protagonists, I find Asta's loud obnoxious nature like Yuma(Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal)/Naruto/Eren's so funny to me, hehehe:p, and Yuno my favorite arrogant brat rival which he has the Vegeta/Gary Oak/Seto Kaiba/Sasuke/Viral vibe.

Sorry Asta, you're too young for the great cute nun Sister Lily, hehehe.

The whole setting in a world where everyone has the ability to perform magic or a Magicial Power was sweet/interesting, much like Negima!, A Certain Magical Index, and Maken-Ki! for example, I hope New Revived Toonami shows them in the future:D.

Poor Asta a newbie/amateur who's inexperienced while Yuno a strong experienced magic user who controls it, but Asta's goal to want to be the Wizard King was sweet, nice seeing a protagonist to have a goal like Ash, Yugi, Luffy, and Naruto for example.

Asta/Yuno are granted with the ability to become wizards called Magic Knights was great, poor Asta to not receive the grimoire while Yuno gets it.

Seeing those annoying background bullies get crushed was satisfying though.

The mysterious thief, my favorite great new horrible villain with a Yami Bakura/Orochimaru/Hisoka vibe which he'll be the Big Bad of the series, a one-dimensional murderous psychotic monster.

Yuno's heart of gold on wanting to save Asta was sweet.

Asta summoning his own grimoire containing a rare and mysterious Anti-Magic was cool/interesting, he'll get stronger, great cliffhanger.
 
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Scrappy-Fan92

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I'll be frank: Asta's kind of amusing. I prefer his English voice to the Japanese voice so that probably helps. Asta's obnoxious, but his adoptive family isn't exactly the most supportive (on a sidenote, that little kid's voice is too deep for his age). The show seems a little stock at this point, but I'll take familiar but competent over unfamiliar and terrible.
 

AnotherRandomGuy

The cat came back, he just couldn't stay away
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I mostly agree.

Asta's English voice might be better than his Japanese voice, but that doesn't make it good. The voice direction for both are baffling; it's like they wanted to parody shounen MCs without actually doing that. The world itself isn't the most engaging either, but that can grow in time.

To be fair, this is another series that....the manga does it better, like a certain other series that aired on Toonami a few months ago. And while I'm not that far in the manga, I can see what it was trying to do and it did want to play around with your typical shounen tropes. The manga does it well enough, the anime well...I hope it gets better as time moves on.
 

zoombie

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Okay I asked this before no answered me, I will ask you, will this effect the Funimation streaming of the dub. Is that going to go on hiatus until Toonami will catch up and maybe get a couple of episodes ahead. that would make sense.
 

PicardMan

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This first episode had zero creativity. Do we have our most paint-by-numbers show ever? I hear a few people defending the show based on execution, but nothing was executed that well to start off with.
 

PapaGreg

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You know while people say MHA borrows a lot from Naruto and I sort of understand where they are coming from at least they switch around the luck/Hard work dichotomy between the calm black haireded kid and the loud bright haired one
 

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