Black clover

Season One, Part One

released 20 august 2017 | Pg | Blu-ray & dVd (dual format)

Director tatsuya Yoshihara Cast gakuto Kajiwara, Nobunaga shimazaki, Kana Yuki, Miyu Kubota

This kids’ adventure anime is purposefully pitched at fans of Naruto. In a medieval-style world, everyone is born with some level of magic power, except, apparently, a lad called Asta. Yet Asta turns out to have inexplicable abilities to fight magic, and sets out from his village to find glory in his nation’s army. He ends up with a troop of misfits; naturally, they’ll face foes that will bring out their inner strengths.

Asta is the Gilbert Gottfried of anime. His rasping cry will have many viewers switching over to the less extreme English dub or just switching off altogether. If you can get over the aural assault, Black Clover is competent by anime standards, but these early episodes have no quirks or surprises, just a strident insistence that anyone, no matter their background, can rise to greatness.

As in other anime of its stripe, there’s lewd humour and stylised violence that you wouldn’t find in a Western kids’ cartoon, though this is a kid’s cartoon. It’s a long-haul anime; the set carries 10 episodes, of 51 made in Japan. Really, there’s not much here to suggest it’s worth staying the distance.

Extras Two commentaries; “Inside Studio J” featurette; short “Inside The Episode” pieces; trailers. Andrew Osmond