YMMV / Black Clover

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The following have their own pages:

• Complete Monster
• Memetic Mutation
• The Woobie

Other examples:

A-D

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • A clip on Crunchyroll's YouTube channel is titled "Noelle Gives Asta a Ride!"
  • Chapter 297, after Noelle defeats Vanica, the latter comments on how "Amazing" their fight was, with a very suggestive tone. Vanica herself looking as if she just had an orgasm. Whether intentional, given the latter's personality, or not is unknown.
• Adorkable:
  • Yuno, moreso in the anime. While he initially seems aloof and distant, it's soon shown that he's actually just extremely reserved and uncommunicative with everyone who isn't Asta, to the point of sometimes turning his head away when asked a question he doesn't want to answer like a sulking child.
  • Charlotte is usually a dignified Magic Knight with an elegant air, but easily gets flustered around Yami, who she is in love with.
  • Rill is the youngest of the captains and the most energetic and cheerful. During a meeting with his fellow captains, he desperately tries to lighten up the mood, each time failing.
  • Noelle can be quite cute when she gets shy about being alone with Asta, denying her feelings for him or becoming very flustered.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Not a character, but the plot structure itself: Some reviewers believe that the unhinged use of shonen clichés is actually a way that Yūki Tabata deliberately uses to breeze through plot points quickly and get into the fight scenes that are the best regarded parts of the manga. After all, if all characters basically amount to shonen archetypes and tropes that a shonen reader has already seen before, then he has to spend no time explaining it, assume the reader already understands and dash towards the good stuff.
  • Dazu, one of the main antagonists of the anime-only Devil Banishers Arc. She always had little mana, and that only worked by amplifying other people's magic. Dazu constantly talks about how her husband and mother-in-law put up a front that they love her, but she knew they secretly despised her for her pitiful magic, culminating in a scene where both of them are trapped in rubble during the attack by the elves and the husband yells at Dazu to help them, growling at her while calling her names. However, given how both the husband and mother-in-law are dead in the present, nobody corroborates Dazu, and that the straw breaker moment happens in a flashback, it's very easy to interpret that both of them were indeed as kind and loving as they appeared, and that Dazu's own self-loathing over her miniscule amount of mana made her imagine the scene in question. It doesn't help that she contradicts herself by saying that the two of them never insulted her directly to her face.

• Americans Hate Tingle: In Japan, Gauche is a popular character. He ranked 8th and 10th place in the second and third popularity polls, beating out fan favorites like Zora and Finral. However, he is disliked by many fans in the West because of his creepy obsession with his younger sister and generally being an unlikable, aggressive jerkass who takes out his belligerence on friends, nuns, civilians, and even people like Neige who got injured trying to rescue his sister whenever Marie is in peril.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Dante was introduced as one of the strongest villains in the story so far, implied to be the Arch-Enemy of Asta, and though he narrowly loses to him and Yami during the Heart Kingdom Joint Struggle Arc — the only one of the Dark Triad to do so — it's still a pitched battle where two of our strongest heroes barely eke out a win against his supreme power. Then we get to the rematch in the Qliphoth — and he gets beaten down in three chapters thanks to Magna's new spell. Turns out his real purpose was to show off how strong the supporting characters are after their Training from Hell.
  • His sister, Vanica, ends up the same way — ridiculously strong, has a personal connection to main character Noelle, actually wins her first fight with Noelle quite easily and is ready for more — only to lose in seconds in the rematch, and be quickly replaced with Megicula, her demon partner and the one who cursed Noelle's family, making Megicula the actual Arch-Enemy while Vanica was just the Disk-One Final Boss.
  • Finally, there's Morris Libardirt, who takes over the Big Bad role once the Dark Trio are defeated — only to get crushed by the remaining members of the Black Bulls in a fight that's so short, it barely qualifies as such.
• Arc Fatigue: For some, the Elf Reincarnation Arc. Before it, the longest arc in the manga was the Forest of Witches Arc, which lasted 28 chapters. The Elf Reincarnation Arc lasted 82 chapters. This is, however, somewhat downplayed, as many really like the arc, as it concludes the Eye of the Midnight Sun/elves plot that began in the first year of the manga and provides most of the large cast a few moments to shine.
• Ass Pull:
  • In the manga, Fanzell, Dominante, and Mariella suddenly showing up during the Forest of Witches Arc as friends of Asta can come off looking like this since the event where he first met them occurs in the light novel Stubborn Bull Book (which hasn't even been released outside of Japan). Because of this, it makes it seem like Tabata is saying that as long as you read the light novel, there's no need to explain where these characters came from. The anime dedicates two episodes to introducing the characters via a flashback, which reduces the confusion.
  • Chapter 171, everybody is excited to see Fuegoleon recovered after spending a long time in coma. Not everybody is excited to see him somehow obtaining Salamander immediately after waking.
• Award Snub:
  • Many fans were upset that Asta and Yuno vs. Licht wasn't nominated for Best Fight Scene in Crunchyroll's 2020 Anime Awards.
  • Fans were also angry that Opening 10, "Black Catcher", one of the most critically-acclaimed anime openings of the year, wasn't even nominated for Best Opening in Crunchyroll's 2021 Anime Awards.
• Awesome Art:
  • Tabata's art is outstanding. A good example is Chapter 191, which features a double page spread of Rill's Picture Magic, with a chaotic placements of live paintings exuding fear towards his opponents.
  • Black Clover's great art is showcased heavily in Chapter 302, which shows Luck and Gaja clearing the way through Megicula's controlled corpses with their lightning attacks and runes in a gorgeous double page spread◊.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Asta, thanks mostly to the anime. As mentioned throughout this page, his loud screaming can get annoying. As such, it's mocked in the anime community. Another problem people have with him is that his generic shonen hero traits are turned up to eleven, to the point of being more annoying than endearing. While many fans and detractors hate him for these aspects, some don't mind and say he's not that bad, given that readers are fine with his personality in the manga. In fact, with the exception of the first two Viz polls where he came second, he has come in first on all the official Black Clover polls so far, a rare feat for a protagonist.
  • Noelle. Thanks to the anime's slow pacing and overplaying her Tsundere moments, detractors dislike her for being another Damsel in Distress. Her fans counter that due to her receiving similar amounts of character development, relevance, and being able to show off her battle prowess as Asta, she is considered to be one of the best female characters in shonen history. It's worth nothing she ranked third in the first and third character poll ahead of any other female character as well as ahead of Yuno, so this division is either limited to the anime or has lessened as the series has gone on. Come the fifth poll she finished 1st place, dethroning Asta by a shocking 12,000 votes.
  • Yuno. Fans like him for his cool demeanor and being a shōnen rival who genuinely cares for and has a close friendship with Asta. Detractors think that he's a boring character with a bland personality who's underdeveloped despite being billed as one of the main characters. He still manages to rank high in popularity polls, taking 4th in the third behind Asta and Noelle.
• Broken Base:
  • The Character Development, or lack thereof, of several members of the Black Bulls. Either it's well executed and helps to flesh the Bulls out as rounded characters, or mishandled attempts at giving initially any Flat Character some degree of Hidden Depths. It doesn't help that the characters in question seem to develop directly as a result of Asta's attempt at a Rousing Speech, which can come across as a case of Swiper, No Swiping!, instead of them following through a natural character arc.
  • Are Asta and Yuno a painfully generic Stock Shōnen Hero and Rival cashing in on the popularity of Naruto and Sasuke, or are they Naruto and Sasuke done right? Both are very popular opinions regarding the series' core rivalry.
  • The animation of Episode 63. After Boruto's now-famous Episode 65, the director of Black Clover set out to create something comparable and the result is likely the single most divisive episode of the whole series, akin to Fate/Apocrypha's Episode 22 or the Pain fight from Naruto Shippuden. The episode looks absolutely nothing like anything in the previous 62 episodes, and many parts of the episode itself look nothing like other parts of it. Some were more than fine with this, as it allowed Asta and Ladros to fight on a scale not seen in the series previously, while many, inevitably, hated the shift in style.
  • Julius's resurrection as a thirteen-year-old. One group of fans feel that it was well foreshadowed and still had its consequences in-story by depriving him of his over-powered magic. The other group feels that it diminished the emotional impact of his death and was a cop-out to absolve Vangeance and Patry of any guilt for their actions. Complaints about this plot point lessened significantly after it was revealed that Julius's true soul is Lucius Zogratis with a reveal that followed up on loads of Foreshadowing throughout the story.
  • The fans are also split on whether Tabata is too reluctant in general to kill major characters. The arguments came to a head after Chapter 304, when Gaja, after having a hole blown in his chest and used up all of his life force for a sacrificial spell in previous chapters, is healed by Mimosa without any apparent effort or consequences. Whether all major characters really are guaranteed to survive and whether a story needs the deaths of major characters to establish the stakes of a war are the main points of dispute.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: William Vangeance looks and acts so similar to Licht that it came as a surprise to no one when they're revealed to be together.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • The fates of Rades, Valtos, and Sally. Patry reveals that he has never thought of them as his friends and that they were instead made sacrifices for the elf reincarnation. Seeing the Eye of the Midnight Sun members finally get their comeuppance was gladdening to some fans. Of course, those same fans likely weren't happy when they came Back from the Dead.
  • Noelle defeating Solid is greatly cathartic considering how horribly she had been treated by her siblings.
• Cliché Storm: The similarities between Black Clover and other big shonen series have not gone unnoticed. Asta being the hyperactive shonen protagonist seeking to become the strongest, alongside his more serious and talented rival Yuno, are frequently dubbed copies of Naruto and Sasuke. The Black Bulls, the general setup of the magic system, and the Magic Knights gets the story called a Fairy Tail copy. Asta lacking conventional powers, but then being granted an unusual one has been compared to Izuku Midoriya's origins in its contemporary rival My Hero Academia. The overall tone of the manga has even seen it called "the new Bleach".
• Crack Pairing: Despite them never having interacted and being of different species, Liebe x Nero has become a popular ship amongst the fandom because of their shared dark aesthetic and them both being Asta's loyal companion with a cuter form that rests on his shoulder.
• Creator Worship: Interesting not with author Yuki Tabata, but anime director Tatsuya Yoshihara. Fans adore him, due to him being the one who almost singlehandedly allowed the anime to properly recover its production and improve in quality. That he himself is a highly-gifted animator who has contributed a significant number of the show's best-animated sequences certainly doesn't hurt.
• Creepy Awesome:
  • Zagred, a.k.a. the Word Devil. There's his unsettling, creepy design and uttering of Black Speech to summon eldritch monsters from the underworld, making him a powerful foe fitting for the climactic villain of the elf saga and the introduction of devils as antagonists to the story.
  • Zenon. He's cold, merciless, and his magic has him sprout sharp bones from his body to impale enemies. He's liked by many fans for being a no-nonsense, threatening villain.
• Critical Dissonance: The series performs very well in popularity polls in Weekly Shōnen Jump, both the Japanese and English versions, but gets mediocre to negative reviews overall, so much so that it was even deemed the worst manga of 2016 by a panel at San Diego Comic-Con. Most likely, the reason for this is because it's highly formulaic and derivative, resulting in a boring read for those who have already read a lot of manga, but an exciting story for beginners who aren't familiar with the shonen series Black Clover is imitating. This sentiment has lessened as the series goes on, but the series is still unfavorably compared to more critically acclaimed, popular, and well-regarded contemporaries (My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Dr. STONE).
• Draco in Leather Pants: Vanica is a beautiful woman who wears an eyepatch and miniskirt and has enthusiastic expressions, often sticking her tongue out. She's also a psychopath who orders her underlings to attack villagers to rile up enemies then kills them for fun, and curses opponents to death all so she can have a good fight. It's also revealed that she was the one responsible for fatally cursing Noelle's mother, Acier. None of this stopped her from getting dedicated fans of her own.

E-H

• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Vermillion family, as a whole, gathered a strong fandom due to being among the few genuinely nice and cool nobles of the Clover Kingdom, and being cool badasses as well as direct foils to the Hate Sink Silva family, though Nozel was later Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
    • Fuegoleon is a Cool Big Bro and a direct Foil to the Silva older brother Nozel, with whom he is also popularly shipped among the fangirls.
    • Leopold is considered a more interesting rival to Asta than Yuno by some, seeing as their rivalry feels more intense and interesting.
    • Mereoleona's absolute badassness capable of putting fear in the hearts of some of the most powerful characters so far (other captains are implied to fear her) as well as her rather fanservice-y clothes earned her a lot of fans. She got 7th in the second popularity poll, and this was voted on before she fought Rhya.
  • Finral went from being considered almost a background character by the readers to being a fan favorite after the events of Volume 14 due to his growth as a person and reveal of his full backstory that detailed how he came to be the ineffective womanizing coward he is at the beginning of the series.
  • Zora quickly became loved due to his dark design and Ambiguously Evil vibe. He got even more love once it was revealed he was on the side of good and was a Vigilante Man who was also part of the Black Bulls. He became even popular thanks to his voice actors, Hikaru Midorikawa and Johnny Yong Bosch.
  • Gordon became a favorite for anime watchers, mainly because of how lonely, sad, and sometimes creepy he appears. The anime still gives him a lot more screentime, even if it, in the end, is not important to the plot.
  • Charlotte became liked by many fans due to her being a dignified female captain and love for Yami that turns her into a nervous Tsundere. She became more popular after she tried to confess to him, so much that in the fourth popularity poll she ranked 3rd, even beating Noelle and Yuno.
  • Despite her relatively small screen time, Dorothy has gotten a lot of love for her cheerful, energetic personality once she had finally awoken along with having very powerful Dream Magic. The anime-only events of Episode 151, which showcased her magic and had her awake, further endeared her to many.
• Epileptic Trees: Due to the events of Chapter 148, there are a lot of discussions just by explaining the facts of on the chapter and the theories that would shape the series itself.
• Estrogen Brigade: Yuno and Yami have strong female fanbases due to their looks, with Yuno being a Bishōnen and Yami a hunk, on top of their important roles in the story. And many female fans became enamored with Nacht shortly after his introduction. While much of it is due to Nacht's very positive reception as a character, a lot is also because of his more delicate good looks with his slim build, androgynous face, long black hair, and pale blue eyes. Chapter 326's color spread had female fans happy to say the least.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Zenon has gotten this after his design was revealed and he was shown to be a ruthless, pragmatic villain, with his introduction having him curb-stomp an entire Diamond Kingdom army. In his next appearance, he easily defeats Yuno, captures Vangeance, and massacres the Golden Dawn, cementing him as this for many fans. Later, his implied-to-be-more-powerful older brother Dante's arrogance gets him defeated at the hands of Yami and Asta...and Zenon once again shows ruthless pragmatism by teleporting in to rescue Dante and capture Yami when the exhausted heroes were celebrating their win. Zenon isn't as much of a Blood Knight like his siblings, he just gets the job done. His popularity amongst fans increased more with the reveal of his 100% devil power form◊, regarded as one of the best designs in the series, and his backstory in Chapter 306, which many fans loved for portraying him as a more nuanced, tragic villain and dark counterpart to Yuno.
  • Lucius Zogratis gets this hard after The Reveal. He's the true soul of Julius and a total Chessmaster whose ulterior motives as Julius are revealed to have influenced so much of the plot. His entrance has him hijack Julius's body, reveal he was working with Adrammelech to have the heroes kill Lucifero themselves, saving him all the dirty work, and steal Lucifero's heart, and subtly controlled time throughout the raid to achieve his endgame. When he finally appears, he ages up from Julius's child form with his hair now black, incapacitates Damnatio, shows his gorgeous, detailed Spade grimoire design, and states the "The time has come", cementing him as the Big Bad and villain of the final arc.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Don't call the series a rip-off of Naruto unless you want to face the anger of Black Clover fans. Tabata has stated that his inspirations are, in fact, Berserk, Bleach, and The Lord of the Rings. A picture of his own manga collection◊ doesn't even show Naruto but many other shōnen manga.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • With My Hero Academia as they are the two "post-Naruto" spearhead series in the action shonen genre that have a similar premise of an Un-Sorcerer protagonist getting a special ability, with debates often surrounding which manga handles the concept better and whether Deku or Asta is the superior protagonist. While Black Clover is criticized for its use of clichés, fans of this series claim that My Hero Academia isn't exactly spotless with its originality either or that originality doesn't always make something inherently better and vice-versa. It doesn't help that the two series are both often compared to two of the prior "Big Three", as due to their styles and themes, My Hero Academia is seen by many as Naruto's spiritual successor, while Black Clover is often referred to as "The new Bleach". Ironically enough, the creators are friends.
  • With Boruto. They used to be friendly. They both began to air around the same time, are produced by the same studios, both are heavily promoted as flagship series by Crunchyroll, as well as a shared Fandom Rivalry with My Hero Academia. However, as time has gone on, Black Clover fans have grown dissatisfied with the favoritism Boruto is shown by Studio Pierrot, as it is more financially successful for them than Black Clover. This led to a souring of relations, though not to the same degree as the aforementioned MHA.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Dark Lord Sekke" due to fans joking that he's actually the strongest character and the true villain of the story.
  • "Chadsta" for Asta, in reference to him being a "Chad" thanks to being ripped, strong, and having beautiful girls who are romantically interested in him.
  • The main trio has come to be referred to as the "Light Triad" by some fans, due to each of them being an Arch-Enemy and Good Counterpart to a member of the Dark Triad.
  • Due to having No Name Given until Chapter 268, Liebe was referred to as the "Anti-Magic Devil" (AMD) and "Asta's Devil".
  • "Absta" in reference to Asta's very muscular body.
  • Since manifesting her elegant Valkyrie Armor, combined with her royal status, Noelle has become known as "Water Princess" by fans.
  • For being a beloved character for her cute appearance (as a bird and beautiful young woman), quiet yet kind and loyal nature, and important role in the Elf Reincarnation Arc, many refer to Secre/Nero as "Best Birb".^note A combination of "best girl", a term for an anime female character who's deemed as the 'best', and "birb", internet slang for "bird".
  • Thanks to being a hunky Mr. Fanservice, Yami is often called "Yummy".
  • "G Trio" is generally used for Gauche, Grey and Gordon after they formed an Odd Friendship.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Although Finral is in love with Finnes, whose betrothal to Langris led him to become a hedonistic womanizer, and becomes engaged to her again after the time skip, many fans prefer Finral/Vanessa because of their cute Ship Tease moments and how they worked well together during the Underwater Temple and Forest of Witches Arcs.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Bleach. Tabata has stated that Bleach was an inspiration of the series, and has a similar premise of Magic Knights and Soul Reapers being in squads that serve their respective countries. After Bleach had ended, many of its fans went on to watch/read Black Clover as a new action shōnen.
  • Fans of Fairy Tail became attracted to Black Clover after Fairy Tail had ended, with the series rising in popularity around the same time. Both take place in a world of magic and have a colorful cast, with the core characters comprised of a group of quirky mages. As a result, the Black Clover fandom has also become friendly with the fandom of EDENS ZERO, who are mostly previous readers of Fairy Tail who have gone on to read Hiro Mashima's new series.
  • The fandom became friendly with MOA, the fan club of TXT after it was revealed that the boy-band would sing the thirteenth OP "Everlasting Shine". As a result, many MOA fans began watching Black Clover, with many Black Clover fans likewise listening to TXT's other music.
  • With Blue Exorcist. Both Asta and Rin are energetic, shunned by society, with powers that makes them dangerous to their respective societies. The two series also have a focus on demonology and magic. Asta's relationship with Yuno, his best friend and foster brother, shares similarities with the relationship of brothers Rin and Yukio.
  • Radiant shares many of its fans with Black Clover. Both stories have energetic, friendly main characters with special powers who start off at the bottom as they try to achieve their dreams. The series take place in worlds of magic and have much more fleshed out female characters than many of their shonen contemporaries. It helps that both are popular in France, Radiant's country of origin.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The Golden Dawn squad is almost certainly named after the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the occult society to which Aleister Crowley belonged.
  • The series as a whole is greatly influenced by various European mythologies and occult demonology, with readers well-versed in myths able to notice many different references throughout the story.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Zora places much higher in popularity polls by American readers who like him for his backstory, moral beliefs, development during the Royal Knights Arc, and ties to the story's themes, with many Western fans regarding him as one of the best-written characters in the series.
• Growing the Beard: So much so that the anime's rating has one of the greatest increases in the history of My Anime List, going from a 6.52 score to a much more respectable 8.00:
  • Many fans agree that the series' weakest point is the beginning, which is often criticized for mostly being a pretty generic shonen fare, and that it starts to get better around the Dungeon Exploration Arc and really becomes more enjoyable around the Eye of the Midnight Sun Encounter Arc, in which Licht and Yami are finally shown off. Additionally, it is around this time that the series started to involve using combinations of magic from different characters which adds an unique and excitable layer to the fights.
  • The series' art has always been pretty decent, but as things get more serious and the sense of scale ramps up, so too does the scale of the art. Some of the later fights have downright gorgeous panel layouts and compositions, to say nothing of Tabata's detailed lineart.
  • It's pretty much a universal agreement that the anime got off to a very rough start when it adapted the early Story Arcs, which suffered greatly from Slow-Paced Beginning and mediocre to bad animation apart from a few standout moments. Not to mention, Gakuto Kajiwara as Asta was painful to listen to early on due to him going with a high-screeching voice whenever he was required to yell. As the adaptation went on, however, things started to settle in around the Underwater Temple Arc, which it became clear by this point that the pacing and animation was getting better, and Kajiwara had gotten used to voice acting to the point of dropping his Asta voice down a notch to a more acceptable level that isn't hurtful on the ears.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Charmy develops a crush on Yuno, referring to him as her "meal-saving prince". He's revealed to be the true prince of the Spade Kingdom, whose citizens are living in poverty.
  • Rhya's flirtatious tendencies aren't as charming when his original Japanese voice actor, Hirofumi Arai, who he was based off of, was arrested and later imprisoned for sexual assault.
  • The Magic Knights deriding King Augustus Kira by claiming the current Wizard King, Julius is far suited to be the true King becomes this when it's revealed a much worse person than the King is behind the wheels all this time and is a worldwide threat who seeks to eradicate all of humanity and remake them into angelic superhumans.
  • The trailer for Sword of the Wizard King features multiple former Wizard Kings of old being brought Back from the Dead. Lucius, who shares a soul with the current Wizard King, is also bringing past Magic Knight paragons, such as Morgen Faust and Acier Silva, back from the dead as Paladins, who proceed to attack the Clover Kingdom directly.
  • From what little we've seen of Acier Silva's character, she's definitely shown to be protective and caring towards her children; it's best exemplified in the Spade Kingdom Arc, where she fights Vanica to a standstill in a flashback, and comforts and thanks Nozel and Noelle after her soul is freed upon Megicula's death. This becomes extremely harrowing to look back on come the final arc, where she's resurrected and brainwashed by Lucius to grant her children happiness...by killing them and resurrecting them into angelic immortals and personally delivers a lethal blow to Nozel. To rub further salt in the wound, the chapter in which she does so was released a week after Mother's Day.
• He Really Can Act: Asta's screaming in the first few episodes of the Japanese version became infamous, so much so that there are countless meme videos about it. However, as the series went on, the performance of his voice actor, Gakuto Kajiwara, would improve to the point where many of his detractors have ended up praising him.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Dallas Reid and Jill Harris, Asta and Noelle's respective English voice actors, announced their engagement in April 2019.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • When it's revealed that Nero is actually a human named Secre Swallowtail, her exasperated expressions as a bird around the Black Bulls, especially Noelle regarding her feelings for Asta, become much more hilarious.
  • Prominent Anime YouTuber Nux Taku has talked about Black Clover. Chapter 267 showed the appearance of the Anti-Magic Devil who heavily resembles his avatar, which he called a cameo.
  • Sekke accidentally saves the king during the elves' invasion, gaining his favor and Episode 153 has the king promote him of all people to 1st Class Senior Magic Knight. Chapter 273 has a very nervous, sweating Sekke as part of the assault force, made up of other captains, Yuno, and Langris, that will attack the Spade Kingdom.
  • This wouldn't be the only time Jill Harris would voice a socially awkward noble who has family issues and gets into conflicts with demons.
  • Due to their infamous loudness in their respective animes, Asta and Bakugo have been jokingly pitted against each other in shouting matches. It was then announced that Liebe, Asta's devil whom he's forced to fight in a Devil-Binding Ritual, would be voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto, Bakugo's Japanese voice actor.
  • A sophisticated, blood-obsessed witch who refers to her servants as her "daughters", wears a dress and a wide-brim hat and hates men... are we talking about the Witch Queen or Lady Dimitrescu?
  • Chapter 277, in which Zenon is brutally impaled through the chest by Yuno, just so happened to release on his birthday.
  • The fight between Patry and the Wizard King becomes this, in a darkly humorous sort of way, after the Spade Kingdom Raid Arc. To put it bluntly, Patry unknowingly killed the main villain of the story!
  • Chapter 347, where it's revealed that Yami Ichika unwillingly slaughtered her fellow clan members and her brother made himself The Scapegoat to spare her the truth and the guilt, released two months after One Piece Film: Red, which had a similar plot twist.
  • Charlotte Roselei's appearance, personality, tragic backstory, and being a Handicapped Badass with a flower motif brings Malenia, Blade of Miquella to mind.

I-P

• I Knew It!:
  • A lot of fans called it beforehand that Golden Dawn's leader, William Vangeance, is in league with the Eye of the Midnight Sun. This is practically lampshaded because even after being told otherwise, Yami still thought it too.
  • Quite a few fans predicted that Yuno is a prince of the Spade Kingdom.
  • Many fans suspected that there were other elves alive descended from Licht and Tetia based on the hint from Chapter 213.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Although the series has devils, purely malevolent beings who revel in causing pain, and the Dark Triad, a group of irredeemably evil villains, the fandom despises King Augustus Kira Clover XIII for his extreme pettiness, incompetence, and representing everything wrong with the aristocracy and classism in the story, along with each of his appearances emphasizing what a terrible ruler he is.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • A lot of fans only get attached to the manga because of the amazing fight scenes and convinced people to watch the anime because of them. The fact that the anime took too long to actually get to said fight scenes was then a huge problem for fans.
  • Asta's English voice. While his voice and characterization are still overbearing and obnoxious, Western viewers widely accept it as a preferable alternative to his Japanese voice, and all it took was Funimation's preview of their SimulDub. The comment section speaks for itself.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Thanks to being the liked main character whose interactions with other characters are important to their development and a Clueless Chick-Magnet, Asta is shipped with many characters in the series. Most commonly: Noelle, Mimosa, and Rebecca because the three have canonical crushes on him, Yuno for being childhood friends and rivals, and Nero for their close bond and her presence as his companion since the beginning of his journey.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Really, now, how many people truly believed that Captain Yami slaughtered his entire clan, rather than suffering an unfortunate case of Not What It Looks Like? His sister, Ichika, being the one responsible was a genuine surprise to some fans, though.
  • The confrontation between Yuno and Lucius during Judgement Day has Yuno seemingly easily overpowering and slaying the rogue Wizard King without even giving Asta and the rest of the Black Bulls a chance to shine. Of course, that's actually a clone set up by Lucius to exhaust Yuno, and the fight is far from over...
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Rhya the Disloyal is the most powerful of the Third Eye, the elite force of the Eye of the Midnight Sun. One of the victims of the genocide of the elves from centuries ago, Rhya was summoned back by the elf Patry pretending to be their former leader Licht. The most affable and charming of the group, Rhya is also their chief infiltrator, utilizing his Imitation Magic to impersonate William Vangeance in the Clover Kingdom while Patry is borrowing Vangeance's body. Helping to manipulate the human members of the group to their eventual sacrifice and the revival of the elves, Rhya shows his strategic skill in fighting by ensuring he copies powerful Grimoires to use at opportune moments. After the reveal of the demon Zagred, Rhya is among the first to leap to the side of the humans in an effort to save the world.
  • Zenon Zogratis, youngest of the Dark Triad of the Spade Kingdom, was an idealist who made a pact with his best friend Allen to protect their nation. When facing a devil, Zenon took the chance to kill Allen to destroy their enemy and protect a nearby village. Heartbroken, Zenon abandoned emotions to become a devil host like his siblings and embraced a cold, ruthless demeanor. Helping to overthrow the Grinberryall family, Zenon personally defeats the Diamond Kingdom and the Golden Dawn Magic Knights, capturing William Vangeance and using the defeat of his elder brother Dante to ambush and kidnap Yami Sukehiro of the Black Bulls. Zenon intends to unleash the demons of the Tree of Qliphoth, killing his nation's people to revive them in undying bodies so none will ever need to perish again. Facing Yuno, Zenon takes his own defeat with pure dignity, pausing only to remember his old bond with Allen as he dies.
  • Nacht Faust, vice-captain of the Black Bulls, is an intelligent and ruthless Magic Knight who loathes the laidback and carefree Yami. Working as a spy in the Spade Kingdom for years because of his proficiency in using demonic magic, Nacht then returns to mentor Asta when Yami is kidnapped by the Dark Triad. Subtly pushing Asta to become stronger and confront his hidden devil Liebe, Nacht also secretly plans to kill Asta should Liebe take him over. Delighted by Asta actually befriending Liebe, Nacht then provides for the invasion of Spade Kingdom with intelligent scheming to help ensure the complete downfall of the Dark Triad and their schemes.
• Memetic Badass:
  • While Yami is already considered badass by the fandom, it is agreed by everyone that he's at his strongest when someone interrupts him when he's taking a dump.
  • In a similar case to Lord Twigo, Sekke of all people has become one, with people joking that he will become the next Wizard King, that he's the most powerful character of the manga or that he is the true Big Bad of the series, manipulating everything from the shadows and using his arrogant and unlucky facade to not draw the attention.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Kaiser, despite being a captain with an interesting magic, gets this by fans for his unintimidating appearance, being a captain because he was chosen to replace the disgraced Gueldre, getting defeated by Fuegoleon while possessed by an elf, contributing little during the Battle of the Magic Knights Squad Captains, and being the only captain not part of the special assault force against the Spade Kingdom.
  • Rill in spite of being a captain and his versatile magic, thanks to his childishness, obsession with painting, and losing to Yuno in the Royal Knights Examination because he accidentally destroyed his own crystal and getting easily defeated by Charmy while possessed by an elf. During his fight with Charlotte against Vanica, Vanica even mocks his magic as being mediocre.
  • Dante Zogratis, despite being the de facto leader of the Dark Triad and the host of the most powerful Devil, Lucifero, is never seen winning a single fight in any of his appearances. While he does give the Black Bulls a rough time before getting beaten by Yami and Asta by a hair's breadth, he ends up getting forcefully drained of his mana and defeated by Magna, of all people, in his reappearance. Not helping matters is that, unlike Vanica (who loves fighting strong opponents and has personal beef with the Silva Family for killing Acier) and Zenon (who became a Devil Host to become stronger after he was forced to kill his best friend Allen to kill a devil they were fighting), Dante has no personality or unique characteristics to speak of and his speech on how evil is humanity's true nature has many fans laugh him off as a one-note Generic Doomsday Villain whose character type has worn out its welcome in shonen anime.
• Moe: There's Noelle (when she's in dere mode), Secre/Nero, Dorothy Unsworth, Charmy, Grey, and Mimosa.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Zagred stages the massacre of the elf tribe at Licht and Tetia's wedding in a way that can be framed against Lumiere; he then ressurects the elves' souls into human bodies and manipulated Patry into collecting the magic stones to release the seal on him, all so he could gain a living body and bring more devils into the human world to wreak havoc. Every drop of blood shed from every murder and atrocity the Eye of the Midnight Sun committed up to that point is entirely on his hands.
  • Heath Grice crosses it when he attacks Sosshi Village and murders Magna's mentor, Seihi, just because he could.
  • Patry killing Julius is treated as this In-Universe, with Asta outright saying that he'll never forgive Patry for what he did. Later rectified when it's revealed that Patry atoned, Julius used his Time Magic to come Back from the Dead (albeit as a 13-year-old boy) and it's implied that Lucius was planning to get himself resurrected anyways.
  • Damnatio Kira is fully willing to have Marie, an innocent little girl, executed in order to tempt Asta into drawing out his devil's power to complete his Frame-Up of him. Somewhat migtated when he later willingly cooperates with Julius to save Clover Kingdom and his disappearance thanks to Lucius was considered horrific.
  • At first, filler character Dazu of the Devil Banishers is a somewhat sympathetic character, having her village massacred by the Elf-possessed Magic Knights. Then she and several of her cohorts reveal themselves to be Devil Believers, not Banishers, and they betray and murder their comrades who were with the latter group. And THEN it's shown that she left her husband and mother-in-law to die in a house fire over meager insults that were implied to be entirely in her head.
  • All 3 members of the Dark Triad crossed this at individual points; Zenon with his massacre of the Golden Dawn, Vanica for her murder of Acier Silva, and Dante impaling Gauche with a stone sword to provoke Asta into revealing his true power. Of course, that's if they didn't already cross it with their forceful takeover of the Spade Kingdom 16 years ago.
  • Lucifero merrily skips over this when he murders Liebe's adoptive mother Licita out of sheer spite for Liebe defying him.
  • Lucius crossed it instantly when he converts Sister Lily into one of his Paladin servants and seemingly kills Asta (In reality, Asta was teleported to the Land of the Rising Sun). In-Universe, characters also take his betrayal and Asta's supposed death very seriously.
  • The Yami Clan patriarch's horrid treatment of his daughter Ichika, as detestable as that was, pales in comparison to him forcefully drugging her into murdering their entire clan with a demon soul pill, just because he was fed up with guarding their ancestor's land and desired war again. He shows absolutely no remorse over this, even darkly congratulating her for living up to their family's namesake when she cuts him down in her own rampage.
• Narm:
  • Asta's yelling in the Japanese version is a meme due to how harsh it sounds. Here, take a listen.
  • In the anime, people constantly saying that "In this world, magic is everything". Because it was something easily noticeable by the scenes that show people using magic for the most mundane activities, yet, everyone has to keep saying that all the time for some reason, making the audience cringe at the Arc Words.
  • Vetto and Fana really love to repeat the words "despair" and "hate", respectively, to the point that they spout them every other sentence, which makes it difficult to take either of them seriously as villains.
  • The thirteenth opening has a shot of Asta with a very odd perspective◊ that makes him look much stouter, wider, and shorter than he actually is.
  • The stout problem above becomes kind of a thing for the rest of the series with the six month Time Skip and Asta's new design effectively putting a stacked, muscular and disproportionate upper body on top of slightly wider and still short legs. The result for many people is just downright hilariously strange-looking.
• Padding: The first dozen episodes or so of the anime are heavily padded, and is the reason for the anime's Slow-Paced Beginning. Because a total of 51 episodes were initially ordered, the writers of the anime took their time in adding stuff as a way to guarantee a space between the anime and the manga. This became something the anime was heavily criticized for, since it took longer to get in the acclaimed fights and broke the popular "Three Episode Rule",^note A rule of thumb among anime viewers that says to watch the first three episodes of an anime before passing any judgment on it. since the first three episodes ended up being mostly filler.
• Periphery Demographic: Although the series is a Shōnen marketed primarily for young boys, it has amassed a fairly large number of female fans thanks to its attractive male cast (Yuno, Yami, Nacht, etc.) and a much more respectful handling of women if compared with other stories of the demographic, with the third popularity poll having half its top ten characters being female.
  • Not to mention, Noelle ranked first place in the 5th popularity poll, a feat that is extremely rare for female characters in Weekly Shonen Jump.
• The Producer Thinks of Everything: Yūki Tabata has been praised for his foreshadowing, with some events hinted at over a hundred chapters in advance. Most notably, he foreshadowed Nacht's existence with his boot in Chapter 140 and the Spade Kingdom's invasion with playing cards in Chapter 222.

S-V

• The Scrappy:
  • Sylph is disliked by many fans for her clinginess to Yuno, constant talking whenever she appears, and tendency to mock anyone who isn't Yuno. Tabata lampshades this In-Universe, with Langris calling her "the noisy spirit that's always with [Yuno]".
  • The anime-exclusive character, Dazu has earned nothing but scorn from fans despite being meant to be a Tragic Villain with sympathetic motives. Upon closer examination of her actions and motives, everything about her falls apart. She has the Freudian Excuse of not having much magic power and people looking down on her for it but Asta wasn't born with any magic either and unlike Dazu and her group, Asta worked hard to become stronger and become a Magic Knight rather than take his frustrations out on the world in completely unproductive ways such as kidnapping or murder. She hates the Magic Knights for being elitist and oppressive but the particular Magic Knights she went after, including Asta and Nero, are some of the least elitist people in the series and want to make changes to the system. To make matters worse, she becomes an on-screen Karma Houdini who gets to walk after all the trouble she caused and doesn't learn anything from the entire arc. The end result is that Dazu, along with her followers, come off as extremely unlikable and unsympathetic despite being given some humanizing qualities and it's not uncommon to see fans wish that they do make it to the Spade Kingdom so the Dark Triad can hopefully give them the warmest of welcomes and the comeuppance they never got on-screen. ^{note - spoilers} What makes this even more appropriate is that the Dark Triad and their eldest brother were literal nobodies that some people in the present don't even know. And yes, they have immense magic power on their own.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat:
  • Due to being the primary Love Interests of Asta and Foils to each other, combat between Asta/Noelle and Asta/Mimosa is quite common.
  • While Asta has an Unwanted Harem of his own, the biggest combat ended up being Yami/Charlotte vs. Yami/Vanessa, due to the storylines of how they were both saved by him.
• Shocking Moments: Turns out that for a conventional shonen battle manga, Tabata makes some subtle variations hidden inside the simplistic formulas that forces people to think twice about the story:
  • Chapter 46, in which when Licht first appears in the flesh, it's apparent that things become more serious from now on.
  • Chapter 97, in which Asta doesn't succumb to the devil inside his grimoire and instead takes its power for himself, which causes him to be full of anti-magic energy.
  • Chapter 142's big reveal: Vangeance and Licht share the same body.
  • Chapter 148 has a very big one: The Licht that we've been used to seeing is not truly Licht at all. Instead, he's Patry, an elf boy who admired Licht and was somehow brought back to life into Vangeance's body while in Licht's form.
  • Chapter 149: Many of the characters are suddenly revealed to have some link to the elves, as the elves take over their bodies. In particular, everyone in Yuno's group but Mimosa has been taken over.
  • Chapter 182: Not only are Vetto and Fana (the elf) brought back from the dead with the help of Sally's artificial bodies, but Licht and a few other elves are also revealed to be the Apostles of Sephira, and they plan to unseal what is hidden in Clover Castle and open the Door to the Underworld so that they may finish the elven reincarnation.
  • Chapter 194: In the middle of the chapter, Charmy is revealed to be half dwarf.
  • Chapter 195: While the elves retrieve all the magic stones, one of the elves named Ronne suddenly attacks Rhya and in the next chapter, he turns out to be a devil who played a part in the elves' massacre.
  • The Wizard King Julius seems like a All-Might esque almighty mentor...until he's revealed to be the other soul of Lucius Zogratis, a literal supervillain who seeks to annihilate humanity and remake all of them into angelic superhumans.
  • In Chapter 354, Judgement day begins, and Lucius wages war against Clover Kingdom. Among the Paladins he deployed is Morgen, Nacht's dead brother and Acier, the long-dead Silva matriarch.
• Signature Scene:
  • Asta manifesting his grimoire to defeat Revchi and save Yuno.
  • Asta, Magna, and Luck swooping in to stop Langris from killing Finral at the Royal Knights Examination.
  • Asta and Yuno fighting against a newly reincarnated Licht.
• Signature Series Arc: The Elf Reincarnation Arc for being the culmination of the series's first saga, giving many members of its large cast moments to shine in fights against the reincarnated elves, and the plot twists in the story.
• Signature Song: "Haruka Mirai", the first OP which is played in quite a few climactic moments in the anime.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The anime has a very slow start. Due to the manga's fast pace, the first chapter is divided into two episodes in order to expand upon Asta and Yuno's backstory, which is only a few pages in the manga. The Padding extended to the third episode, which caused discontent for anime viewers that follow the "Three Episodes Rule". Thus, the first arc takes a lot longer in the anime than it does in the manga. This results in those who haven't read the manga to feel like it's taking its sweet time to show any sort of promise, whereas fans of the manga are outright bored by the delays it takes in terms of introducing the best parts. It doesn't help matters that Crunchyroll called it "The New King of Shonen" and oversold it like there's no tomorrow. The pacing does improve, but it takes until Dungeon Exploration Arc—around fourteen episodes—before that begins. After that, the pacing becomes more reasonable, with a decent chapter-to-episode ratio.
• Squick: Dante's Body Magic, forming tendrils of flesh from destroyed body parts to reform. Can be unpleasant to look at.
• Stoic Woobie: Nero/Secre. She was disparaged for her seemingly useless Sealing Magic. Then her prince, who helped her achieve her true magical potential and acknowledged her worth, nearly dies. She seals him to keep him alive, at the cost of being a bird for 500 years. Despite all she's been through, she's mostly stoic and rarely emotes.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Each of the Black Bulls have a defining quirk to their character that fans and characters in-universe have expressed dislike for: Magna being a delinquent, Vanessa a Hard-Drinking Party Girl, Finral a Casanova Wannabe, Gauche a Reformed Criminal, etc. When Nacht first meets them, he gives them a harsh "The Reason You Suck" Speech, calling them all out for their defining flaws, with them only able to quietly listen.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Yuno. Many have complained that, despite being billed as one of the main characters, he has remarkably little screentime and almost never appears outside of action scenes, leading him to being very underdeveloped outside of being Asta's rival and best friend. This finally starts to get rectified when it's revealed that he's the long-lost prince of the Spade Kingdom.
  • Some feel this way about the Spirit Guardians. Despite being some of the strongest mages in the Heart Kingdom with interesting designs, they are all (excluding Gaja) easily defeated by Vanica's Dark Disciples, with the Magic Knights taking them on instead to show the results of their training.
  • To prepare to battle the Spade Kingdom, a bunch of Clover Kingdom mages are selected to train at the Heart Kingdom and get significantly stronger. This would have been a good way to introduce mages from the other squads, or at least show that the other squads are serious about getting strong enough to handle the devils. However, the other squads only send one or two members, some none at all, while almost all of the Black Bulls are attend, even two (Magna and Charmy) who weren't originally chosen.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The Hot Springs Training Camp Mini-Arc is one of the few arcs where Yuno is able, albeit forced by Mereoleona, to bond with Asta, alongside Leopold and Noelle, without being in a relatively life-threatening situation. However, the mini-arc focuses primarily on Mereoleona, Asta and especially Noelle, who ended having the most development narrative-wise despite being one of the last characters who joined the trip.
• Unexpected Character: It's safe to say nobody expected Heath Grice, the Starter Villain who got beaten by Asta and Noelle on their first mission and offed himself soon after, to come Back from the Dead and make a return as a Paladin under Lucius' service in the final arc.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Vangeance. The narrative is meant to portray him as sympathetic, with his empathy for Patry, sharing the same soul in his body, and letting him use it to attack the Clover Kingdom and try to resurrect the elves. However, many readers do not find him sympathetic because this leads him to betray Julius, who had taken him in when he was an outcast, and be complicit in a plan to kill all humans.
  • In the anime-only Devil Banishers Arc, the titular group are supposed to be a whole lot of Jerkass Woobie what with having lost families and many things near and dear to them. Then the Devil Believers pop out from their midst, kill the rest remorselessly for using them like pawns.. and mostly get exiled for their crimes when they were already leaving the lands. Dazu in particular only has her Les Yay relationship with another member to even remotely humanize her, because everything else she does hinges straight into Ax-Crazy vengeance over her own personal family problems thrown out onto the world around her to extreme means. Her last decision to traverse the Grand Magic Zone to the Spade Kingdom on foot instead of accepting a safe teleport there is the icing on the cake; a moment of willful pride comes off instead as being Too Dumb to Live. To top it all off, after they become on-screen Karma Houdinis who get to walk after all the trouble they've caused, they even have the gall to get in the last word about how if the Magic Knights don't change, more people like them will rise... except that the particular Magic Knights Dazu went after are some of the least snobby and elitist characters in the show and Asta even promises them he'll try to make reforms as the Wizard King. All of this just makes Dazu and her group come off as even more un-likable, self-righteous, and unsympathetic.
• Unpopular Popular Character:
  • Gauche is this in Japan. His squadmates complain how he's creepy, attacks them with his mirror beams, insults all of them, and keeps on showing photos of his little sister. Despite this, he ranked eighth and tenth in the second and third popularity polls.
  • Zora is very rude to almost everyone he interacts with, and even after joining the Black Bulls he doesn't make an effort to befriend his new squadmates. Despite this, he ranked sixth and seventh in the second and third Viz popularity polls. Fans like him for his sharp tongue, wittiness, and tragic backstory.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The anime has a notably Troubled Production, even for a weekly anime. But that hasn't stopped episodes featuring major fights from having downright spectacular animation, such as Yami vs. Licht, Asta vs. Ladros, Yuno vs. Rill, Julius vs. Licht, Noelle vs. Kivn, and the Battle of the Magic Knights Squad Captains. The most widely praised one thus far has been Asta & Yuno vs. Licht, and, later on, Asta & Yami vs. Dante, with its episode considered by many fans to be the best of them all.

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