The exam begins, but it’s nothing special.
What They Say:
“The Magic Knights Entrance Exam”: Asta and Yuno head toward the Colosseum in the royal capital for the Magic Knights Entrance Exam, while looking around and admiring all the things they’ve never seen before.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I won’t lie in admitting that, if there’s any character I like in this show, it’s Yuno. Something about that small smile he has on his face whenever something goes well for Asta…it’s beautiful. Let’s just say this show, it’s characters and I have a love/hate relationship
Our boys make it into the capital and are fascinated by all the things a big city has that their small village did not. There are shops and vendors using their magic to work their trade, a huge castle on a hill where the King and the Wizard King reside.
The exam is held in a large stadium-like structure where all the other candidates are gathered. As they await the start of the exam, they notice some pretty adorable birds flying around and bugging some mages. They are called “anti-birds” and in random conversation more like thinking out loud) it is explained that the weaker your magical powers, the more of these birds flock to you. Of course, Yuno, being the golden boy that he is, no birds come near him. Asta, on the other hand, is swarmed. I can’t lie, I laughed very hard when this happened. Partly because I expected it but also partly because I assumed this show was better than that. Alas, this is Black Clover after all and main character centered humour is not beyond them, but I digress. In running away from the anti-birds Asta bumps into a large buff man whom he just happens to anger with his eloquent ways with words (“Man, you look old! You must have had a hard life!” truly the smoothest of smooth). Little does he know that this large man happens to be the captain of a section of the Magic Knights called the Black Bulls.
Sometime later a fellow mage Asta seems to have befriended lists off all the captains and their squads. They are: Nozel Silva of the Silver Eagles, FuegoleonVermillion of the Crimson Lion Kings, Jack the Ripper (super appropriate I guess) of the Green Praying Mantises, Charlotte Roselei of the Blue Rose Knights, Gueldre Poizot of the Purple Orcas, Dorothy Unsworth of the Coral Peacocks, Rill Boismortier of the Aqua Deer (the youngest captain), Yami Sukehiro of the Black Bulls, William Vangeance of the Golden Dawn, the most powerful of the squads.
It is explained that the candidates will be put through several small tests that will test their magical abilities and they will be evaluated by the nine Captains. Once the exam is over and the Captains have picked their members, the chosen can join their squad. If they are chosen by two, they can pick one, but if they are not chosen, they do not qualify for the Magic Knights.
The exam finally begins after the candidates are given brooms and are asked to float on them which Asta of course fails at and Yuno stands on his broom being too cool to even sit on a broom normally. During this part, we find that Silva has a relative of some sort who tries to take the exam as well but he denies her. There’s also an implication that she could be a bastard child because he declares that her existence is “unnecessary”. The next few tests revolve around magical skills that Asta does not have, but he tries his best. The final text of this episode involves combat, something that Asta is very good at. It’s also because they had to shoehorn something in to give Asta time to prove himself. Asta’s new-found friend, Sekke who has been helping him understand what’s going on and encouraging him throughout the exam, chooses him as his opponent for the combat segment of the exam. Asta beats him in one blow and declares that he’s here to work hard to become the Wizard King.
If there’s one thing I liked about this episode it’s a couple of the character designs of the Captains. They were all simple but they were pretty engaging making me wonder what kind of power they were capable of. My favorite ones were William Vangeance and Charlotte Roselei. The and the feathers made him look silly at first bit his cool, commanding air made him super mysterious but also intimidating and fair. Nozel’s hair did bug me a little bit. It’s a very anime thing for characters to have hair in their face but a braid just looks…weird.
I was surprised that Yuno was put on the backburner in this episode with barely any screen time or dialogue. I get the feeling that his proving ground time will be in the next episode but depending on how they do that, I doubt it will be at all more interesting than Asta’s which was not. We all know Yuno is like a prodigy so there’s no suspense around whether he will do well or not, only about which squad he joins, unless you’ve been skipping the opening and ending song where they are apparent.
In Summary:
This episode went in the directions I expected it to so it wasn’t surprising. The captains looked cool. Asta’s shining moment was shoehorned in and barely seemed to have any significance; I still don’t think he’s qualified for any squad, but he is the main character so…
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
