Review – Black Clover: Sword of the Wizard King

Posted: Wednesday 7/19/23

Now that the seasonal Preview Guide is over, I’m planning to post a couple of reviews that I had been putting off. This is the first; expect Yakitori: Soldiers of Misfortune to be coming next week.

Movies connected to shonen action franchises are often non-canon affairs, designed to show off the cast and their abilities in lavish fashion but not intended to advance any meaningful plot or character developments. The recently-released Black Clover movie falls squarely into this category. Though chief antagonist Conrad Leto (pictured above) and his sympathizers are reportedly considered to be canon characters (original manga-ka Yuki Tabata consulted on the movie), the events of this movie are an original story which, at best, fits awkwardly into the existing timeline; based on the characters shown and their current statuses, this would have to happen in the six-month gap between episodes 129 and 158 (i.e., between manga chapters 228 and 229), but enough is going on during that time that retrofitting it in would severely camp the story. Hence it’s hardly necessary viewing for franchise fans, but if you are a franchise fan, why would you miss a chance to see favorite characters show off?

For movies like this to be considered successes, they must accomplish three tasks:

1. They must look flashier than the base series.
2. They must include as many characters from the base series as possible.
3. They must give as many characters as possible opportunities to show off what they can do in glorious fashion.

Sword of the Wizard King hits on all three of these points. The base series occasionally had some impressive animated sequences, but the opening flashback establishes immediately that the movie clearly had much more time and budget than normal. Elaborate, extended action sequences are a predominant feature – in fact, they make up more than half of the movie’s roughly 110 minute running time – and in general the franchise has never looked sharper in any visual aspect. In fact, what little there is for a plot is really just an excuse to string these feature action sequences together and allow a plethora of characters to get involved.

And boy, is the movie inclusive! Most of the named Clover kingdom residents who appeared prior to episode 130 have at least one or two cameos, whether Magic Knights or ordinary citizen that Asta encountered somewhere along the way. All of the Magic Knights – and in particular, the captains and Black Bulls – get plenty of opportunities to show what they can do as well; even Julius gets to shine in the flashback, though the fact that he is depowered (due to his resurrection) is a key plot point in the current time of the movie. Beyond the story’s main players, Mereoleona is the one who stands out the most, as she finally gets to show what she can do when she goes absolutely all-out against an opponent on her level in one of the wildest and most gleeful battle sequences. As expected, this requires characters to get innovative with their magic, and several combo moves (including some of a nature that I don’t think we ever saw in the main series) are present as well.

That’s good, because the plot here does not amount to much. It’s a familiar ploy for these types of movies: someone who was sealed away years ago gets free and causes kingdom-threatening trouble until he can be put back in his place again. In this case, it’s Conrad Leto, Julius’s immediate predecessor as Wizard King, who was deposed and sealed away a decade earlier after getting the idea in his head that the only way to correct the problems and inequities in the Clover Kingdom is to utterly destroy it and start over again with only chosen individuals. (In other words, villainy via taking the easy way out.) To this end, he obtains the titular sword, which stores the power of all past Wizard Kings, and recruits other past Wizard Kings, who sympathize with his cause, as minions. Naturally, most of them of them have unique magic specialties, including generating shields, creating armies of CG-animated golems, and creature magical keys which can open and close magical rifts (the other past Wizard King just has ordinary but high-end ice magic), and all operate on power levels that require opposition either from Magic Knight Captains, from entire squads, or from Asta. And that’s it. Villains get to be well-intentioned in their goals but misguided in their methods, while Asta (and sometimes others) get to espouse the franchise’s core values about persistence, acting for the people, etc.

In other words, if you’re expecting anything original or that requires brain cells to analyze or interpret then you won’t find it here. This is simple, direct fun, and if approach purely on that level, the movie won’t disappoint. It is currently legally available only on Netflix, with the normal array of dub and sub options available.

Rating: B