Black Clover (Volume 1) – The Boy’s Vow
After being left on a church step as a baby, Asta has developed some wild ideas. Despite his inability to use magic, he is determined the become the Wizard King. However, his first goal is to become a Magic Knight!
Black Clover (Volume 1) – The Boy’s Vow
What happened?
Asta isn’t alone in his dreams, however. He grew up with Yuno who was also abandoned as a baby. Unlike Asta, Yuno has incredible magical potential, although he lacked the courage and the drive to do anything about it until Asta inspired him. Now that they’ve turned fifteen, it’s time for their awarding ceremony where they will be chosen by a grimoire. Of course, Yuno is selected by a grimoire with the four-leafed clover on, a symbol of the Wizard King. Unfortunately, Asta didn’t get a grimoire.
A thief had been present for the awarding ceremony and waited to ambush Yuno and steal his grimoire. Asta rushed to save his best friend, but with no magical ability, he is defeated. However, Asta will not give up. Amazingly, a black and tattered grimoire bursts out of the library and presents itself to Asta. With this, he is able to summon a black sword that can nullify and deflect magic.
Six months later, Asta and Yuno were ready to try out to become a Magic Knight. As expected, Asta did not perform well on all the magic tests but excelled in combat. All of the captains wanted Yuno who selected the Golden Dawn. Asta was not selected by any, but then the captain of the Black Bulls tested his metal and offered him a place. Asta was delighted, even if the Black Bulls are known as a bunch of misfits that cause more damage than the problems they solve.
What did you think?
Firstly, it’s hard to read this book and not make comparisons to other shounen stories. There’s the obvious parallel between Asta wanting to become the Wizard King and Luffy wanting to be the King of the Pirates. It doesn’t stop there. There were so many similarities to My Hero Academia that it became laughable. Also, why do the shounen protagonists have to be so loud and obnoxious? It is a bizarre trope that shows little to no sign of dying down.
All right, now that I’ve got that off my chest, I actually really enjoyed it. Asta does grow on you. He has an admirable quality that makes you want him to succeed despite his over-the-top reactions to stuff. I enjoyed the Black Bulls too, especially their captain, Yami Sukehiro who doesn’t look anything like Shouta Aizawa and his catchphrase “Surpass your limits” is nothing like “Go beyond, plus ultra.” Jokes aside, he was cool and I’m looking forward to seeing more of him and the other Black Bulls.
This is a shounen series so there are a good number of tropes to expect and it’s been done so many times before that I’m sure you’ll see similarities, regardless of which shounen stories you’ve been exposed to. That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. I’m intrigued by Asta’s grimoire and the black sword. It made out like it was demonic which it could be, but my early guess is that the leader of the Golden Dawn is going to be a big villain.
Volume highlights
Other posts in the series
- Series Review
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That trope is SO common! And Naruto wanted to become the Hokage.
Absolutely. Shounen are incredibly trope heavy.