VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia
MANGAKA: Yuki Tabata
TRANSLATION: Taylor Engel, HC Language Solutions, Inc.
LETTERS: Annaliese Christman
EDITOR: Alexis Kirsch
ISBN: 978-1-9747-0221-3; paperback (February 2019); Rated “T” for “Teen”
200pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK
Black Clover is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yūki Tabata. The manga has been serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine since February 2015. VIZ Media has been publishing an English-language edition of the manga as a paperback graphic novel series under its “Shonen Jump” imprint since 2016.
Black Clover focuses on a hopeful boy named Asta. He and his friend, Yuno, are found abandoned in the village of Hage of the Clover Kingdom. Asta dreams of one day being the “Wizard King,” the greatest mage in the land. He has one big problem; he can't use magic. When he is 15-years-old, Asta receives the rare “five-leaf-clover grimoire” (a book of magic), which gives him the power of anti-magic. Can Asta become the Wizard King without being able to use magic, and is he worthy of being in the “Magic Knights” squad, “the Black Bulls?”
As Black Clover, Vol. 14 (Chapters 121 to 130; entitled “Black and Gold Sparks”) opens, the “Royal Knights Selection Test” continues. The Wizard King has announced the formation of the “Royal Knights” brigade, an assemblage of the best Magic Knights. The purpose of this “ultimate brigade” is to put down the threat of the “Eye of the Midnight Sun,” conspiracy that threatens the Clover Kingdom. Forty-eight Magic Knights, including Asta and Yuno, have been divided into 16 three-person teams.
Asta and his teammates – Mimosa Vermillion (royalty) and the mysterious jerk, Xerx Lugner – have made it into the second round. Now, they must fight to make the second round, and their opponent is led by none other than Mimosa's brother, Kirsch Vermillion, a snobby rich guy. Speaking of royalty and snobbery, the saga of brothers Finral Roulacase and Langris Vaude causes this selection tournament to take a dark turn.
[This volume includes bonus material: “The Blank Page Brigade;” an “Afterword;” and sketches.]
THE LOWDOWN: The Black Clover manga is one of the best shonen battle manga available to English-speaking audiences. I have read five volumes so far this year, and I can't get enough.
Black Clover Graphic Novel Volume 14, like Vol. 13, offers intense battle manga. However, creator Yuki Tabata delves deeply into one of this series' themes – the idea of the Magic Knights as a group of warriors that encompasses members from all walks of life. While this theme has arisen in past volumes, it is in Vol. 14 that that class strife rears its most ugly head.
First, we see it in the gentle and humorous interplay between the Vermillion siblings, but the battle of brothers makes class and social differences explode in readers' faces near the end of this volume. It also makes for a helluva cliffhanger, I promise.
Taylor Engel does some of his best translation work in Vol. 14, which is important because the subtleties of dialogue, especially in arguments, reveal the personalities and the true faces of particular characters. Annaliese Christman keeps her lettering leaping off the page to grab the reader with exhilarating competition and the ugliness of pride and hate. Yeah, Black Clover shows its best side in this fourteenth volume.
I READS YOU RECOMMENDS: Fans of the top Weekly Shonen Jump manga will definitely want to try the “Shonen Jump” series, Black Clover.
A+
10 out of 10
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.
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