Title: Black Clover Vol. 32
Author: Yuki Tabata
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Shounen, Battle
Publication Date: March 7, 2023
The Story
The story is pretty straightforward here in Volume 32 of Black Clover. Lucifero has partially manifested and all of our favorite characters need to take him out before he destroys the world. The only problem is that even partially manifested, Lucifero is more powerful than anything they have ever faced before. Not a single person, not even the Magic Knight Captains can even touch him with their combined might. The only ones that can is Asta and one other.
The battle rages on throughout the entirety of the volume and on the final page, it’s still not over although it looks like it will be decided in Volume 33.
Characters
Asta has made his presence felt on the battlefield and he feels like a main character again. For the longest time, he had taken a backseat while the insanely large cast all got their time to shine one by one. Now, the focus is placed back on our main hero and it is his time to shine. All of the training Asta had done with Nacht is about to pay off…. Or fail horribly. We’ll see which one that is in the next volume but Asta’s “never give up” attitude shines through here like a typical shounen protagonist!
Yami gets a little bit of development along with a power-up… if you can imagine that since he was already powerful, to begin with. I won’t say how he got powered up as they would be a bit of a spoiler but I will say that he has a new toy to play with and, so far, it’s serving him well.
Yuno got some time to shine here, showing off his Spirit power. Even Yami was impressed with the fact that he’s not dual-wielding grimoires. Despite having all that power, Yuno can’t even touch Lucifero.
Speaking of… Lucifero is living up to his name as the Devil King. Even at partial power, nobody except Asta can touch him and even still, Asta is having a very difficult time against him. His personality is one that you would expect from someone with so much power… he’s calm, in control, very confident, and looks extremely bored fighting against everyone. Even when the Magic Knight Captains all attacked him at once, he could have yawned from boredom…. However… when he touches Asta’s blade and gets a tiny paper cut-sized wound, he flips his lid as if it were inconceivable that he could be harmed.
Final Thoughts
I know the story section was rather brief but that’s what happens when the volume is filled from cover to cover with a giant fight against a singular enemy. The fights in this series are rather hit or miss so I’m very happy that this one was given a lot of time to breathe and manifest into something grand. The only issue I have with it is that it follows the typical shounen super fight formula. Our heroes are presented with a big evil that seems way too powerful to take down. They struggle and are backed into a corner where everything seems hopeless then either a massive power-up or Deus Ex Machina plot device pulls them through and all is well.
Except, I don’t think all will be well this time. I can’t see Lucifero going down. He’s just built up to be way too powerful. Even with the premise that he hasn’t fully manifested, Lucifero seems like the true end boss to this entire series. If anything, I can see him either being defeated and retreating or being sent back to the other dimension, only to come back later at full power in the grand finale. With how he’s been portrayed, if he were to get destroyed or killed in this fight, then where does this series go from here?
Is there something stronger than the Devil King? Is there a dark shadow god out there somewhere? If so, then are we just going to repeat the same formula of a huge hopeless fight that our heroes just happen to win by sheer luck or some hidden power-up? I think there needs to be a bit more diversity and having Lucifero disappear for a later appearance should be what this series needs. Give our heroes a goal. Make them find a way to become so powerful, that someone like Lucifero at full power is nothing for them. Give them that motivation all while putting a doomsday clock on the series. That would be something a bit different than what we’ve seen out of this series to date and it would be a welcome change.
That’s just my two cents, though. We’ll see what happens in the next volume!
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
