Black Clover Episode 29 Review: Path

The newest episode of Black Clover is like 70% recaps and 30% new content, but I thought it was still fun and worth watching! It did a good job of reminding us of what has happened in the past, and the new content had simple yet interesting scenarios that brought additional background on certain things!

Japanese Title: 道

Plot

Word of Asta and Yuno’s achievements as Magic Knights have reached their village, and their family in the orphanage couldn’t have been any prouder! Meanwhile, at the Black Bulls base, Noelle had a drinking session with Nero (so technically just with herself) as they reminisced about Asta’s recklessness. We also found out that the usually quiet Gordon Agrippa has actually been hiding a secret that also involves Asta.

Episode Highlights

Pride of the village: My heart swelled at the realization of how far Asta and Yuno had already gone within just months in strength, experience, and hardships! That’s why I fully understood the pride the Father and Sister Lily felt for them! At the same time, I couldn’t also help but want to gloat over Asta’s achievements to them, if I had the chance! A lot of people, including them, didn’t believe he could make it just because he didn’t have magic nor gotten a grimoire immediately, and yet now he’s already been promoted within the Magic Knight ranks! He’s literally exceeded everyone’s expectations about a lot of things! Thanks to him and Yuno sending their salaries, their orphanage seemed to be faring much better, too!

Very best friend? Gordon finally did get his chance at the spotlight like I asked for last week! I’m so happy to know that he was one of the few who had believed in Asta from the start, and thought he was really cool; we just weren’t made aware. What surprised me and made me laugh was that he was so impressed with Asta that he dubbed him his very best friend! Sadly it’s one-sided, though. It was also funny how he dubbed Yuno his best friend as well, just because he was Asta’s best friend! You know, the usual mindset that if you both have a mutual friend, that means you’re friends as well, even if you’ve never talked before! (Which makes some think that it’s not strange to add them on Facebook, at all.) To be honest, watching Gordon dote on/stalk Asta on multiple occasions, I found myself thinking it was kinda cute of him! And yet, he also looked so creepy, especially when he grinned so widely! What an ‘interesting’ character he is. I hope we get to see more of him in the next episodes! It’d be nice if he and Asta became proper friends!

Worrying: I found it heartwarming that Noelle has been worrying about Asta all this time, especially since he’d been reckless a lot of times in the past. Now, I know that you don’t need to like someone romantically just to be worried about them. But at this point, seeing her stalk him in the previous episode, constantly denying that she cares for him, and blasting him away when he saw him half-naked from training, you really can’t deny that she likes him terribly. Even this was obvious to Nero, who seemed to be having second-hand embarrassment just by looking at her complain! Oh Noelle, such a tsundere.

To get stronger: Glad that this recap wasn’t just focused on Asta (though it mainly was), but also a bit on Yuno! He got incredibly stronger thanks to Bell and the treasured magic he got in the dungeon, but I was amazed at how he didn’t get a big head from it. He still thought that Asta was ahead of him, continuing to use his best friend and rival as his goal! I’m also delighted to see him surrounded by teammates he can get along with! Klaus especially, because he used to look down on Yuno for being a commoner, yet now he worried a lot about him! Watching that Petit Clover segment at the end was so amusing and made me laugh so much! Guess if Asta has Gordon watching him, Yuno has Klaus!

Themes & Trivia

Recap episode: Series that go on for a long time usually end up having an episode where they generally just show clips of highlighted events in the past. This could be to act as a break before the next important arc, to help the viewer remember what has happened so far, or to give the production staff a bit of a buffer for the schedule. It could even serve as a ‘filler’ if ever the original content isn’t enough for how many episodes are needed to be produced.

Twinkle like a star!: Anyone who’s watched a lot of the original Pokémon episodes can probably remember the times where Team Rocket blasted off again and again, and they twinkled like a star over the horizon! Asta’s now one of the many other characters who momentarily adorned the sky. See you, space mage.

Comments

There are probably some who don’t appreciate recap episodes for lots of different reasons. I personally don’t like them all that much since I’m always excited to know what will happen next, but for once, I actually loved watching this one! It had the right amount of amusement and nostalgia that suited my tastes. It made the fact of how far Asta has gone since the start dawn on me multiple times, and just increased how proud I was of him! He’s truly gone through a lot of hardships so far, and he surpassed them all. Even if he was hanging on for dear life or barely escaping death most of the time, he still went past them all the same. And once the episode ended, I also realized that he still has a lot more to go through from now on in order to become the Wizard King!

My only sadness is that this focused mainly on Asta and not much on Yuno. I should probably start coming to terms with the fact that Yuno’s just a deuteragonist compared to Asta…

Continue reaching for your dreams!

The Black Bulls are having another day off next week! I thought that we’d immediately be launching to an action-packed episode since we already got fun and relaxing ones for two weeks straight. Oh well, maybe it’ll still be exciting! Or maybe the day off is just a prelude to a bigger event!

I’d love to read your thoughts and opinion about this episode in the comments section! Go and read our Spring 2018 reviews as well!

NEXT: The Mirror Mage (鏡の魔道士)