Black Clover (series)

Black Clover (ブラッククローバー) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yūki Tabata. The series began serialization on February 16, 2015 in Weekly Shōnen Jump Issue 12. The story focuses on fantasy, adventure and comedy genres while maintaining the "Young Boys" (少年) demography.

Synopsis
Asta and Yuno are orphans raised in the outskirts of the Clover Kingdom. In a world where people are born with magic, Asta was born without any. In contrast, Yuno was born a prodigy with above average magic power and the talent to control it. Additionally, in their coming of age ceremony, Yuno receives a rare four-leaf clover grimoire, like the original Wizard King. On the other hand, Asta received a tattered grimoire where a devil lies within, a five-leaf clover grimoire.

The story follows Asta and Yuno as they crawl their way up the ladder of the Clover Kingdom's Magic Knights, in the midst of scrutiny by the nobles, to become the Wizard King. However, the title is only preserved for a single mage. Who will attain the coveted title of the strongest mage in the kingdom, Asta or Yuno?

Manga


Prior to the series' serialization, Yūki Tabata had already written a one-shot of the same name. The one-shot was published in 2014, in the 2nd volume of Jump NEXT. The one-shot was then rewritten for serialization. One of the elements that both versions share is the dual protagonists setting of Asta and Yuno.

Upon its serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump, Black Clover started steadily gaining popularity among the Japanese readers. It resulted in the magazine commissioning multiple color pages in quick succession in order to further promote the series.

Furthermore, chapters of the Black Clover series are also being collected into a graphic novel (単行本) format, which contain between 8-10 chapters. One of the major differences between the magazine version and the graphic novel version is the paper quality where the latter uses a much higher paper quality. The graphic novel version sometimes offers a revision over mistakes that were made on the original publication and improvement over the art in general. Additionally, the graphic novel also included extra chapters or characters profile that were not published in the magazine.

The volumes are published by Shueisha Inc. (株式会社集英社) under the Jump Comics (ジャンプコミックス) imprint. As of June 2, 2023, the Black Clover series has published 35 volumes.

The series has also been licensed for an English language release by VIZ Media on the company's digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine starting from April 6, 2015. The move was done after previewing the first 3 chapters of the series at the same time as the series' debut in Japan as part of the digital magazine's Jump Start campaign. The series was chosen by the English edition's editors out of the four new series that were coming out during that serialization round.

Spin-off Series
Black Clover SD: Asta-kun's Road to the Wizard King (ブラッククローバーSD アスタくん魔法帝への道) is a gag series that follows Asta's antics on his way to becoming the Wizard King. It is illustrated by Setta Kobayashi (小林拙太) and was published in Saikyō Jump (最強ジャンプ) from February 2, 2018, to April 1, 2021. The chapters were later collected into three volumes.

Black Clover Side-Story: Quartet Knights (ブラッククローバー外伝 カルテットナイツ) is a retelling of the story from the game. It is illustrated by Yumiya Tashiro (田代弓也) and was published on the Shonen Jump+ site from October 7, 2018, to April 12, 2020. The chapters were later collected into six volumes.

Anime


An anime adaptation has been licensed to Pierrot, Inc. (株式会社ぴえろ). It began airing on October 3, 2017, and finished airing on March 30, 2021, after 170 episodes. An English-dubbed version has been licensed to Funimation and began airing on October 29, 2017.

An original animation video was produced by Xebec, Inc. (株式会社ジーベック) and played at 2016 Jump Festa. Copies were bundled with Volume 11.

Plans for a movie were announced on March 29, 2021. Black Clover: Sword of the Wizard King is scheduled to release on March 31, 2023, both in Japan and worldwide.

Anime Staff

 * Chief Director: Tatsuya Yoshihara (Episodes 153-170)
 * Directors: Tatsuya Yoshihara (Episodes 1-152), Ayataka Tanemura (Episodes 153-170)
 * Assistant Director: Ayataka Tanemura (Episodes 28-152)
 * Series Composition: Kazuyuki Fudeyasu (Episodes 1-152), Kanichi Katou (Episodes 153–170)
 * Character Design: Itsuko Takeda
 * Sub Character Design: Kumiko Tokunaga
 * Prop Design: Kosei Takahashi
 * Main Animators: Takaya Sunagawa, Shunji Akasaka
 * Action Animators: Isuta, Toru Iwasawa (Epsides 28-64), Hiroaki Nakamichi (Episodes 116-170)
 * Art Director: Yuki Maeda
 * Director of Photography: Tomoyuki Kunii
 * Color Design: Aiko Shinohara
 * Editor: Hiroshi Okuda
 * Music: Minako Seki
 * Sound Director: Hajime Takakuwa

Spin-off Series
Squishy! Black Clover (むぎゅっと! ブラッククローバー) is a series of anime shorts with characters in chibi designs. Produced by Dream Link Entertainment (DLE) and released exclusively on dTV, the series began airing July 1, 2019 and ended August 19, 2019 after eight episodes. Crunchyroll released English subtitles for all eight episodes on December 31, 2019.

Light Novel


A series of light novels, written by Johnny Onda (ジョニー音田), was published by JUMP j-BOOKS (ジャンプ ツェイ ブックス). As of October 4, 2019, three novels have been published.

Video Games
Black Clover: Grimoire Battle was a fighting arcade game published by Bandai Namco in 2017. Black Clover: Quartet Knights was announced at Jump Festa 2017 and released in 2018 for PlayStation 4 and PC. It was developed by Ilinx and published by Bandai Namco.

A mobile game called Black Clover: Phantom Knights was released in Japan on November 14, 2018, and in English on January 16, 2020.

Another mobile game called Black Clover Mobile: The Road to the Wizard King: The Opening of Fate was released on May 25, 2023 in Japan.

Crossover Appearances
Asta is featured as a playable character in the Weekly Shōnen Jump crossover game Jump Force. Several characters have appeared in WSJ's crossover mobile game, Jumputi Heroes (ジャンプチ ヒーローズ).

The mobile game Tales of the Rays (テイルズ オブ ザ レイズ) held two special events: Bonds Put to the Test from March 31—April 9, 2021 and Beyond the Limit from April 9—19, 2021. During the events, Asta, Yuno, Yami, and Charlotte were recruitable characters. Additionally, costumes modeled after Asta, Yuno, Magna, Luck, Noelle, and Mimosa were available for other characters.

Valkyrie Connect (ヴァルキリーコネクト) is an action RPG mobile game. It held a special crossover event from September 30—October 21, 2021. During the event, Asta, Yuno, Noelle, Yami, Secre, Fuegoleon, Nozel, and others are featured characters.

World Flipper (ワールドフリッパー) is a pinball-based action RPG mobile game. In Japan, the game held a special crossover event from October 31—November 15, 2022. It featured Asta, Yuno, and Noelle in a special campaign called "Indomitable Mage" (不諦の魔道士). Leading up to the campaign, the game's Twitter account also featured a contest for 50 sets of three acrylic keychains with Asta, Yuno, and Noelle.