Manga Review – Black Clover Vol 2 by Yuki Tabata (3.5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 192 pages
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC
Release Date: August 2, 2016
ISBN-13: 978-1421587196
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Black Clover series
Source: Bought
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
“On the orders of the Wizard King, Asta and his allies head to a mysterious dungeon to retrieve a powerful relic. When mages from a rival country show up, however, this mission turns into an all-out battle. Can Asta lead his team to the win?”
Series Info/Source: This is the second book in the Black Clover series. I bought this book.
Story (4/5): The story was fine. In this book Asta and his team of Black Bulls are ordered by the Wizard King to a mysterious dungeon to retrieve powerful relics. However, mages from a rival country show up and the Black Bulls and Golden Dawn are forced to work together.
Characters (3/5): Many new characters enter the story and I am starting to have trouble keeping track of them. There wasn’t a ton of character development either. However, I did enjoy one of the encounters between the Wizard King and Asta.
Setting (4/5): The setting of the dungeon was fun and it was interesting to visit the markets. Aside from that this remains a fairly typical fantasy-like setting. The dungeons remind me a lot of the Magi manga series.
Writing/Drawing Style (3/5): I felt like things were a lot more disorganized and hard to follow in this book. Fight scenes are a bit muddled and we jump quickly back and forth between scenes without any way to tell that the scene has changed. I also am not a fan of how every fighting method is given a called out name and blingy picture. I know this is done in a lot of shounen, but I have never been a fan.
My Summary (3.5/5): Overall this was a mixed bag for me. I continue to enjoy some parts of the story and Asta as a character. However, I felt like there was too much going on in this volume…too many new characters, the action was hard to follow, and too much switching between different storylines. I plan on reading the next volume but may not continue after that.
