Anime Lovers

Black Clover returned this fall with chapters 374-376 to wrap up 2024 in the most epic fashion possible. From eye-popping spreads to a beautiful color page, and well-written dialogue, series creator Yuki Tabata showed incredible progression in artwork, pacing, and ultimately how the move to Jump GIGA has been extremely beneficial to the story of Black Clover.

Chapters 374, 375, and 376 of Black Clover never once felt rushed. Despite it feeling like I was able to rush through the chapters due to minimal dialogue and mostly intense action, I still came away with the feeling of the wait being worth it just as I did with the past couple of chapters that focused solely on Noelle and the rest of the Silva family.

Also read:
Black Clover Chapters 372 and 373 Review

Tabata’s knack for continually giving side characters incredible developments is a rarity among mangaka nowadays, especially those in the battle-action demographic. It’s so easy for authors to get lost in their own, massive stories that side characters become nothing more than an afterthought.

Luckily, Tabata showed in these chapters that he cares about side characters, such as Nacht and Morgen, as much as the main ones in Asta, Yuno, and Noelle. In other words, he’s giving the proper characters their moments without feeling like he’s straying too far away from other fights like so many other manga tend to do, which takes away from the big moments. That problem isn’t present at this point in Black Clover.

While the social media fan accounts and of the like will bicker back and forth about power scaling and whatnot, the simple matter of fact is that what Tabata is doing for the story at this point is gold. The artwork in these chapters was so damn crisp that I even sympathized with studio Pierrot for wanting to put the anime on hiatus for the foreseeable future—the artwork was just that intense and detailed.

Seeing Tabata call Weekly Shonen Jump a happy hell’ seems par for the course. Before his move, his artwork took a dip, especially in the action scenes where it was honestly hard to tell what was happening. Now, with these recent chapters, it’s clear as day that Tabata is benefitting mightily from GIGA‘s seasonal schedule rather than the harsh one of his former publisher.

Seeing Yami possess devil features while not technically having a devil form himself like Nacht or Asta was amazing to witness, let alone slashing Lucius’ clone and saving Ichika in the process. Going full brother mode once again proved that Yami really is a big teddy bear behind the poop breaks, cigarettes, beer, and insatiable appetite.

The family apologies between him and Ichika carrying over from the ones we read with the Silva families were nice, especially when we consider the contrast between both families couldn’t be more night and day. Even though the emotions hit harder with Noelle, it’s not like they were absent in these chapters either.

The chapters were another testament to Tabata’s ability to zero in on how killing a loved one messes with the mindset of even the calmest characters like Nacht, one who rarely showed any emotion at all up until this point. It’s one thing seeing Noelle cry and her siblings cry, it’s another to see Nacht and Ichika shedding tears. And on top of it all, Nacht fighting alongside Yami brought back epic memories with our beloved MC.

While the fight with Acier may have seemed rushed to some, the pacing for these chapters, on the other hand, was utterly perfect. The spreads were beautifully detailed. The dialogue hit like a freight train. I mean, ‘Tears don’t mark the end of a sin’ has to be one of the hardest lines dropped this year. So shoutout to Tyler Engel on the translation work as well.

So where do we go? Well, Lucius is still at large. But it seems that Black Clover is inching closer to its final moments. With Noelle’s fight won, along with Mereoleona’s against Moris, and now Nacht’s and Yami’s against Morgen, there’s not much left to go on besides the final one with Asta and Yuno against Lucius.

It’s bittersweet to see such a wonderful series with some of the best lore in current manga coming to an end, but it’s oh-so-satisfying at the same time seeing Black Clover return to peak form ever since the magazine move—and these chapters are to show for it.

I have no real criticism for the recent Black Clover chapters. The emotions from Ichika and Nacht, the hollowness from Morgen’s ‘puppet’ body and the emotional toll it took facing him, and, of course, Yami acting as cool and collected as ever, even on the verge of death, just brought everything together perfectly for each of the characters.

Black Clover chapters 374-376 score: 10/10

Screenshots via Crunchyroll
BLACK CLOVER © 2015 by Yuki Tabata/SHUEISHA Inc.