So recently the Black Clover movie came out and I know it was a big topic as to whether or not the original dub cast would be able to come back for it and to get that out of the way quickly yes they did come back and it was the smart choice. As for the movie itself it stars Asta and his rival Yuno as the two of them compete in a tournament but before it gets underway a former wizard king, Conrad Leto, returns with a desire to destroy the world as we know it and remake it into a perfect society.

As far as the story goes I actually have mixed opinions of it. The enemy Conrad actually has a lot of parallels with Asta and these stories are usually very interesting. While I did love how it was used here to show how Conrad’s motivations were corrupted to essentially show what Asta could become if his morality slips I feel like not enough time was devoted to make that point hit on an emotional level. Conrad has a tragic backstory but very little of it is told till right at the very end when we really needed his story more fleshed out to begin with so that we could understand where his path and Asta’s diverged and to understand what motivated him to change his peace-loving ways to use a more destructive plan. It was still a very good idea and I greatly enjoyed the story I just felt like more could have been done with Conrad.

As for the named Sword of the Wizard king I was admittingly hoping there was a lot more lore to it since it is in the title of the movie but for the most part it’s just kind of there. It is clearly this amazing item with a lot of power but where it’s in the title I thought the focus of the movie would have been more geared towards the sword itself and honestly it’s functions more as a plot element to explain why the villains are so powerful. Again also not a bad idea at all as it was a cool weapon I just thought there would be more to it.

Now I know this review has been more on the negative but know those comments are not things that I disliked about the movie just things that I liked and wished we got more of. Now for the action scenes they were amazing. We got a lot more fighting than what I honestly expected. A huge part of the movie is devoted to the conflict itself and every main and most of the secondary characters get a lot of time to shine which was something I absolutely loved. Now of course Asta and Yuno are the stars so it’s primarily focused on them but I loved how it was clear everyone had a role to play and how victory was dependent on everyone playing their role well. It’s rare you get an anime movie that devotes enough time to give so many characters memorable moments but this one really succeeds in that regard.

The animation is really good here. You have a lot of characters with very flashy attacks and the way they came to life here really made for a visual spectacle. All of the animated scenes were smooth and made combat so much fun to watch. I would say it does take a step up from what we normally see from the show itself.

Overall this movie does a great job at providing a lot of entertaining action scenes that were not only fun to watch but beautifully animated which made this movie so entertaining. The story had a really good idea but I felt like not enough was done to make it hit the emotional angle that it could have. It doesn’t ruin the movie by any means but as someone that loves characters that are meant to connect on an emotional level I do set the bar high on how that’s executed and sadly the villian wasn’t fleshed out enough to make that happen as much as I wanted it to. Still, Conrad was a cool character that was fun to watch. I highly recommend this movie.