After years of waiting, Black Clover is finally returning with a new season, picking up where it left off in March 2021, with Studio Pierrot having just started the Spade Kingdom arc. It was first announced in July last year that the anime would be returning with a new season, and the new season is now only a few days away from being released. Black Clover‘s return is also being treated similarly to Bleach‘s return. However, that could also be the factor that leads to the anime’s return taking a disappointing road for some fans. Both anime, during their first runs, presented more than their original source material.
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In 170 episodes, Black Clover covered only 272 chapters, with a ratio of hardly 1.5 chapters per episode. This was achieved thanks to the anime’s original sequences and arcs. However, it doesn’t seem like Black Clover‘s return will be doing the same. Bleach‘s final arc, the Thousand-Year Blood War, had around 200 chapters, and it has now been confirmed that it will all be concluded in only 50 episodes, meaning that around four chapters per episode were covered. Since Black Clover‘s anime adaptation is also likely to receive the same treatment, with only 120 chapters to be covered, fans can expect the anime series to come to an end with only 25–30 episodes at most.
Black Clover Season 2 Won’t Be Able to Match the Scale of Season 1
Since Studio Pierrot is following the same pattern for Black Clover as Bleach, there is almost certainty that the anime’s run will be done in split cours, and with only a little over half the run of Bleach‘s final arc being provided, Black Clover season 2 could be its final season, split into two cours. The numbers are actually there, given what the final two arcs of the series have. The Spade Kingdom arc spans until around chapter 330, meaning that the first cour of the second season will be adapting around 60 chapters, likely split across 13–15 episodes. Then, there is almost certainty that the second cour of the anime will take a break, perhaps for six months, before the final cour arrives in summer 2027.
This final cour of the second season of Black Clover will include an adaptation of the final 60 chapters or so, once again likely having the same episode count of around 13–15 episodes. However, the number for each cour could be trimmed down to 13 episodes, considering that this has become the standard format since the anime began broadcasting on television in Japan, which only gets around half an hour unless there is a two-episode premiere or a longer finale. All of this evidence clearly points to the fact that a longer run for Black Clover, extending beyond the original manga, is no longer possible.
Fans shouldn’t blame the studio for this choice, but it has become the norm, as even One Piece has embraced the 26-episode-per-year format. This has shifted the industry toward presenting quality over quantity, which, to be frank, is a change Studio Pierrot needed with its anime. Maybe this is why we can also see Boruto returning with its second installment, adapting Two Blue Vortex while following the same pattern. Though it will be disappointing for some fans to adapt to this change, with a legacy shonen anime like Black Clover returning with a new season, the quality of the production is ensured, and it could prevail over the disappointment of season 2 not having a longer run.
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