Black Clover Is Setting Up for Shonen Jump’s Best Ending In Years

Black Clover is now in the midst of its final arc with a potential end to the series overall coming later this year, and if it sticks the landing it will have the best ending a Weekly Shonen Jump series has seen in the last couple of years. Yuki Tabata had shifted Black Clover‘s manga from the demanding schedule of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine when the series began its final arc, and is now releasing a couple of chapters every few months with the seasonal releases of Shueisha’s Jump GIGA magazine. This might have been tough for fans to hear at the time, but it’s now clear that it was the right move to make.

Shonen Jump has gone through some significant changes in the last few years as many of its biggest franchises have come to an end. Series such as Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia, Hajime Komoto’s Mashle: Magic and Muscles, and Gege Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen have all ended their runs with series like Hitsuji Gondaira’s Mission: Yozakura Family also seemingly reaching their end soon too. But as Black Clover prepares for its finale, it seems like it’s been able to take its time to really capitalize on everything that’s happening across its final arc before it’s all over.

Black Clover Is Taking Its Time to End

Black Clover shifting its final arc to Jump GIGA might have been the best thing that has ever happened to the series’ run overall. Not only is Tabata himself likely on a much healthier pattern when it comes to developing these final chapters with a much looser set of release dates, but the chapters themselves have benefitted from this schedule in very visual ways. Not only have fans seen double the amount of material per single chapters with this new schedule, but it’s led to some very impressive spreads for these final battles.

It has yet to feel like fans are missing out from anything with Black Clover’s final arc thus far as the last year as seen four major updates with nearly ten chapters carrying fans through to the finale. The pacing has been better than ever as each new update seen over the year has ended one of the final battles between the Black Bulls and Lucius Zogratis’ clones and Paladins, but it’s never once felt like these fights would have been better served on a weekly basis. There’s been a perfect balance of new materials and significant forward momentum with each update.

But even outside of the manga itself, Black Clover‘s final arc feels much grander in scale with this new schedule as well. As fans eagerly await to see each new update from the series every few months, it sort of revitalizes interest in the series. Because while My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen where able to have countdowns toward their respective finales when they got to their last few chapters, their endings couldn’t help but feel like they came much faster than they should have.

Black Clover Is Going to End Everything In One Go

In My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen’s cases, their endings might have come so quickly that even the creators behind them all still had more material they wanted to share after both of those respective endings. Both creators shared special epilogues set after the original endings to coincide with the releases of their final volumes in Japan, but Black Clover is likely not going to have to go that route. Because of this schedule giving Tabata much more creative time and freedom, it’s going to be able to end its series once and for all without a need for an extra epilogue later.

While Black Clover seems to be teasing that it’s in the middle of its final battle, the latest update seems to also tease that there’s much more on the horizon than fans might expect. It was initially believed that the series would be ending by the final updates seen later this year, and that could still very much be the case. But as the final arc expands its fights, it also looks like there’s enough room to explore a grander finale and a full epilogue as seen with the other endings.

Black Clover is setting a path that other Shonen Jump franchises should follow. Not every series is going to reach the point where it can move to a seasonal schedule for its final chapters, but the manga is all the better for it. It’s been able to showcase big moments that it needs to for each of its characters with this final arc, and no one has felt left behind. There are still a few questions that need to be answered before it’s all over, but Black Clover has the time to explore it all. And that’s what’s going to make it the best ending in years. The time to explore and get everything it needs done before it truly ends.

If Black Clover can stick the landing, then it’s going to be the fullest and most satisfying Shonen Jump ending we’ve seen in years.