How To Catch Up On ‘Black Clover’ Before Season 2

It’s been a long five years, but Black Clover (2017) is finally back. While it was never able to secure the spotlight in the same way that other Shonen Jump titles like Dandadan (2024) and Demon Slayer (2019) did, Black Clover has one of the most devout and faithful anime fandoms today. They will wait months, if not years, for new updates, and as a fan of Hunter x Hunter (2011), it’s easy to sympathize with them.

But Black Clover fans won’t have to wait much longer for the anime to return! While an indefinite hiatus was announced for the anime in 2021, Black Clover is set to return in the Fall of 2026 with a new season. While we don’t know exactly how long this season is, we know that it will stream on Crunchyroll and may very well be an Anime of the Year contender if the hype is able to match the quality of the manga. But with only a short time until its return, what’s the best way to catch up on the series before then, and why did it even go on a hiatus in the first place?

What Is ‘Black Clover’ About?

If you were to call Black Clover a Naruto (2002) clone after hearing about its premise, most casual anime fans probably wouldn’t blame you. It fits into a lot of the same tropes and ideas that propelled Naruto to god-tier status within the anime community, but labeling Black Clover as a simple knock-off would be a fatal error. 

Sure, Black Clover’s lead, Asta, wants to become the Wizard King, much in the same way that Naruto wanted to become Hokage in his series, but that’s about all the two have in common. Asta is the purest definition of an underdog, wishing to become the Wizard King despite having no magical power whatsoever, and getting involved in a whole host of conflicts that lead to a much larger and grander fantasy epic. Multiple different kingdoms, each with its own ideologies, are introduced, and nothing is ever truly in simple black or white terms of morality. It’s a compelling fantasy series with a huge cast of characters that still has the Shonen tropes you would expect from the genre, making Black Clover probably one of the best Shonen series to watch in recent memory.

Why Did ‘Black Clover’ Go On Hiatus For Five Years?

In the world of anime, a series going on hiatus nowadays may serve as a cause for alarm. Anime production companies are booked years in advance, so if a series goes on hiatus, there better be a good reason for it. 

For Black Clover, there actually were several legitimate reasons why a hiatus was completely necessary. First, the anime was quickly catching up to the manga. By the time the anime went on hiatus in 2021, it was only a few months behind the manga, so Studio Pierrot felt that taking a break was necessary to give the manga breathing room. After all, one of their earlier anime projects, Bleach (2004), had an infamous amount of filler episodes and arcs that dragged the pacing down because it had also caught up to the source material. Studio Pierrot learned from its mistakes, and hopefully, it will lead to a smoother pace. 

But that wasn’t the only major reason, since, as fans of the first season can tell you, the animation quality wasn’t exactly stellar. Some moments were great, but the breakneck pace of producing weekly episodes for years on end was clearly taking its toll on the animation staff. The constant weekly episodes were also becoming an antiquated practice, as most Shonen series, like My Hero Academia (2016) and Demon Slayer, had shifted towards a seasonal approach, which gave the animators room to breathe and the opportunity to produce better work. Even shows like One Piece (1999), which prided itself for years on releasing new episodes on a weekly basis, began to shift to a seasonal model to ensure the production quality remained consistently high. Black Clover was simply adjusting to the times, and if the animation quality is leagues better in Season 2, then it’ll be clear that Pierrot made the right call on both going on hiatus and shifting to a seasonal model.

How To Watch ‘Black Clover’ In Order

On the surface, catching up with Black Clover before the second season is easy. After all, there’s only one season of the show. How complicated can it be to catch up with it? Actually, it’s not that simple.

Obviously, the best way to catch up on Black Clover is to head over to Crunchyroll and watch all 170 episodes there. Black Clover is available on most major streaming services, but because Crunchyroll is the only confirmed streaming platform as of now to be hosting the second season, it would be easiest to binge the show there. There are some filler episodes here and there, but because of how few and far between they are, it’s honestly not that big of a deal, and you can watch them alongside the canon episodes.

Where things begin to get tricky is with the film Black Clover: Sword of the Wizard King (2023). Oddly enough, the film is technically canon. The events of the film are set after Episode 120 during a six-month time skip, and while initially it seemed to be just a one-off story, not dissimilar from anime original films like My Hero Academia: You’re Next (2024), by the time the manga ended, it became clear that concepts from the film were incorporated into the finale. Not major moments, mind you, but important enough beats where context from the film would help. Not only that, but the film is available exclusively on Netflix as of the time of this writing, meaning that if you want to get the full Black Clover experience, you’ll need to be subscribed to both Crunchyroll and Netflix. It’s worth it, though, to see Asta’s long-awaited return, and especially given what will hopefully be coming next in Season 2.