Black Clover manga finally announces return – but fans aren’t happy

Black Clover manga is coming back next month after a long hiatus. The last chapter of the manga was released back in December 2023. Needless to say, the return of the manga was much anticipated. However, it seems Black Clover fans aren’t too happy about the manga’s return.

Written and illustrated by Yuki Tabata, Black Clover made a promising debut in 2015 and soon became one of Shounen Jump’s most popular titles. The fantasy action manga received an OVA episode by Xebec studio in 2016 before getting a successful anime adaptation by Pierrot in 2017 which ran for 170 episodes and ended the season in 2021 with an anime movie in 2023.

The successful run of Black Clover faced some halts when the manga began taking frequent breaks due to Tabata and his family’s health issues. The manga was finally announced to take a three-months long break in April 2022 to prepare for the final arc of the series.

Recently, the confirmation came that Black Clover will be making its return on April 30, 2024 with Chapter 370. The news has made quite the splash in the anime community. However, many fans of the series are not entirely satisfied with the comeback and are expressing their opinion on this issue on social media.

Black Clover, despite being a popular shounen series, has faced some bumps on the road over the years. The anime adaptation of the series faced some criticism in the past with viewers complaining about the direction and the voice acting. The manga was also compared to classic shounen series like Naruto at one point.

Black Clover’s popularity took another significant hit when it changed its home from the Weekly Shounen Jump to Jump Giga in August 2023 after the release of Chapter 368.

The reduced popularity of the series becomes apparent in the fan reactions over Black Clover’s comeback news. Several fans expressed their lack of enthusiasm over it. Pointing out the long break between chapters, one fan wrote on X, “Bro got delayed so long I started to forget what the story was about.”

Another fan expressed their doubts about the length of the upcoming chapter on Reddit, “If it’s as short as the last chapter I’m dropping the manga till it ends.” 

One wrote, “TBH I can’t even get excited anymore, this Giga change killed all the hype I had for new chapters, especially when the last one was so short after waiting for three whole months. And being the last arc and just a few chapters left, I don’t see how the story can get interesting.”

It’s yet to be seen if the return of Black Clover can satisfy and potentially hype its fans with some good content after a three month hiatus.