Warning! Spoilers ahead for Black Clover chapter 324!
Lucifero the King of Devils just got serious for the first time in Black Clover ever since he manifested in the human realm. Though this may appear to be a cliche, those who take the time to read critically will notice that mangaka Yūki Tabata is actually setting up this battle ingeniously.
In chapter 324, Captain Yami Sukehiro and Vice-Captain Nacht Faust of the Black Bulls successfully hurt the so-called King of Devils after summoning their upgraded Mana Zone called Kids’ Playground. This startling turn of events causes Lucifero to acknowledge them as his enemies and fully unleashes all of the power he possesses. This might be a common trope in manga, but there’s something different about this particular development.
Yami only barely manages to scratch the devil to initiate this response from Lucifero. The only other mage who successfully hit him before then was Asta, and this only resulted in Asta getting pummeled into a temporary comatose state. Even Yuno couldn’t land a hit. This isn’t mentioning the fact that seven of the Clover Kingdom’s nine captains failed to take him down. How will they even land any hits now that Lucifero is fighting seriously? And if this somehow happens, their attacks will now have an even lesser effect on the devil since he’s now stronger than before. Usually, the big bad gets serious after the hero actually stands a fighting chance of winning in their current state. But none of the mages manage to get even remotely close to Lucifero before the devil decides to take their battle to an even higher level beyond them.
What’s incredible about this situation is that Lucifero failed to fully manifest in the human world so he will never reach his full capability during this battle. In other words, Black Clover is knocking down one of manga’s most overused and annoying formulas even though it’s dabbling in another. Usually, the hero almost always manages to overcome a villain who’s much stronger than them in battle and, if the villain is defeated but survives, comes back even more powerful than before to overpower the previously successful but now weaker hero in the long-awaited rematch. This can’t be the case now because Lucifero can’t unlock his full power or undergo some awakening because he can’t fully manifest. So, if the heroes defeat him, it’s only because Lucifero came in at a major disadvantage, therefore making it understandable why he would be stronger later when they inevitably cross paths again.
Even more encouraging is that Asta is now no longer the only mage who can hurt Lucifero since the arrival of Yami and Nacht. Since Asta is the most obvious hero in Black Clover, fans expect him to save the day even though there are older and more experienced mages out there. Even before Yami and Nacht’s unexpected team-up, Black Clover at least diminished Asta’s uniqueness by making his anti-magic powers, which really belong to Liebe, the only reason why he’s the hero. The manga literally pushed Asta into the dirt further when the young mage couldn’t utilize his other strengths and talents to wield the key to defeating Lucifero effectively enough. But now there are other heroes who are capable of doing what originally only he could do – and they did so without getting knocked unconscious. In other words, Asta is no longer a stereotypical hero because he still needs help and is no longer special. He might even be forced to watch helplessly from the sidelines again like when Yami had to step in to take on the Eye of the Midnight Sun’s elvish leader Licht. Hopefully, Black Clover will continue tearing down stereotypes in the coming chapters.
