Asta is born without a shred of magic in a world where magic is everything, while his rival Yuno is a prodigy. Both swear to become the Wizard King, and Asta fights his way up through the Clover Kingdom's Magic Knights on grit alone.
Black Clover → Season 2 → Sword of the Wizard King
170 episodes + 1 movie / ~70 hours
Start with the main TV series and follow it straight through to the second season. Everything else is optional: the 2023 film tells an original story outside the manga, and the two sets of shorts are light extras you can take or leave.
This is where everything begins. Asta and Yuno start from nothing in a remote village and work their way into the Clover Kingdom's Magic Knight squads. It runs 170 episodes across four years, and the pacing takes a little while to settle, so give it a few episodes before judging it.
⚠ This season ran from 2017 to 2021 and is 170 episodes long.
The continuation of the main story, starting October 2026 on TV Tokyo. It picks up from where the 2017-2021 run stopped and adapts the Spade Kingdom arc, beginning at chapter 271 of the manga.
⚠ This season has not aired yet. It is scheduled to begin in October 2026.
A self-contained film with an original story that does not appear in the manga, released on Netflix in 2023. Nothing in the main story depends on it, which is why it sits down here, but it is a full-length feature with the TV director at the helm rather than a throwaway extra. Watch it after the TV run, whenever you want more.
Bonus shorts included on the Black Clover Blu-ray and DVD volumes, released between 2018 and 2021. Fifteen chibi-style comedy skits, released in English by Funimation as "Clover Clips: Supersized". Note that these are separate from the Petit Clover segments built into the TV episodes themselves — those you have already seen if you watched the main series. Skippable.
Eight chibi-style comedy shorts from 2019, animated by a different studio. Crunchyroll carries them with English subtitles. Purely for fun, and best enjoyed once you already know the cast.
Black Clover is a straightforward watch. The main TV series runs 170 episodes from 2017 to 2021 and tells one continuous story, so you start at episode one and work your way through. There is no release-order versus story-order problem to untangle here.
The second season begins in October 2026 and picks up directly from where that run stopped, adapting the Spade Kingdom arc from chapter 271 of the manga. If you are starting now, you have time to get through the whole first run before it arrives.
Everything else sits outside the main line. The 2023 film, Sword of the Wizard King, tells an original story written for the screen rather than adapted from the manga, so nothing in the ongoing plot depends on it. It is still a full-length feature made by the TV series' own director, so it is worth your time once you have finished the main run — just not something to stop and watch partway through.
The two sets of shorts are lighter still. Petit Clover Advance collects fifteen comedy skits included on the Blu-ray and DVD volumes, and Squishy! Black Clover is an eight-episode chibi spin-off released on dTV in 2019. Both are pure comedy with no bearing on the story, and you will not feel like you missed anything by skipping them.
Where each part of the anime lines up with the source, so you know where to pick up reading.
Only spin-offs that tie into the main story are listed here — anthologies, fan books and the like are left out.
The anime ends partway through Volume 27, so the manga continues from chapter 271 at the start of Volume 28 — the point the second season adapts from. Two stretches of the TV run have no manga equivalent: episodes 130-154 fill in a six-month timeskip, and episodes 155-157 are original, both written under Tabata's supervision. The English edition is published by Viz Media and uses the same volume numbers.
Start with the main TV series from episode one. It runs 170 episodes across four broadcast seasons from 2017 to 2021, following Asta and Yuno from a remote village into the Clover Kingdom's Magic Knight squads. Nothing comes before it, so there is no earlier entry point to worry about.
Yes. Sword of the Wizard King tells an original story written for the screen that does not appear in the manga, and nothing in the ongoing plot references it. It is a full-length feature directed by the TV series' own director, so it is worth watching after the main run, but the second season does not assume you have seen it.
It begins in October 2026 on TV Tokyo, directed by Ayataka Tanemura, who handled the later TV seasons and the film. It picks up directly from where the 2017-2021 run stopped and adapts the Spade Kingdom arc.
There are two separate sets. Petit Clover Advance collects fifteen comedy skits included on the Blu-ray and DVD volumes, released in English by Funimation as Clover Clips: Supersized. Squishy! Black Clover is an eight-episode chibi spin-off from 2019, animated by a different studio, available on Crunchyroll with subtitles. Neither has any bearing on the plot. Note that these are distinct from the Petit Clover segments built into the TV episodes themselves, which you will have seen already.
Two short specials screened at Jump Festa events in 2016 and 2018. They were never given a home video or streaming release, so there is no practical way to watch them, and nothing in the main series depends on them. They are left out of the order for that reason.
No. The 170-episode run adapts up to chapter 270, which falls partway through Volume 27. The manga itself finished in May 2026 at 37 volumes, so a substantial amount of story sits beyond what has been animated. The second season starts adapting from chapter 271.
Chapter 271, at the start of Volume 28. Two stretches of the TV run have no manga counterpart — episodes 130 to 154 fill in a six-month timeskip and episodes 155 to 157 are original, both written under Tabata's supervision — so you will not find those scenes if you go back looking for them. The English edition comes from Viz Media and uses the same volume numbers as the Japanese release.
