With Lucius looking unstoppable, Asta must learn a new technique to have a chance!

Quick Recap

After a wild reveal that Ichika is Captain Yami’s sister, Ryuya takes Asta to a master yojutsu user named “Fumito Mikuriya.” He patched up Liebe and Asta becomes adamant that he goes back to try to defeat Lucius. Ryuya is insistent that he isn’t strong enough and should try learning a new skill called “Zetten.” Ryuya takes Asta out along with Ichika and Fumito to show Asta how it’s done. Instead of using magic or yoryoku to use Zetten, Asta is able to use his anti-magic.

A Classic Shonen Learning Lesson

You must be patient. Going in head first, knowing that you are ill-prepared isn’t going to change the outcome. You must get stronger in some way to tip the scale in your savor. Ryuya knows this and so does Asta deep down. Asta wants to go in head first, but he’s nowhere near as strong or smart enough for that matter, to pose a real threat.

The question becomes, “how does Asta get stronger then?”

This is such a typical shonen learning lesson, but it’s an important one! It makes me remember as a kid watching Dragon Ball Z, when Goku and Gohan were waiting to get into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber while Tienshinhan and Piccolo were on the brink of death fighting Cell. It’s a great lesson to know that no matter how bad the situation is you have to know when you are powerless and how your actions would actually make it worse for everyone. It sucks to know that some awful things are sometimes out of your control. Nevertheless, there are ways to get gain power and control over particular circumstances—that’s where going through some classic training and learning a new skill kicks in!

Asta Learns Zetten!

Ryuya takes Asta to go train, where he learns something called “Zetten.” He goes on to explain that “ki is something you control unconsciously to turn it into ‘yoryoku.'” You can make this “yoryoku” explode all at once, thus called “Zetten.” Ryuya goes on telling Asta to try to do it, but with the Anti-Magic power. At first, it looked like Asta couldn’t do it, but of course, he does it naturally.

What Zetten Will Do For Asta

I was really on the fence about waiting for a couple more chapters to flesh out this training session with Asta. However, I think we have enough here to have fun with speculating what this “Zetton” power will do for Asta. At this point, it feels kind of cheap that Asta just learned something so fast, but it’s not exactly some ultimate super power that he’s conveniently learned. Zetten seems to be something that people that are experienced controlling their magic can already do. In this case for Asta, it’s not magic, it’s his anti-magic. It seems to be more control based, rather some super power he happened to stumble upon.

I’m sure some ultimate special move could come out of this, but the fact that Asta could utilize Zetten for possible range attacks is a huge advantage. We’ve seen Asta throughout the entire Black Clover story just fight with a sword. This new ability would help us enjoy Asta fighting, using a completely different tactic, thus creating a new wrinkle to how these upcoming fights are going to be different from previous arcs. The upcoming chapter will likely expound upon the limits and how powerful Zetten could be, but it definitely looks like something that can heavily counter a magic intense attack; which only makes sense with the ascension of Yuno.

Will Ichika, Ryuya and Fumito Be Important Later On?

This little panel on the top of page 9 hints at the possibility that these new characters may have a role against Lucius when the fighting goes down. Lucius has a world-wide approach to his “peaceful world.” So, it only makes sense that his ideology reaches to whatever part of the world Asta is in now.

Sort of like how the Heart Kingdom characters played a bigger role in the previous arc, I’m hoping these new characters have their chance to shine. So far, we have the mean kid sister of Captain Yami, this “healer” archetype of Fumito and the classic “sensei” archetype in Ryuya. Rather than just be a means to pump Asta’s powers, there’s plenty of more depth for these characters and the unrevealed story behind this foreign land. We can bet the house that there will be some kind of interaction between these characters and Captain Yami at some point.

Last Thoughts

Overall, I’m still enjoying this Black Clover story quite a bit. It’s classic shonen and I’ve seen these typical tropes play out multiple times. What makes it still enjoyable isn’t the typical learning lessons or even the archetypal characters used in these arcs, it’s the lovable personality of these characters. You got to have character you love to hate and characters you enjoy loving. For me, Captain Yami may be my favorite character for multiple reasons, so this arc is essentially expanding upon a layer to a character that I find to be the most interesting.

Creating a new skill or iconic ability is really hard to accomplish. If you are a long time shonen reader, then it’s kind of expected that some iconic skill or ability will pop up. In Dragon Ball you have the “Kamehameha.” In Naruto you have “Rasengan.” In Black Clover, what will end up being Asta’s iconic ability? The hope here is that some cool ultimate skill will be derived from Asta’s use of “Zetten.” At least, that’s what I’m praying for!