The second season of the Black Clover anime premiered on October 3, and in the week since its release, it has set a new record on the streaming service Crunchyroll, becoming the most-liked anime premiere of 2026. The episode, titled "The Battle Begins," has garnered 135,500 likes on the platform, surpassing other popular anime season premieres from earlier in the year.
Fan reception to the episode has been overwhelmingly positive, reflected in an aggregate user score of 9.4 on IMDb. The premiere adapts the manga's Final Wizard King storyline, and its strong debut suggests it has met the expectations of fans who have awaited new Black Clover content for some time. Between October 2017 and March 2021, 170 episodes of Black Clover aired, following the journey of Asta, a boy born without magic in a world where it is commonplace, who wields a grimoire granting him Anti-Magic powers. A movie released in 2023 provided a stopgap for fans.
Episode 172, "The Door to Hell," which premiered on October 10, has also shown strong engagement, accumulating over 14,000 likes on Crunchyroll shortly after its release. Black Clover Season 2 is slated to run for 26 episodes, with the first 13 episodes airing weekly through December. These new episodes are exclusively available on Crunchyroll.