Anime news leakers are claiming that the Black Clover Episode 133 release date is scheduled for the summer 2020 anime season. That means Black Clover Season 3 Episode 31 could be airing in July.
The rumor comes thanks to Spytrue, who claims, “Finally!! Black Clover coming back this Summer.” Two days later, Spytrue claimed that the “Black Clover anime will be back starting” July 7, 2020.
A source for this information was not provided, although Spytrue may have gotten hold of a leaked copy of an upcoming Weekly Shonen Jump magazine.
Officially, Weekly Shonen Jump magazine has previously indicated that the delay for new Black Clover episodes will continue until at least mid-June 2020.
Black Clover Episode 132: The Lion Awakens (or Black Clover Season 3 Episode 30) was released as scheduled on April 28, 2020. Starting on May 5, 2020, Japanese TV stations began running reruns of old Black Clover episodes.
Initially, the TV schedule called for Black Clover reruns to be broadcast through at least June 9, 2020, but Weekly Shonen Jump magazine warned back then that the delay “may continue for a longer period.”
Since the Black Clover Episode 133 release date has not yet been announced for June, it lends credence to Spytrue’s claim that the episode will come out in summer 2020.
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Updated June 15, 2020: Added Spytrue’s exact date.
Could the Black Clover Season 4 anime also be delayed to 2021?
Due to all the delays, Black Clover Episode 153 — the third season’s ending — could also be delayed until either December 2020 or January 2021. Such a long delay will, of course, impact the Black Clover Season 4 release date, which could be pushed back into 2021.
Of course, that’s assuming the Black Clover anime doesn’t naturally go on hiatus for a time. The anime adaptation has been catching up to the latest Black Clover manga chapters, which has also been delayed multiple times in 2020.
Episode 129 adapted up through Chapter 228 out of 253, the latest chapter as of this story’s publishing.
As such, animation Studio Pierrot created Episode 123 and 124 as filler episodes. Episodes 130 through 133 are original anime stories that fill in the time skip in the Black Clover manga’s timeline.
FUNimation’s Black Clover Episode 125 English dub still delayed
The coronavirus has also delayed the Black Clover English dub since mid-March 2020. FUNimation began dubbing again, and the English Black Clover Episode 124 was released on April 26, 2020.
However, FUNimation’s schedule revealed that the English Black Clover Episode 125 was delayed again. FUNimation has not provided an update on the Black Clover dub schedule since the April update.
It’s been reported that anime dubbing has been taking three times the amount of time to keep voice actors safe. The cascading effect of all these delays has led to many anime seasons being pushed back by three months or more.
Despite owning the exclusives streaming rights in North America, FUNimation has also been releasing some new anime seasons without any dubbed episodes.
Black Clover Season 3 Episode 31 is just one in a long list of COVID-19 delays
Back in April 2020, the Black Clover Production Committee stated that the official website and Twitter accounts would be updated once the decision is made.
“We have continued to produce animation with a system that puts the safety and infection prevention of the cast, staff, and other parties as the top priority. Due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection, the broadcasting and distribution of Episode 133 is postponed. Therefore, we will rebroadcast the first episode of the series starting in May. Once the broadcast date and time for Episode 133 are decided, we will announce it again on this site.”
Many studios’ schedules suffered from cascading effects due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the worldwide mitigation efforts.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe completely lifted the national state of emergency on May 26, 2020, but the pandemic is still taking a toll on productivity.
Mantan-Web has reported that industry insiders claim it’s taking about double the time to create new episodes and three times as long to produce dubbed versions of episodes.
The Black Clover Season 3 anime is just one of several major anime that suffered delays. Sword Art Online: Alicization ~War of Underworld~ Part 2, That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime Season 2, Slime Diaries Season 1, The Seven Deadly Sins Season 4, Haikyuu!! Season 4, Pokemon Journeys: The Series, The Promised Neverland Season 2, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU Season 3, The Quintessential Quintuplets Season 2, Re: ZERO Season 2, Sword Art Online: Alicization Final Season and No Guns Life Part 2 have all been pushed back to later dates.
The few anime not delayed had production schedules in which the episodes were completed before the pandemic swept the world.
The Tower Of God anime, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 2, Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 2/Part 2, and the Gleipnir anime are among the anime productions that was able to complete episodes before the pandemic delayed the work.