The new season of Black Clover premieres on Saturday 3 October 2026 at 11:00 p.m. Japan time on TV Tokyo, with Studio Pierrot animating and Crunchyroll streaming it outside Japan, according to Anime News Network on 7 September 2026. It is the first new TV episode since 30 March 2021, a gap of five and a half years, and in that gap the manga finished.
Pick your path: the date and platform, the manga chapter it picks up from, what to rewatch first, or Yami.
Black Clover is a fantasy shonen series by Yūki Tabata about Asta, a boy born without magic in a kingdom where everyone else has it, who sets out to become the Wizard King alongside his rival Yuno. The first anime ran for 170 episodes from October 2017 to March 2021, and the new season continues straight from episode 170 rather than restarting.
While season 2 finds its feet, YourCrush.AI lets you build and talk to your own Magic Knight squad captain, recipe included below.
When does the new Black Clover season start and where can you watch it?
It starts on 3 October 2026 at 11:00 p.m. JST on TV Tokyo and its affiliates, which is 10:00 a.m. Eastern and 7:00 a.m. Pacific the same Saturday. Crunchyroll streams it internationally as it airs; in Japan it also runs on Anime Times, Lemino, U-NEXT and Anime Hōdai, per the same Anime News Network report.
| Fact | What is confirmed on 2 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Premiere | 3 October 2026, 11:00 p.m. JST, TV Tokyo |
| Studio | Studio Pierrot, the studio behind all 170 earlier episodes |
| Director | Ayataka Tanemura, who directed episodes 153 to 170 and the 2023 film |
| Streaming outside Japan | Crunchyroll, as it airs; the exact simulcast hour is not announced |
| Opening and ending | "Kienai Riyū" by WANIMA, "Yellow Brick Road" by ONE OR EIGHT |
| Episode count | Not officially announced (see below) |
| English dub | Planned, no date announced |
The episode count is the one number nobody official has printed. Game Rant reported 24 episodes on 11 September 2026, citing a Japanese TV guide listing, and a later Game Rant piece from 27 September says 26 episodes in two halves of 13, with the second half arriving in 2027. Treat both as reports until Pierrot or Crunchyroll posts a number. CBR also lists the dub and the Crunchyroll hour as unconfirmed. Crunchyroll already screened episode 1 in US cinemas on 21 September through its Anime Nights program. For everything else premiering this month, see our fall 2026 anime guide.
How YourCrush.AI lets you build your own squad captain
You cannot chat with Yami himself on YourCrush.AI, but you can build an original captain with his kind of energy in about five minutes. YourCrush.AI creates a character from fields you fill in, with no code, at the character builder. YourCrush.AI keeps the scene going with pinned memories, so your captain remembers the squad name and your rank across sessions. YourCrush.AI also generates in-chat images, so the captain can show you the squad hall.
Here is an original adult captain you can paste field by field. Every field fits the form's limits.
Name: Captain Oren Halloway
Behaviour mode: natural. Category: Anime.
Description: Oren Halloway is 34, captain of the Ash Hounds, a Magic Knight squad that every other order calls a dumping ground. He uses ash magic, which smothers spells instead of blocking them. He is tall, scarred along one forearm, usually half asleep on a crate in the squad hall, and fully awake the moment one of his knights is in trouble. He talks down to nobody except nobles. He treats you as his newest recruit: an adult knight with an odd, weak magic the exam board laughed at, and he has decided that is interesting.
Backstory: You joined the Ash Hounds three weeks ago after failing every other squad's entrance exam. Oren picked you because you kept standing up after you lost. Since then he has sent you on two missions alone, mostly to see what you do. Last night the squad's vice captain was taken by a rival kingdom's raiders, and Oren has not slept.
Greeting: "Recruit. Good, you're awake. Vice captain's gone, the knights' council says wait for orders, and I'm not waiting. I need someone the raiders have never seen fight. That's you. Pack light, you've got ten minutes. And if you're scared, fine. Be scared on the way."
Traits: Protective, Sarcastic, Loyal, Confident, Impulsive.
Speaking style: blunt, lazy, gruff, warm.
The Free plan covers this build: 3 characters created, 3 active personas, 10 pinned memories and 400K chat tokens a month. Pro is $9.99 a month for 50 characters, 50 pinned memories and 5 story branches, and Premium is $19.99 a month for unlimited characters, story branches and pinned memories. The limitation: the Free plan's single story branch means a raid that goes wrong cannot be rewound to try the other route. The platform is 18+ only. If you would rather start from someone else's work, the anime category of the community library has captains and mentors other users built, and our guide to anime AI chat covers how to keep a canon character in voice.
Where does season 2 pick up in the manga?
It picks up at the start of the Spade Kingdom raid, which opens in volume 28 of the manga at chapter 273. Episode 170 ends inside volume 27, which closes with chapters 268 to 272, so the anime stopped one book short of the raid itself, per the volume listing on Wikipedia's chapter list.
If you want zero overlap, open volume 27 at chapter 271, titled "Union," and read on. If you only want new material, open volume 28. Episode 170 is titled "The Faraway Future" and aired on 30 March 2021, per the season episode list.
Spoiler, episodes 158 to 170: where the anime left the captains
The Dark Triad of the Spade Kingdom hold Black Bulls captain Yami Sukehiro and Golden Dawn captain William Vangeance prisoner. Episode 163 is titled "Dante vs. the Captain of the Black Bulls" and episode 166 is "Captain: Yami Sukehiro." The new season opens with the Magic Knights going into the Spade Kingdom to get them back, as CBR summarises it.
Spoiler, episode 170: the last thing the anime showed
Episode 169 is "The Devil-Binding Ritual," and it is exactly that: Asta faces the devil living in his grimoire. Episode 170 closes that fight with Asta offering the devil partnership instead of control, the material of chapters 268 to 270, and ends looking ahead to the raid.
Spoiler, manga: what the raid arc builds to
The rescue turns into a war against the Dark Triad and the devils behind them, and it climbs to Lucifero, the most powerful of the devils. Asta and Yami end up fighting on the same side of that battle, which is the payoff for the captain-and-recruit bond the anime spent 170 episodes on.
Spoiler, manga: the twist at the end of the raid
The end of the Spade arc reveals that Wizard King Julius Novachrono and Lucius Zogratis, the final villain, are the same person. Everything after the raid follows from that reveal.
What should you rewatch or read before it starts?
Most viewers need episodes 158 to 170 and nothing else, because that run (aired 5 January to 30 March 2021) is the setup the new season continues. The answer depends on where you stopped, so pick the line that matches you.
Verdict: you watched all 170 episodes when they aired
Rewatch episodes 163 to 170. That is about two and a half hours and covers the Yami fight, the capture and the devil ritual. Five years is long enough to forget who is held where.
Verdict: you stopped somewhere around episode 120 to 150
Watch 150 to 170. Episodes 150 to 157 are the Heart Kingdom training, where most of the cast learn the new powers they use in the raid, and episode 151 is the captains' brawl that reintroduces the squad leaders.
Verdict: you never got past the first 50 episodes
Read the manga from volume 1 instead of watching 120 episodes. The early anime pads its fights, and the manga moves the same story at roughly twice the speed. You can catch up to the season premiere in a few weekends.
Verdict: the 2023 film, Sword of the Wizard King
Optional. It is an original side story that premiered on Netflix and in Japanese cinemas on 16 June 2023, per Wikipedia's series article). It is directed by the same Ayataka Tanemura who directs the new season, so it is the best preview of how the new episodes will look, but nothing in the raid depends on it.
Verdict: you read the manga to the end and only want the animation
Skip the rewatch. Watch the premiere cold, then decide by episode 3 whether the pace works for you. If the 26-episode report holds, Pierrot is fitting roughly 120 chapters into a single season, about four to five chapters per episode, so expect cuts.
What happened to Black Clover during the five-year gap?
The manga finished. Tabata ran Black Clover in Weekly Shonen Jump from 16 February 2015 to 21 August 2023, moved it to the quarterly Jump GIGA from 25 December 2023, and ended it on 1 May 2026, per Wikipedia's Black Clover article. The final three chapters ran together in the spring 2026 issue of Jump GIGA, as Anime News Network reported on 1 May 2026.
The move to a quarterly magazine is why the anime waited so long. A weekly series adds about 50 chapters a year; a quarterly one adds a handful of chapters at a time, so the anime had no ending to aim at until 2026. The series closed at chapter 392 across 38 volumes, the last released on 4 August 2026, and Wikipedia puts circulation at over 25 million copies as of September 2026.
You can read it legally in English on Viz Media in print and digital, and on Shueisha's MANGA Plus, both named in the Anime News Network report. The one film released in the gap is covered above in the film verdict.
Who is Yami Sukehiro and why do fans want more of him?
Yami Sukehiro is the captain of the Black Bulls, the Clover Kingdom's worst-behaved Magic Knight squad, and he is 28 years old, born 17 September, per the profile chart in Game Rant's Black Bulls guide. He uses darkness magic, came to the Clover Kingdom as a shipwrecked teenager from a country called the Land of the Sun, and is voiced by Junichi Suwabe in Japanese and Christopher R. Sabat in English, per Wikipedia's Yami article.
Fans want more of him because the anime ended with him held prisoner in the Spade Kingdom. His last big moment on screen is a fight with Dante in episode 163, and since then he has been the reason for the rescue rather than a part of it. He also polls like a lead: Wikipedia records him second in the series' second and fourth popularity polls and seventh in the fifth, with 44,884 votes. Tabata said in June 2018 that he based Yami on Toshiaki Iwashiro, the manga artist he once assisted.
His appeal is the "surpass your limits" line, a captain who tells a recruit with no magic to break his own ceiling right now and then backs him when he tries. Asta, Yuno and Noelle are minors (Asta and Noelle are both listed at 15 in the same Game Rant chart), so the Yami fandom is about the captain and his squad, not romance with the leads.
Spoiler, manga: where Yami's story goes after the raid
The final part of the manga travels to the Land of the Sun, Yami's home country. Game Rant reports that the second half of the new season, slated for 2027, adapts that part. Neither Pierrot nor Crunchyroll has confirmed the split.
Frequently asked questions
When does Black Clover season 2 come out?
It premieres on 3 October 2026 at 11:00 p.m. JST on TV Tokyo, and Crunchyroll streams it outside Japan as it airs. That is 10:00 a.m. Eastern on the same Saturday; Crunchyroll had not posted its exact upload hour by 2 October.
How many episodes does the new season have?
No official count exists on 2 October 2026. Reports range from 24 episodes to 26 in two halves, with the second half in 2027.
Is the Black Clover manga finished?
Yes, it ended on 1 May 2026 in Jump GIGA after 392 chapters and 38 volumes. The last volume was released on 4 August 2026.
What chapter should I read after episode 170?
Start at chapter 271 in volume 27 for no gap, or chapter 273 in volume 28 if you only want the Spade Kingdom raid. Both are on MANGA Plus and Viz.
Do I need to watch the Black Clover movie first?
No, Sword of the Wizard King is an original side story and the raid does not depend on it. Watch it if you want a preview of director Ayataka Tanemura's style.
How old is Yami Sukehiro?
Yami is 28, with a 17 September birthday, per Game Rant's character chart. He is the adult captain of the Black Bulls, while Asta and Noelle are listed at 15.
If the first half stops where the raid ends, the anime gets the cleanest break point the manga has, and the 2027 half starts on the best cliffhanger Tabata wrote.