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After having seen many comments & thoughts on this work, generally gearing towards either of the hype (due to various shounen fandom) or the fact that this manga seemed to have quote "ripped off of the idea of other manga like Naruto", I wanted to add in my comments; in terms of how this manga is presented as a whole in terms of the author's writing rhetoric.

Having read many fantasy literature novels and as well as fantasy & kingdom setting manga, there are many stories out there that are similar to one another even within the kingdom world building setup stories. So it is no ... surprise to find that in a work such as this there exists magicians in this world, where they are the primary source of power in this setting. So if anything, I have absolutely no qualms in that Black Clover seems to have a similar feel of story in terms of what other people have accused and claimed it to be. If anything, Black Clover could have had the exact same story as Naruto and the others, for all I care. But then that would be over stretching things and the story would essentially become a work of fan fiction. The fact is, kingdom and world building are rather hard to come up with, given the material in all of the other works people have seen. And so rather in terms of the how similar the idea of this story is, I believe that this would have a lot of potential depending on how the author decides to go on about it.

But here then on lies my main problem with this work, in that straight from the beginning the story of this manga was not executed properly. I can only mention so much without spoiling too much of the story, but here goes.

From the first chapter the main characters are introduced, readers are introduced to their disadvantaged lifestyle living in the very outskirts of the kingdom. Everything of the main characters the readers should know at this point in the game are shown, including a random "flashback" of the two's promise - the kind which I believe should have been showed at a very later point in the story, similar to Luffy's childhood past "arc" in the manga One Piece.

Afterwards things happen, and the second chapter introduces the readers of the magic knight exam. And then the third chapter shows Aster's new life in the order. I'm sorry, did I miss something here in that the author had the potential of dragging out the magic knight exam - making it into a possible "magic knight exam arc", but instead decided to short-case or summarize it all in one chapter? There was a small antagonist character introduced which I felt could have been utilized fully in each rounds of the exam; each round of the exam could have been complex & hard if the exam part of the story was properly dragged out; and heck even potential rival characters other than the antagonist and Juno could have been introduced into the story if the exam was practically made into an arc. But instead, everything about this was summarized in just 1 chapter.

So in terms of writing & rhetorics, this is one example of what I mean. And afterwards this manga follows along the same pattern with its later arcs, where given its story content so far it should already have at least 60 chapters or even more. So personally, with this work only having at around 28 chapters says something.

In summary, like I mentioned before in terms of story, this manga had so much potential in dragging out some aspects of the story, but the author essentially ruined himself and his chapters short because he did not utilize his arcs to the best of his ability. Having read Bakuman, I could not help but question what on earth the author's editor and even Jump magazine was and is still currently thinking, since they're not able to point out that some elements of the story could have been dragged out and utilized much better. They probably have at one point, but following the demographics of fans and the audience implies them from further bringing these points to the bitter end. But the hype occurring in a work which cannot execute itself properly is just a matter of my opinion, in that I cannot understand why.

In terms of my official rankings following the schema of this site, they are... (all considered individually and not on an "average" side of things with the overall ranking of score).

Story: 6 / 10
Art: 5 / 10
Character: 8 /10
Enjoyment: 2 /10
Overall: 3 / 10

But other than finding myself criticizing this work due to how badly the author AND Jump presented itself in terms of writing & story telling devices and mechanisms, I found myself quite liking the characters and wondering about the use of magic in this world. Seeing Aster's "tome" made me wonder and refer to another work of a webtoon & theorize on my own. Aster's development in the order (albeit again, rather fast), and characters of the Black Sheep's Crook I came to like - with each having problems of their own and thus needing to solve them sort of thing. Regardless, as long as the author continues to make the bad points of his storytelling very obvious and on point, my judgement on this series will continue to remain on the low side.