As Black Clover is entering its final arc, it also may become its longest.
If you are following Yuki Tabata’s Black Clover and are used to weekly releases, now the chapters will be released once every 3 months in Jump GIGA magazine as opposed to Weekly Shonen Jump with an extended page count from 20 to anything over 35 pages long, according to Jump GIGA standards, so the next chapter is likely to be released only in December, and only 3-4 chapters will be released per year.
As for why it is happening, Yuki Tabata several times had to take hiatuses due to health concerns. Unbeknownst to most readers, the deadlines and schedule especially for a weekly series is nothing short of grueling. It is nothing new for the industry, but it is sad that it’s still a prevalent issue, and a new generation of creators, such as My Hero Academia’s Horikoshi Kohei, who has taken numerous hiatuses himself due to health concerns, can hardly keep up with these difficulties to deliver their stories.
Perhaps the most infamous case of this problem in the industry is Yasuhiro Togashi’s Hunter x Hunter, which fans jokingly nicknamed Hiatus x Hiatus. Togashi’s health is in such a bad shape that he can no longer draw while sitting, the most recent volume of Hunter x Hunter was drawn by him entirely while lying on his bed with the help of assistants, another aspect that he had to compromise on as he rigorously preferred to do most of the work himself.
There are creators who can keep up the good work under such conditions though, as some creators are handling such deadlines like champions, for example, Eichiro Oda has been making One Piece for over 20 years, rarely taking any hiatuses, however, he only makes it look easy, as once he showed his daily life schedule, to maintain his workflow he has to work 7 days a week with only 4 hours of sleep, it’s both inspiring and horrifying, so no one can blame Yuki Tabata for finding an alternative solution.
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Yuki Tabata isn’t the first one who switched from Weekly Shonen Jump, before him World Trigger by Daisuke Ashihara was another example of a manga switching the publisher for monthly Jump Square due to health concerns, modern day creators are unable to deliver their stories to the finish line under these harsh conditions, and hopefully that will change one day as people become more and more understanding of what it takes to get their entertainment.