Clevatess

クレバテス-魔獣の王と赤子と屍の勇者- (Clevatess: Majuu no Ou to Akago to Shikabane no Yuusha)

7.6(1)

OtakuDen

7.8(103,143)

MAL Score

Ranked #1183

Popularity #1374

Action
Fantasy

Episodes: 12
Duration: 25 min per ep
Aired: Jul 2, 2025 to Sep 17, 2025
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

With four armies of dark beasts pressing in from all sides, five humanoid races struggle to expand the known world’s frontiers. That fragile effort collapses when the 13 heroes sent to the south are effortlessly slaughtered by Clevatess, one of the Lords of Dark Beasts. Seeking vengeance on humanity, Clevatess storms the capital of the Kingdom of Hiden and leaves devastation in his wake.

Even in the aftermath, a slim path to survival remains. Clevatess revives Alicia Glenfall—one of the fallen heroes—and tasks her with helping raise a newborn, Luna, whose future decisions may determine the fate of the human world. Though hesitant to aid the very monster who destroyed everything, Alicia comes to see Luna as the last barrier between humanity and extinction.

Disguised in human form, Clevatess travels with Alicia and Luna to find a wet nurse, keeping his true identity hidden. As threats close in, Alicia is forced to cut down those who stand in their way, while neighboring nations move to exploit Hiden’s weakened state—especially its sole forge capable of producing the heroes’ weapons.

Otaku Consensus

Clevatess earned its strong 7.79 MAL score by treating dark fantasy as a moral pressure cooker rather than a monster-slaying power trip, with Kiyotaka Taguchi’s direction and Keigo Koyanagi’s series composition keeping the 12-episode run focused on judgment, survival, and human cruelty. The Lay-duce adaptation’s most praised strength is its character development around Clevatess and Alicia, especially the way parenthood and revenge are made to collide; the recurring complaint is that its retro-leaning visual style and grim pacing can feel less polished than viewers expect from a modern action fantasy.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Clevatess if you want dark fantasy that scratches the Berserk itch for brutality and moral rot, but without turning every conflict into pure despair or macho spectacle. Its hook is not “can humanity beat the monster,” but whether humanity can present a convincing case for itself when judged by something outside its values. The series is especially rewarding for viewers who like fantasy with adult responsibilities baked into the genre machinery: wet nurses, orphans, political opportunism, weapons logistics, adoption, and the economics of war matter as much as swordplay. If you prefer clean heroism, skip it; if you want a 12-episode fantasy that uses gore, parenthood, and revenge to interrogate who deserves mercy, this is built for you.

Key Characters

C
Clevatess(VA: Yuichi Nakamura)
Clevatess stands out because fans read him less as a standard demon king and more as an anti-heroic judge whose contact with human weakness becomes the season’s central philosophical test.
A
Alicia Glenfall
Alicia gives the series its emotional edge: a fallen hero forced into proximity with the enemy, she keeps the story grounded in trauma, duty, and reluctant caretaking rather than simple redemption.
L
Luna
Luna is unusual for dark fantasy because her narrative weight comes from potential rather than action, turning adoption and parenthood into strategic stakes instead of soft side material.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
Lay-duce’s adaptation leans into a retro-feeling presentation that viewers specifically singled out online, giving the 2025 series a harsher, less glossy texture than many seasonal fantasy shows.
2
The season’s structure is built around moral evaluation rather than quest escalation: reviews repeatedly highlighted its exploration of judgment and human nature as the real engine of the drama.
3
AniList’s tag profile is unusually revealing for an action fantasy: Monster Boy at 96%, Female Protagonist at 95%, Parenthood at 80%, Adoption at 77%, and Gore at 73% point to a series where domestic responsibility and brutality are deliberately intertwined.
4
The cast focus skews older than standard adventure fantasy, with AniList marking Primarily Adult Cast at 80%, which helps explain why viewers praised its grounded handling of crisis, politics, and survival decisions.
5
Rather than using medieval fantasy only as backdrop, the series makes institutions matter: neighboring states, military pressure, and the strategic value of a hero-weapon forge all shape the conflict beyond individual duels.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Kiyotaka Taguchi is credited as both director and sound director, meaning the same key creative voice oversaw the show’s staging and its audio atmosphere.
Fun fact 2: The anime adapts the work of original creator Yuuji Iwahara, with Keigo Koyanagi handling series composition and Souichirou Sako credited for character design.
Fun fact 3: Clevatess completed a single 12-episode TV run from July 2, 2025 to September 17, 2025, placing it squarely in the Summer 2025 season.
Fun fact 4: Its reception was strong across platforms: MAL lists it at 7.79 from 103,143 votes, while AniList records a 77/100 score and 1,955 favourites.
Fun fact 5: IMDb’s listing uses the romanized title Kurebatesu: Majuu no Ou to Akago to Kabane no Yuusha and shows a 7.7 rating from about 3.5K users, closely mirroring its anime-database scores.