CLEVATESS(クレバテス)
Review Blog
CLEVATESS TRAILER
If unavailable, then click here: Clevatess Trailer
Clevatess Opening Theme Song:
If unavailable, then click here: Mayu Maeshima(前島 麻由) - Ruler(ルーラー)
Clevatess Closing Theme Song:
If unavailable, then click here: Ellie Goulding - Destiny
INFORMATION:
[WARNING!: Spoiler Alert!]Click Here to skip to the review, score sheet, and final score.
Clevatess is a 🇯🇵 Japanese anime.
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Manga Series: "Clevatess: The King of Magical Beasts, the Baby, and the Corpse Hero"(クレバテス−魔獣の王と赤子と屍の勇者−)
Manga written and illustrated by: Yūji Iwahara(岩原 裕二)
Date of Manga Creation: August 12, 2020
Anime Television Series Created By: Studio Lay-duce(株式会社)
Total Anime Episodes(Season 1): 12
Anime aired on: July 2, 2025
Anime Ended on: September 17, 2025
WARNING:
SPOILERS BELOW!
Episode 1: The Lord of Dark Beasts(魔獣の王)
Basically, Episode 1 is Clevatess, lord of the dark beasts, just "one-shotting" or "smoking" every humanoid who had intruded his home. Alicia Glenfall happened to get lucky by scratching Clevatess's horn; however, she gets "one-shotted" as well. All 13 heroes are now dead. In retaliation of the invasion done by the 13 heroes, Clevatess decides to return the favor and invade Haiden, decapitating its king. Out of curiousity, Clevatess adopts a baby at the request of a dying Haiden citizen. Clevatess returns to his home with the Haiden baby; however, the baby requires sustenance. With his dark ichor, Clevatess revives Alicia Glenfall in order to breastfeed the baby; however, Alicia was unable to provide the service to the Haiden baby because she is a virgin. In order to sustain the life of the Haiden baby, Clevatess decides to look for a wet nurse. Since Clevatess is a Dark Beast, it would be conspicuous to search for a wet nurse while in the shape and form of a Dark beast. With his magical abilities, Clevatess took the shape and form of the dying Haiden citizen, who had requested Clevatess to take care of the Haiden baby. As well as nicknaming himself as "Clen", Clevatess gave the baby a name: "Luna". Alicia soon discovers that "Luna" is of royal blood because of the insignia printed on the baby's cloth. After washing up, they are ready to leave; however, they are violently apprehended by bandits.
Score: 10/10
Episode 2: The Beast Lord in Captivity(囚われた魔獣王)
As prisoners, Clen, Alicia, and Luna are brought to the Crow's hideout. The Crows are a group of slave-traders/bandits, who are led by Broco; as well as leading the slave-traders/bandits, Broco is in control of a giant troll named Betty. The Crows operate within a mine. Within this hideout, Clen discovers a wet nurse named Nell, who eventually breastfed Luna. After listening to Nell's backstory, Clen wants to hire Nell as Luna's wet nurse; however, Nell declines because Nell thinks Clen is just a slave like she is. Meanwhile near a flooded mining area, Alicia finds information about a legendary hero named Khord, whose "Regalia", a magical sword made of arcanacite, is lost at the waters below. The problem is that the body of water within the mine is occupied with carnivorous sea monsters called "Arvensis". A violent conflict happens between Alicia and one of the bandits, which causes them to fall from the top of a man-made wooden bridge into the rocky bottom. Did Alicia survive?
Note: The ending scene of this episode was the most gruesome sight of Alicia disfigured. It was grotesque and gorey!
Score: 5/10
Episode 3: Hero's Duty(勇者の仕事)
Thought to be dead by the bandits, Alicia awakens from her fall to realize that she is immortal because of Clevatess's dark ichor, which runs throughout her entire body. Through the blood gushing out of Alicia, Clevatess magically appears before Alicia as a cute puppy. Clevatess could crush all the bandits himself; however, it would reveal to his enemies that he is away from his homebase. As a precaution, Clevatess demands Alicia to crush the bandits. The dark ichor returns back to Alicia to regenerate her mangled body(Note: This scene was grotesque because you can hear all her bones snapping back together!). Confronted by a group of bandits, Alicia prepares herself to fight all of them. Out of options, Alicia destroys the wooden mining structure, or scaffolding, which many of the bandits were standing on; as a result of the scaffolding being destroyed, the bandits were hurled into the waters occupied by the "Arvensis". While the "Arvensis" are feasting upon the fallen bandits, plunging hiddenly within a barrel, Alicia is determined to find the "Regalia" at the bottom of the water. Since Alicia is immortal, all she has to do is endure the pain of having no air to breath. Meanwhile in a dark tunnel, Broco fed Nell to the troll Betty for betraying the Crows. At the presence of Clevatess, Betty pukes out Nell, who is mangled and dying. With an "arcanacite" magic concoction, Broco uses the potion to command Betty to attack Clen.
Score: 5/10
Episode 4: Magical Talent(魔術の適性)
Before being consumed by a giant sea monster called the "Ancient One" at the water's bottom, Alicia retrieves Khord's Regalia, "Stream Splitter", and breaks away from its jaws. With the "Stream Splitter" at her possession, Alicia decides to use a technique to propel herself out of the body of water, escaping the "Arvensis" and the "Ancient One". While Alicia escapes the mining shaft, the rest of the bandits become a scrumptious meal for the "Ancient One". Angrily, Clevatess telepathically contacts and reveals to Alicia that dark beasts are weak against "magic", especially in his humanoid form. Alicia rushes to aid a distraught Clevatess, who had defeated and is sitting atop Betty the troll. Since Clevatess's senses are blocked by magic, he could not sense the location of Nell and Luna. Clen commands his slave Alicia to find Nell and Luna. Eventually, Alicia encounters Broco cowardly keeping Luna as a hostage. At an attempt to keep Luna unharmed, Alicia negotiates with Broco by trading the Regalia "Stream Splitter" for Luna's safe return; however, Broco declines the offer and uses arcanacite magic to turn himself invisible. Alicia uses her senses to track a noisy, yet invisible Broco and cuts him in half, safely recovering Luna. Although Luna was safely recovered, Nell is pretty much dead unless Clen temporarily transfers the dark ichor, which animates Alicia's corpse, to Nell's mangled body. As a hero, Alicia agrees to dying one more time to revive and save Nell. With a single gesture, Clen siphons his dark ichor from Alicia to use the dark ichor to regenerate Nell's body; body parts of the troll Betty was used to revive Nell. Clen declares "Nelluru" as a new name for Nell for her rebirth. At the time of her rebirth, Nelluru agrees to be Luna's wet nurse. After Nelluru's revival was complete, the dark ichor is returned to Alicia's corpse, reviving her to serve Clevatess once again.
Score: 10/10
Episode 5: Boelate's March(ボーレートの進軍)
Clevatess confiscates Alicia's Regalia "Stream Splitter" because it might attract unwanted attention. When "Stream Splitter" is needed, Clevatess will hand it back to Alicia. As Clen, Nelluru, and Alicia is preparing to leave the bandit hideout, Gart ambushes Clen and sends her flying through a wall; Gart also sends Alicia flying through the roof. After realizing the strength of Gart's techniques, Alicia uses a technique called "Hidden Sword Rising Dragon" towards Gart. Nearly striking Gart, Alicia is stopped by Clen because Alicia was about to be shredded by Gart's kicks. Clen explains to Gart that this whole thing was a misunderstanding. After realizing the party isn't the target, Gart reveals his true identity by removing the illusion, which was used to disguise himself. Clen's assumption of him being a dark beast was true; specifically, Gart is a giant bird, who serves under Zavthier of the Phantasms, a dark lord of the west. Deceptively, Clen tells Gart that he is a dark beast who serves Clevatess, but doesn't tell Gart that he is actually Clevatess. Gart's mission is to investigate humanoids to see what had happened to the beast's younglings. Clen gives Gart clues that suspicious folks wearing black robes would buy babies from Broco. Alicia suspects that the "wizards" from General Dorel, "The Dragon Slayer", were responsible for these abductions; as well as being responsible for the abductions, General Dorel is revealed to be responsible for the death of Alicia's father. Meanwhile, General Dorel is steering the Boelate army of 50,000 infantry to conquer the haiden castle in Hiderat. Eslinn's general Rod Royes is commanding an army of 6,000 to prevent Boelate from taking the Royal Family's forge. General Dorel entrusts Maynard, the most powerful wizard of the Boelate army, in finding the Haiden baby with royal blood.
Score: 5/10
Episode 6: Insect Controlling Wizard(虫を操る魔導士)
Episode 6 starts off with Alicia explaining to Clen that General Dorel, the wizards, and the Boelate army is pushing to conquer Haiden. Since Clen wants Luna to be the king of Haiden, he has no choice but to destroy General Dorel and the Boelate army. Clen transforms back to a dark beast, Clevatess's original shape and form, and rushes towards the Boelate army. While Clevatess heads towards the Boelate army, Alicia, Luna, and Nelluru stay within an inn at a small town, where the innkeepers are distrustful of outsiders. Through the insect scouts, Maynard finds out that Luna is within a small town, so he surrounds the town with his giant insects. Suddenly, the inn is attacked by a giant centipede with Maynard, Boelate's highest ranking wizard, entering the establishment. Meanwhile, Nelluru and Luna are upstairs facing another wizard named Naie, a high wizard who has some type of magnetic power.
Score: 5/10
Episode 7: Secrets of Magic(魔術奥義)
Naie tries to forcefully feed Luna medicine, which either shows the obtained magical skills through their eye color or kills them in the process. To protect Luna, Nelluru demonstrates her strength by pushing away the metal construct, preventing Naie from feeding Luna the medicine. At the bottom of the inn, Alicia beats up the giant centipede. Alicia, Nelluru, and Luna escape the inn; however, Maynard and Naie are in pursuit of the party. Maynard and Naie gather the townsfolk and manipulate them to track and capture Alicia, Nelluru, and Luna. Meanwhile, there is a squirmish between Eslinn's commander Rod and Boelate's general Dorel. Although Dorel is victorious in battling Rod, he spares Rod's life. Clevatess arrives and questions Dorel about where the "magic" wielding came from and the missing humanoid and beast children. Unsatisfied with Dorel's impunity, Clevatess uses his tail to pierce through Dorel's mid cavity. Unexpectedly, Dorel had suspected that this would happen, so he unleashed a blood spell called "Prison of Dark Ichor" that trapped Clevatess within a giant bubble of blood. Magically, Dorel had preemptively transfered his "soul" within his regalia; this ensures that he can revive himself after being killed. Dorel stated that his life is his sword.
Score: 5/10
Episode 8: Current of Insects(蟲の流動)
Alicia, Luna, and Nelluru are hiding within a watermill; however, they are quickly discovered by the townsfolk. Mark stops the townsfolk from burning the watermill. Kindly, Mark persuades Alicia to come out from hiding. After analyzing and discussing the situation with Alicia, Mark convinces the townsfolk that she is not a threat to the town. Soon after, Mark is struck down by Maynard's giant centipede. In retaliation, Alicia uses a sword technique called "Rising Dragon" to annihilate the giant centipede. In fear of the swarm of giant insects, the townsfolk hunker down inside the watermill while Alicia stays outside to deal with the menacing insect swarm. As Alicia is exterminating the insects one by one, Alicia's movement is slowed and her health is diminishing because of the tinier insects poisoning her. Things are going from bad to worse when the townsfolk realize that the insects are also eating through the watermill. While Maynard's insects overwhelm Alicia, Clevatess summons the Regalia "Stream Splitter" out of the shadows. As soon as Alicia grips unto Stream Splitter's handle, a shockwave instills the area, repelling/killing the insects as well as giving Alicia a boost of power. With a final attack called "Flowing Water Slash", Alicia causes every insect in the area to explode in a splattering frenzy, which also sends Maynard flying as well. Maynard's arcanacite was shattered from Alicia's attack. With all the insects dead, Maynard is left with a final speech before he gets "knocked the EF Up" by Alicia. As Alicia was about to faint from all the poison, Clen conveniently shows up and catches Alicia before she fell to the ground. Clen says that another Lord of Dark Beasts is assisting Dorel.
Score: 5/10
Episode 9: War Zone Hiderat(戦場のハイドラート)
With a mother's instinct, T'ala Mort Anzetta, princess of Haiden, believes her son Hiderias VI is still alive. She whole-heartedly believes this because she caught a glimpse of the forge shining crimson, which is an indication that there is an individual alive that can be a rightful king; the forge only lies dormant when a king dies. She announces that the number one priority is to find her son. In distress, Favio Fleep reports to T'ala that General Dorel and his 20,000 infantry is headed towards Hiderat, the capital city. Taking matters with her own hands, T'ala suits up with armor to shatter General Dorel's Regalia with the "Hammer of Kings", which is the only tool to forge and shatter a Regalia. Meanwhile, Clen and Alicia trick Naie to use her ability to levitate a carriage, holding both Nelluru and Luna as passengers, towards Hiderat; magically, Clen and Alicia is transported unto the floating carriage. As soon as they reach Hiderat, Alicia spots Dorel casually walking on the top of the castle walls. Alicia coerces Naie to steer the floating carriage towards General Dorel. In a confrontation, General Dorel defeats groups of Haiden soldiers without much effort. Without much effort, General Dorel reaches out to princess T'ala to do a chokehold. As General Dorel chokes princess T'ala, Alicia and Naie manuever the carriage straight at General Dorel; this event distracted General Dorel's attention, which gave an opening for Princess T'ala to use the "Hammer of Kings" on his Regalia. A massive explosion ensues, which sends Princess T'ala flying back. Alicia and General Dorel are now fighting, clashing their Regalias unto each other. Clen, Luna, and Nelluru are casually headed to the forge without any conflict.
Score: 10/10
Episode 10: Margo and Drel(マルゴとドエル)
Gart tries breaking General Dorel's "Prison of Dark Ichor" that surrounds the duplicate of Clevatess's beast form. Impatiently, Rod Royes desperately begs Gart to fly him to Hiderat. Gart is somewhat convinced of Rod's plea and agrees to fly him under certain conditions. If the conditions aren't followed, then Gart has the right to kill Rod. Magically, Gart reveals his wings and Rod snatches unto Gart's leg as he starts flying. Clen, Luna, and Nelluru are at the forge's entrance. Comically, Clen uses Luna as a key to open the entrance to the forge; however, it failed. Taking an alternative method, Clen hops to the forge's chimney and descends into it; Clen avoids the scorching heat of the chimney by magically hiding within the shadow of a falling brick. Within the forge area, Clen discovers the gate of the forge had been opened with Nelluru unconscious, knocked out on the floor. Thought to be dead, the King of Haiden steps out of the shadows while holding Luna on one arm and his severed head in the other; in the first episode of the series, the King of Haiden was decapitated by Clevatess. Meanwhile, Alicia and General Dorel are sword fighting; General Dorel declares Alicia to be weak and overpowers Alicia throughout the battle. Pausing the current battle, General Dorel tells a story to Alicia about her dead father, as well as Dorel's friend, Margo. Basically, Margo won the Regalia by defeating Dorel in a tournament, which determines whether a participant becomes a hero. Failed in slaying a dragon, Margo got "wrecked" and was unable to continue because a portion of his leg was cut off. As a last ditch effort, Margo threw the sword towards General Dorel in hopes that he would slay the dragon. Using Margo's Regalia, General Dorel deafeted the dragon. As a side-note, a regalia captures the soul of whatever it slays first. The regalia absorbs the soul of the slayed dragon; however, as this happens, a demon king, Vorden corrupts General Dorel. After Dorel's story had shocked T'ala and Alicia, Dorel summons an undead dragon, which swings it claws at Alicia, knocking her off the edge of the castle walls. With Alicia out of the way, Dorel, on the back of a flying undead dragon, heads to the forge. After being clobbered off the edge of the castle walls, Alicia tries to telepathically contact Clen, but he is preoccupied with a headless King of Haiden trying to throw Luna into the incinerating fires of the forge.
Score: 10/10
Episode 11: Fake Hero(偽物の勇者)
Clen openly questions the motive behind the action of the headless King of Haiden. The king explains that Luna must be thrown into the forge to be revived as the new king. Immediately, the headless King of Haiden drops Luna into the forge; however, the Luna that was dropped into the forge was simply a decoy made of shadows. The real Luna was stealthily recovered by Clen himself. With nothing to lose, the headless king purposefully drops himself into the forge, resulting in a large explosion. Surviving the explosion, Clen finds a sparkling tome called the "Book of Toah", which appeared after the destruction of the forge. After the appearance of this book, Clen realizes that the motives behind the existence of Haiden's forge and the Heroes's quest to kill him were all meaningless manipulations created by the book. After this realization, Clen desires to abandon Luna and head back to his homebase. Meanwhile, Gart drops Rod from the sky, so that he can cast an "Ice Javalin", which destroys the undead dragon. Gart doesn't desire to participate in the fight and flies away. As a duo, Alicia and Rod team up in defeating General Dorel; however, after cutting General Dorel in half, he revives into a stronger form. With a new dragon skull arm, General Dorel sends a stream of fire hurling towards Rod and Alicia.
Score: 10/10
Episode 12: Return of the King(王の凱旋)
As Clen started heading back to his homebase, Alicia telepathically tells Clen to look deep into Luna's pale purple eyes. Easily persuaded, Clen decides to stick around. Meanwhile, Alicia magically reattaches her severed hand and does her final attack called "Rising Dragon Variant Mighty Stream Splitter", which cuts off General Dorel's newly acquired dragon skull hand; however, General Dorel blocked the final attack with his Regalia "Dragon Slayer". After Alicia's final attack, Alicia seems to have been deeply wounded by General Dorel. To finish off Alicia, General Dorel flies to her while she is falling from the sky; however, as General Dorel swings his Regalia, the Regalia instantly snaps into two pieces. Princess T'ala realizes that her "Hammer of the Kings" helped in diminishing General Dorel's Regalia. Nelluru catches Alicia falling from the sky. Since Vorden realizes that General Dorel is weak without a Regalia, the dark ichor, which kept General Dorel alive, came oozing out of him. While the dark ichor oozed out of General Dorel, his body started to crumple and destroy itself in the most gruesome fashion; as well as this gruesome scene, the arcanacite that was attached to his former body also shattered. After this horrific death scene of the main antagonist, princess T'ala recognizes her son with Clen. Respecting Luna's autonomy, Clen tells the princess to hold still, so that Luna can decide to whom he walks towards; of course, Luna walks to Princess T'ala. As a commander, Rod announces and informs both armies that General Dorel has been defeated. Both armies stop their fighting. Vorden's salamander makes a sly comment to Clen, but Clen uses his magic to strangle the salamander until it burst into flames. Now, Clen is aware that Vorden is his enemy. As they are bandaging Alicia's wounds, Clen discusses about the "Book of Toah" and suspects that there are more books; the "Book of Toah" has a key attached to it, but the key itself doesn't open it. Clen assumes that there are other magical tomes with attached keys, which are able to open the "Book of Toah". Favio sends Clen, Alicia, and Nelluru to the throne room, so that Princess T'ala can express her gratitude for saving Luna and the kingdom. As a reward from T'ala, Clen is granted his wish to be Luna's magical instructor; embarrassed of how weird she looks like, Alicia is strung along with Clen's endeavors.
Score: 10/10
CLEVATESS QUICK REVIEW
Reviewed: October 12, 2025
Clevatess is a dark fantasy japanese manga that was released August 12, 2020 with a series called "Clevatess: The King of Magical Beasts, the Baby, and the Corpse Hero". Overall, I believe Clevatess is the best work of Yūji Iwahara ever; his other mangas weren't well known, nor recognized. The anime was released this year on July 2, 2025 and ended on September 17, 2025. Studio Lay-duce was responsible for the production of the anime. If you don't know anything about Studio Lay-duce, then do not worry; they are a small studio, which started around 2014; they were known in creating animes such as Magi: Sinbad no Bouken, Yuru Yuri, Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko!, and Rising Impact. Although Studio Lay-duce has made slightly average to below average anime, they did an awesome job in producing Clevatess; actually, I believe Clevatess is their best work yet.
The whole Clevatess universe is quite interesting; you'll find a ton of races, beasts, demons, magic, weapons, wars, and lore. Basically, you'll be diving into an anime within a medieval setting filled with revenge, tragedy, and baby-sitting. Particularly, the party is adventuring with a baby, so this may turn you off at first. Don't let the babysitting sway you away from the anime because it's quite interesting to have a dynamic between a feared demon king and a tiny, defenseless baby prince. You'll also witness the relationship between the demon king Clevatess and his enslaved corpse hero, Alicia. Throughout the story, you'll find elements of slavery in it because Alicia is a corpse hero that is only animated by Clevatess's magic. The commands of Clevatess towards Alicia is quite needless since he could have done all of the back-breaking work himself. The tragic backstory of Alicia isn't as impactful as many have said because there was no in depth scenes that got the viewer emotionally invested in the father and daughter relationship between Margo and Alicia. This dynamic between father and daughter needed more screen-time to have a more impactful influence on the audience. Unfortunately, this was executed poorly. It could have dived deeper into this, but it felt rushed.
Unfortunately, you'll find Alicia sharing similar traits of characters from older anime, such as characters from Fate Stay Night. In particular, you'll be comparing Alicia to Saber(Artoria Pendragon) from the Fate Stay Night series. With that being said, Alicia is the enslaved version of Saber. This "enslaved" version of Saber could really bother you if you enjoyed the Fate Stay Night series, especially when Alicia sneakily shows her cleavage from time to time; unfortunately, this is necessary fan service that can attract newcomers to the anime itself. If you are a new watcher of anime, then it won't bother you at all. On the other hand, you'll have familiar thoughts of Clevatess. It is because his whole entire visualization reminds me of Kurama, the Nine-Tails beast, from Naruto. Although the visualization is similar, Clevatess shows more of a civilized demeanor; however, this demon king will probably decapitate you if you display disobedience. Like a character in the animated cartoon movie "Alice in Wonderland", the queen of hearts is similar to Clevatess because both show their authority rather abruptly. Instead of saying "Off with their Heads", Clevatess will strictly and fatally punish you without remorse. You'll find Clevatess a bit on the short-tempered side because he often displays that he is the main authority or law; any disobedience to Clevatess's laws is immediately punished. On the other hand, you'll find a more timidness and innocence from Nelluru, the wet nurse of the story. She happily serves Clevatess without any thought and her kind, gentle nature is displayed when she is nurturing the prince of Haiden.
One of the side-antagonists to talk about is Maynard, who is the bug/insect summoner/highest wizard. He is a plagiarized version or carbon copy of Weevil from Yu-Gi-Oh! or Baxter Stockman from TMNT with different clothing and physical appearance. As well as this duplication of older characters from other animations, Maynard's character could instantly make you roll your eyes multiple times because of how unmenacing and goofy the character portrays himself as. As for the main antagonist, General Dorel was poorly written. The corruption that happened to him wasn't explained thoroughly; it is almost like he was evil for the sake of being evil. There was no in depth reason on why he would, all of a sudden, betray his friend Margo; the manipulation of Vorden wasn't visually portrayed properly, nor was the actual motive believable. With that being said, the death of General Dorel was unnecessary and undeserving; all the budget of the anime was spent on the animation of his death. Although General Dorel's death scene was gruesome, the quality of this scene alone was probably the best part of series and may stand out the most in comparison to many anime today.
The animation for Clevatess is a bit dated. You'll find animes in the 90s with a higher budget than this. It's apparent that the animation has alot of graininess, roughness, uneven appearances, or an over-saturation of grit. Like I said before, this is an indication of a low budget anime and could be a huge "turn-off" to fans living in the modern age. Although Clevatess looks outdated in art, a niche in the anime community may find this to their liking because it can offer a type of nostalgia of older anime. Whatever floats your boat I guess. Personally, the grainy art style doesn't cut it in modern times. Certain flashbacks in the anime show blur effects that were poorly implemented, almost like it was created by an amateur. One last thing that I found to be poorly drawn is the noses of certain characters. Specifically, if you take a close look at noses of certain characters, you'll find that the shading under their noses look like the character dipped their nose in a cup of dark chocolate milk and forgot to wipe it. Throughout the anime, you'll find these poorly drawn "Chocolate-milk noses" and this might make you shake your head.
There was no memorable background scenery in this anime, except for one. Now that I think about it, the only thing I remember was that chamber with the crimson forge, nothing else. Every background drawn seems to have escaped my thought. Unfortunately, there is no miraculous setting that will pique your interest; rather, you'll only remember the conflicts within the forge.
The OST seems to be non-existent. When I watched Frieren, I found myself humming most of the OST from memory, even months afterwards. In Clevatess, none of the OST or background music seems to have clicked in my mind at all. If you remember the anime One Piece, then you'll always come back and revisit the pirate anthems and whistle to rhythm of it. Clevatess seems to be lackluster in the OST department.
I found the sound effects of Clevatess to be quite crisp, but not to the point of where it creates an impact. In other anime, such as Demon Slayer, I felt the impacts of each blade hitting each other like I was actually within the anime. Clevatess does a good job here, but it could be a little more bolder; however, I'd say that all the recoil sound effects were fairly decent.
The voice acting were all superb. Each voice actor did a fine job! I wish there were more bites or growl sounds coming out of Clevatess himself. This was a bit lacking, but I remember that he is more of a "civilized" demon than a wild one, so it makes sense that there was less animalistic roaring coming out of him.
The opening theme song is "Mayu Maeshima - Ruler". I truly love the dramatic voice of Mayu! The rock music helps with introducing the audience to how visceral, aggressive, and violent the anime will be, so it fits quite naturally. It definately got me hooked to the anime from the start. The ending or closing theme song is "Ellie Goulding - Destiny". At first, I was surprised that Ellie Goulding, a famous English singer, was the closing theme for Clevatess. Actually, I loved it! It is strange that she didn't create a music video for this particular song; it would really go viral if she promoted it. I don't know why Ellie didn't bother in advertising her own song; it is pretty much a hit song! With that being said, "Destiny" works well with Clevatess as a closing song.
Overall, Clevatess is an average ranking anime, but it is also the best Dark Fantasy anime out right now for 2025. Its old school anime style obviously gives off a "low budget" appearance. It suffers in mediocrity compared to modern-day anime of the new generation, but remember that Studio Lay-duce is an unknown and small animation studio; this has to be Studio Lay-duce's best work yet and it really caught the attention of everyone. Competitively, this anime can't stand a chance against top-tier animes; however, I wouldn't say that it was all for nothing. This is an upgrade for Studio Lay-duce because no one really paid any attention to their old projects until now. Previously, Studio Lay-duce was kept in the shadows, but now, you can see a visible outline of them, which was previously not there before. Potentially, this anime could get alot more popular if more time, money, and resources are invested in this project. Clevatess only requires an extra "umph", jolt, or boost to attract the anime community; so far, it did a decent job, but it might be buried underneath many heavy-hitting anime out there. For newly visiting viewers or veteran anime fans, Clevatess has that "sleeper-hit" vibe; however, it can squander that potentiality into the nearest landfill. With all that being said, I do recommend this anime to the casual anime fan. I'd still be weary though because it can go the opposite or other direction and can end up being an awful experience as well. I'd like to advise the viewer to not take this anime too seriously because it is somewhat a "B-Grade" anime, not reaching an "A-Grade" just yet. Here's some good news though. The next season is on the works, so if this season didn't work out for you, then the next season could be what you have been waiting for; however, I wouldn't hold my breath just yet. If the next season flops, then I wouldn't recommend this anime at all.
SCORE SHEET
Episode Score Added Together: 90/120
Story Score: 10/10
Character Score: 6/10
Animation Score: 6/10
Background Scenery: 6/10
OST Score: 5/10
Sound Effect Score: 8/10
Voice Acting Score: 9/10
Opening and Closing Songs Score: 10/10
Total: 150 out of 200
Calculation:
150 divided by 200 = 0.75
0.75 multiplied by 100 = 75
Score(Percentage): 75%
FINAL SCORE: 75%