Clevatess Season 1 Review: Is It a Worthy Adaptation?

Published on September 11, 2025

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There are a lot of diverse animation styles in anime, ranging from your traditional hand-drawn to modern CGI, each with unique visual aesthetics and techniques. Clevatess has it's own unique style which reminds me of the anime styles used about 15 to 20 years ago, which isn't a bad thing, on the contrary, it's infused with an even greater passion.

Clevatess is a gripping dark fantasy anime packed with action, drama, and psychological depth. The series centers on a demon king, who after killing the king of a great nation, now takes care of a baby with royal blood and teams up with a revived hero to tackle a supernatural conflict. This review is up until Episode 11 titled "Fake Hero".

Season 1 Review

The first episode of Clevatess, which is a series is Based on Yuji Iwahara’s manga sets up the story perfectly. It showcased the heroes and their importance, but most of all, it showcased the dark beasts lurking on the outskirts of the primary kingdom. The first episode didn't hook me at first, it felt like i was watching a cartoon from about 10 years ago, although after the hero (Alicia Glenfall) was killed and after Clevatess also known as "Moonlight Clevatess" (One of the four Beast Kings) looks after the baby and gave life again to the hero, the story picked up from there, reaching its peak at the end of the episode.

Lay-duce, who is the animation studio, nailed it by extending the first episode to 45 minutes. A standard 20-minute episode might’ve felt dragged out and lost viewers due to the slow start. However, as the episode progressed, the pacing picked up, and the cliffhanger finale had me hooked for more.

So far, the series has been a faithful adaptation, with animation that perfectly complements the story. The absence of 3D animation is refreshing and keeps viewers fully immersed in every episode." The series reaches its peak on episode 11 titled "Fake Hero" where Clevatess finally gets into the forge, only to find the previous king ready to sacrifice his grandchild. Everything that was done in previous episodes was leading to this one epic 20 minute episode. We hear more of the lore and a lot of things start making sense. We also see the hero fighting Drel. So although this episode was exciting, it ended on a cliffhanger, and a sad one at that, Clevatess abandons the child he promised to raise and protect, however i suspect in the next episode he will reflect and still carry on protecting him.

Thoughts

So to sum it all up, this series was really engaging if you get past the first episode, we experience epic fight scenes and emotional connections to the characters. I dont have anything i feel is wrong with the adaptation, to me, its perfect, from the fight scenes down to the animation whch actually compliments the story a ton! So being that there are only 13 episodes in this season, and at the time of this publication we are only two episodes away from the finale, but I'm sure the studio will conclude it in a spectacular way, and i for one cannot wait!