Clevatess Season 2

Episode 6

I think what I am most impressed by when it comes to Clevatess' second season is just how consistently entertaining and compelling it has been. We haven't had any truly standout moments that compare to the heights of emotion and brilliantly bloody spectacle that the final arc of the first season delivered, true, but this adventure at Solsein Academy has been satisfying in a different way. Where I think the character development and dark fantasy aesthetic hit a little bit hard in Season One, Clevatess has been quite successful in complicating its plotting and fleshing out the world-building here in Season Two.

“Whispering Voice” is a great example of what I mean. This is the kind of episode that is mostly dedicated to adding even more layers of conflict and intrigue on top of an already very busy story. Since poor Alicia spends the entire half-hour getting violently squished to near-death by an evil magic tree, Rhode Royes has to step in and steal the spotlight while he confronts Andrew Hwyp. For his part, Andrew gets a surprising amount of attention as the antagonist of the week. I expected his creepy obsession with giving his precious plants plenty of dead flesh to feast upon was merely going to be the story's excuse for keeping Alicia busy for a couple of weeks, but no, the kid actually shakes out as a threatening little villain in his own right. Vordin the Evil Salamander gets a ton of time to vamp about the mysterious age of the “Real Hero” and all of its lost secrets, too, and I haven't even gotten to Naie's side of the story. All the while, we have characters like Zavthier and Sarasa slinking about, and Clevatess is still up there in his Dark Tower, relishing the opportunity to monologue dramatically to himself.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen an episode like this mark the beginning of the end when it comes to an anime's quality. These high-stakes battles featuring a dozen different individual storylines sure seem cool in concept, but they're a son-of-a-bitch to get right in practice. Hell, it's this terminal compulsion just to keep throwing more characters and plot threads into the mix that basically derailed Jujutsu Kaisen once that Shibuya Arc got going. In the case of Clevatess, though, I think the balance is holding out just right. For now, at least.

For one, the show's signature sense of style just makes it fun to watch all of this gothic freakshow nonsense go down while characters like Naie have to scramble like mad to avoid dying horribly. Or, in Alicia's case, they have to scramble like mad to make sure they die just horribly enough to charge up a new move reserved especially for Zombie-Slave-Heroes-Turned-Cute-Dark-Beast-Squirrels. Clevatess' mix of raw Heavy Metal style and genuinely compelling world-building has yet to get old. I'm not sure it ever will.

I also love how good this show is at letting its morally ambiguous monster characters actually be threatening, mysterious, and alien. For as much as I went on about Clevvie warming up to the likes of Luna and Alicia, I think it is important that we get episodes like “Whispering Voice” that treat him like the ultimate final boss he has been characterized as. We're still able to root for him, since he is technically fighting the possessed pawns of a presumably even more dangerous foe, but Clevatess goes out of his way to point out that it would make more sense just to kill these brainwashed child soldiers, what with the lesser species being no more valuable than a horde of filthy insects and all.

That's the deliciously grimdark fantasy storytelling that I live for. That said, I am eager for all of these new plot threads and lore teases to build to a point where Alicia and Clevatess can be reunited. I know the Laws of Clevatess demand that Alicia must be literally chewed up and spit out by the meatgrinder of the story several times before any given season of the show has concluded, but I think our girl has had her skull crushed and her eyeballs popped out enough times to deserve at least one little win. Wouldn't you agree?

Episode Rating:

Clevatess Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.