Clevatess Season 2 ‒ Episode 13
This second season has undoubtedly been a more ambitious and less cohesive adventure than the first, despite the action being strictly limited to the battleground of Solsein Academy. The cast has ballooned in size, the storylines have largely kept our heroes in separate and isolated corners of the plot, and the scope of the story's lore and worldbuilding has massively expanded with all of the revelations about the ancient society of Towa and its “True Hero,” Write. Hell, we even got confirmation that this entire setting is basically the post-apocalyptic remnants of a completely different isekai anime that we've only seen brief snippets of. While I have occasionally lamented the loss of Season One's simple and straightforwardly entertaining qualities, “True Hero” has confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that this show still has the juice. The finale of Clevatess II represents some of the most go-for-broke, bugnuts fantasy storytelling I've seen in some time, and I simply cannot help but respect the hell out of it.
It says something about the proceedings that the reunification of Princess Milea into one single, terrifyingly flirtatious woman is where this episode starts, and things only get wilder from there. To the show's credit, this opening act managed to give Alicia once of her best fights in ages while simultaneously paying off Milea's whole story arc and justifying the addition of the Winklevoss Bros. to the cast. Even if the whole conflict between Milea's dual natures was a little sweaty there for a while, it was all worth it just for the scene where the unified princess demands that Tygel and Leon meet her in the royal bedchambers later so she can crush their junk with her heels.
Then there's the resolution to Klen's battle with Vorden. While I am tempted to complain that the long-awaited kaiju battle between the Dark Beasts only lasted for, like, ten seconds, I can only be so mad when we get an exchange as satisfying as the one where Klen basically tells Vorden, “Your ‘True’ Hero ain't shit; have you even seen how disgustingly overpowered my True Hero is?” From the beginning, I have been saying that the one thing I truly need Clevatess to succeed at is to actually earn the inevitable transformation of its titular demon dog into a more-or-less heroic figure. Something this season has done a great job of is peppering in all of these great little moments where we see Clevatess' facade of indifference and malice begin to crumble, and it has never felt cheap or rushed. I was cheering as loud as Alicia was when he casually returned that Regalia to reward his favorite zombie slave.
There are all of the delightful teases we get for where Clevatess will be headed in the next arc of the story. It was already crazy enough to see Write come back as the godlike entity “Towa” and easily slice his boyfriend Vorden into ribbons with that magic blood-pen of his. With all of the allusions to the characters who have been clued into Klen's true identity and the portents of war on the horizon, I was fully prepared for this season to end on a satisfying “All is well…for now!” sort of note. Then that Jazhak guy had to come out of knowhere and brutally murder both Clevatess and Alicia.
Could I lodge another small nitpick at how this shocking cliffhanger could have been better set-up by giving Jazhak more to do across the season? Absolutely, but I'm not going to pretend that my jaw wasn't still on the floor when I realized that, yes, Clevatess is seriously committed enough to this swerve to jump ahead five whole years into the future and present an almost-grown Luna as Clevatess' successor. Obviously, Clevvie's heart is still being held somewhere, so I have no doubt that he and Alicia will be back eventually. Still, for the show to so confidently throw fates of its two central characters into the unknown like this? I'm damned impressed, and now the wait for the next season is just going to be unbearable.
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.
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