Karen's Anime Blog

Content Warning: Sexual Assault

I was planning on covering Clevatess, then I saw how dark the second episode was and went “nope.” I felt bad that I went back on my word though, so I decided to do it: if I can handle Dan Da Dan, I can handle this– probably.

Last time, our heroes (the term “hero” being used rather loosely in regard to Clen) were captured by some bandits. Alicia wants to know if the bandits are a threat to him in this form, and he confirms that they are not– he’s still the Beast Lord. My guess is they can do whatever they want to this mortal body he’s propping up but the “real” Clen is stored safely in the shadow realm somewhere and is basically invincible. Alicia wants to know why he doesn’t just dispose of all the bandits then, but Clen wants to have the experience they are about to undergo.

There’s something darkly hilarious about this: Alicia is like a seasoned local who knows what parts of town to avoid after dark, and Clen is like the ignorant tourist who thinks it’s all “charming” and doesn’t want anything getting in the way of his authentic experience. Seriously, this is probably the most amusement Clen has had in eons– what does he even do in the dark lands with no one but beasts to talk to? It can’t be fun. Roleplaying as a human is probably his version of playing a new video game.

A prisoner tries to escape, and a crazy knife wielding guy puts him down– remember Knife Guy for later. We learn that the bandits are called the Ravens– how spectacularly uncreative. They separate Alicia, and I’m afraid for her, but it turns out the bandits just want to talk to her…for now. Clen and Luna are beckoned over by a woman, who notices Luna and gathers Nell, the Ravens’ wet nurse. I hate to give them credit, but it actually speaks to the success of the Ravens as slave handlers that they need a dedicated wet nurse on hand for all the babies they process. Wow, I just felt really gross typing that. More on Nell in a moment.

The Ravens’ leader, Vroko, is actually smarter than you would expect. He correctly deduces from her appearance and stoic demeanor that Alicia is the female hero who was rumored to have been on the expedition to defeat Clevatess. The fact that she was found carrying a giant bag of anthracite probably played a role. Now that the Beast Lord has taken out the Hiderite royalty, there’s no one left who can process the anthracite to make magical weapons (except for possibly Luna, but Vroko has no way of knowing that yet.) He reasons that the existing magical weapons are going to get more and more valuable now that the supply has been cut off, and he wants to get rich by selling them– and now, thanks to Alicia, he has access to someone who knows where the battle with Clevatess was fought and where all those weapons went. All 13 of them.

He then gives the bandits permission to rape Alicia, as long as they don’t kill her. Wow, that’s dumb. Putting aside the fact that it’s inhumanly awful, if he has his guys get physical with Alicia, there’s a chance things might escalate– especially because she’s a hero and likely to fight back. There’s a very real chance she could end up seriously hurt or killed. If Vroko was as smart as he thinks he is, given the money he expects to make from Alicia’s knowledge, he would give Alicia a nice room with her own guard and demand that no one touch her upon pain of death. This would also motivate her to cooperate with him. I guess even a smart bandit is still pretty stupid, relatively speaking.

Clen has been stationed serving food to the bandits while Nell nurses Luna. Of course, since it’s been one minute and nothing horrible has happened, two bandits take Nell outside to rape her, and beat her up just for funsies. Clen kills them both, and I’m feeling good about it. Then we get Nell’s story: born a slave, she’s been abused by the Ravens for her entire life and her only reason to live is that she likes being able to feed the babies, in the hope they’ll grow up and find the happiness that her own stillborn children were denied. I wrote about Nell a little already in my post about anime and sexual assault, but her story is hard to hear, in part because you know there are women out there who historically have had (and continue to have) similar experiences.

Despite all that, I have a weird feeling of envy towards Nell, because I never got to breastfeed my own baby. I wanted to, but I had to go back into the hospital right after giving birth, and I was separated from her when the milk came in. So when I see Nell feeding Luna, I get this weird vibe like I’m jealous of her, which is incredibly weird and perverse. I guess I still have strong feelings about that, all these years later.

Clen sees that Luna likes Nell and offers to take Nell away to serve as Luna’s wet nurse. As far as Nell knows, Clen is just a slave, so she doesn’t realize he can actually back up what he’s promising. She says no, but considering we see her with Luna in the OP, I think she’s coming along soon.

Scene switch back to Alicia. The bandits have taken her to a bridge high over The Shaft of Elbe, an old mining shaft that was flooded and is now a lake. A slave tries to dive into the water to find something, but it soon gets eaten by a giant fish monster in a scene that really is gratuitously violent. Alicia realizes that this is where the hero Khordhwar died to the Arvensiss (fish monsters), and the slaves are diving trying to find his weapon. She notes that the bandits had no plan of letting the slaves leave alive even if they found it, but I don’t know why she expects anything different at this point.

The bandits taunt Alicia, and it’s clear they intend to gang rape her. Knife Guy comes up and taunts Alicia, but that’s the last mistake he ever makes. Alicia notes that she’s thankful for Clen’s “curse,” dislocates her own arm, and uses the wooden block that’s being used to bind her arms to whack Knife Guy in the head and kill him. She then uses his knife and cuts the rope of the bridge and plummets to the rocks below. Both bodies splatter grotesquely on the rocks. See Vroko? This is exactly the kind of behavior I was warning you about.

Apparently Alicia thinks that now that Clen has made her undead, she can’t really “die”– either that or she’s confident that he’ll resurrect her. Either way, she’d choose death over being used by the bandits to find the regalia, not to mention all the other horrors, so her choice makes sense. Still, it takes a helluva lot of guts to be able to carry that plan out. I guess you don’t become a hero in what appears to be an intensely misogynistic country without being made of absolute steel.

That’s all for this installment, turn back for more violence and mayhem and Luna being inappropriately adorable.

“Wah I want my wet nurse, she’s the best!”

“Shhh, Daddy’s working on it!