Karen's Anime Blog

Note: Crunchyroll’s subtitles keep switching between “Clen” and “Klen” for Clevatess’ human form. I’m going to stick with Klen because I like it better.

Last time on Clevatess, Alicia got a whole bunch of bandits eaten by fish monsters while she sunk to the bottom of the lake in pursuit of Khordwar’s sword. Now, she emerges from the barrel she came down in and notices that constantly suffocating is very uncomfortable. I used to swim underwater a lot as a kid, so I’m familiar with that running-out-of-air feeling, and I can’t imagine tolerating it for more than a few seconds. Alicia is made of sterner stuff than me and recovers the magic sword she’s looking for, but unfortunately, there’s a very, very big monster at the bottom of the lake– an Ancient One, in fact. This monster tries to eat Alicia, which proves to be a big mistake.

Nice try, Ocean Cthulu! You’ll need to fight harder if you want to eat Alicia, the Zombie Hero.

Alicia uses Khordwar’s sword to rip through the monster’s mouth and makes her way back up to the surface, slicing a fish monster or two as she goes. I was wracking my brain wondering how she was going to defeat this thing, but actually, she doesn’t have to; she just has to get out of the water and out of range. What’s left of the bandits ask her for help, which she declines to give– cold of her, I guess, but what could she really do for them at this point, even if she was inclined to help? The remaining bandits get crushed and/or eaten, and Alicia muses that she’s fulfilled Klen’s command to get rid of all the bandits, in a kind of roundabout way.

Klen contacts her telepathically, annoyed that she didn’t tell him about this whole “magic” phenomenon. He asks her to come find him so he can punish her for it, but he never actually does. We do see that he took out Betty with one hit; poor Betty, we hardly knew ye. I said last week that there was no way Betty was going to be a real threat.

It’s the little hair bows that make it sad:(

Vroko is running like hell and trips over Nell. He sees Luna, and the crying baby makes the aranacite in Vroko’s lantern react so that the glass explodes. Vroko, who we do have to admit is good at deduction, realizes that Luna must be Hidenean royalty to have such a strong magical talent at such a young age. Meanwhile, Alicia catches up with Klen, and the two of them have a pretty long conversation, considering the fact that Luna is in danger and they don’t know where he is. Klen is troubled by the aranacite smoke which, while it wasn’t enough to stop him from taking out Betty, is messing with his supernatural senses something fierce.

At Klen’s request, Alicia explains how magic works in this world: some people can manipulate aranacite, some people cannot, and she personally cannot. Notice she can use aranacite Regalia like Khordwar’s sword, but I guess that doesn’t count as using magic itself. Klen goes off in search of Luna and Nell, noting they might already be dead; if Luna is dead, Klen says he will “lose his interest in humanity.” Alicia thinks otherwise: Klen has already planned to exterminate humanity, and Luna is the only thing slowing him down.

The two chase after Luna and Nell, only to find the tunnel floor covered in blood. Nell, still clinging to life, grabbed onto Vroko’s ankle after he snatched Luna and won’t let go. I appreciate this display of how dedicated Nell is to protecting a baby, but I think there’s more blood on the floor than she could have stored in her actual body at this point– oh well, details.

Considering he’s letting Luna play with a sharp knife, Vroko’s childcare skills leave something to be desired.

Alicia and Klen meet up with Vroko and there’s a standoff: our heroes can’t get close, or Vroko will hurt the baby. Alicia throws Khordwar’s sword into the wall behind Vroko and offers Vroko a choice: he can keep Luna, or he can put him down and pick up the sword. Unfortunately, now that Vroko knows Luna’s true origin, he knows the baby is worth more to him than the sword. He asks for the location of all the other Regalia that Alicia’s squad lost in battle with Clevatess and she tells him– but seriously, what good is that information? That area is crawling with dark beasts– it’s not like Vroko can just mosey on through there by himself and pick up the weapons, and he should be smart enough to know that.

Thinking he’s outsmarted our heroes, Vroko uses one of his powders and makes himself invisible, only to be quickly killed by Alicia: being invisible doesn’t completely erase your presence, especially when you’re holding a crying baby. So that’s the end of Vroko; I think some viewers wanted a more dramatic end for him, but to see Alicia easily cut him down seems appropriate.

After Vroko dies, there’s still the question of what to do with Nell. Alicia lobbies hard for Klen to revive her, since not only did she slow down Vroko’s escape, she fought hard to protect Luna practically down to her dying breath, so Klen agrees and revives her. I’m a little confused about what goes on mechanically here: Klen says he can only control one human with dark ichor at once, so he takes the stuff out of Alicia (temporarily killing her) and puts it into Nell to heal her wounds, after which I assume the ichor returns to Alicia? My interpretation is that even though Nell is on death’s doorstep, she’s not literally dead yet, so Klen is healing her, not reviving her; if she was already dead, he would have to choose between having her or Alicia animated, since he can only have one Super Zombie at once.

Because Nell’s body is incomplete, Klen has to shuffle her mass around a bit and we end up with a thinner, more traditionally attractive Nell. Hmm, isn’t that convenient?

New adorable Nelluru, statue by Good Smile coming soon.

Look, if you’re a TV critic of any sort and you have problems with the fact that TV likes to focus on attractive people, you’re going to have a bad time. I like Nell’s cuter design, but it would have been nice to have the novelty of a character that looked like original Nell in the main cast.

Klen hands Luna off to Nell, who he has now christened Nelluru, and Luna’s joy at being reunited with his nurse is charming to see. Alicia wakes up from temporary death and has a moment when she realizes she still has Khordwar’s sword; it seems like the sword has become her binky. A nice end to this first arc, and I look forward to seeing what this foursome has in store for us next week.