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Due to the way things like licensing work, we often don’t see the manga series that anime adaptations are based on until after the show already appeared worldwide. It doesn’t always happen that way! (Shueisha and Kodansha are pretty good about releasing the books first.) But Clevatess: The King of Dark Beasts, the Baby, and the Undead Hero is a situation where the excellent manga only appeared at the end of August 2026 via Yen Press after the anime adaptation. But now that its run has started, it is a situation where this original story was well worth the wait due to the storytelling and pacing decisions present in Yuji Iwahara’s original work.
Editor’s Note: There will be some minor spoilers for the first volume of the Clevatess manga below.
To start, Clevatess is one of those manga series where we’re seeing things from the perspective of the villain. Clevatess is a dark beast that’s awakened by an attack by human heroes on order of the King of Hiden. As a result of the assault on his territory and desire to send a message, he wipes out the people sent to attack him then heads to Hiderat to face the king and deal with the humans. Convinced they’re worthless, dangerous, and disposable, even though one of the heroes sent did damage his horn, he starts wiping them all out. As part of that process, he hears a baby cry and a person plead for its life. Since that person suggests the baby could convince him humanity deserves a chance at survival.
At the start, we’re presented with this interesting perspective. Clevatess is very clearly inhuman, with different powers, abilities, and lifespan that keep the dark beast from connecting or understanding them. It isn’t helped by the most recent exposure to people involving them immediately going on the assault. So while the Dark Beast is someone who “should” be considered the villain for the actions, Yuji Iwahara’s storytelling choices make him seem reasonable and logical.
It also means a bit of dark humor as we see Clevatess adjust to raising the baby in the first volume of the manga. Since he is a Dark Beast, he doesn’t grasp the idea of clothing or get that the baby will take more than a few nights to grow into an adult. He also drops it into a pit of bugs to clean the infant off.
What’s interesting is also how Iwahara’s storytelling choices mean it isn’t just the baby that will influence Clevatess. The way the manga sets things up, the revived hero Alicia will be just as pivotal to the Dark Beast’s development. That’s established immediately. Upon reviving her, she explains the need for a wet nurse and ends up being responsible for him developing his Klen form. And because of her unintentional insights and outbursts, she gives Clevatess the idea to raise Luna to become the king and work behind the scenes.
In general, the concept and story behind Clevatess is a novel one, and the manga does a better job of conveying both the dark, dramatic, thrilling, and even sometimes humorous tones than the anime. Yen Press’ localization is also handled well. It’s great to see the series get its due with this English release.
Volume 1 of the Clevatess: The King of Dark Beasts, the Baby, and the Undead Hero manga is available now, and Yen Press will release the second one on November 24, 2026. The anime seasons are streaming on Crunchyroll.
