Two Motion-Packed Darkish Fantasy Anime Collection About By accident Adopting a Child

If there were a single word to define the current wave of banner anime we’ve been spoiled for choice for lately, it would be fantasy. Whether it’s melancholic, introspective shows like Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, awe-inspiring adventures like Witch Hat Atelier, or whimsically Lovecraftian oddities like Delicious in Dungeon, fantasy anime are in vogue, and they’re knocking it out of the park.

And while we’ve waxed poetic about the more contemplative entries, that’s not to say the industry has been slouching on entertaining, indulgent, all-gas-no-brakes action extravaganzas as well. Our favorites of that ilk are Crunchyroll’s Sentenced to Be a Hero and Clevatess—two dark fantasy series that just so happen to be about accidentally adopting a child.

At first blush, one might be tempted to call Clevatess and Sentenced to Be a Hero the new-gen heirs apparent to Claymore and Berserk. On a surface level, these comparisons track: gruff guy/gal (check), massive swords (check), and aesthetic misery (double check).

But these shows actually won us over by playing out more like twists on whimsical fantasies like That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (I can’t do anything about the name, I’m sorry), respectively, without bogging themselves down in dark fantasy misery porn. Let me cook.

Let’s start with Clevatess. Animated by the studio Lay-duce, Clevatess follows Alicia, one of three heroes tasked with slaying Clevatess, one of the legendary dark beasts plaguing the realm. They get absolutely rinsed. Fortunately, Alicia’s paragonic efforts aren’t a total wash. After being knocked into the sky so hard she sees the curvature of the Earth from space, only to plummet back down and die, she is revived by the Clevatess. Why? After the giant multi-tailed dog beast destroyed the kingdom, he took an interest in raising a newborn infant he’d kidnapped, who just so happens to be the crown prince fated to one day save the world. And presto, we’ve got ourselves a found family anime on our hands.

What follows is an adventure laced with the body horror of Alicia’s undead corpse contorting back into shape again and again; Clevatess assuming the form of a sassy, petulant child acting as the straight man to Alicia’s gentle parenting; and the duo adding more oddballs to their Three Men And A Baby fantasy-ass motley crew, including a half-orc wet nurse who’s too pure for this world. In between all the stellar action sequences and old-film grain that gives the series its old-school anime cool factor, the show is also pretty damn funny. Oh, and to cap things off, it also has an ending theme song by none other than Ellie Goulding.

Translation: all the hallmarks that made Reincarnated as a Slime a household favorite—only strip out the civilization-builder elements, replace them with a chimera of Octodad: Dadliest Catch and Elden Ring, and you’ve basically got Clevatess.

It’s a fun watch with hints of some cool world-building to come, but if you’re looking for a series that’s got an even deeper pool to dive into in the action, themes, and lore department, Sentenced to Be a Hero has that in spades.

While Sentenced to Be a Hero feels like it’ll be one of those sentence-long Mad Libs of the fantasy genre—the kind we’ve seen time and time again in isekai that over-saturate the landscape, stripping it for parts until their unique hooks are something painfully mundane and a chore to watch—this anime is the real deal.

Animated by Studio Kai, Sentenced to Be a Hero wastes no time dropping viewers right into the heat of the action with its nearly hour-long pilot episode (which is just up on YouTube to watch for free, btw). And for good reason: the show trusts that you already know the tropes that make up the fantasy genre, and it’s eager to get the ball rolling on its own interesting twist on, well… what it actually means to be a hero in its world. The twist is that being a hero is a capital punishment worse than the death penalty.

The series follows Xylo, a mercenary sentenced to be a hero as punishment for the grave offense of killing a goddess—a situation that surely has more going on behind the scenes than the corrupt politicians would acknowledge. He, alongside several other honestly pretty rad RPG archetype heroes, is treated as a subhuman weapon, cursed to be revived again and again as an arm of the military—front‑line cannon fodder deployed to battle demons and whatever else stands in the way. And with each death, they lose more of their memories until they’re mindless berserkers.

Things take a turn for the found family when Xylo stumbles upon Teoritta, a bratty goddess he discovers in stolen cargo who’s hellbent on him serving as her noble knight. Funnily enough, their dynamic is the most comparable to Guts and Puck’s in Berserk. Like Puck, Teoritta keeps the series from being too dark, plus her ideals of heroism mirror the audience’s. Unfortunately, those deals are repeatedly dashed against the jagged rocks like the audience’s, which are repeatedly dashed against the rocks of their world’s brutal logic.

Still, Teoritta chips away at Xylo’s rough exterior, softening him from a one-note sardonic protagonist into a gentler, Geralt-type hero as he and his ensemble of fellow conscripted heroes band together to save the world like some sort of suicide squad. All, we might add, for the low price of a nice head pat and words of affirmation—both of which she more than earns by summoning hails of swords from portals for Xylo to throw and explode upon impact. This anime is cooking with gas.

What I love most about Sentenced to Be a Hero is how many interesting moving pieces its story juggles across its cast of heroes, which are honestly hard to choose a favorite (though I’m partial to their sniper, Tsav). Likewise, its villains are just as compelling, rivaling the moral and thematic heft of Fullmetal Alchemist. What’s more, the show’s animation quality is unreal, showcasing the kind of polish most shows would save for a season finale, yet Studio Kai delivers that level of TLC on a consistent, episodic basis.

And despite Sentenced to Be a Hero‘s grim-dark premise, multi-layered political double-crosses, and gory action, the series never takes itself so seriously that it becomes a bummer to watch. It’s got a sharp sense of humor, a blush of romance, and a surprisingly ample amount of soft, wholesome moments, making it an easy, instant-classic anime of 2026 that genuinely snuck up on people.

So if you’re craving fantasy anime that lean harder into action than the slower-tempo shows we’ve been putting you on, you can check out Clevatess and Sentenced to Be a Hero on Crunchyroll—and rest assured, both already have second seasons waiting in the wings for you.

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