Leviathan: The Last Defense (Zettai Bouei Leviathan) is a fantasy-based anime featuring three dragon girls and their fairy companion. It is based on the mobile game released the same month directed by Strike Witches' assistant director, Kenichi Yatani, and began airing on April 6th, 2013.
The story is set in Aquafall, a fantasy world abound with water and greenery, and populated by dragons and fairies. Meteorites suddenly bring forth evil creatures that threaten all living things on the planet. The fairy Syrup assembles the Aquafall Defense Force, with three girls of the dragon clans as recruits. The story follows Syrup and the dragon girls Leviatan, Bahamut, and Jörmungandr as they work together to battle enemies and grow up.
This anime provides examples of:
- Big Eater: Syrup is apparently never full despite being two feet tall.
- Call to Adventure: Subverted at first; the girls did not believe the threat was that big and didn't want to work for Syrup.
- The Ditz: Jörmungandr is rather dumb, even compared to the other girls. In one episode she tries to rescue Bahamut from sinking in a swamp by throwing her axe at her! Fortunately she missed.
- "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: Episode 3, has the girls venture inside Yurlungur's stomach and finding out if Jörmungandr's axe that he swallowed made him sick.
- Gender-Restricted Ability: It's stated both by characters in the show itself as well as in the intro to episode 4 that only women have the ability to use magic and are Squishy Wizard with Wings. For some reason, though, Bahamut's father is described as a mage and possesses powers and Jörmungandr has immense strength and no wings.
- Our Dragons Are Different: There are two types of dragons: Little Bit Beastly types like the protagonists and European dragons like Yurlungur and the Dire Drake.
- Running Gag:
- The girls unintentionally being the reason the tavern is destroyed Once an Episode in the first three episodes.
- Starting with episode 4, Syrop/Syrup gets called Syrorin by Jörmungandr, prompting her to angrily correct the person.
- Sequel Hook: At the end of the show the girls set out for traveling the world in order to fight evil. A sequel never got released though.
- Spell My Name With An S: The Crunchyroll subs use "Jormungand", and "Syrop" for the names of those characters. While "Syrop" can also be "Syrup", it really should be "Jörmungandr".
- Theme Naming
- Animal Theme Naming: Jörmungandr, Leviathan, and Yurlungur are all names of mythological snakes.
- Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Obviously so.
- Leviathan and Bahamut are also known as dragons in the Final Fantasy series.
