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The Duke of Death and His Maid Season 1 Recap & Ending Explained


The Duke of Death and His Maid Season 1 Recap
Credit: J.C.Staff

The Duke of Death and His Maid is back for Season 2. Refresh your memory with our The Duke of Death and His Maid Season 1 recap and ending breakdown right here!

With a second season now on Crunchyroll, we won't have to forever question if the Duke will break the curse or if he and Alice will get married.

But in the meantime, find all you need to remember about Season 1 below.

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Here's Everything That Happened in The Duke of Death and His Maid Season 1

The Duke of Death and His Maid is a romance anime with comedy elements. Its unnamed protagonist is a duke cursed to kill every living thing that he touches.

When he got cursed as a child, the Duke's mother banished him to faraway family estates to live in obscurity, discouraging her other children from visiting him.

The Duke descends into despair and expects to die alone but ultimately manages to enjoy life again with help from his maid, Alice, and his elderly butler, Rob.

The Duke and Alice are childhood friends. She's deeply in love with him and enjoys teasing him and getting dangerously close to him to see his panicked reaction.

For his part, the Duke reciprocates Alice's feelings, but his predicament and their different social standings get in the way of their love.

Over the course of the story, the Duke and Alice become friends with another couple with different relationship struggles; a witch named Cuff, and a wizard named Zain.

The Duke also gets to reconnect with his younger sister, Viola.

As their father's health deteriorates, the Duke's rivalry with his younger brother, Walter, intensifies.

The Duke's mother gives him a deadline to break his curse, threatening to make Walter the duke if he fails.

Finally emboldened by his experiences of both isolation and affection, the Duke declares his intentions to marry Alice, even if that means that he must give up his birthright.

Throughout Season 1, the Duke and Alice research ways to break the curse.

Their hopes are all but shattered when they find out that the witch who cursed him is dead, but they keep looking.

Could some clues possibly lie with Daleth, the current head of the witches coven, or with Sharon, Alice's mysterious, long-dead mother?

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The Duke of Death and His Maid Ending Explained

The Duke of Death and His Maid Ending Explained
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Credit: J.C.Staff

All in all, The Duke of Death and His Maid is a relatively straightforward anime without confusing subplots.

But since it attempts to make a coherent plot out of the manga's more disjointed format, some questions remain, and we'll tackle them below.

How Was the Duke Cursed?

The Duke of Death and His Maid Ending Explained   Duke's Curse Explained
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Credit: J.C.Staff

In the season finale, the Duke's mother gives him until spring of that year to break his curse, if he wants to inherit the family title.

Viola takes him to the spot where he was cursed, and the Duke recalls as much as he can about the event.

He was playing next to a gravestone, looking for a four-leaf clover to give to Alice, when someone grabbed him from behind and told him he was never going to love and be loved.

Following that, the clover he had just found withered.

How The Duke Became Cursed
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Credit: J.C.Staff

The Duke has erased much of the event from his memory but tells Viola he remembers the softness of the witch's bosom against his back.

Fanservice aside, you can't blame him. It was the last time he was touched.

This memory could possibly present a clue. Time and again, Viola, who still has the body of a child, has expressed jealousy for Alice's soft curves.

And if Alice has a soft, curvy body, and people keep commenting that she looks just like her mother, it is likely her mother, who is also a servant in the Duke's household, did too.

The Duke of Death and His Maid Alice Sharon and the Duke
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Credit: J.C.Staff

Of course, this doesn't correspond with everyone's memories of Alice's mother.

Sharon was only ever kind to her daughter, and even the Duke's cold, distant mother remembers the woman fondly; it appears the two were actually best friends, and her Ladyship was devastated when Sharon died.

For Sharon to curse the Duke, there must have been some motivation.

We would guess that, if that were the case, Sharon might have wanted to cause pain to the Duke's mother for some reason.

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The Duke of Death and His Maid - Young Alice with Her Mother
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Credit: J.C.Staff

As fond as her Ladyship was of Sharon, she is not a kind woman. But of course, this is just a theory at this point.

Daleth told the Duke that the witch who cursed him is dead – which once again would make Sharon, who was apparently friendly with witches and likely a witch herself – a possible candidate.

At least, that would be the case if Daleth was trustworthy and if we were entirely sure that Sharon is dead. But from what we've seen, Daleth is not to be trusted.

The Duke of Death and His Maid Season 1 Recap & Ending Explained Duke Alice and Daleth
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Credit: J.C.Staff

In the finale, she threatens Zain to make him destroy all clues about the manner in which the Duke was cursed.

Not to mention that she keeps Sharon's preserved body in a coffin – is she dead, or just asleep?

It's hard to tell at this point, so we'll have to wait for Season 2 to discover the exact details about the curse.

Are the Duke and Alice Still Together?

Are the Duke and Alice Still Together
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Credit: J.C.Staff

We might not have the comfort of seeing the Duke freed from his curse, but seeing him happy with Alice is enough of a reward.

The two experienced a rough time when Alice started worrying that their different social classes would pose a problem.

She loves the Duke so much that she doesn't want to see him disinherited because of her.

When he visits his mother, however, the Duke makes his case very clear.

He loves Alice, who stood by him as if his curse didn't matter when his own mother dumped him in a faraway estate and forgot about him.

He believes that if not for Alice, he would be long dead. As such, he finally stands up to his mother, shouting his case.

The Duke of Death and His Maid - Duke and Alice
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While not exactly delicate, the Duke's declaration earns him his siblings' respect.

His mother doesn't exactly react, but she seems secretly pleased that her son showed some nerve, so this is the closest we can get to a blessing right now.

Regardless, the Duke and Alice's romance is only beginning, if the credits in the finale are any indication, and we can't wait to see more!

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