With over twice the amount of votes as its nearest competition, Claymore is the winner of the “What would you like to see blogged?” poll. But Gurenn Lagann fans are in luck too, Soda MIGHT be blogging it. I stress the “might” because he’s more of a slacker than I am, and is often too lazy to post XD

Anyways, I digress. With the situation explained in the previous episode, this week’s Claymore is much more action oriented. The pacing is still at a snail’s pace, but apparently Claymore is slotted to be 50+ episodes, so they can afford dragging out certain aspects of the show. wrong apparently.

Episode Rating: 9/10

Clare’s first encounter with the voracious eater yoma ends up in a loss. Dividing her attention between the fight and protecting the guards proves to be impossible, the yoma takes advantage of the distraction and impales her. However, the sound of oncoming guards scares it away.

Being half yoma and half human, the clergy has no idea how to treat her. Knife boy says good riddance, causing Raki to lose it and punch him, saying that Clare has a gentler heart than most humans out there. But with no way to treat her, the only thing they can do is hope that she’s able to pull through on her own. And sure enough, two days later, Clare wakes up, looking almost perfectly fine.

With such a strong opponent, Clare and father Vincent do away with the stealth operation and do anything in their power to find and kill the yoma. This means calling out everyone who has access to the cathedral at night and having Clare inspect them. Although the clergy is strongly opposed to the decision, they have little choices left. However, the search turns up blank, none of the clergymen are the yoma. Suddenly, Clare figures it out, the one thing she overlooked, yomas can disguise themselves as anything, including the corpses in the baptismal hall…where it just so happens she sent Raki to wait.

Clare gets there just in time to save Raki, who the yoma seems to be determined to eat. But close behind are Galk and knife boy, the two guards present during the last fight. But this time, they ensure Clare that they can fend for themselves, so that she can concentrate on her own fighting. But even the combined power of these three are no match for the voracious eater, mainly due to Clare’s current weakened state.

Just when it looks like all hope is lost, Raki remembers that Clare’s sword is in the statue he’s been hauling around. With it, Clare is able to surprise the yoma and remove one of his arms, however, the slash was meant for his head, to end the fight quickly.

The yoma realizes that Clare is pushing herself past her limits and wanted to end the fight quickly, the tables turn and he takes the advantage. But thanks to a sacrificial run from Galk, the yoma is pinned and Clare gets an opening, taking off his other arm. But the he’s not done just yet, impaling himself with Clare’s sword sideways to prevent her from attacking his critical point, the head, the yoma makes one final lunge. Clare has no choice, she awakens her yoma powers and forces her sword up through the yoma’s head, killing it.

But as we know from a couple episodes back, awakening their yoma powers accelerates a claymore’s transformation into a yoma. Doing so, combined with her already weakened state, leaves Clare unable to transform back into her fully human form. Realizing that, she asks Galk to kill her while she still has the consciousness of a human. But Raki doesn’t want to lose her, not after she saved him when he was left for dead. Thanking Clare for everything she’s done for him, he says that if she has to die, he’ll die with her.

Suddenly there’s an explosion of light and the spread of the yoma stops. Somehow, Raki’s speech halted Clare’s transformation dead in its tracks.

The next day, Raki and Clare prepare to leave. Vincent mentions that Clare’s request to have Raki stay has been met by enthusiasm by the bishop, but Raki declines, not about to leave Clare’s side after all they’ve been through. As a parting gift, Galk gives Raki his sword and he and knife boy wish him luck and urge him to become strong enough to support Clare.

Thoughts

This series is surprisingly good, it may be because I decided to pick it up on a whim and didn’t have any real expectations going in, but it’s one of the more enjoyable ones this season.

What I like about it is that it’s more than just mindless shounen. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with mindless shounen, but I’m already getting my fix of that with Bleach and Naruto Shippuuden. It’s interesting to consider the claymores, their existence and their relation with the human race.

Claymores were human to begin with, but through various occurrences, consciously decide to fuse themselves with yoma. It’s rather ironic in that the reason many of the girls decide to do so is because their lives were ruined by an encounter with a yoma, whether it be that one killed their family/friends, or a situation like Raki where they were outcast in fear. So to become one with the very beings that ruined their lives, and then go out to hunt the very things that they’ve half-become, is ironing in all its glory.

Another interesting thing to watch is the way that claymores are perceived by humans. What I find confusing is the intrinsic fear that humans carry towards claymores. From what we’ve seen from Clare’s work, they have no reason to be afraid. Yomas go around killing humans, claymores go around killing yomas while remaining neutral towards humans. If anything, humans should be thanking claymores for constantly saving their lives, but instead they’re feared…

Why? Is there some sort of precedence where a claymore went berserk and killed a bunch of humans? Or is it simply because claymores are half yoma and eventually become full yoma? If we consider the latter, then the claymores have a system to protect against that, the black card system we saw enacted in episode two. *shrugs* I suppose this will be answered down the line.

But at least we see that humans are not all unreasonable. In Clare’s case, at least, it’s apparent that her good deeds are winning her respect and dispelling the fear.

I guess Clare relying that much on her yoma powers was the “awakening” that the episode title was referring to. Luckily Raki’s compassionate speech was somehow able to abruptly stop the spread. Which makes me wonder if it has ever happened before in the claymore world, if not I’d suspect that the case would be reported and it might bring about a new system of doing things. So instead of relying so heavily on the self-sacrificial black card system, a new system of companionship might be implemented, with the ability to suppress yoma for longer periods.

Well, enough of the wild theories.

The technical aspects of the show are decent. The animation is pretty typical for a series of this type, it’s consistent and fluid most of the time, but still shots are heavily relied upon during fights. Character designs are a little different, but I don’t mind them and they fit the tone of the series quite well. It’s too bad some people are so put off by the character designs that they won’t watch the series, Danny doesn’t know what he’s missing =(

Well, that’s all for Claymore this week. The series is episodic in nature, going from town to town and killing yomas, so I can’t really comment on or predict where I think it’s all going. But I’d hope that at some point everything comes together to form a coherent and solid plotline.

~ Shirukii ~