Claymore 08

May 23rd, 2007 by Shirukii

W.T.F. First Kamina and now this!? All my favourite characters are dying! This is beyond cruel. Although this wasn’t nearly as epic or worthy of manly tears as Gurren’s latest episode, it was still one hell of a shocker. I did not see this coming at all.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10

In this episode, Teresa reveals the various levels of release regarding claymores’ yoma powers. It’s convenient to refer to them, so here they are:

>10% release: Eyes change from silver to gold.
>30% release: Facial distortion.
>50% release: Whole body distorts.
>80% release: Theoretical limit, reversion to human form difficult, if not impossible.
100% release: Awakening. In rare cases the claymore will not become a true yoma, instead transforming into something beyond a yoma or a claymore.

Wasting no time, this episode throws us right back into a typical shounen fight scene. Blades moving so fast that all you see are afterimages and impact sparks, physical movement that isn’t much slower and enough collateral damage to leave the town looking like a war zone.

Despite all four having released their powers to >10%, the team sent to execute Teresa fails. Even their constant combined assault is not enough to overpower her. Not wanting to kill unnecessarily, Teresa injures Irene, Noel and Sophia to the point where they are unable to retaliate. As for Priscilla, she is so shocked at Teresa’s power and her own inability to stop her that she is frozen in fear.

Teresa knows that she will become a great threat in the future if she does not kill her now, but her recent change in attitude after meeting Clare leads her to spare Priscilla’s life for the time being. She apologizes to the town for the trouble they’ve brought, and leaves with Clare in tow.

Irene approaches Priscilla and tells her to retreat and regroup for now, but Priscilla loses it. She has such a strong sense of hate for yoma that she is unable to cope with the thought of letting someone who betrayed the organization wander freely.

She chases down Teresa and engages her one on one, releasing her powers to over 70%. However, Teresa releases to a mere 10% and manages to close the gap, eventually cornering Priscilla. At this point Priscilla knows that she is unable to revert and will soon become a yoma, so she asks Teresa to kill her while she still has the heart of a human. But as Teresa relaxes her stance to do so, Priscilla grabs her sword, disarms Teresa (lol, literally) and then decapitates her, much to the shock of Irene, Noel, Sophia, and most of all, Clare. Having passed her limits, Priscilla releases all her powers and ends up in an awakaned state.

BAD END!

Sensing the impending threat, Irene attacks, but is swatted away without effort. Noel and Sophia make similar attempts and are met with the same results. Priscilla slaughters the three remaining claymores and flies off to look for food (i.e. human guts), leaving Clare mourning over Teresa, the only person who has ever understood her and shared her pain.

Thoughts

Well damn, was my prediction ever off. Teresa clearly had the upper hand throughout the whole fight, not needing to release any power when taking on the other 4 at >10% release. And needing only that much to counter Priscilla’s >80% release. But what did her in was her newfound sense of mercy. Her first mistake was letting Priscilla go after the fight in the town. But far more costly for Teresa was letting her guard down when Priscilla begged for mercy.

Indirectly, it is Clare that is at the root of Teresa’s death, who even noted herself that she was becoming a softie. It was this new mindset that led to her demise, the speed of Priscilla’s disarming slash couldn’t have been faster than one of Irene’s flashes, which Teresa has no problem blocking. Teresa’s surprised expression suggests that she truly thought Priscilla had seen the err of her ways and was ready to accept her fate.

So as if being a yoma’s plaything for God knows how long wasn’t enough, Clare has yet another reason to hate yoma. It seems that most claymores are born out of necessity and circumstance, having been attacked by a yoma and needing to become a claymore in order to survive. But Clare was left unharmed by Priscilla, yet we know she becomes a claymore. I’m guessing that handlers will come by to assess the situation and Clare will ask to join the organization, my bet is that she somehow uses Teresa’s body to do so.

Priscilla looks like she’s the main villain of the series, or at least that’s what certain helpful commenters have suggested anyways. This sets up a great “Oh the ironing” in which Clare, who was spared by Priscilla, ends up slaying Priscilla, who was spared by Teresa. Of course, that’s a rather simple conclusion, I’d rather be surprised by a more unexpected one, or at least have plenty of twists and turns along the way.

Claymore continues to pass all expectations I had when I picked it up on a whim. I expected generic shounen, and while the bulk of the battles haven’t been innovative by any stretch of the imagination, the plot is far better than I had hoped. Animation is also keeping up rather well so far, although the overuse of afterimage blurring makes it a bitch of a series to screencap T_T

From the looks of the preview, we’ll be returning to the present time next week. Bye bye loli Clare T_T we’ll miss you.

~ Shirukii ~


25 Responses to “Claymore 08”

  1. on 23 May 2007 at 5:09 pm1 Kenny Liu

    Omg I wanted to cry~! Teresaaaa~!!! >_

  2. on 23 May 2007 at 7:40 pm2 Silvering

    An evil twist, indeed.

    One of the good things about the Claymore manga is that it builds up expectations and then subverts them unexpectedly.

    There’s another interesting shocker around the corner, likely two or three episodes hence, which has already skillfully been set up.

    Anyway, we’ll see adult-Claire return next episode–and we’ll understand her motivation much better. Her grudge against Priscilla is all-consuming.

    We’ll also routinely begin to see Awakened Beings. The Youma that have been shown so far are definitely the scrubs. The A-team is waiting!

    Stay tuned. This series is going places, especially since the art and directorial quality have held up a third of the way through.

  3. on 23 May 2007 at 7:52 pm3 Chewy

    Tere… sa…

    Mannn this episode was soo shocking! I think everybody expected teresa to die but the way she died was just so incredibly tragic.
    A person that has fought for who knows how long for humanity, “adopting” a lost child, cleaning up human trash and then still show mercy to the very people who’ve come to kill her. She really didn’t deserve to die and especially not in such a gruesome way. becoming decapitated without having even the possibility to properly part with her “adopted” daughter clare.
    that was so tear jerking.

    on the same note i found the flow and tension set up perfectly. The last episode ended with a threat, in this episode teresa truly overpowers them and then just when you expect her to end priscilla’s misery and be in the clearing she gets murdered in 2 seconds flat. Truly great flow and tension build up.

  4. on 24 May 2007 at 12:18 am4 Servbot

    For me it was certainly harder reading the manga because you have to manually flip the pages so some scenes such as Teresa’s death just hits you unexpectedly and keeps you there, or at least keeps you in shock while flipping back and forth to make sure what you just read actually happened…

  5. on 24 May 2007 at 1:34 am5 gsazabi

    I can’t wait for the figures of Terresa and Claire to come out.
    I’m betting BOME will make nice versions of them.

  6. on 24 May 2007 at 11:06 am6 Shirukii

    @ Kenny: T_T

    @ Silvering: Kinda makes you wonder if the claymore organization is worth it in the first place huh? I mean, sure they need some way to fight the yoma, but what’s the point if their tools go berserk and become monsters an infinitum times stronger.

    @ Chewy: Yea, the scene was done rather well. Even the music was fitting, the tone built up to a serene melody, bittersweet even, fitting of Teresa’s victory, but Priscilla’s impending death. Then it went dead silent and things went to hell.

    @ Servbot: So many people have been recommending the manga lately, but I want to enjoy the anime to the fullest, so I think I’ll wait until after its done to read the manga.

    @ gsazabi: Fortunately (unfortunately? XD) I haven’t fallen into the money sapping hobby that is collecting figures just yet. Though when they are released, if they look absolutely stunning, drop me another comment here with a link, I might cave.

  7. on 24 May 2007 at 8:18 pm7 Silvering

    One does have to wonder about the organization.

    Given this episode and what follows in the manga, it seems the Claymores produce a *lot* of Awakened Beings.

    To make a culinary analogy, the result of their work is a lot like doing a sauce reduction—a large dilute volume is turned into smaller but more concentrated volume.

    Well, at least we have Claymore #47 to clean things up, now!

  8. on 24 May 2007 at 8:32 pm8 grss1982

    “Priscilla looks like she’s the main villain of the series, or at least that’s what certain helpful commenters have suggested anyways. This sets up a great “Oh the ironing” in which Clare, who was spared by Priscilla, ends up slaying Priscilla, who was spared by Teresa. Of course, that’s a rather simple conclusion, I’d rather be surprised by a more unexpected one, or at least have plenty of twists and turns along the way.”

    Have’nt you wondered who that horned monster/youma is in the Intro Song?

    It (youma/probably Priscilla) appears as the song ends abruptly just before does a vertical slash with her sword :-)

  9. on 24 May 2007 at 8:37 pm9 Shirukii

    @ grss1982: One of my bad habits as an avid watcher of anime is almost never watching OPs and EDs. Mostly because up until recently I have only watched anime marathon style, so I just skipped the OPs and EDs to save time and keep the series feeling continuous. It stuck with me even although I watch ongoing now *shrugs*

    Thanks for pointing that out though XD

  10. on 25 May 2007 at 12:10 pm10 Kanon_fan82

    Sh*t son!! That was an INTENSE episode……..the animation was very decent, the music fitting, and the plot continues to have interesting twists :)

    @ Shirukii: I hear you on the OP/ED watching……I usually watch it once at the beginning of a series…..after that they just become a nusiance……

    I will say that the OP for Death Note is an exception though :) since I love the song and the change it underwent was uber drastic!

  11. on 25 May 2007 at 12:19 pm11 Shirukii

    @ Kanon_fan82: There’s no need for censorship here =P It doesn’t seem to offend anyone so I let it be.

    As for the Death Note OP, I watch it once in a while for the sake of trying to match up the karaoke with the actual lyrics. Japanese metal/hardcore is hilarious, it’s so bad that it’s catchy.

  12. on 27 May 2007 at 2:59 am12 gsazabi

    Damn, after this episode, I couldn’t resist downloading the entire manga(up to current) and read it all in one sitting.
    Things will just get CRAZY from here!@o@;;
    It’s one of the best mangas you’ll ever read!!!

  13. on 28 May 2007 at 9:40 pm13 Judas

    There should be just a little more loli clare to come dont worry ^_^.

    PS. Read the manga, although once you’re done it just makes waiting for the anime weekly even harder (Considering the manga is monthly).

  14. on 30 May 2007 at 2:23 pm14 Yoruichi

    After this episode, i couldn’t wait anymore to find out what happens to clare, so i bought vol. 1 - 8 the next day and downloaded the rest. AHHH! SO GOOD! Especially when they start introducing a dozen other claymores. But now that i’m up to date on the manga, what the hell am i gonna do with myself while waiting all week for each episode?!

  15. on 30 May 2007 at 3:11 pm15 Shirukii

    @ gsazabi, Judas, Yoruichi: I actually bought vol 1-7 of the manga, but I don’t want to spoil the potential of the show by reading the manga. I’m going to finish watching the anime first then read the manga. With that in mind, please try to avoid spoilers XD

  16. on 12 Jun 2007 at 8:43 pm16 Michelle

    This was probably the most shocking anime episode I have ever watched in my life. Since I haven’t read the manga yet, I totally did not expect her to die. Especially THAT way. I was feeling kinda depressed after that… T_T

    I hope there show continues to build up like this, with unexpected moments!

  17. on 16 Jul 2007 at 8:35 am17 kaket

    I was completely stocked.

  18. on 20 Jul 2007 at 7:48 pm18 spoiler

    Even though Priscilla is Clares main stab a vengence she is not the main villian by far infact she is an underling to one of the 3 top awakend ones

  19. on 22 Jul 2007 at 5:14 pm19 more spoiler

    Can’t say Priscilla is the main villain but she is the most powerful.
    Even the 2 of the top 3 awakened ones acknowledge this (in the manga)

  20. on 24 Jul 2007 at 10:57 pm20 Cliff

    Well just an after(fore?)thought
    priscilla wasn’t at her fullest potential when she awakened.
    so inmagine what she would be if she reacher her full potential.
    also inmagine if theresa awakened….
    cuz even if theresa died she is still by far the most powerful claymore because Show ▼

  21. on 26 Jul 2007 at 4:44 am21 Lord_Knight

    Tere…………………..sa

    so cool…….
    incridible strong………
    invicible smile……………..
    best fighter………
    why she die like this…..

    i wanted to see her again when she fought with priscilla…
    can it be?
    will be claire become stronger?
    with teressa body and irrene hand……

  22. on 28 Jul 2007 at 3:14 am22 zmgimonfire

    zmg this is the best anime ever (exept for berserk) i wanted to buy every new manga of it but my country is to cheapass to have the new manga and only has volume 7 T_T so now its waiting because i hate reading mangas on internet …

    only thing why did teressa die i was so shocked because teressa hadnt even released her power to the fullest that b*tch just sneak attacked her i was almost crying at that scene

  23. on 31 Jul 2007 at 11:00 pm23 blackcollarcat

    Well, I know teresa’s going to die anyway.but not that way!!
    my heart was beating very fast when she died.I wAS totally shocked too.. TERESA!!

  24. on 18 Aug 2007 at 4:52 am24 BabyAngel

    OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TERESA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sob sob T_T….. I almost cried when i saw that scene.. She was one of my favourite character and she died.. W.T.F!!!! I never thought Teresa would die because she was the strongest warrior ever.. That stupid Awakened being just had a lucky shot.. Hope somebody chops her head off!!!!!!!!!

  25. on 25 Dec 2007 at 5:46 pm25 oh my god

    5 months has passed and still i cant accept this fact.
    TERESAAAA! why she killed by priscilla. that goddamn clare because of her teresa got killed. but argggg s. o. a. b. priscilla she cant accepted that her own defeat against TERESA and pulled a cheap trick. teresa was strongest besides she killed previous number one with %10 yoma power but she finished it in 3 seconds after using %10 yoma power. did you see previous number one’s scared expression. i feel so sad. DAMN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im crying.

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