Claymore 14
July 5th, 2007 by Shirukii
Yet another Claymore episode that reminds me what shounen can be when done right. I’m surprised at the series’ ability to not bat an eye at the prospect of killing off legions of characters. But then again, with such a huge cast of claymore, killing off a few here and there still leaves plenty of others to play around with.
But did one of those really have to be Ophelia ;_;
Episode Rating: 9.5/10
After some tiring Flash Sword practice, Irene and Clare sit down to rest and have a long talk. Irene is a good judge of character and sees right through Clare’s motives and determination, Clare blames herself for Teresa’s death. And in that sense, she’s not entirely mistaken, spending time with Clare dulled Teresa’s warrior senses, senses that placed her in a league all of her own, respected and feared by all other claymore. And the unfortunate result was her death by Priscilla’s hands.
However, that’s not to say Clare meeting with Teresa was the bane of her existence, quite the opposite actually. The time Teresa spent with Clare reminded her of the sense of humanity she thought she had long since lost, they were surely the happiest days of Teresa’s life.
The next day, as practice comes to an end, Irene congratulates Clare on her progress with the Flash Sword. However, its strength and endurance are still incomparable to that of Irene, who underestimated the passion in Clare, a fatal flaw to a technique which requires a calm mind to sustain.
Nonetheless, Irene is still impressed with Clare’s growth, and as a final gift to her, offers her right arm, to replace the one Clare lost. Objecting at first, Irene ensures Clare that it is merely a tool for battle, having abandoned the will to fight, it is of little use to her, and so Clare reluctantly accepts it.
That night, Clare sets out to continue her pursuit of revenge, promising to return Irene’s arm when all is said and done. But it may be Irene who has more difficulty living to see the day, as she is confronted by Rafaela, the current #5, who Irene judges to be much stronger than her rank suggests.
Under the orders of the claymore organization, Rafaela has come to oversee the execution of Irene, branded a traitor to the organization…
Meanwhile, Clare encounters an old acquaintance on her way through the forest. Rather than the shock of running into Ophelia again, the fact that she has awakened is much more of a surprise to Clare, even more so since Ophelia herself has yet to realize what she’s become.
Shock aside, their fight resumes once again. With training with the Flash Sword technique and the strength from Irene’s arm, Clare manages to put up a much better fight, yet is still pinned down in the end. But suddenly, Ophelia sees her reflection in the water and finally realizes that she has awakened, taking the opening, Clare escapes submission while Ophelia curses herself for losing control of herself.
Not one to stay depressed for long (or perhaps she’s just bipolar) Ophelia quickly regains composure and suggests a game to Clare. She gathers all her human parts at the tail of her serpent like body, essentially concentrating her weak spots. Ophelia challenges Clare to tear through her body and reach said weakspot before surpassing the limits of that new arm of hers and awakening. The two of them have had traumatic childhoods caused by Priscilla, if Clare were to win this game, Ophelia would entrust her resolve to fight with Clare. But if Clare were to lose, then she would have never stood a chance against Priscilla anyways.
Clare accepts the challenge and begins ripping through Ophelia. But halfway through, Ophelia counterattacks and scores a direct hit on Clare. Just as Clare is about to give up hope, Ophelia herself urges her on, and with that Clare breaks through and delivers the final blow to an almost relieved Ophelia who tells her that she’s fighting for the both of them now, and better not lose.
Thoughts
I knew that Ophelia’s death would be at the hands of Clare, but I sure wasn’t expecting the sudden change of heart. Odd how Ophelia’s awakening actually made her a morally better person. Either that or she felt she was forced to abandon her hopes of revenge because of her awakening and decided to pass the duty to an equally willing and more capable person.
Although I’m saddened by Ophelia’s death, I knew it was coming so, unlike Teresa’s, it wasn’t depressingly sad. It was nice to see her die as a good guy though, and she had a look of content as she passed on, I’m more happy for her than anything.
One thing that all these deaths and sacrifices of late are doing is reminding me of another shounen archetype. Yep, that’s right, Clare is developing the power to befriend ANYONE. While not as strong as the likes of Naruto or Nanoha, slowly but surely she’s getting there.
On that note, I WTF’d at this scene. I realized immediately what Irene was doing when she cut off Clare’s arm, but couldn’t believe that she’d go so far. Surely Irene has no need for her arm as a tool for battle, but it’s still part of her body, and to give it up to another person is one hell of a “gift”. I don’t see any reason why Irene would feel so obligated to do such a thing for Clare, she didn’t have any particular attachment to Teresa, nor a terribly strong animosity towards Priscilla. Meh, maybe she sensed Rafaela coming and knew she’d be screwed either way, and decided to put her arm to good use.
I’m curious as to whether Rafaela managed to kill Irene. She’s rank #5, and apparently much stronger than that, as acknowledged by Irene herself, who conceded that she’d need both her arms to stand a chance against her. Despite her obvious disadvantages, I’d like to think Irene would be able to survive, especially after living through an encounter with Priscilla.
I have a lot of questions about Rafaela too, but at this point there’s just not enough information about her to make a guess at her agenda, hopefully the coming episodes will shed some light on the matter.
And finally, the bitch herself, Priscilla. She appears to be at the root of almost every present day conflict, and a being far stronger than any current claymores could hope to handle. It’s still far off, but I can’t wait to see her go down.
On a tangentially related topic, the claymore organization is beginning to be portrayed more and more as an evil entity. They take traumatized girls in and turn them into warriors to fight for them, fair enough, seeing as they’re fighting willingly, against the very beings that caused their agony. But the irony of fate is not beyond them, as they soon become the very beings they swore to fight, at which point their former allies turn their backs and offer no help, instead attempting to kill them.
I’ve asked this before, but is the existence of the organization a benefit or detriment to humankind? From what it seems, they create more problems than they solve. Surely warriors are required to fight the yoma, but for every bunch of comparatively weak yoma that are killed, a monstrously strong awakened being takes its place. Warriors are sent to rid of the awakened being, but that action often leads to the birth of even more of them. It’s a vicious cycle and from my point of view is making things worse than they already are.
In any case, only time will tell what the true purpose of the organization and its claymores. Time which is becoming more painful to endure as each passing week goes by. Many thanks to the team of Eclipse fansubs though, whose speeds are blindingly fast while remaining quality, making the wait a little more bearable.
PROMOTIONS!
Side Note* I am pleased to announce that we now have…
To use them, simply wrap the text you wish to hide in <spoiler> </spoiler> tags.
EDIT: Fixed the spoiler tags so that everyone can use them, thanks to Kabitzin from Sea Slugs! for helping me figure out how.
~ Shirukii ~
16 Responses to “Claymore 14”
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“They take traumatized girls in and turn them into warriors to fight for them, fair enough, seeing as they’re fighting willingly, against the very beings that caused their agony.”
Actually, a detail from the manga that was left out of the anime was that in the history of “The Organization” Claire is the first person to Show ▼
BTW, good job on adding spoiler tags.
Um, the spoiler tag didn’t work. ^^;;
I tried putting the spoiler tag around “seek out and join the Organization of her own free will. A lot of girls are sold to the Organization by slave traders.”
This was a good one. Ophelia will be missed, but Riful, Jean and Galatea will more than compensate for the loss.
So, Claire has ‘powered up.’ The bad guys power up next story series, too, as we encounter what’s worse than even your typical Awakened One.
Its too bad the Raphaela mini-story which rolls around later might not happen within the 26 episodes allotted to the first part of the Claymore story. The story of how she lost her eye, and why she has chosen not to regenerate it, has a whole lot of the history of the Organization and the Claymore world in it. .
As for her power level, Raphaela’s probably equivalent to the current #2—a position for which she was once groomed, herself. And she has very good reason to hate the Organization.
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Spoiler tags aren’t working for non-admin level users. I had this problem when I first installed the plugin; you have to edit your kses.php file to add the spoiler tag as an allowable tag for commenters. I posted up an instruction guide, which I got from Omni.
http://www.seaslugteam.com/archives/2006/02/24/spoiler-tags/
Claymore has really been stepping it up lately, and I actually like the anime a little more than the manga at this point.
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Thanks Kabitzin, seems to be working now. Seems like this is a common problem, Danny over at Novastorm had the same issue when he installed the plugin as well.
To show my thanks, blogroll add! (And a not so subtle request to be added to yours :3)
Wow……awesome episode…….I think this episode deserves the exta .5 for a perfect 10 lol :)
NOOOOO! Ophelia is gone :’(….she was my favourite character! Love her human form……it actually made me go @_@ lol…..
As for the Organization, I figure it’s pretty much evil…..or will end up being evil……
I totally wtf-ed at Irene’s sacrificed arm, but it was a nice way to give a power-up to Clare without being totally cheesy…..this shounen series has an excellent mix of action and drama :)
@ Shirukii:
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YAY!
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Those straps on Irene’s and now Clare’s arm look painful. Is it to keep the arm taut & straight so that they can perform the Flash Sword or maybe it is to keep the power from being overwhelming?…hmmm I think I just sounded like an Archon from StarCraft there.
@Silvering :
You used a little bit of spoiler.
Raphaela mini-story will be happened within 26eps which is may take place on the last one or where the end of season one of claymore and time-skip to the second season of claymore.
“I’ve asked this before, but is the existence of the organization a benefit or detriment to humankind?”
The Organization is just like a kingdom for a country they have a reason to protect its human/ppl but they also have the reason to protect themselves from being traitorous.
“While not as strong as the likes of Naruto or Nanoha, slowly but surely she’s getting there.”
lol Clare is not developing to getting stronger but kooler, ^_^
“I’m curious as to whether Rafaela managed to kill Irene. She’s rank #5, and apparently much stronger than that”
I’m pretty sure Rafaela is able to kill Irene without a failing, but more important is Will Rafaela decide to kill Irene or not? there is not proof that Irene died at that time. I am still fifty-fifty for Irene’s death but even if she is getting kill by Rafaela i still think there is still some more important conversation between Rafaela and Irene.
“I don’t see any reason why Irene would feel so obligated to do such a thing for Clare, she didn’t have any particular attachment to Teresa, nor a terribly strong animosity towards Priscilla.”
You are missing something that you shouldn’t, if u watch at 4:10 where Irene talks about Teresa past with Clare and she seem to care a lot about Teresa because she seem to understand Teresa’s felling more than Clare does even Clare had been stay with Teresa all those time. And if u look back to ep7 it seem that Irene know a lot about Teresa than Sophia and Nobel do but i don’t think ii was just because of her rank is higher than those 2. I think Irene is having some kind of connection with Teresa but at this point i have no idea what exactly the connection is.
Glad you got it working. Too bad it means always editing the Kses.php core file with every wordpress update =\.
On the case of Irene -
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Heh, sorry about that, but Irene’s my fave, right next to Miria. ^^
@ Kanon_fan82: Remember my ratings for Kanon for my policy on giving out 10s =P. Irene’s arm sacrifice was very much a WTF moment, but made Irene all the more awesome in my eyes.
@ Servbot: They definitely look like a limiter of sorts, maybe to restrict the flow of yoki or something. En taro Adun! I love Starcraft XD
@ Siva: I understand they want to protect themselves from “traitors”, but the fact is, they are creating their warriors knowing full well that they will become so one day. Seems a little futile to me, that’s all.
>> “While not as strong as the likes of Naruto or Nanoha, slowly but surely she’s getting there.” lol Clare is not developing to getting stronger but kooler, ^_^
I meant her power to befriend is getting stronger =P
I hope Irene lives, she’s quite the weirdo, but still a likeable character.
I understand that Irene -respects- Teresa, because of her strength and all. But she didn’t know her on a personal level, or not that we know of anyways. So it just surprises me that she’d go so far for someone she watched from a distance.
@ Kabitzin: Yea, thanks again for the help. Pain to edit the file every upgrade, but thankfully we don’t have to do so very often. Thanks for the blogroll add =D
@ Arakan7: I’m sooooooooo glad I installed the spoiler plugin, I clicked it just to see if it was a minor thing or not, but then saw a huge paragraph and closed it soon after XD Had I not had the tag, I probably would have unconsciously read it.
@Arakan7: I really appreciate ur writing and explanation. And i though it wasn’t a spoiler at all it is kind of what u have though and understand about it, and i really agree for u to show it to everyone here. what do u think?
“Heh, sorry about that, but Irene’s my fave, right next to Miria. ^^”
LOL, Galatea and #8 are not bad at all , dont u think? Both of them r seen to be great to me.
@Shirukii : At this point, we only get to know alittle about the Organization so we wont be able to know more about it, but what we understand the most is they didnt die or age at all.
“But she didn’t know her on a personal level, or not that we know of anyways.” they havent show it yet but this is just what i predict by judging from the point of my view over Irene. And this line is not a spoiler so don’t hesitate to read it I already said i wont spoiled any1 here.
The spoiler tag separates the men from the widdle boys.
J/K ^^ v
Some blogs like long-winded comments (within reason) and some others don’t. I thought I’d play this one safe since it was pretty long, even for me.
As for Galatea and Flora…I can’t see either of them parting with their remaining arm to help out our Clare-chan here. ^^ I don’t know, I never really felt their characters to be tugging on my particular strings - not like what I felt from Irene and Miria (and Helen, Deneve too of course. Noel too - so cute “Ehh, who was #5 again?” ^^) I like the tomboy types I guess.
I could have written more but I wrote all of that at 2am EST. Frightened, I went to bed immediately afterward. I dunno - I guess I have this image of Teresa being the only Claymore able to get any sort of rise out of Irene. And Irene was the only one able to see through Teresa’s high-and-mighty act. It’s a nice tension between them - rather refreshing IMO.
They seem to be cutting lots from manga.
As in:
1- Irene was actually very attached to theresa.
2- Irene see’s clare as the only proof of theresa’s existence and as such just as important as theresa
3- In manga Irene shows no surprise whatsoever at rafaela’s apearance, suggesting she knew what she was doing when she let her Yoki flow to train Clare, and expected to die.
4- Seeing Clare’s arm’s reaction, i feel pretty confident Irene is the dead.