Claymore 18
August 1st, 2007 by Shirukii
Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting to be thrown into this level of action this soon. Claymore has a record of having really boring arc openers which take their time explaining the situation and hinting at how things might play out. But this episode was almost military in its organization, the claymore are gathered, squad leaders and teams are formed, and battle begins. Much better than sitting through an entire episode of background dialog, but then again, I guess “We’ve been sent here to kill monsters, get in your groups and get started” is pretty much all they CAN say.
Episode Rating: 10/10
The episode starts with the aftermath of the encounter with Riful. Jean follows Clare, vowing to return the favor for saving her life, despite Clare saying that helping her Flash Sword’s technique is a good enough reward.
Amidst their conversation, Rubel appears from the shadows, accompanied by rank #5, Rafaela. Urging them not to throw away their lives by fighting her, Rubel says their purpose for appearing before them is twofold. Firstly, to show that they can be tracked down and killed at the organizations discretion. And secondly, to assign them a new mission, numerous awakened beings have begun to collaborate in the north under the command of Isley, they are to join an army of claymore being sent to take care of them. As extra incentive, Rubel tells Clare that Raki has been spotted heading north as well. Rubel also lets them know that Galatea is alive and well, despite having lied to the organization, but will be on various dangerous missions for some time.
Much to the surprise and worry of the citizens, 24 claymore gather in the first city in the north, Pieta. When Clare and Jean, Clare is given an surprise welcome attack from Helen, one of the other three who were with Clare in her first awakened being hunt. Jean doesn’t know what’s going on and steps in to protect Clare, only to be attacked by Deneve, another of Clare’s old friends. Rounding out the reunion, Miria shows up and takes her place as the leader of this operation.
Miria explains the situation, that contrary to their normal behaviour, numerous awakened beings have begun to work together, and so this team of 24 have been gathered to kill them. They are separated into teams of four or five with team leaders being rank #6 Miria, rank #8 Flora, rank #9 Jean, rank #11 Undine and rank #13 Veronica. Each team is responsible for their own actions with the only goal being the killing of the awakened beings.
After the teams disband to rest, Clare heads out to the reunion party with the members of her first awakened being hunt. They’re all glad to see each other alive and join swords once again. A bit of an uproar is caused when Jean shows up behind Clare, but Clare assures everyone that she’s one of them, a half-awakened being. They briefly talk about the mission and the leader of the awakened beings, Isley, and how their chances for success are pretty much nonexistent. But their reunion is cut short when they notice a surge of yoki coming from the outskirts of town, the awakened beings have struck first.
A team of three awakened beings shows up in the middle of town, one already in form and slaughtering citizens. Miria’s leadership abilities shine through and keep everyone relatively calm and notify them of the two others. The two hidden awakened beings are impressed with Miria’s skills as a leader, but know they have the upper hand in this attack, even with the element of surprise ruined.
And so the fighting begins. Miria’s team attacks the one already in fighting form in the middle of town. Flora’s team has Clare, rank # 47 and another weak one, rank #39, so Flora figures it’s best to end it quickly, before he can even change into his fighting form. Well that plan goes out the window when they realize this awakened being can control the yoki flow of others by synchronizing his flow with them. Clare ends up being the one who saves them from a quick death, putting her new and improved control of the Flash Sword to use. But that alone won’t win the fight, so Deneve’s team headed by Undine arrives to back them up.
Meanwhile, Jean’s team has been wiped out. Aside from Jean, it was a pretty useless team, and instead of making them stay back, Jean tried to protect everyone and ends up heavily injured herself. Thankfully, Helen’s team arrives in time to help.
Aaaand, cliffhanger =(
Thoughts
I guess this is what people were talking about way back when Claymore started, the scenes with a bunch of claymore on screen and the difficulty trying to tell them apart. But oddly enough, I didn’t have much of a problem doing so. The all have distinct enough appearances, voices and personalities that I can recognize them almost immediately, or at least soon after they speak. It may get a little confusing once they start flying around mid battle, but as long as they use their trademark moves, it shouldn’t be too hard. Well…except maybe Clare’s Flash Sword and Windcutter Flora’s battojutsu-esque quickdraw/sheathing.
It was also great to see Deneve, Helen, Miria and Clare all reunited, seems like every time they meet they’re doomed to be thrown into a situation of almost certain death. But they’ll make it out just fine…hopefully…maybe? The death count in Claymore is so high, it’s almost impossible to pick out who lives and who dies, aside from Clare.
There’s one thing that kind of bugs me from this war though, under the assumption that there are 47 claymore spread out through the north, south, east and west, this war is exhausting just over half their warriors. Sure they may just be pawns, but sacrificing half your infantry just to buy some time seems pretty stupid. I know the organization still has the majority of its power intact, with the top 5 ranks being on a completely different scale, but still…seems like too much of a loss just to stall.
On the topic of the top five, shouldn’t Miria be rank #5 now? With Ophelia having awakened and killed soon after. Unless the organization had someone in reserve who immediately replaced Ophelia as rank #4. The ranking system in Claymore looks like it’s more or less useless at the moment. With half their warriors about to be killed off, dynamic shuffling of the ranks would be a futile endeavor. lol, imagine Helen, mid-battle celebrating her rank going up every time a higher number got killed off XD
Anyways, there wasn’t too much in terms of plot development this episode, and with the arc looking like nothing but all out war, there probably won’t be much speculation to be done for a while. The only plot advancement that we saw this episode was Rubel’s display that the organization has the power to end Clare’s live at will and the rest of the half-awakened gang finding out about Isley. So I guess that leaves me free to just sit back and watch the corpses pile up =D
Manga countdown: 8 weeks
21 Responses to “Claymore 18”
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you sure are hanging in there with not reading the manga…
i believe the claymores ranking are given at the start of each generation… so when they are made they are given their rank based on their initial power… i also believe that your number can only go up unless you challenge a lower numbered claymore for the position… but i’m not sure because even in the manga the ranking system weren’t really discussed…
and as for the organization sending more than half of it’s warriors as sacrifices, as miria said, since miria, deneve, helen and clare were there maybe the other 20 were also trouble-makers for the organization and they already have replacements for them ready… during the slashers arc they were already sent to be killed so it’s not unusual that their replacements are already ready…
one last thing… here’s something to think about… since that one AO has the same power as galatea and since galatea brought back clare from awakening… can said AO do the reverse of what galatea did???
lol! you’re fast today aren’t you x____X the episode came online just a few hours ago and you’ve already blogged it o__O woohhh~~ *impressed* gonna watch now =D =D no spoilers pls U______U;;;;
lol the second 10 points for Claymore?
The anime is seem to be a little bit rush, the point that they cut it out so bad is about Rafaela that she is the only claymore that never used her yoki power in the battlefield even once, so we could know of how stronger she is that even Irene has mention it before.
@kaz3phyrous : “maybe the other 20 were also trouble-makers” i guess u can say that but the really reason behind this is the organization just want to send everyone they have just to buy time for them.
u can say that Awaken Being has the similar skill as Galatea, as u can see that he can read the yoki from a long distance and controlling other’s yoki. but what else he can do is something we dont know and unnecessary thing.
I guess u guys forgot that this is not half their warriors that they have right now but this is almost every single claymore the organization has right now beside the top five because there r many claymores who died in the past battle. Because this generation of Claymore haven’t refreshed yet and the organization doesnt seem to replace the new one in after the old one died. (i guess i may stop here, because i dont want Shirukii kick my ass ^_^)
The impression about this ep is about Flora and the new effect of Flash Sword. In the manga i never though that Flora could have such a soft voice like this and the effect of her Windcutter is really great and perfect as like what in the manga described it.
And i feel like the new effect of the new flash sword is much better.
This was a good one, and moved fast! I was thinking the battle might not start till next episode.
Anyway, I think we get to meet Raki again, next episode!
*Shocka* plot reveal included.
@ kaz3phyrous: I’m manging :3
As for sending them with replacements ready, that seems like the most logical explanation. But on that note, I wonder what constitutes a new “generation” of claymore? The fall of the previous #1?
And is that last point a spoiler ;_;?
@ twsl: Fear my lighting fast blogging skills!
@ Siva: I thought Flora’s voice was a perfect fit. I’ve always liked those characters who seem really calm on the outside, but are a force of pure destruction on the inside.
And while I like the new Flash Sword, it goes beyond anything I can explain, which makes me a little sad.
@ Silvering: Meh, I never had much interest in Raki, unless he comes back a being of pure GAR, that probably won’t change.
i was just assuming that he had the same skills as galatea… and since the 3 AO were willing to take on 24 claymores it must be safe to assume that they had past experience fighting against other claymores… so maybe that one AO could have experimented with his skills as well with the past claymores he fought… and since he can control that one claymore easily and disable the others it must be safe to assume that he’s more powerful than galatea… so if he’s more powerful than galatea, maybe he could do more with his skills like what galatea did to clare with her skills…
and on a not so different topic.. if that AO can control the flow of yoki of those claymores why didn’t he just stop their flow of yoki… so that he could render hose he was fighting powerless… it would have been much easier than stopping them and letting another claymore attack them… or maybe he just wasn’t powerful enough…
Yo! It’s always fun to read your thoughts about each Claymore ep. And yeah the next eps are really going to rock you! I can’t wait to see those horse legs in action! It’s kind of sad though, I don’t think they’ll conclude Claymore on its 26th ep, I mean the next manga volume will be out by November and by then the anime would have been already finished.
I think that Yagi choose not to meddle with the ranking system during this arc to avoid confusing the readers. “This is Helen, former #15, now #13… wait, #10 just died, so she is #12 now.. but that means Undine is #8 and.. and… AAAAGHH!”
@kaz3phyrous: The AO was doing exactly that. He stopped cold 4 claymores and was controlling the 5th one to kill them. But he didn’t take into account Irene’s yoki embedded in Clare’s right arm.
@Shirukii : “I thought Flora’s voice was a perfect fit” i didnt mean i dont like her voice. i was impression about her voice, the first i heard her voice speak out before we saw her face i already know that voice is Flora’s voice but i never though that it was this much soft.
“And while I like the new Flash Sword, it goes beyond anything I can explain, which makes me a little sad.” then prepared urself for the third version. :)
To me, Raki is an unnecessary character for now, but what i foresee in the future that he is going to be a big part of story.
@kaz3phyrous : u r forgetting something. if u notice where Rifu explained it in the past, that this skill can NOT actually stop the atk itself it just make it go off the course. And the stronger yoki is used the harder for it to control. As u can see y he control the weakling one to kill those four instead of controlling Flora. if u notice when he use his skill to stop those 4, that skill is kind of a trap skill that he can only use against closing range around him and it seem like that he used a powerful forcing yoki to stop those 4 for a period and his body cant move either.
@max : they have been stated that there will be 26 eps for the anime but it doesnt seem the anime going to make a end for Claymore, we only have 8 eps left, and there will be 2 more eps for this battle and 2 eps for Abyss’s battle and 4 eps left for time skip to next generation of claymore. With this i cant see how Claymore is going to end with 8 eps left but it seem that the planned to run for 26 episodes it seem to be changed.(I am not sure)
The animators really need to make Claymore more colourful……literally lol ;)……
It may be my video card, but I don’t think so, as this isn’t the first episode that was hard on the eyes……..
I couldn’t see a god-damn thing for half the episode, all the shadow effect, dark grey, blue, and black made it near impossible to tell who is surviving the battle and who is getting slaughtered :P
that being said, it was a good episode, and it’ll be interesting to see who lives and who dies :)…bring on ep. 19!!!!!!!
@ kaz3phyrous: Hmm, I don’t think he has the power to force the Claymore to go over their limits and awaken, that would be far too much h4x. And I don’t think Isley would let someone with such a valuable skill go running around freely.
@ max: I don’t know how far the Japanese manga is, but I’d think they have enough to finish off the series, or at least end it at a critical point. That’s the job of the storyboard guys.
@ Gohan: Yea, that would probably be for the best, trying to rearrange ranks on the fly would be nearly impossible.
@ Siva: lol Flash Sword 3.0, that should be interesting.
As for Raki, I don’t really like him as he is now, but if he gets some serious powerups and becomes GAR, maybe.
@ Kanon_fan82: Claymore is like…the opposite of most anime out there. Conventional anime uses a lot of bloom to make things look nicer, but Claymore goes in the opposite direction and makes things dark. It fits the tone of the series though, and if you’re having trouble seeing things, you can always increase the gamma/contrast on your monitor =D
EVERYONE DIES IN CLAYMORE! lol
@ Shirukii:
Ah….not complaining my good man ;)…..darkness does indeed fit the tone :)……just an observation…..Btw, school days fan-sub is out :)
@ Shirukii : lol, what kind of interesting does he have as he is now? i guess we have to wait n see what can they do for him :()
lol oh yeah, For this ONE u MUST be prepared urself before fell from ur chair after u saw it, Miria’s mirage version 2.0 (other information is N/A ) ^_^
Qustions:
1. What does GAR stand for?
2. Apart from the initial urge for a murder spree and the eventual eating of guts when a claymore awakens, what else is so bad in being an awakened? If the awakened ones and the abyssals can transform to their awakened form and go back being human again on their will why the strong opposition to it? I mean I thought I noticed that once a claymore awakens it’s like she becomes a very evil and vile being with just gore and violence in her head, lol, I mean the abyssals seemed to have so much control and so with the male awakened beings. Can’t they go okay with awakening and control the urge to eat guts and still continue killing yomas? Or am I just dense I’ve read teh manga and watched 16 eps and still didn’t get it, lol
and god jesus if Clare and Priscilla don’t meet again on the anime that would be so uncool!
and I really can’t wait for the horse legs! ;-)
Meh, they didn’t include some of the subtler dialogues that I was hoping would be in this episode but hey, can’t please everyone. ^^;
STILL!! They missed Helen’s golden comment~!!
Great episode! *claps*
Even with the absence of most of Helens funny faces that were in the manga. Those were some of my favorite parts!
And I can’t wait to catch up with Raki!
@Max: Think of being awakened as a Shark, with the legs of an wolf, with armour plating rivaling that of a…umm army base, yeah, a human brain, and the innate desire to kill and devour as many humans as possible. In other words, it’s like uhh…say, having a Gnosis on your tail, only that you don’t have a halbert effect.
Basically GAR is when a character is so manly/badass you cannot help but feel drawn in, even if you are hetero. See below link for more explanation:
http://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=34346&st=20&start=20
Yoma can take human form, but their minds are not human. It seems like Yoma lack morals. So that is the real difference that comes from Awakening. Claymore seeks to continually stress that it is your mind (and I suppose your metaphorical heart) that makes you human, and can keep your beastly impulses under control.
The Abyssals are pretty evil, but they seem to plan better and hide their nasty impulses better.
@max : Wow, ur second questions was a shock one, but it takes me a while to come up with this, in Claymore series there r 3 types of creature, Human , Claymore and Awaken/Yoma, and the difference between Claymore and Awaken/Yoma are Claymore is type of human who can use monster’s power so their primary creature r still Human being but Awaken/Yoma r monster being and can transform to Human so their primary creature r still Monster.
every morning i wake up i always wish that day is Wednesday, Why cant we just have Wednesday for the whole week?
@Max: ‘GAR’ stands for Genuine Autoerotic Retrodefibrilation.
Maybe.
@Shirukii: Anyway, Raki may not be very GAR when he re-appears, but he have some kind of mojo when it comes to the affections of unobtainable women. He’ll need a harem show, Tenchi-muyo style, with Claire and _________ competing for his affections.