Claymore 25
September 19th, 2007 by Shirukii
So as I pray. Unlimited Blade Works!
With every passing episode I’m becoming more and more content with the way Madhouse is dealing with their anime original ending. I haven’t read the manga yet so I suppose you could argue that I don’t know what I’m missing, but nonetheless I feel that the anime ending is doing a fine job concluding everything within the bounds of reason. Although I admit it’s not perfect, with Clare h4xing herself some more power in the next episode inevitable, but it’s top notch work as far as original adaptations go, despite resorting to typical shounen fare at times.
Episode Rating: 9.5/10
With Clare wanting to avenge the death of Teresa, the only friend in the world she had, and Priscilla wanting to kill Clare under the impression that she is Teresa herself, the traitor to the claymore organization and the one responsible for her misery, the battle begins with Isley watching from the sidelines. Priscilla doesn’t move an inch as Clare unleashes a flurry of high speed attacks on the one horned awakened one, batting her away effortlessly. In her frustration, Clare continues to push the limits of her yoma powers well past her limit.
Noticing another spike in Clare’s power, Helen, Deneve and Miria pick up the pace to reach their friend in need. Along the way, Helen notes how odd it is that Clare, who was determined to end her life before awakening, was so quick to change her mind and charge towards Priscilla. Miria explains that during her investigation of the organization, she uncovered some of Clare’s past, telling the story of Priscilla, the one who killed the strongest claymore in the history of the organization, Teresa of the Faint Smile and soon after awakened. And of the little girl who had unknown ties to Teresa who volunteered to take her flesh and blood to become a claymore, the organization agreed, seeing it as an opportunity to test if it were possible to make a claymore out of another fallen claymore. It also explains Clare’s low rank, as she is only 1/4 yoma, despite her occasional jumps in power.
Meanwhile, Jean and Raki are slowly making their way to Clare as well, guided by some sword marks left behind by Miria and the gang. Raki takes the opportunity to ask Jean about her ties with Clare and why she’s so keen on saving her. Jean tells him about how Clare saved her life when she was about to become something inhuman and her admiration for Clare’s motivation to fight for those you have lost and those who you do not want to lose.
Back at the volcano, Clare continues to get her ass handed to her by Priscilla. But what makes Clare even more frustrated is Priscilla’s mindset as she fights. Her memories are still jumbled up and she thinks she is fighting for justice, believing that Clare is Teresa, the traitor to the organization, and doesn’t realize that she is an awakened one. Despite Clare’s rage, her attacks are too weak to get through to Priscilla, and she ends up impaled in countless places.
However, just as Priscilla is about to deliver the finishing blow to “Teresa”, Helen, Deneve and Miria arrive just in time to save the day. After they set Clare aside and confirm that she is still human and hasn’t awakened, they take over the fight. Priscilla introduces herself as the number two claymore, leading Miria to quickly figure out that Priscilla’s memories are frozen in the time just before she awakened. The three show no signs of mercy or hesitation and attack immediately. Helen and Deneve use a pincer attack to incapacitate Priscilla while Miria strikes head on. But despite their perfectly timed and executed assault, Priscilla dodges, only losing a wing.
The only thing their attack succeeded in doing is further angering Priscilla, causing her to fully awaken, much to Isley’s contentment but Miria’s horror. From that point, the battle ceases to be a fight and becomes a merciless slaughter. Their attacks do nothing and Priscilla is quick to incapacitate Miria and begins to slowly dismember Helen and Deneve.
As the three of them lie on the volcano floor, powerless to move, Clare snaps back to her senses. She regroups her thoughts and remembers why she’s fought so hard thus far, why she became a warrior, why she struggled so hard to gain strength, it was all for this moment, if she can’t kill Priscilla now, it was all for nothing. And with that, Clare releases a huge amount of yoki and awakens her left arm, which becomes a metaphorical swiss army knife of blades. All this just as Raki and Jean finally make it to the scene.
Thoughts
So I’m guess this is what everyone was looking forward to when spamming “Superb >:3″. From various manga scans posted, I know that this is the move that Clare was supposed to have used to defeat Ligardes, instead of just a simple Flash Sword. While the fight with the silver eyed lion king suffered from the lack of this attack, it was smart to save it for the Priscilla battle, where the urgency and need for a new power is much more demanding.
It was a good decision to make Helen, Deneve and Miria step into the fight against Priscilla, as opposed to standing on the sidelines, looking on in awe as Clare fights solo. I can’t help but think that Isley is an idiot in this regard. While I understand he wants to see how far Clare pushes Priscilla’s powers, it’s overconfidence that is the downfall of many warriors. No matter how strong he thinks Priscilla is, the chances of her defeat are not zero, and he should stop being stupid and help her. Much like how Ligardes probably would have won if he had the rest of his army backing him up. Stupid prideful one on one fights and their lack of battle tactics.
I can’t say much more in terms of story or character development at this point, we’re in the home stretch, everything is laid out as much as it ever will be. My prediction for the final is that Clare takes Priscilla out and has her awakening stopped by the Raki/Jean tag team. I expect at least one sacrificial death from the Miria, Helen, Deneve team, just because it wouldn’t be a Claymore finale if we didn’t have some main character deaths, Jean will probably pass on after she helps Clare as well. As for Isley, I dunno, either he’ll run away like a scared dog with his tail between his legs, having lost Priscilla, or he’ll go berserk and try to kill everyone, only to be stopped by a random third party, like the organization bringing in their clean up team in an FBI-esque finishing sweep to take the credit and have Isley V& for molesting loli Priscilla. Or something even more random could happen, like Riful showing up to wrap things up, that would be awesome, claymore needs more Riful.
But whatever it is, there’s no doubt that it’ll be different from what the manga did, and that makes it fair game to all crackpot theories. Until next week!
Manga countdown: 1 week!
~ Shirukii ~
44 Responses to “Claymore 25”
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I still need to watch this one!
But I’m glad MadHouse is paying such fine visual homage to the manga, even if they can follow the storyline for their own ending.
(I must say, though, it is too bad we won’t get to see Luciela. She has the most Freudian, sexed-up, wacked-out character design of any of the Awakened Ones, and I was looking forward to seeing her ‘eat’ Isley’s arrows. Plus, she’s a cat-girl. Can’t go wrong with that.)
Well, I have to say that this episode is great. There is no doubt that madhouse is doing a good job ending the series this way. And Shirukii, you will definitely enjoy the manga, because there will be more Riful and much much more interesting things. Well, let see how this series will end.
Thank you! Mad House
I think this episode was another amazing production
Clares awakened form is amazingly detailed for her and leaves me comforted that they showed clared to her full potential.
Claymore could not end with any better ending then the one we will see next week.
Next week on Claymore: nice castles.
You didn’t hear it from me.
I really would much prefer a cliff hanging rather than this shounen final showdown! original end for Claymore like in the manga >_>
Claymore has become so cliche and predictable…….and why the volcano? Sure it looks pretty but it’s screwing up the story.
Miria, Helen and Deneve are in a full sprint, uphill through deep snow, yet somehow Raki and Jeane manage to limp 75% of the way to the volcano in less time? Raki and Jeane weren’t even expected to go to the volcano and yet they ‘find’ directions? What happened to Gallatea?
Not only is Priscilla ‘fully’ awakening a cheap addition, it is just wrong. This isn’t Dragonball Z. Awakened beings don’t have super awakened forms. Where are they pulling this from?
Priscilla was strong enough to take out her original squad without any effort but she needs to power up to take out three battle tired claymores who’ve just sprinted up a mountain.
Miria, Helen and Deneve manage to cut Priscilla when Clare can’t even touch her. Uhhh…weren’t they only saved from Rigaldo because Clare partially awakened?
The pretty lava and the severed limbs aren’t enough to save the episode for me. I’m surprised that Priscilla didn’t go for the eyes again. Of course Raki shows up in time to scream Claaaaaaare! It’s a shame that the series is ending like this. The source material was too good for Madhouse to totally mess it up so I’ll still give it an 8 out of 10.
You have to keep in mind that When they were fighting Ligardes, it was mostly one on one. As well as that, 3 of them were taken out so fast they couldn’t do more than gasp and die. In this case, it was a surprise attack by 3 warriors nearly simutaneously and while Priscilla was focusing on something else. It’s not that much of a surprise, you know? And as for Clare not touching her, isn’t it because her moves are so freaking straightforward even an ameteur can read them, even if they can’t block them.
Looks like a cheap DBZ imitation to me. The story just flowed along in the manga and in the anime until Episode 21 or 22 when they separated from the manga. Now they just have long draw-out fights like DBZ and new super-yoma II power levels. There’s so much good stuff left in the manga.
Priscilla was knocking Clare around like a rag doll. Priscilla powered up, then Clare. They’re right back where they started, so why does Clare think she can beat Priscilla? Also, it seems she’s forgotten her promise to Raki.
“lack of battle tactics” lol, I guess there r only 2 Claymores who have it and they are Miria and Galatea.
“I expect at least one sacrificial death from the Miria, Helen, Deneve team” Only one? I guess it would be at least 6 Claymores(who have tied to Clare only) died, and if i have to guess who r they, it will be Flora, Miria, Helen, Deneve, Jean, and the sixth one should be Galatea/Teresa.
If i have to predict the ending, i guess even at that second awaken state Clare can not defeat Priscilla yet or i should guess that they r somehow equal and then Isley jumped in, I think Clare need a Third awaken state before she can defeat Priscilla, and for Clare to reverse back to normal after she fully awaken it is not that impossible, how? I think the anime is trying to explain us for the second time that Clare is not half yoma-half human and she is 3/4 human and 1/4 yoma thats mean her chance for reverse back to human after fully awaken is higher than any other Claymore had.
@ItAintEazy: “Next week on Claymore: nice castles.” If something like that happened, the first person i am going to hurt is YOU. j/k
@Flopstall: “why does Clare think she can beat Priscilla?” Clare does not think that way, what Clare thinks is to defeat Priscilla no matter what it costs her even her life.
“Also, it seems she’s forgotten her promise to Raki.” If u though it that way, can u answer me why Clare asked Helen to end her life? it is also happened in the manga too or do u want manga explains it to u too?
@George: You know, you r not the first one who though that, you r not the last one who though that, and maybe u r not the last one who dont understand the ending of this anime. Do you why they called “Naruto” is “Narutard” ? For me i dont want to see “Claymoretard” or maybe u want i guess.
@Trellisaze: “Claymore has become so cliche and predictable” Can u tell me what exactly ending would be?
And about Miria, Helen and Deneve able to cut off Priscilla wing, Have u ever heard anything about Miria? The organization used praise her that her work in team battle even exceed the #1. It is not like the 3 of them able to defeat Priscilla, it is more likely that Priscilla lets her guard down when fight against 3 of them. And it is not like Priscilla became fully awaken just because to kill 3 of them, the easy way to explains it is Priscilla is in unstable condition and confused, and when she saw one of her wing got cut off it is easy for her to gone berserker. And what Alias said is also a good reason to explain it.
@ Silvering: =O Cat-girl AO, DO WANT!
@ shinichi; Only one more week until I can finally start reading it! The wait has been long and hard, but it’s almost over.
@ Fuzzims: I wouldn’t go as far to say it’s the best ending it could have, but it’s looking pretty good.
@ ItAintEazy: I’d lol, hard.
@ Nightingale: But then Claymore fans would be whining constantly for another season, for like…the next two years.
@ Trellisaze: While I understand where you’re coming from, I still disagree.
A lot of people are saying that the ending has relegated Claymore into generic shounen, but one thing they keep forgetting, Claymore has always been generic shounen. Raki and Jean catching up to the rest of them is something you have to throw to suspension of belief.
As for Priscilla “fully” awakening. It’s really no different from Clare only partially awakening herself. If Claymore have various stages of awakening, it’s not so unreasonable that awakened ones could further evolve.
But I’m with you on the disappearance of Galatea and Raki barging in with “Claaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare”, lame.
@ Alias: That is true, Clare has a crappy fighting style. She relies too much on her overpowering h4x.
@ George: Power levels have always existed in Claymore through the rankings. Yes, there’s a lot of goodness left in the manga, but unfortunately, it’s not done yet, and I think this ending is a much better alternative than something like Naruto’s filler hell.
@ Flopstall: Clare’s determination to kill Priscilla is pretty much the meaning of her entire life, it overrides her promise to Raki. But yes, we’re back on level ground now, or so it would seem.
@ Siva: Hmm, that’s a good point. Explaining that Clare’s ability to keep her yoma side in check because of a 3:1 human:yoma ratio instead of 1:1 would do well to explain the ending as well as the rest of the series.
Trellisaze - agreed. Madhouse has succumbed to the easy way out by using the shonen cliche. Now Priscilla is Freeza 2 and Clare is Super Seiyan 3. Ugh.
Also, no other former Claymores had stages of awakening. Clare is kinda different because she learned from Irene that Flash Blade is awakening only one arm, so she applied what she learned on herself. But there’s no indication that’s how awakening works for the Claymores in general.
It was inevitable for Clare to go near or maybe full Yoma to defeat Priscilla. But it’ll be interesting to see how this ends. I’ll probably do a review of it just for that last episode and general impression overall.
The fight between Clare and Priscilla seems to follow the same progression as Clare vs. Rigardo. Rigardo powered up a couple of times with his roars, so Clare did the “leg speed” thing. Prisilla is generally more powerful and did a power up, so Clare did her upper body to keep pace. Therefore, Priscilla is likely to get diced; if Clare realizes Raki is there she’ll have more incentive to win and then power down successfully. As Jean said, you fight for those you’ve lost and fight for those you don’t want to lose.
After that, it would be nice to see Show ▼
Like last week, i cant score this more than 5/10. :P
This doesnt make any sense anymore.. its out of the claymore scenario ( everything i liked about this ). And by that, im not refering to the manga.
Its too predictable/repeating/nonsense to be beleivable.
The dismembering of legs and hands tough.. had good graphic quality o_O. Thats why i didnt rate it lower.
Where’s miss Claymore when they need her the most?
Silvering: I think it’s upsetting that we won’t get to see Miata. She’s such a kickass character and she’s only been in like three chapters of the manga. We haven’t seen Isley’s awakened form…which also sucks.
Nightingale: I would also have preffered a cliffhanger like that.
Is it just me or are there alot of “manga snobs” knocking about here in your comments section shirukii?
I personally would’ve liked to see the claymore story spread over 2 seasons. However, the Madhouse anime people decided otherwise which means everything had to be condensed into a tight compact, neatly tied up little story with a begininng and a end. Its inevitable that not everything in the manga is gonna make it to the anime….i’m pretty sure Madhouse has kept all of the essentials. I think they’ve done a fine job, wrapping everything up to a nice shounen cliched conclusion…though it was one “power up” too many for my liking. Quit giving Madhouse a hard time.
@Siva: I’m predicting that the claymores will reattach their limbs. Priscilla will see herself in one of Clare’s blades and realize that she is the monster. Jeane and Raki will hug it out with Clare. I’m predicting a mash up of the endings from episodes 4 and 14.
What I really don’t want to happen. Show ▼
@Shiruki: Clare isn’t an awakened being yet. Priscilla fully awakened when she killed Teresa. Priscilla’s new form is purely a madhouse creation that we haven’t seen from any other awakened one. Neither Duff or Rigardo pulled a power up move when they were facing death.
Madhouse is forcing an ending. They’re ripping scenes and dialog from previous episodes and putting in a lot of flashbacks. I’ve accepted that it’s now a DC/Marvel type parrallel universe Claymore with new rules. Despite all of that, I still gave the episode an 8 out of 10 for mindless entertainment. I’m sure I’ll enjoy the finale.
Shirukii: Oh, and as for Luciela, not only is she a cat-girl… She has twin-tails!
Just like Kagamin! Totally moe.
Anyway… I am glad anime Claymore is ending with a light-and-sound spectacular. Its a little something you can take with you when you read the continuing story in the manga. As well drawn as the later volumes are, I imagine them in a new way having seen the work Madhouse has done in visually interpreting the series.
Silvering, lol you make it sound appealing, but the actual implementation of neko-Luciela is not at all moe.
I think this is probably the best way to end the anime, even if I do agree with some of the DBZ accusations.
Ho-ho, like I didn’t see this coming from a mile away: Episode 12 of Higurashi Kai cancelled because of that real-life Rena girl.
Once again, fuck my life.
BTW, nice chef!
@Vaosk: Remember, It is madhouse’s ending not the manga’s ending and i think it is already done its good job as it is now.
@Trellisaze: OK, we will see is your ending or mine have the higher chance.
Galatea shows up? lol, if i am not wrong the mission that the Organization gave to Galatea is to slay any claymores who r survive from battle in Pieta.
“Priscilla’s new form is purely a madhouse creation that we haven’t seen from any other awakened one. Neither Duff or Rigardo pulled a power up move when they were facing death.” Do u ever notice that the final one always the special one and different from the other? and how can u compare a merely awaken like Duff and Rigardo to Priscilla?
@Silvering: lol, i never though of her that way at all but i think her human from is much better or even u could say the n*ked one :D
@ItAintEazy: lol, nice chef, nice boat, what is next then?
Seems like the divide between people who like the anime ending and people who absolutely abhor it is close to a 50/50 split. I’m beginning to think that I’m liking it is because I haven’t read the manga yet, which is promising because it means that the manga must be that much better.
But really, at this point, the manga readers have to stop comparing the anime and manga endings. I know it’s hard to do, but that’s what seems to be the major bias when reviewing the ending so far. Throughout the series I never really saw any people complaining about the shounen elements and the inconsistencies in the story, but now that the ending has deviated from the manga, they’re suddenly brought to the foreground.
I’m disappointed that Madhouse decided to change the story at the last minute as well, but it’s all about managing expectations. If you watch it for what it is and stop trying to force fit the manga onto the anime, it’s really quite a good ending arc.
The thing is that Madhouse cannot expect everyone to have already read the manga. In fact, most viewers probably haven’t read the manga. Since the manga does not stop at this point for very long, if Madhouse were to follow the manga exactly, all the non-manga-readers would be left wondering wtf happened and why nothing got resolved. So of course Madhouse had to change the ending. Whether or not you like the new ending is one thing, but it’s pointless to wail about the fact that there is an original ending.
Obviously the way the manga handles this portion of the story is going to be better, because stopping the story at Pieta is premature. However, just because the manga transition is better than the anime ending doesn’t mean the anime ending is bad per se.
@Shirukii: Remember when you first started to blog Claymore?
“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.” …
…
“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.”
I read through some of your earlier episode reviews and it seems that even your expectations have been lowered. I still follow the manga and anime versions of Bleach and Naruto. My only gripe is that Madhouse has dragged Claymore down a level by forcing an ending.
i think we should switch to manga.. the ending will/has changed T_T
Everybody’s talking about the manga.. So im kinda interested bout the differences in the manga from the anime.. Can anybody recommend a few good sites to download the manga from..
I would, but I’d have to kill you.
Apparently the manga is better because Claire reached her Super Saiyan 3 state much earlier, or something.
Like i said.. i wasnt refering to the manga..
I actually said, *Im not refering to the manga*.
My point is, manga putted aside(should i repeat again? 8D), this ending so far is weak. It trashes the claymore scenario, any awesomeness of new moves, its filled with things of nonsense , anticlimatic scenes and its badly coordinated.
I cant wait to see if last episode save the face. :]
Well.. For a person like me who hasn’t read the manga.. So I CANT compare it to the manga, I think this anime is pretty good as far as the drawing and story line is concern but i think their kinda Squishing everything in the last episode, which i don’t really fancy.. (By the way, I wasn’t really talking to you bout the manga Vaosk.. =P) XD
Its fine, i just hear that too often so i just overreacted. ;P
Ya think.. Anyway i was just trying to find out any sites to download the manga from.. If anybody can help me.. Pls do tell..
Thanks Shirukii; I’v just stumbled across your blog and (as someone else who is yet to read the manga) I’v found your thoughts and all the comments on the final episodes interesting.
I wonder if someone could tell me where exactly the manga and anime diverge? I intend to start reading the manga and I wanted to know what chapter to jump on at.
thanks.
Even though the anime has diverged, it would only be a few tweaks of ep. 26 of the anime to get back on the manga’s track. If I say any more it’ll spoil it. I read on Wikipedia’s article for “claymore anime” that Madhouse is going to do 52 eps. That means the manga will have to be written faster - I don’t think they meant we’d have to wait 2-3 years for the second season.
Oh my goodness.. Is Madhouse really going to do 52 epis.. If they are its totally awesome.. xD So if Madhouse are going to do 52 epis then i guess they’ll have to continue on with the story right..
@BabyAngel : Go to onemanga.com, you can read the whole thing there. Trust me, it’s a completely different story.
I just get mad that they skipped the Flora versus Clare fight, I was really looking forward to that. Less talk, more action.
Can i use your Claymore header for my movie thx :)
@ Zx: Sure, go for it :3
Thank you very much!
OMG.. best anime ever! watched all epps in one day…
ive never felt so sad afterwards.. i wanted more…
I swear I hate hearing “The manga is so much better!” A manga only has to have a few scenes a page that can tell the story while the anime has 22 minutes (barring commercial breaks) of nonstop animation. I love this anime, i don’t see why people have to bitch so much. I mean the commenters at least. Nice review