Multiworld

7/27/2007 - 9:01pm

Although I'm very busy with work and such, I still watch a lot of anime. Probably it's among some of the most important things in life for me (sad truth? nah.. it's a nice departure from the stringent atmosphere bestowed by classical music. Wait, wait, having stated that I can't help asking myself when did Mozart's music sounded the slightest sense of severity to most listeners?

*Ahem* Anyways, on to the main topic of this post, which is all about anime. I've been following each and every episodes of the two anime series every week (currently aired by tokyo tv, I think) - claymore & kekkaishi. Since kekkaishi's pretty long with no sign of an end in the near future, I'll leave discussion about its episodes till some other time. Instead, claymore's announced by its production director (abbreviated as PD) to be a 26-episode series ad I'm starting to like it more than kekkaishi
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Claymore episode 1
This is the perfect starting episode to lose anime fans. If there's a bad-storytelling list, this should make it into one of the top 5 on that list. I can't recall how many times I told myself that I should just stop since I'm just wasting my time watching an anime series that shows all the telltale signs of another 'fist of the north star.' All that blood+violence and death cry from monsters and claymores are major turn offs. In addition, Clara (the protagonist) seems to display no special traits/charms of any sorts, so I literally "fell asleep" 5 mins into the series (well, I left it running in the background while busied myself with something else)

The background music is nothing spectacular either except for the same homogeneity nature of some low quality anime. Well, it literally "sings" me to an afternoon nap.

Some of the notable scenes from this series (sorry no synopsis since you can find it anywhere online so I'm not gonna rehash that):

[Clara shows up in one of the towns that's attacked by a monster (yoma, as mentioned in the anime)]


[Reka, the boy Clara met in town, finds out that the yoma disguised as his brother and wants to make "pork-chop" outta him. Ironically, he doesn't look tasty at all]


[The end, Clara's dead and the series has to end prematurely - just kidding! In short, "Nature and nature's laws lay hid by night. PD said 'Let Clara be' and all was life." But if I'm gonna see similar scene in the next episode, you'll only see zeros at the place of claymore in my hard drive]


[So Clara takes in Reka as her cook - be sure to wash your hands before preparing food, Mr Cook or the production director's gonna deplete all of his blue gems rezzing Clara]

Ratings - story's D- for a starting episode.
Recommendation - Clara, please grind for some levels and equipments before you start yoma hunting.

El oh el... that was interesting.

You gonna see a lot of slice and dice action with Clara in next episodes and somewhere near 11-12 I would classify as pure carnage ;3.

I'm currently having Claymore on my "must download next epsiode" list. I'm fascinated with "The Organization" role in this world. What do you think about them?

Claymore episode 02
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Some slight improvement over the previous episode, both in terms of music and actions. I wondered about the meaning of the various symbols that flew by the opening scene as well as some of the faces of the other claymores. Anyhow, this episode centers around the sad truth of being a claymore, in that one has to face not only constant death threats from yoma, nocuous remarks from the very townfolks one tries to save but also slow degradation of one's grasp of humanity. Probably some of these factors contributed to the claymore's otherwise outwardly cold and indifferent demeanor. But a claymore Clara might be, she hasn't lost a bit of her care about those in need of help, such as Raki.



There are yomas that could fly, but it's not a problem for the claymores


Based on what Clara told Raki, eating is to resupply their energy.


One of the worst things a claymore could get from a messenger - being an executioner to a fellow claymore, who was once a friend.


"More blood" - that's what this scene reminds me of. Typical 'awakening of the vampire' scene but here's where Clara's gonna meet up with Elena.



Elena, a wayward claymore who lost control of the yoma in her body. Is it really important for one to stay human just to battle the yoma?


It's not immediately obvious to me that she has lost control of herself at all.


Farewell Elena, you've been crowned as one of the shortest lived anime char. Now collect your paycheck and leave the stage (I know I'm evil..)

At this point in time, the series is still quite boring to me since it's storytelling about the background and some tidbits of the claymores in general.

P.S. Elena seems to range in the #30s whereas Clara's the lowest ranked claymore in the organization.

glad to hear that.

That's it for this week since I'm gonna be busy again tomorrow. Probably I"ll be able to write something about episode 3 and 18 (when it's out) in this coming friday.

Faroo, she's number 47 not 57. There are 47 Claymores - one for each province of the country that the organization operates.

As of episode 24, the entire series seems to head towards some crappy ending since it's the end of episode 24, with all of the villains, heroes and heroins are on the scene, unless a catastrophic event takes place, I don't know how the author's gonna end it in two episodes. Perhaps, he'll get them to form a circle, swords in hands and ready to slit each other's throat, but a meteor hit and vaporize all of them just in the nick of the time to finish off the story in episode 26.

I heard that there won't be claymore season II since it's not very popular on Tokyo TV although the comic's doing well. If one'd like to follow the 'actual' story of the claymores, the comic's the best source of information. Nonetheless, the author seems to stumble here and there trying to patch up various loopholes in the story... but I guess the anime series deserves a B.

The only character that's remotely interesting to me would be "Teresa of the Faint Smile." Other than some of the fight scenes in Rurounin kenshin ova I, the fight between Teresa and No 2 - 5 is a few of the others that I truly enjoyed watching.

P.S. It's unbelievable to see the amount of flaming that anime fans (non-japs) threw at the producers in some of the anime bbs I frequent.

Hey Kirk! I guess the dark fantasy genre isn't too popular amongst the jap audience these days. After all, vampires just suck blood.. the screenplay gotta incorporate more interesting elements into the dark fantasy genre to spice things up a bit. For instance, a new type of vampire shows up in town and it feeds solely on bricks. Since it's going to gobble up all of the mud bricks in town, thus threatening one of the basic needs, so they must go away. This is probably silly, but it's just an example that I cook up in less than 3 seconds


p.s. btw, thx for the comment you left.
p.s.s. episode 25's out. I'm gonna see how things go for Claire and gang.