04 April 2007

Claymore 1: Large Sword-Claymore (クレイモア-大剣 )


Claymore is a half human, half youma being who often get requested by humans to defeat youmas that disturb their village.

One such village is shown to have difficulties dealing with one such youma, which resulted in the town leaders to invite a claymore to defeat this youma. When the Claymore come to the village to fulfill the request, it generated both curiosity, awe and fear. One village boy,whose name is Raki, is surprised to see that this particular Claymore is a female. To that, another fellow responded that all Claymores are female.



When the Claymore make her way through the town, some people voiced their disagreement with the decision to hire her. Someone else whispers that only monster could defeat a monster, which was overheard by the Claymore. ^^;

When the Claymore meet with the village elder to discuss some arrangements, she refused payment until the job is done. That way, if she gets killed, no payment would be necessary :)



After she finished the remuneration benefits, she went to the edge of the town to sleep :b. Before that, Raki, who is intrigued by her, starts to follow her and ask questions. The Claymore is slightly intrigued by this, as he does not seem to be afraid of her, unlike the other villagers. Raki feels that she does not look different from humans, so there is no need to be afraid.

However, she remains cold as she is unwilling to tell Raki her name when asked, because she assumed it would soon be forgotten anyway.:) Raki also confesses that his parents were the first ones who get killed by the youma, so he wanted the Claymore to avenge them. The Claymore refuses this, as her fight against the youma has nothing to do with Raki's revenge.

After Raki leaves the Claymore and arrive at his home to have dinner, he is surprised
to find another dead body. More surprisingly, the killer is his brother who has turned into a youma when their parents was attacked and hide his true form since then. After a futile try to fight his brother, Raki is saved by the Claymore, who come to rescue him, out of nowhere:)

After an easy fight and a dead youma, Raki is still to frightened to move after he witnesses the bloody fight and the true form of the Claymore. After the Claymore left, the village also kicked Raki out of town, because they are afraid of him becoming a youma.

Lost and without a destination, Raki collapsed in the dessert. Luckily, he is saved once again by a claymore. After waking up, he tries to find his saviour, only to find a different claymore, who has an interest in him :)



Thankfully, Raki is quite smart, as he noticed immediately this claymore call herself claymore, which is odd because only humans call them that. This fake claymore turned out to be another youma, who wants to lure the real claymore out using Raki.

The youma is happy to find the real claymore taking the bait. The real claymore even throw her sword away as the youma demanded, to save Raki. After some more bloody battle, the claymore emerged victorious once again. However, she denies that the sword was thrown away to try to saved Raki, saying that its only a plan to keep the youma escaping :)

The claymore seem to remember her own childhood, where she was also thrown out from her village, and decided to let Raki go with her until he can find another village to live. The Claymore even tells Raki her name, Claire. Thus the story begins.

Claymore Official website
Claymore on Anime News Network
Opening theme: Raison D'etre by Nightmare
Ending theme: Danzai no Hana~Guilty Sky(断罪 ) by Riyu Kosaka (小坂りゆ)

The opening theme is pretty decent, but I like the ending more. I am pleased when I found out the singer is none other than Riyu Kosaka, whose songs is used in the Lumines game. The ending theme also means Flower of Conviction~Guilty Sky.


Impression:
Being one of the most anticipated series to come out this spring, this episode is mostly about character and premise introduction. To be honest, if I have not heard the buzz about it, I probably would not continue watching this. The story is supposed to pick up and things will get interesting, or so I heard.

This is not saying that this is a fault to make this first episode this way. Not every series can or even should start out with the same pace & mystery as Code Geass, for example. Variety is good. However, it does make one wonder on how many series have been written off by viewers just because the first episode is too simple or predictable. El Cazador comes to mind :)

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