Claymore: ep 5 picspam

[meganbmoore]

So, the Claymore anime is awesomesauce, but so close to the manga that I have nothing to say about it because I mainlined the entire manga this year.  HOWEVER!!!!!

I have reached Clare's origin, which contains angst so epic(though not for another episode or two) that it must be related in great detail.  For the spoilerphobic:  it's pretty early in both the anime and the manga and unspoilery for the main plot, which it actually sets up.  Everything before it is pretty much intro stuff.

It contains one of those oh-so-beloved tropes:  the warrior who will cut off his her own arm before admitting to silly things like feelings, but will spell it out in body parts, and who acquires a cute kid.

This is Teresa of the Faint Smile, the strongest Claymore of her time, known by that name because of her ability to completely control the Yoma(demon) blood that all Claymores have, which allows her to stay beautiful and peaceful and serene when she's being all badass and wiping out Yoma.
 

When she reaches a town being plagued by 7 Yoma, she takes them out in nothing flat(which, uhm, I did not cap that well because I was distracted by "OOO...Teresa!"  But you get the general idea...):




Claymores have issues sleeping in beds:


The next morning, a mute little girl who had been a slave to one of the Yoma decides Teresa is her hero:


Teresa objects!


Little girl will not be thwarted!



Teresa has heard about what happens to badass, loner, attachment-phobic shounen heroes who have cute young things latch on to them, and flees into the forest while the fleeing's good!


But little girl knows such types are just waiting for a cute young thing to make them human, and won't give up!


OH NOES! BANDITS!(and again, got distracted from capping, but Teresa made hands fly away from wrists and bandits flee):




But once they have fled, we are back to trying to ditch that pesky kid:


Even jumping off a cliff doesn't work, because she just jumps right after:



Teresa is suitably impressed by this:


And tosses her into the river to wake her up:


Well, maybe it isn't so bad if she thinks of the kid as a pet:



OH NOES! TERESA'S GONE!


Oh, no, she just went to get food:


But she still totally doesn't care about the little pest.  At all.  Honest.


Uh oh, now-one-handed-bandit is not pleased about the missing hand.


Wait, shouldn't this kid have a name?



And she names her Clare(which turns out to also be her real name) because Teresa and Clare are the beautiful twin goddesses of purity that people worship:




WAIT!  This mute little girl is Clare, our stoic, badass main character?  This is her backstory, not another Claymore in the present time?  This was my honest reaction when I got to the name part in the manga.

NEXT!  Being hunted by old allies!  The angst begins! Because, you know, the whole "abused slave" part wasn't angsty enough to start with...

Comments

[joketsu.livejournal.com]

Even though I was mightily displeased by the end, it's still my favorite manga to anime. Not many get such a good job made of them.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It's probably the most faithful adaptation I've seen, aside from the endless fight ones(wiich is not to disparage those!) when they aren't doing fillers. The animation quality is also extremely high for an adaptation. Aside from FMA, most manga adaptations don't get this level of quality.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Fuck I need to watch this show so fucking much now.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes you do. So far, it's amazingly faithful to the manga. Like, only a few lines have been changed. It also has and extremely high animation quality. I think FMA is the only other manga adaptation I've seen with animation this good. (The best animation seems to be anime-original stories, or novel adaptations, which I guess makes sense.)

[kinkytinky.livejournal.com]

Ooh, babe! With sword!

I'm such an easy sell...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Try "babes with swords." There are a lot of them.

[kinkytinky.livejournal.com]

Now you're twisting my arm...