Take A Pick Tuesday: Claymore

                 Take A Pick Tuesday: Claymore

 

 

 

Of All the shows I wished would continue, well there are a lot actually a lot, we’ll have to list those later but Claymore does indeed come to mind. Not only was it a recommendation as of late to someone, it’s been rolling around in my mind. Why you might say, well the show like the manga is utterly fascinating, thrilling, brutal and beautiful, the story though seems to drive you to certain questions of survival and purpose. Set in a medieval backdrop, well what we consider to be medieval anyways or at least look at what our concept of Medieval is anyways. There are women clad in armor, those that towns usually allow inside out of fear even though their fear is also their protection. Women clad in armor carrying large Claymore swords hence the name that their given by the people, a part of an organization that disperses them in order to extinguish Yokai (Demons). We follow Clare ranked 47^th in the organization as she comes into a town in order to extinguish those that are hidden among a town and change the life of a boy named Raki forever.

 

 

 

       Claire herself will bring up some immediate questions on which way her moral compass points, the truth of the matter is though she is a good person, which you will see play a factor pretty early on for her, the decisions she sometimes make will be connected to her past and how she became who she is. Raki will become someone that she wants to protect, even if that mean sometimes that she cannot be by his side. Quite often in the manga actually. Perhaps fulfilling that wish that the person who managed to protect her was the one she always wished she could protect too. While Claire goes an accomplishes the assignments that the organization send her to do, there is a clear point hammered into the audience relatively early that she has her own agenda, someone she’s looking for. Once they spotlight a character called Teresa of The Faint Smile you’ll understand why. It’s also the reason you’ll see the determination that Claire has even when the odds are stacked up against her during the assignments, why exactly she is ranked so low and what it is that makes her so special. That determination would be a gateway into becoming stronger.

      To become stronger itself can become a conflict, one that to most Claymores is impossible to win, you see these women aren’t entirely human, they have the blood of those they hunt and the more they dive into the power, the greater the risk that they might change into them. What’s interesting about the power is that they say it’s akin to sexual pleasure, once you have the power you want more, the organization themselves found it was easier for women to control it as opposed to men which leaves questions on who were the claymore from before. Once you go beyond a certain point how do you maintain your humanity, one the greatest questions of the show. I won’t spoil it for you but the answer to that is a new dynamic in itself.  A reason to fight for, it can be more potent in some of the Claymores like Claire, something purer than following the orders they do, overcoming odds to see that wish fulfilled or to have it ruthlessly snatched away.

 

 

        The Claymores don’t need to eat very often, very little at that and they take their assignments from these men in black suits with black glasses. The reasons why they take them and what happens when they go against theirs and the organizations wishes, shows the dangers of who they take their orders from and the reason maybe that they hunt who they hunt in the first place. Claire will find herself asking some of those questions along with other Claymores and while some of the answers you get in the show prove how they are a part of the problems that the Claymores are dealing with, there are some answers you’ll find if you read the manga that might blow your mind. Other perspectives are key in the show as well, these aren’t just hunting machines with no aspirations, no former lives or dreams, they are more human than anything else, not all of what made them human is lost, not by a long shot. Some might not show it like the rest but there are things they want, it just so happens that sometimes that can be masked by strength, to be strong is to be alive to continue, so in some ways it isn’t masking anything at all.

 Sure Claire’s connection to Raki may be important to who she will become and vice versa, as well as a major driving force for the show but there are others. Those she will be connected to and literally will become a part of and those through bonds that go deeper than mere comrades in battle. You will see these characters mentioned after a while, other sides of the characters you may have thought were impossible as well. One character is Undine, a claymore that Claire would meet in the War of the North who had large muscles and carried two swords, one that was hers and one of a friend that had fallen in battle. She would attempt to appear as if nothing bothered her but like the muscles which hiding something underneath. A great example that those that dispatch them might only see them as tools of war and people might only see them as frightening killers but they are in fact people. In battle pieces of them are taken away sometimes and through extraordinary circumstances no matter for how short of a time, they are given it back.

      Whatever world they’re a part of seems to get both smaller and larger as the show progresses. Before Attack On Titan rolled around that strange placing of Medieval times, that fit into brutality more than an actual time in our history had belonged to a few other shows and titles. Some of which are recognized main stream, those that had you screaming no for certain characters had Claymore among them. I don’t even know if people watching it will recognize this but even when kindness pays a price in this show, it is always important.

 

     The show is easy to devour whole and the reasoning on why the series hadn’t bothered with a second season might be more along the reason of the magazine the manga had been published in, it took a while for it to find another home, truthfully it could be the wrench in the Madhouse’s plan to make more. Though with the last two episodes not in the manga that concluded the series, that could be a factor as well to have stopped the show from seeing another season come out from it, though to me, you can find a way around that, even if a certain part toward the end had been major in the manga, after all they only adapted the first eleven volumes, why stop there especially now with a completed story.

      With Anime though there are other factors and even if there weren’t it could just be that they had gotten caught up in making other shows and the chance had sailed. Even so it’s a show that is not to be missed, if you like a captivating storyline or more limbs flying off than a year's worth of horror movies than this show might be for you,  available at a reasonable price and there are plenty of resources to watch it, not to mention the manga which digs deeper and further of course is amazing and might have some of the answers to the questions you might have had.  With Claymore not a stranger to the streaming services and having an affordable release by Funimation for some years now it’s easy to watch. In fact it’s easy to read too, VIZ has plans to release a box set with all 27 volumes for those collectors who want to own it in style. So if you enjoy Claymore remember just because it hasn’t got a second season yet, doesn’t’ mean it won’t in the future.