Claymore – Irresistable Forces

: ) We’re all gonna die. : )

Both Clare and Priscilla have been absent for long enough that it took a little while for me to get my head around their characters once again. Of course that’s still somewhat difficult, because neither of them have much of a motivation anymore aside from Clare wanting Priscilla dead. She even admits to that herself in this chapter, because in her mind there is no purpose for living other than revenge. She wanted to find Raki after being apart for seven years, but she managed to do that in the previous chapter. Unfortunately, I’m starting to run into the same problem I had with Ganta from Deadman Wonderland. There’s so little waiting for the character after this long battle is over that it becomes harder to care if they live or die.

Claymore – And Everyone Lived Happily Ever After

“It’s against our laws to kill humans, so maybe I should have explained this first.”

Some of you have probably heard the rumours about Claymore coming to a rather abrupt end. I personally heard it from a tweet by Shonen Beam while I was halfway through the chapter, so there was slightly less surprise then there probably should have been. I understand that this isn’t the actual end of the story and it will be continuing on in a different magazine. Whatever happened, it’s still a lot for readers to suddenly find out at the last possible second. I would have expected some sort of warning from one of the many anime news websites that are out there, or at least for the little “Claymore – End” note to also include “See You In Whatever Other Magazine”.

Current Manga Rankings – 2011 – Part 2

15. Rosario + Vampire II

What a long, awkward trip it’s been. I remember back when I started this manga and it was just another boring harem series with various random monsters to fight. Since then it’s grown up into a surprisingly well done series about the relationships the previous series began, and it manages to provide a good amount of depth to what were previously uninteresting characters. It even manages to make the action more interesting, since it’s no longer just Inner Moka stomping on everyone. I’ve actually started looking forward to the newest chapters, which I would never have expected at first.

Claymore – Chapter 118

Even the best of us roll Natural 1s once in a while.

There’s a problem I’ve always had with Claymore. It seems to have this bizarre, Dragonball-esque idea that no two groups can have the same level of power. Almost every fight we get to see has one side completely dominating the other, and those that don’t follow that formula still make victory an uphill battle. Then there’s the Abyss Feeders and the Organization’s Number 10, but they don’t follow normal combat rules in general. This is why the recent chapters, which saw the resurrection of three of the strongest Claymore, has confused me quite a bit, because I’m a little uncertain where these characters fall on the power scale.

Cassandra’s technique was what a great deal of the last chapter focused on unveiling, even though it still made little sense. She vibrates back and forth while dicing her opponents? Cassandra the Walking Buzzsaw would’ve been a better name. More to the point, I still don’t understand exactly how strong this ability is supposed to make her. Yes, she can hunt Awakened Ones on her own and defeat the newer Claymore with ease, but any of the Seven Ghosts are capable of that. And now, as seen above, she’s being played with by the Organization’s Number 10, which isn’t the sort of thing you show when you want to portray someone as powerful.

Next is Hysteria (really, that’s the name you picked?), whose fight with Miria showcases both the domination and uphill battle scenarios. At first, she’s shown to have a more evolved version of the technique Miria specializes in, which means she’s able to counter anything she does. In this chapter, though, Miria has started to discover how to push herself hard enough to keep up, which feels a lot like Clare’s battle with Rigaldo a while back. Even so, I don’t get the same feeling from Hysteria that I did from Rigaldo, as she’s only fighting off one opponent and isn’t dominating as much as you’d expect from a former Number 1. It seems from this chapter that Hysteria is not only nowhere near as powerful as she’s been built up, but may very well die by the end of this arc. Maybe she’ll be the catalyst needed for Miria to awaken, but I don’t see her as anything more than that.

Roxanne, however, is a whole different story. She’s the sort of character who emanates power not from her actions, but from her inaction. The story of Cassandra’s technique was also her story, and she had an air of contempt in her dialogue as she told it, as though she were looking down on her. We get some insight into her technique as well, and she’s shown to be something of a youki leech, stealing other peoples abilities over time. Actually, now that I think about it, she sounds like an evil version of Clare. We have yet to see the full extent of her abilities, but what we’ve heard so far, combined with her general attitude, makes her a character to be afraid of.

Theoretically, any of these characters could end up being more powerful than I’m giving them credit for, but so far Roxanne is the only one whose strength I actually believed in. Just from the last few chapters, I wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up stealing everyone’s powers, ditching the Organization, and meeting up with Priscilla for tea and crackers.