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Episode 2: The Black Card 「黒の書」

After the last incident with the Youma in the forest of Egon, Clare allows Raki to follow her as her cook. Both of them now walk from town to town to kill the Youma. While Clare takes care of the monsters, Raki stays behind and ensures the safety of the people.
As soon as the enemies are killed, Clare promptly heads off to her next destination. Raki wonders why she won’t collect the money from the people herself, as they might always be in need of something. Clare tells him that that a collector from the organization will take care of the money, and if they ever were in need of anything specific, like clothes or money, the organization would provide it to them.

As they’re walking through the desert, Raki starts getting hungry. In the blink of an eye, Clare throws her sword and strikes a huge lizard, which will be their main ingredient for dinner. Later on, both are having dinner around a campfire. Raki hands the Claymore a huge piece of grilled lizard meat, then starts gobbling down his food. Clare, in contrast, only bites a few times into the meat, before putting it down. Her body working differently than that of a regular human, she needs only very small amounts of food to last for at least a few days. She admits that seeing Raki devour his food like that is making her a bit envious.

The boy asks Clare why she became a Claymore, but she only reveals that she decided by herself to become one when she was a child. To change the topic, Raki asks her then what the emblem ornament on her sword meant. Clare tells him that when the Claymore are ready to take on jobs, they are all given unique emblems which represents their name and which enables them to distinguish themselves from each other. After this explanation, she walks off, ordering Raki not to follow her.

Clare meets a mysterious man in black from the organization that hands her a new set of clothes to replace her old ripped ones. As she undresses, the man orders her to turn around and checks up on the wound from the battle with the Youma in the Egon forest. He tells her that she is safe, but warns her once again that even she might die if a critical spot was hit. He also mentions another wound, without any further details though.
Before the man disappears, he leaves Clare a black card, which might be the first thing that has unsettled her this much in a while. When she returns to the fireplace, Raki immediately notices that something is wrong, but Clare only tells him that they will be going to the town of Shire the next day, and that they need rest now.

Later in the night, while Raki is sleeping soundly, Clare is still awake, remembering her sad past, where she had been writhing in pain in a dark place, when another Claymore came to comfort her, and she held her hand and hugged her.
The next day, Clare and Raki arrive at the town of Shire. Clare enters an inn, but books a room only for Raki, who is to stay there until her job is finished. After she leaves, the mysterious guy from the organization emerges from the dark and discloses many details about the Claymore.

Claymore are, as we already know, half-human and half-Youma. They become like that by taking part of a Youma’s body and blood into their own human body. For some unknown reason though, that practice has only worked on women so far. The organization creates and makes use of such creatures (not to say tools) to combat the Youma, because they are the only beings that can recognize Youmas that have taken possession over other people’s bodies. The Claymore themselves cannot be possessed by them anymore, since there is already half of a Youma in their body. The human will suppresses the influence of the Youma will, which is the only thing that prevents them to take over their body while taking advantage of their tremendous power.
However, even they are doomed to become Youmas themselves. The more they make use of their demonic powers, the stronger the Youma’s influence becomes, and after some time, if their human mind is too weak to restrain it anymore, they will turn entirely into a Youma. And once it has come that far, they will be eliminated by the organization.
Raki, worried about the fact that the man in black might be talking about Clare, dashes out of the inn and tries to rejoin Clare, who is on her way to the meeting point, up the mountain behind Shire.

All along the road, Clare keeps remembering the moments she spent together with with her friend, where they held hands during the painful moments. Before she reaches the top, Raki arrives running behind her, expressing his worry that Clare might turn into a Youma. Indeed, a Claymore is about to become one soon. Fortunately, it isn’t Clare. However, this doesn’t mean that there are good news. She shows Raki the Black Card she has received from the mysterious man and explains its painful meaning.

Every Claymore possesses such a card that is kept inside their swords. They know very well that someday they will not be able to resist the influence of the Youma’s mind anymore. When that time comes, they know they are certainly going die by a Claymore’s hand anyway. So in order to die at least a humans death, they send their Black Card with their emblem out to the Claymore they want to be killed by the most.

Since Clare has received a Black Card, she is the chosen one who has the bitter task to kill the likes of her. Even worse, and that’s a real blow of fate, it’s the only friend she ever had as a Claymore, Elena.
Elena entered the organization at the same time as Clare did. Both of them went through all the hardships together and comforted each other during all those painful moments. Now that Elena has reached her limit, she wishes to be killed by Clare…

Clare and Raki reach the top of the mountain, where Elena is already waiting, trying to remember the happiest memories of her painful life, while her human mind is slowly getting consumed by the Youma mind. Clare, impassible, takes her sword in hand. But then Raki suddenly tries holding her back, to prevent her to kill her only life-long friend…

But, it’s too late to defy fate. The two Claymores already started walking towards each other. As soon as Clare walks past Elena, as if she wouldn’t want to see it happening, she raises her sword and slays her friend.

Raki cannot understand why they decided to put up with such a cruel fate. Yet, in order to fight the Youma, the Claymore must accept it, no matter the cost. For that is the reason of their existence.

Next Episode: Darkness in Paradise 「まほろばの闇」

the thinkbox

The more I watch Claymore (more…more… ehh??), the more I feel that I did the right choice not closing the video back then. It’s very thrilling and entertaining, and I have to admit, there isn’t a single thing in this anime that has disappointed me yet. I found the beginning of the ep, where Clare throws her sword to kill that huge lizard, particularly amusing. I didn’t think something like that would fit into a seemingly serious anime, which doubles the fun. The character development advances at a nice pace, this episode contained quite an interesting lot of information about the Claymore and their organization. The flashbacks about Clare’s past raised my curiosity, as I’m wondering what she had to go through when she was a child to end up as an emotionless Youma killer. I’m also curious to know more about the origins of the organization, who’s in command, where, why… But everything at its proper time.

However, I hope they’re now done with the introductions. Next episode I’d like to see something like the beginning of a thread, a developing, continuous story that spans over several episodes. I’m not really happy with having a Pokemon-style story, ie. a whole new adventure every episode. The suspense simply cannot be built up like this, and that is what makes me gradually lose interest in the anime (as it has been the case with Getsumen To Heiki Miina… and which is also why I’m currently burning to watching the next GSD episodes, those cliffhangers are killing me)

I love these eyes.

I must say, I like Clare even more now after this episode. Although she didn’t raise an eyebrow most of the time, she did show quite a few hidden emotions there. I wonder what kept her from crying as she slew her only friend. I’ll blame it on the Youma.
It keeps surprising me that she tells her part of her story to Raki, although she only knows him for a few days. Sure, it is probably because she finds his situation similar to hers when she was a child, as it has been stated by the man from the organization. But even that little bit of affection is, for such a person deprived of love, quite wonderful. If nobody knew that the Claymore were half-Youma, I bet society would accept them much easily. Yes, Clare’s definitely more human than she looks like. She needs moar love!!
Actually, I do find her very pretty, despite her scary expression. Call me weird, I clearly have a preference for apathic characters, like Hisui from Tsukihime, or Yuki Nagato from Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, to cite a few examples. Why is that? Well, in most cases, I’m not really fond of happy-go-lucky natures of the likes of Haruhi or so, because to me they’re just plain noisy, and, for some, even tsun. (Milfeulle was a GREAT exception though.. ookiraku gokuraku!). Not that I hate them, not at all, I generally do find a small liking for them, but in the end, I do prefer calm girls the most (mostly because I’m a silent guy myself, and definitely not a party guy. duh). Also, once I get used to their expressionless face, I don’t know, once I see them smile I just go crazy. Aww was I so happy when I played the far side of the Moon… Hisui-chan~~~ T___T

Ep3 will be watched soon. For tomorrow, I think I’ll write about Gundam. And today’s Philosophy test was a real failure. I could have gotten a perfect mark on that because it was all writing down a few paragraphs that were to learn by heart. Guess what, I did do that. But ta-da, after a few lines I got a wonderful Black-Out (R) and yeah, all I could write were some chopped sentences, fragments of what I thought would be the answer to those questions… argh. I’ll most probably be the only one in my class to get a bad mark this time. Ah no, I forgot, some classmate already has given up on the year, so yeah. That makes 2 guys with a failnote. *sob*