I’ll just dip my toe into the minefield that is the debate whether the ending was the suck or not before getting to the main point of this post. I haven’t read the manga so perhaps ignorance is bliss - I didn’t think the ending was that bad though I completely agree that Raki was so annoying and would have cheered if he had been put onboard the Nice Boat.
My main dilemma, though, was: Who was my favourite Claymore-oneesama, Miria or Galatea?
Powers. Miria’s Phantom Menace trick was useful in combat and earned her Number Six rank as well as a cool nick, which roused Ophelia’s displeasure about not having a cool nick too. Also plenty of combat experience from being given numerous dangerous missions as a ‘gohobi’ - that’s what you get for being too intelligent, curious, disgruntled and proactive in trying to run her own X-Files-style investigation into The Organization.
Character design. This is where Miria loses points the most with her generic 1980s rocker hairdo. Which Kabitzin has pointed out is so similarly to Isley’s! orz
Personality. Definitely a good leader who has won the admiration of difficult comrades like Deneve, Helen and Clare during their first AO team hunt and then even more after the first battle at Pieta. She’s smart, reliable and a steady hand with her junior Claymores plus I love it when Helen addresses her as Miria-neesan in her typically bad-girl sort of way.
Powers. No doubt that Galatea should be higher ranked at Number Three over Miria. Her yoki manipulation power was uber-cool, as well as her yoki Wide Area Search and how her fighting power rises the most among all 47 warriors with the release of her yoki.
Character design. Long straight hair rather than frazzled mop. Her rather languid-looking eyes were a tad strange to me at first but then I came to feel it was a great fit with her rather languid manner of speaking.
Personality. She’s not much of a leader and doesn’t seem to have many friends (if any) among the other Claymores. Guess it is lonely near the top. It’s not helped by how she’s so sarcastic - but that was a charm point for me when she started to insult Duff about his metabolism and so on. Does she also have a touch of tsundere? Deciding against taking on Jean and Clare after the Riful incident and then seeming to threaten but then help Miria, Deneve and Helen find Clare. So far, the highest ranked (surviving) Claymore in the ‘Live On Clare!’ Fan club.
On the basis of sarcasm and hairdo tipping the scales, my vote goes to Galatea-oneesama for the title of Favourite Claymore.
PS BTW I’m just waiting for some weird fusion parody between Claymore and MariMite: The maidens who assemble in the organization’s garden pass through the tall gate, as always with silver irises in their eyes. Their half-human, half-youma bodies and minds are wrapped in useless armour that makes cool clanky walky noises. The pleats on their skirts should not be disorderly and their shoulder plates should always be tidy. Awakening slowly is preferred here.
PPS If Clare had an ahoge, she might make a good combination with Saber.
hahahahaha I vote goes to Galatea-oneesama too. I think she is uber sexy but too bad her screen time is too little. Character design wise, she should be the main cast.
Between the two, I’m with Miria.
Cheers.
LOL! Like Skane, I’m with Miria. I think she dons some leather (with some absolute territory!) and a ponytail later on in the manga, but I don’t exactly remember.
Raki = |fail| if only for the lame moral equivalency argument and ruining a potentially great ending for a tragic -in the literary sense- character. Priscilla needed to die for a variety of reasons, literary: Priscilla’s death would have closed her tragic cycle; for mercy: Priscilla’s existence as an awakened being was making her suffer, albeit unconsciously; for justice/greater good: as an awakened being she was a clear and present danger to all humanity, and needed to be removed if at all possible, which is the Claymore’s raison d’etre, btw; tactically: killing Priscilla would have meant Easley had lost 2 of his top subordinates, which might have nipped Easley’s ambition indefinitely. (With Priscilla alive, all he needs to do is wait.) I suppose you also could argue that not killing Priscilla might be morally irresponsible, see Edmund Burke.
If it weren’t for the fact that he needed to live to eff things up for Clare and Priscilla at the end, then I can’t imagine someone so naive and useless would have survived for more than 5 minutes alone in a world that harsh.
There is clear evidence in the last episode that this series would have been better served with less or no Raki. The final exchange between Clare and Jean was infinitely more emotional gripping and dramatic than all of Raki’s scenes combined. Part of that is probably Mitsuishi Kotono’s doing ;), but nonetheless, the best parts of this series were when Raki was nowhere to be seen, the Teresa arc, the initial Helen, Miria, Deneve arc.
Hmm, I don’t think I’ve been this annoyed by a show since GSD.
Anyway, I cast a write in vote for Teresa, even though she’s dead, she still beats out everybody else for, essentially, being the lynchpin this series revolved around. That and Paku Romi’s voice.;)
Powerful, beautiful and armed with a kickass attitude matched only by Teresa, Galatea is the clear choice for me.
Well, at least, Priscilla has been ruined for marriage which is better than no punishment. Also the way she was ignored during the final scenes while she’s in orz mode should have scratched her ego quite a bit.
I fully agree on the Marimite-ness of the Claymores and with respect to their hairstyles, it would have been great to see Claymores with twin-pig tails and drills.
I noticed the ignoring of orz-Priscilla, too! Poor Priscilla, I wonder what show got cancelled when she offed her dad.
I think Cynthia had twin braids but yeah, needs more variations. Maybe ribbons and hairclips too? LOL
Probably some were unhappy that School Days and Higurashi Ni Kai got delayed because of RL events but not Claymore - either than the timing, there probably also was the fact that Claymore was a fantasy swords and sorcery kind of show rather than anything school-like. Then again us anime fans have always had difficulty separating anime and RL! Oh noes!
Why Galatea though?
She barely makes screen time? O_O
Well, if you’re going for best anime oneesama, Miria wins it by default, if only due to seiyuu. If Harem Anime Rule #1 is “First girl wins”, then Oneesama Rule #1 is “Voiced by Kikuko Inoue wins”.
As for which manga character is the best oneesama, well, that’s Teresa hands down. Not even close.
Not to discredit Galatea, of course. As a matter of fact, she’s #1 on my “want-to-bone-esama” list… ^_^
Galatea gets my vote.
When she caught Clare and told her she need to eat more my Yuri sense started to tingle. Shame it looks like Gal is going to be meeting her end soon in the manga…
“…Awakening slowly is preferred here.” I almost stopped breathing I was laughing so hard.
Call me obsessed with bad girls, but I like Deneve and Helen’s gang-girl aesthetic. Deneve, particularly, practically wore chest wrappings.
Raki’s magic power is crying and he was a major pussy, but I’m not sure why everyone disliked the end episode. It was exactly as expected - could anyone have *ever* expected anything good, when the rest of the story was so teh predictable?
Cheers,
Erica
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