Summary:

After the lizard-like Awakened Being unleashes his tentacles and hits several of the Claymores, the others launch their attacks, so he tries to jump away. Undine goes after him, but he responds by using his powers to control her and make her cut her own throat. Through sheer strength, Undine moves her arms so that she cuts her cheeks instead of her neck, and her muscles allow her to stand up when he tries to force her onto the ground with his mind. Although Undine manages to get a few hits in, the Awakened Being stops her and repeatedly pierces through her body with several of his tentacles. Because of this, Deneve literally kicks Undine out of the battle and faces their enemy together with Clare. The two of them get a few slashes in, but the Awakened Being then tries to use his powers to make them go over their limits and awaken. Meanwhile, the insect-like Awakened Being has also wounded the Claymores he’s facing, but the team of Cynthia, Veronica, Helen, and Jean continue fighting. As Cynthia and Veronica take more hits, Helen uses her extending arm ability to tie up the legs of their enemy while Jean uses her wound-up arm as a spinning blade. After the two succeed in destroying all of their opponent’s appendages, they allow Cynthia and Veronica the honor of finishing him off.

Nearby, Clare and Deneve have surprised their opponent with how they didn’t go over their limit like he tried to make them. As the others watch on, the two of them pummel the Awakened Being, and even when he tries to counter by piercing through Deneve’s body with his tentacles, she immediately regenerates. Deneve then cuts off his head with a bit of help from Undine, however it’s not until afterwards that they realize his head can still manipulate Yoma energy before he dies. When the head attempts to get two of the weaker Claymores to kill each other, Clare and Flora both respond by dicing him to pieces. The Claymores then regroup, and Clare remembers that Miria’s team is still fighting. Miria, however, has had no trouble finishing off the final Awakened Being by herself, though one Claymore on her team did lose an arm. With the battle now over, Undine makes it clear that she didn’t like how Miria organized Claymores because the ones who had never fought an Awakened Being got in the way. In response to this, Flora points out that since no one died, they all have now gotten experience fighting Awakened Beings. In short, Miria’s true motive was for them to raise their fighting strength.

After Miria tells everyone else to get some rest, Clare asks her if it’s okay that the other Claymores realize that at their current fighting strength, they’d be annihilated. Miria responds by saying that they don’t have anywhere to run and that with their backs against the wall, they have to desperately get stronger so that they can force open the path to survival. That’s the only chance they have left. As she starts to think about this, Clare is reminded of Raki. Unbeknownst to her, at this time Raki is in a different northern town examining through the graves of four Claymores, looking to see if any of the swords have Clare’s insignia. None of them are her’s, so he moves through the abandoned place until he notices someone moving nearby. After following this person, Raki saves what turns out to be a girl from a falling piece of rubble. The girl seems to take a liking to him, and soon after, a man shows up looking for her. When Raki explains that he’s from the south and is searching for someone, the man mentions wanting to take the girl south soon and reassures Raki that the monsters who destroyed this town aren’t nearby anymore. Since it’s so cold, the man invites Raki to go home with them and then offers his hand to the girl that he calls Priscilla.

Preview

Well that was unexpected. Not only did Raki reappear in the story, he’s apparently being taken in by Priscilla and Isley. Unlike Riful who was playful but liked to direct torture, they actually seem fairly nice and don’t look like they intend to kill him or eat his guts or anything. Of course, looks can be deceiving, but if Raki stays with them, this would add an interesting dynamic to the story where in a sense he joins the other side. I could even see him protecting Priscilla if Clare or another Claymore tried to attack them. And speaking of which, why exactly does Priscilla look younger…? Did she return to a younger age when she regained her human form or is this something Isley did?
Anyway, the majority of this episode was spent on some pretty serious fighting, and it was interesting seeing different Claymores play their strengths together to help win the fight. Clare also got to shine a little too, but she didn’t seem to have any new tricks, and I’m not sure anyone other than Flora noticed or cared too much. What I’m most interested in now is to see how they weave these two threads together, since it seems from the preview that we’ll be looking at Raki, Isley, and Priscilla as well as Clare and the other Claymores.

53 Comments

  1. ONE OF MY FAVOURITE ANIME BESIDES HAYATE NO GOTOKU,SETO NO HANAYOUME,DARKER THAN BLACK AND NAGASARETTE AIRANTAOU… IT’S WELL ANIMATED, IT HAS DARK STORY LINE, IT HAS COOL AND SEXY CHARACTERS …GOTHIC ABIIIISSS…..

    BAKABAKASHI
  2. Yeah, I think so too.
    Show Spoiler ▼

  3. Mutio, the side stories are being published because the manga is temporarily running in weekly jump, albeit still monthly. The magazine it ran in before was cancelled, and the new magazine it will move to starts up in November, so that’s when we’ll get the next chapter of the main story, apparently. In this way, weekly jump readers aren’t thrown into the middle of a storyline, and can pickup Claymore if they find the extra chapters interesting. That’s also why the extra chapters are touching on some important ideas that were already established, in order to introduce them to new readers.

    bananas
  4. Sean – the anime is diverging from the manga with all the left out and changed things, based on what i’m seeing in this ep i don’t really know where they’re going with this.

    Majek
  5. it is true, i have read the manga a million times, and each episode, they always manage to leave out a small but critical detail of what has not been tied up or becomes of major interest in the manga later on. I can start to see how they plan to wrap this up in the end. it is highly likely we will see a major stomach turning change in the anime vs the manga after another 3 to 4 episodes.

    Brandon
  6. for a critical points summary they have already left out here is the most major point they have left out so far.
    WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Brandon
  7. Brandon, unless I’m completely off base, the part that you’re mentioning in spoilers comes later on, we’re not even at that point in the storyline yet.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Anyway, Isley looks so much more like a chick in the anime than he does in the manga. Kind of disturbing.

    Tetsuei
  8. Damn…I dont’ really like what i see…
    Show Spoiler ▼

    As for overallShow Spoiler ▼

    , so…IF this anime will diverge from manga – then i am so droping this thing…

    Unknown Voice
  9. @dward
    Current arc is 50 – 56
    Next arc is 57 – 61
    Currently Manga is at Chapter 73, with 74 set to release at november(due to some problems with publishers)

    It seems that they will either make their own ending, or make an open-ended cliffchanger ending by using chapter 65

    Unknown Voice
  10. Is true that the storyline of the anime is not identical and acurate as the manga.
    Not all facts and caracter relationships are revealed in one episode, there are many unknowns and uncovered details, but this is what makes it interesing even for those who are
    folowing these serie knowing the manga.

    Can’t wait to se this episode…

  11. well ur small but critical detail is in my opinion with raki. when at the town he’s searching through claymore graves for claire, while in the manga he escapes a slave traders dungeon. in the manga claire later finds traces of raki in a dungeon cell in the form of him scracthing the statue of teresa and claire on the wall. that is when claire decides to head back to the south. but that only pertains to me and how i see that as something important. i don’t know how significant that would be in the grand scheme of things seeing as how they could simply rework it by her finding a pair of raki’s old socks or something buried in the snow.

    omega
  12. Only one thing I would complain or rather suggest is the sound effect, seeing them using steel sword slicing up the awaken being and making cling cling sound feels kind of weird for me. My suggestion would be more of a knife cutting meat sound maybe like chop chop or splash sound.

    mike
  13. Regarding manga vs anime changes:

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Here’s hoping for a second season! ^_^

    tanuki
  14. Personally, I’m okay with the changes. Although I did hope to see some of the more amusing chatters in the manga they left out in the anime.

    As for the whole spoiler stuff left out, my opinion is Show Spoiler ▼

    Meh
  15. to Brandon

    I think they will add that part later on. I don’t think they will diverge form the manga. And yes they do leave some stuff out but I would have to say it has been pretty faithful to the manga so far.

    smurph172
  16. Dammit, Flora sounds weird. Not what I had in mind. Its funny that though a lot of us who watch the anime and read the manga but we still tend to miss out on the small but critical parts mentioned.

    Idiotikiss
  17. Show Spoiler ▼

    And seeing as it ends with only 26 episodes, here hoping for a second season. ^^

  18. I love the shows tone, love the art. The girls are hot without being ditsy. They are serious as hell. I can actually respect these characters, and that’s rare in female characters in today’s anime.

    Gone are the Bubblegum Crisis girls, the Linna Inverses, the strong female templates that made classic anime.

    Claymore is a breath of fresh air, with SLICK artwork, great animation and music (I love the guitar riffs mixed with classical themes). I wish it wouldn’t be over soon… 🙁

    Here’s hoping for many seasons to come. I love girls that can be strong while feminine, while also showing that they have a different way to represent strength. Sides, for some reason is it me, or am I the only one that likes to see all the cat fights in the series? These girls are bitches to each other lol!

    Locke

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