Anime Discussion Thread - Page 3095

I guess the simple fact that it took me this long to finish it sums up the whole series pretty well, but where would be the fun without bashing people into the ground? Of course, most of this bashing would come from the last episodes, but everyone knows they suck, so as much as I like to rage, I guess it's pointless in this case: it wasn't a controversial ending, it was a fucking terrible ending. Elfen Lied all over again: bunch of aimlessly wandering guys (well, ladies), who forgot what does it mean "to stay in character"; bloodshed denied by stupid ass reasons, etcetera.

Howewer, that doesn't mean the series did not have its issues long before that. Now here's the most obvious one: Raki. I really hoped they wouldn't mess it up, and somehow someway he becomes useful, or at least not an anchor. Well, guess what, after they managed to pull Costa Concordia off to the shores, they can start looking for Raki, because I'm damn sure he's stuck somewhere in the depths of the ocean. There are many types of uselessness, but Raki is among the worst. Again, look at Yuki from Mirai Nikki (sorry, but he's my go-to useless guy, should be teached): he's as stupid as someone could get, but you don't feel he's breaking the flow of the action, he's basically dragged along why crying over the same boring stuff over and over again, until he sees some boobs and shies away. (Then later becomes somewhat useful)
Raki, on the other hand, wants to be the hero, and the Best Friend Forever. Don't get me wrong, Clare is our protagonist and every protagonist needs someone they care about, preferably a LIVING one, otherwise it's pretty hard to shape the character. I'm not even freaked out by the kiss, I think that's pretty dirty, and while I'd rather make a seperate love-story for Clare with someone more mature (like that "I'm riding on a horse, I'm so damn fabulous"-guy, you know, we could have all the drama of a good girl[OR IS SHE]-bad guy[OR IS HE] relationship), but whatever, I guess that's something I don't see every day, and was not expecting at all. BUT they could not do a single thing with him during the second part of the anime. All right, he likes Clare, Clare likes him, I'm happy for you (no Kanye West jokes), but maybe show something more after ummm... 26 episodes, yeah? Not only Raki stayed completely irrelevant during fights, he actually went againts his own character - which was built up by long walks in the storm, I guess the writers didn't quite get the meaning of "shaping someone" -, and completely sabotaged, or shall I say, "pussy-blocked" his alleged friend. Oh hey, is that the girl who killed your only friend back then, while laughing in your face? Isn't she the one you are hunting ever since? Isn't this situation kinda resembles the one, where Teresa let her live, and payed with her (and others) life? Yeah, you know what? Let's not kill her, because I kinda saw her naked, and that turned me on, so you know, I'm at THAT age, and I think the chemistry is already pretty tense between us, and I wouldn't want to start dating someone all over again, so please let me score this one first, then you can have at her. Thanks, you are still my friend though, love ya'!
Okay-okay, that was the ending I wasn't supposed to criticize, but then look at the fight with that pubic hair antelope guy! He leaves Priscilla - OH THE IRONY - just to meet with Clare, but then suddenly his recklessness runs out, finito. You can't even blame it on him being tired, he stole a damn horse! "Ooooh, I want to saveeee my frieeee-- actually, no, I'm just gonna cry here, but will make sure to put my sword in a very visible place, so everyone can see I have a sword I've been training with in the last couple of days, but won't do anything with it." Sure, that's pretty reasonable not to charge on a beast like that, but how am I supposed to know when is it "I'm so reckless and stupid, I'll do anything for my loved ones!"-Raki, and when "I'm just gonna be useless for a while for no apparent reason"-Raki? Jeez, at least give him a horn when he does that or something, got me pretty confused. I guess it were the boobs, but more on that later.

What they should've done with Raki is make him a Claymore. Again, no judgement againts the "walking in the storm 0-24" side-story, I think it was pretty deep, got me all teary-eyed like Angel Beats, but MAYBE training him to be a male Claymore, learning about male Claymores and their history, etc would've been more interesting. If you know you're gonna have to do an alternate ending, then you might as well change things up before that as well.

Now, if I've already mentioned boobs... I know I talked about it before, but at the very last episodes human girl Priscilla had well-visible boobs and nipples. Why couldn't they do this before? And why didn't we get an answer to the question about Claymores chest? What's so disgusting about it? I get it, very artistic that they leave it to our imagination, but they are doing it wrong.

While the last quarter of the anime was nearly unwatchable at times because of Raki and this boob-issue pressing (get it?) my mind, there was something else: Claymores and fights. Let's start with the latter. As cool as they were at the beginning, fights slowly but surely degraded into the same unimaginative segmences again and again and again. I'm a Dragon Ball child, so I can watch 100 episodes in a row where people beat the crap out of each other with a huge smirk on my face, and you'd think it's even better because we've got chicks, but no! Suddenly everyone is a non-awakened awakened being (like seriously...), and there are just so many silly things, like this regeneration stuff, which has new rules every episode. Even the last, supposedly most-epic fight was boring as hell, and you can't even blame it on the story. Clare tries to hit Prscilla, but can't, then she transfroms, and she still can't, then I have no idea what happens and now she can. OK.
And Claymores... for the love of God, if you have an order where everyone is a woman and has blonde hair, please, please, PLEASE make them somewhat unique, at least the top 5 member of the order. I could barely remember any of them: Miriam was the cool one, I liked her; Jeane was the retarded one, who thinks wasting her life will make Clare happy for saving her life (I would say "I guess she's a woman after all", but that would be a very rude thing. Still...); that double-swords, masculine one; and the cutie captain who got sliced in half. Jeane doesn't even count to be honest, because if they wouldn't call her by name I'd never figure out who she is. Anyway, is it so hard, to give some of them a different weapon or outfit? Black cape? Red cape? White mark (or sign, whatever that's called)? A more stylish "signature" sword? Anything? The only Claymores who were sold with their characters are Miriam and that cute girl, but the latter had an easy time since she and Priscilla were the only cutie Claymores presented to us, unlike Deneve and co., who were trying so hard to be original, but utterly fail. And this whole awakening process was so... questonable. I have no problems with Claymore SSJ levels, but the way they pulled it off was rather lame.
They also missed out with not showing number 1 and 2 at the end. Jeez, at least give us some fan-service, where they kill some awakened being by just winking at them, or something.

The best part of the show was Teresa, boy she was cool! And when the little girl said at the end of that flashback episode that her name is Clare, I was like "say whaaaaaaaaaaat?". Genuine surprise, even though in hindsight, I guess I should've seen it coming.
That storyline with the war between awakened beings also looked promising.

For example I have no idea who you're referring to when you say
Are you talking about Raki interfering with Clare killing Priscilla? I haven't seen the anime in a while, but I'm sure Clare couldn't kill Priscilla even if she looked like she was going to. Not only that Isley was there and Clare would not be able to beat Isley either. Isley who is much weaker than Priscilla, but still much stronger than Clare given he was a previous rank 1 warrior making him on par with Riful. Except the anime made it so Priscilla was too mentally unstable to fight Clare properly.

As far as fighting what did you expect with Raki's character for him to suddenly develop powers and be relevant in fights when is just a human child? Even him somehow becoming a Claymore wouldn't make that much of a difference given they were going up against Awakened Beings. How would he become a Claymore given only the Organization knows how to make Claymores and it's not like Raki was useless in the series. Besides acting as an anchor for Clare he was fought well against Ophelia when as Clare would have died had he not interfered.

The Jean sacrifice criticism is not valid since the only way Jean knew to bring Clare back was through close contact yoki synchronization otherwise Clare would fully Awaken and probably kill everyone. Of course it wouldn't make anyone happy, but Jean choose to save Clare while sacrificing herself as Jean felt she was going to die anyways given her injuries.

The real answer is to read the manga. As a fan I think the pace has suffered in recent chapter at least the story has a flow and does address some of the criticisms mainly the Raki one. Raki was never supposed to meet Clare in the North and the ending of that arc is very different. Read chapter 59 to see where the anime diverges though you will miss some very slight foreshadowing in previous chapters about the number 1 and 2.

The premise from that cover on every database ever kept me a unit way from it, but fuck it, it's Shaft so it's atleast worth checking out. From the very start it's pretty dazzly and glittery middle school girl shit, which I don't despise but it doesn't offer anything either. Well, suddenly amazing shaft screenplay and one girl gets eaten and never to be seen again, just like that.

After that we get some angst on some characters and that annoying feeling of seperation from your loved one which is kinda cheesy when I think about it, but often everything love related is somewhat cheesy. I didn't think the drama between characters was anything revolutionary - kinda mediocre, but I like how Shinbou makes it to look like something better.

I don't remember it having many lighthearted moments after that but I could be wrong since I am writing this a lot later than I watched it. Characters are almost satire when I think about it and very Shaft-like decision. If madoka was done with any other character type it wouldn't have worked this way to it's own good