Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryus
Funny! I always thought the main land was to the Southeast (well East to South, I should say). My reasoning is simpler then yours... Claymore just has too many parallels to ancient England and not Japan.
In short the island is full of Caucasians and it in a + shape (plus the way it is divided by the general public, get into later) which reminds me of England. Look in the spoiler below and you'll see a wall the Romans built in ancient England and if you don't include the land north of the wall... well, England looks like a +, just like the island Claymore takes place upon.
As you can see by the comparison they are very close!
Since the island shape looks so close to the part of England that Rome conqured I always just put the mainland in my mind to the southeast but father away, since if I follow the parallel of the island being England then rest of Europe is to the east and south of England. Plus just the general idea of the mainland being at the same latitude as the northern lands isn't an idea I like in general, since I imaging Yagi picking a different geography to draw to show the readers that we're now in a different land. I imagine the main land being as big as the "Old World" here.
I always saw the island being broken into 47 regions is for Japanese readers... so they can have some feeling of "home" in a European story. Plus 47 is cooler then an even number like 50, rounded numbers are used too much.
Well, as you can see my reasoning for the direction of the mainland is rather simple but I like it. Oh, and before I forget there is a parallel of Rome controlling a small island like England and the Organization doing the same with the island. In fact if you want to you could even draw another parallel with Rome fighting Huns and the Org fighting the Dragon's kin.
Ok now for how the general public see the land. Here is a map of how the regions England was didvided into. They are Northumbria (the parallel of the northern lands of Alfonse), East Anglia (The parallel of the eastern lands of Sutare (manga) / Sutafu (anime)), Wessex (the parallel of the southern lands of Mucha), Wales (the parallel of the western lands of luatrec), and Mercia (the parallel of the central lands of Toulouse or Robana (I forget what it is too )).
Now for another funny parallel England is now 46 counties but in it has 48 ceremonial counties... an average of 47.
Also the civilization in Claymore is clearly closer to England than Japan. So I always imagine ancient England in my mind when reading Claymore, never Japan.
Well, that's my thoughts on the matter but in the long run as long as the main land is East, South, or West it doesn't really matter to the story, as long as it's not due North since no two superpowers could come into existence in a frozen wasteland.  There could be no farms to support the population requirements needed for a civilization to develop. Yagi will tell use the mainlands direction eventually. |
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nice post..... never even realize the closeness-similarity to england (sorry i mean U.K., any scotish or irish forgive me, i'm american and am used to "england" for the name of the country)
though, there's nothing that ACTUALLY says it is connected to U.K. It probably very well is based on the U.K. as you done a terrific job showing me/us, but that doesn't mean it is the U.K. It doesn't mean that the continent has to be south east of the island.
and when i said east, i meant in general east of the island. the continent could be north-east, (directly) east, south-east, or any of the 180 degrees from north and south of the island towards the east, for that matter.
you don't need to explain european history to me, i'm an american, and we are crammed with "europe" history in our education system, and I personally love european (especially U.K.'s) medieval-dark age history, and i am a "history-buff"-well i like history anyways, which is why i love claymore so much, hehe. *grins*
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this isn't a history site for the dark-age medieval U.K. and europe ... you don't want to get me started.....
back than, the U.K. was known as britain or england
back than, europe was known as britany (= greater "britain" = europe continent)
and i believe.... (any european feel free to correct me if i got any of this wrong)
west was wales. welsh ethnicity.
north was scotish, irish, worgs (natives of the island). later vikings would conquer-control it. hadrian (a roman) built his wall protecting the "wild-barbaric" north from the "civilized" roman controlled south.
east was saxony. controlled-conquered by the saxons which came from "germany" (germanic tribes area, the "old" roman empire was still in existence, and "germany" wasn't christened yet by charlagmane and wasn't part of the holy roman empire yet. think Gladiator movie)
south was roman controlled (i'm not sure about this, were the celts, half natives half romans? or is this completely wrong?)