Claymore - General Discussion Thread

[NoSanninWa]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

Since there's so many people interested in this (and it was the fastest sub of the season to come out), why don't we get a separated subforum in the Current Series forum? I mean, that way all the manga readers can keep spoiling away in their separate thread.

The manga readers ALREADY have a separate thread to discuss the manga in. It's right here:

Claymore (manga)

Here's a little message to everyone who wants to talk about the manga here: Knowing the future of this story doesn't make you cool, so get over it. Telling others about future episodes of Claymore makes you a jerk.

[physics223]

Please don't spoil the manga ... it's irritating, to say the least.

[Zu Ra]

Anxiously waiting for the ep to download 4 months of wait has finally paid off : D

[Skane]

Random Thoughts on Ep01:
---- ----

• Holy fast-forwards, Batman. I suppose Madhouse wants to get to the meat of the story ASAP, but the rapid pacing was a bit jarring. Thankfully, according to the preview, the pacing should calm down soon.
  
  The 3rd Arc is all kinds of awesome, but the remainder of Arc-01 and Arc-02 are pretty nifty too, and important for fleshing out the world of Claymore. Unless you action-addicts want an episode filled with NOTHING but exposition. *shudder*
  .
• I have no complaints about the VAs. I especially like Raki's VA.
  .
• Despite the majority, I actually liked the BGM. Non-intrusive BGMs are my favourites, as it does not detract from what is important. The animation unfolding on the screen itself. BGMs should enhance the experience, not distract from it. This is after all, an anime, not a music video.
  .
• I do have one complaint about the anime though. Damn, it's dark, and I'm not talking about the atmosphere. It was annoying to have so many scenes obscured in darkness, making it very hard to discern what is actually happening.
  .
• Theresa in the OP!
  .
• They really glossed over the details in Clare's flashbacks.

Looking forward to more of Claymore in animated form. This was the series I was looking forward to the most this season other than MSLN StrikerS.

Cheers.

[Burner of Anime]

Opps, first penalty in a long time though some of Claire's character is pretty obvious from the first episode. Girl has a soft spot for hard luck cases no matter what sort of ice queen she appears to be.

Thing is, she is now dragging a boy several years younger than she is like some sort of pet or toy. The fanfiction possibilities are simply endless It's pretty rare to have a story where the female lead is WAY more mature than her opposite. The dynamics from the age difference itself should prove interesting. At the very least the shota-fanfics should rejoice at the pairing.

Now, how long will it take for this show to be given a section of it's own.

[Fenrir_valindri]

Originally Posted by Burner of Anime

Spoiler for lots from the manga:

I believe I can sum up many of the female characters in this show as follows:

They have been abandoned by their various communities.
They are sexually frustrated [try having it and risk turning into gut eating monsters]
They fight monsters for money [none of which they'll ever see].
They are all expendable by the organisation they work for.
In order to battle monsters, their training and conditioning is such that their emotion centers shut down.
[/Snip]

From what I have read of the manga (up to vol 7 and seen the RAWS up to 11) only 2 out of those 5 statements are right, I do not wish to clarify more in fear of handing out spoilers, spoilers are bad for new fans afterall.


On the first episode; I do believe they did a good job overall for the introduction episode, in all honesty the Claymore manga did not really grab me until volume 3, so I can understand why some people are not raving mad over the anime this early on. All I can offer is try to give it a few more episodes and see if it catches your interest further, it only gets better.

The music wierded me out at first, with its constantly changing styles, but the ending song was great imo.

The dark atmosphere in several of the scenes was quite well done too, it gave the Yoma a much more intimidating appearance that they lacked in the early volumes of the Manga.

So overall I liked it alot, hopefully they do even better on the later episodes!

[toxic_trance]

Orewa atarashi Claymore thread no hoshi....I think its pretty obvious with the number of replies that this series needs to be in the Current Discussion thread..am i wrong???

[Quajafrie]

Awesome. I want more. I love Madhouse so much.

[Nightengale]

Not...bad.

There was something somewhat missing in the anime experience of Claymore. I can't quite grasp what it is...

Regardless, for it's worth, it's a decent episode. Sure, it didn't have l33t animation or what-not, but the accompanying BGM and the atmosphere in the non-dark scenes (( which was as bad as some D.Gray-Man episodes )) was chillingly fitting for the world of Claymore. It had the sense of gray-ness that I liked in the manga. Not so much faithful, but I'm not complaining.

[lommm]

i wonder how this will do in Japan. does anyone know when tv ratings come out there? i'm curious how this was rated.


i have a question: is the series really this dark or is that some degredation during the capture->raw->sub process? if it's that dark, it must be torture for encoders...



AND A BIG APOLOGY TO EVERYONE!!

i was one of those who was discussing manga here (even under spoilers) and i realize there's a manga thread for that discussion. so you will get zero more new posts in this thread from me regarding anything in the manga unless it's animated equivalent has already aired. hopefully the other readers will do the same.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by lommm

i wonder how this will do in Japan. does anyone know when tv ratings come out there? i'm curious how this was rated.

Dont know if there are ratings for the first episode already, but you may want to keep checking this thread in case someone post them there.

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by lommm

i have a question: is the series really this dark or is that some degredation during the capture->raw->sub process? if it's that dark, it must be torture for encoders...

It is so dark. There's no degradation in the encoding process responsible for the colors. And I don't believe in artificially "lighting up" the footage, I prefer to stick with the original the artists intended. Other releases might disagree there, though. We'll see.

A general problem is that the show has a very atypical frame balance. The backgrounds are extremely detailed (look at wood and stones), therefore it's nearly impossible to use normal encoding chains with smoothing/deblocking, because this would massively degrade those background details and leave a strange "artificial" look. That's why I was extremely apprehensive early on, because in the ultra-dark hi-motion scenes, blocking couldn't be avoided, and for the reason outlines above, I could hardly combat it. On the plus side, one raw was relatively clean with only few blocks in the dark, so a strong deblocking wasn't even necessary.

So, I wouldn't say it's "torture" for encoders, but it sure is no walk in the park either.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally Posted by Mentar

It is so dark. There's no degradation in the encoding process responsible for the colors. And I don't believe in artificially "lighting up" the footage, I prefer to stick with the original the artists intended. Other releases might disagree there, though. We'll see.

A general problem is that the show has a very atypical frame balance. The backgrounds are extremely detailed (look at wood and stones), therefore it's nearly impossible to use normal encoding chains with smoothing/deblocking, because this would massively degrade those background details and leave a strange "artificial" look. That's why I was extremely apprehensive early on, because in the ultra-dark hi-motion scenes, blocking couldn't be avoided, and for the reason outlines above, I could hardly combat it. On the plus side, one raw was relatively clean with only few blocks in the dark, so a strong deblocking wasn't even necessary.

So, I wouldn't say it's "torture" for encoders, but it sure is no walk in the park either.

The first episode was much better (encoding-wise) than the first half-season of D.Gray-man, in which half of the actions scenes appeared to consist of some gray blocks filmed on a moonless night. But I did notice that it was very dark overall, which was an odd artistic choice as it makes all the detail and action hard to see.

[NoSanninWa]

Originally Posted by toxic_trance

Orewa atarashi Claymore thread no hoshi....I think its pretty obvious with the number of replies that this series needs to be in the Current Discussion thread..am i wrong???

It's much too early to say. Previously some series have started out with a lot of discussion and ended up with very little. We're going to wait a bit before we make up our minds.

[lommm]

It's much too early to say. Previously some series have started out with a lot of discussion and ended up with very little. We're going to wait a bit before we make up our minds.

methinks thou speakest of Pumpkin Scissors & Asatte no Houkou, among others. :P

So, I wouldn't say it's "torture" for encoders, but it sure is no walk in the park either.

thanks for that response. it told me a lot. i realize now that the framing balance was what felt strange when i watched the raw (definitely no the more common "more than half, less that half" approach to light and dark balance). i'm going to go watch the sub now and pay close attention to this. it's interesting to me.

Dont know if there are ratings for the first episode already, but you may want to keep checking this thread in case someone post them there.

thanks for pointing me to that thread. such a big discussion over there. it will take me a while to get caught up on that thread...

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

It's much too early to say. Previously some series have started out with a lot of discussion and ended up with very little. We're going to wait a bit before we make up our minds.

I see your point, but I believe that Claymore is so popular that it will definitely keep going. Shonen Jump is a major booster.

Also, we're talking about 25.000 downloads 19 hours after release...

[Crystal_Method]

I hope to god that this show stays popular, but it's hogging all of the fansubbers. If only one of those fansub groups would go and pick up overdrive instead...

[Skyfall]

Well, it was not bad for a first episode. The pacing was trough the roof, but hey - i guess they want to get the main plot rolling as soon as possible. (Any idea how many eps this is, any one ? )

But somehow it felt...lacking. I can't pinpoint exactly what. Perhaps the color palette ... perhaps the music (Which was so unmemorable that i can't remember any of it while writing this, though i finished the ep 10 min ago )... perhaps it was lacking in atmosphere due to turbospeed pacing. Can't say i was very fond of the purple blood either.

Overall it was pretty good and it is definitely a keeper for me, but i hope it gets better. Didn't like the OP much ... ED, on the other hand, was very much to my liking.

[Anh_Minh]

Agreed on the music. I remember kind of liking the OP and being indifferent to the ED, but I can't for the life of me remember what they sounded like.

Also, I thought the Claymores' hair would be white. Blond is too human.

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Blond is too human.

Well, they are half human --- so sticking to blond hair makes more sense, and looks better in my opinion.