The Anime Drone

Claymore 01 - Scene 01

2007-04-26T23:59:00.001+02:00

Claymore delivers exactly what it's name implies: medieval fantasy sword fighting - and lot's of it. However the heroine of this anime is not some wimpy girl high up in a castle waiting to be saved, but rather a claymore (referring to her huge sword) herself - a half-human, half-demon mercenary. That's right: half-human, half-demon. Which means there have to be actual demons too - and that's exactly what she hunts for a living. It's clearly far from the most cheerful anime of this season, if not the darkest of them all. But first - let's get on with a little introduction to Claymore's setting shall we?

Background

The world has become infested with demonic shape-shifting creatures called Yoma. In response a group of half-Yoma beings (all female) - called Claymore by the regular populace (due to their huge swords) - decides to hire out it's services to whichever town can afford them. These mercenaries scour the lands, defeating Yoma wherever they go. The Claymores are understandably unpopular with the locals due to their half-Yoma nature, but receive many assignments regardless of their background because they're also the only people who can distinguish between a human and a Yoma - not to mention the only people capable of defeating a Yoma.

Episode Summary

The episode starts with a Yoma which is feeding on a woman it has just murdered. Suddenly a Claymore appears in the distance - and just as the Yoma charges towards her, she rushes in and slices it into pieces. Then it shifts to a small village which is suffering from a series of Yoma murders. As the village council gathers, the elder announces that they'll be receiving help from one of the dreaded Claymore. The council is outraged that the elder is letting one of the 'silver-eyed witches' into town, but is soon silenced by him.

Outside a young boy called Raki stands to meet his brother who just returned from the council meeting, when suddenly the town bursts out into an uproar as a Claymore approaches the village. Most everyone goes out to watch, but fearfully moves out of her way quickly. However Raki is interested and follows her around town - but she tries to warn him off. Raki doesn't listen and keeps following her - and when he calls her a Claymore she reveals that that is not what they call themselves. Towards the end of the day the two stop at the edge of the village. Both of them sit down and Raki tells the girl about how his parents were killed by the Yoma and only he and his brother survived the attack - although Raki passed out in between the slaughter. Before Raki leaves to cook dinner for the people that let him stay over, he ask the girl for her name - which she refuses to say, because he'll just forget it. Then he tells her that he'll treat her to some of his delicious cooking later and leaves.

Later that day Raki returns home only to find his uncle murdered by the Yoma - as he steps back shocked he notices his brother in a corner... except it's not his brother, but the Yoma. After a futile attack the Yoma grabs Raki and only moments before it kills him - they're interrupted from above by the Claymore (with golden eyes this time) crashing down through the roof, slicing off the Yoma's arm. After some screaming it charges at her, but she's too fast and slices it in half before it can react. Raki is left trembling - as the woman wipes off the blood on her sword and leaves the village.

Some time after the events earlier in the episode, Raki is wandering through the desert - having been outcast from his village for fear that he might turn into a Yoma too. He passes out - and wakes up shortly thereafter in an inn in a different town. Raki hears from the innkeeper that he was brought in by a silver-eyed witch and immediately races out to find her. Just as he's about to give up, someone passes by an tells him that a Claymore was looking for him and waiting in the forest just outside the village.
Raki makes it to the forest, but he finds an entirely different Claymore waiting there. It soon becomes apparent that this is not a Claymore at all since it refers to itself as a Claymore - Raki notices this, but it's already too late as the disguised Yoma grabs him and calls out to the real Claymore - the one who saved Raki earlier. She appears and the three find themselves in a stand-off situation.

The Yoma demands that the silver-eyed witch throw her weapon away, or she'll kill the boy. It's convinced that the girl will reply as it saw her carry Raki into town earlier. Surprisingly the Claymore does throw away her weapon - an opportunity the Yoma gladly utilizes to rush forward and pierce the girl with it's arm. The Yoma relaxes - thinking it has won the battle, but the girl somehow contracts her muscles to stop the bleeding and then pulls the Yoma along with herself over the cliff. When they reach the bottom the girl reaches for her Claymore and slices off the Yoma's hand - only to finish the job mere seconds later by cutting it's head in half.

After this fierce battle the Claymore drops down to her knee from her wound, but then proceeds to tend to it - pulling out the arm and somehow still stopping it from bleeding any further. Raki quickly rushes down and apologizes for what happened to her because of him - to which she replies that she didn't do it for him, but only because it was the best option at the time to kill the Yoma. He then says he doesn't care about any of that and he'll never forget her. She then asks him if he was outcast from his village... upon which she sees some sort of flashback of her past.

After the flashback she asks Raki to accompany her as a cook. Surprised Raki doesn't really know how to respond, but as the Claymore starts walking off into the distance he shouts out for her name. 'It's Clare' she replies - to which he smiles and runs out after her - on to further adventures...

Impressions

I hadn't heard about this anime before viewing it and was most pleasantly surprised. It's certainly one of the darker anime this season, with an unusually grim setting and plenty of blood flowing throughout the episode. The story seems really interesting and this episode raised a lot of questions - such as why the Claymore are all female, why does she decide to take Raki along with her and what was that flashback all about? It all seems very interesting - and I hope Madhouse will manage to keep it at this level and reveal those answers as the anime progresses.
The visuals are certainly unique, with superb backgrounds - and rather unusual character design. I like the way most of the characters look, but the Claymore's faces look a tad off-putting and very similar to one another. Regardless the animation is splendid - with some really nice battles throughout the episode. The way Clare acts like an actual mercenary is pretty cool, with little regard for doing the right thing, but more for profit - so far. In terms of music Madhouse nailed it... I particularly liked the background music during the final Yoma fight of the episode - and hopefully they've got more similar such themes reserved for future episodes.

As for the opening and ending sequences. The opening song (Raison D’être) will be loved by fans of Death Note as it's done by Nightmare - but the animating is rather sub par. The ending sequence was fairly bland, but I liked the song (Danzai no Hana~Guilty Sky~ by Kosaka Riyu) a lot better than the opening song - it seems to suit the anime rather well. Neither was particularly good, but they weren't disappointing either - all in all just very mediocre.

In the end this first episode of Claymore managed to hook me pretty good. Whether it's the callous lead female character or the mysterious story so far... something just makes me want to watch the second episode right now - and all the others while I'm at it. Claymore has it's flaws - and might be a tad too serious and bloody for some people - but I'm loving it... and I'll certainly be covering further episodes of this new anime. As for my rating of this episode - I decided upon an 8.5 out of 10.

Heroic Age 01 - Ruined Planet

2007-04-25T12:23:00.000+02:00

Heroic Age... a title that would ordinarily invoke thoughts of a fantasy world with brave - and generic - ironclad heroes fighting with gigantic tentacle creatures who stole their women. Instead this anime takes place in the distant future, centering around the mech- and lasers powered journeys of a powerful individual (think Tekkaman) called 'Age'. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, before we can delve into this anime an introduction to it's universe is in order.

History of the Universe (corny ftw!)

Many years before the adventures depicted in Heroic Age, the oldest and wisest race in the universe - the Golden tribe - sends out a message for all who can to come forth. Three races reply - the Bronze, Hero and Silver tribes. Whereas the Bronze and Silver tribes depart relatively peacefully (you know, the whole massive fleets leaving their planet's orbit thing) the Hero tribe actually has some style and just blows up their whole planet leaving only some mecha behind.
Just as the Golden tribe prepares to depart this universe, a fourth race comes forth - mankind sends forth an exodus ship - and is thusly named the Iron tribe. Their ship lands on a distant planet, with only a single baby remaining inside. This baby is then 'adopted' by the Golden tribe and infused with the Hero tribe's essence - before they depart the universe at long last.

Episode Summary

It's been many decades since the human exodus ship landed on a distant planet - and the iron tribe has come a long way since then. The episode opens with a human princess (Deianeira-sama) telepathically scouting the way for a large carrier ship - finally coming upon the place of their destiny as was conveyed to them oh so many years ago by the Golden tribe. Back on the spaceship (called the Argonaut) itself, which seems more like a space faring city, captain Mobead discusses the pointlessness of their quest and whines about some other random stuff with an AI creature called B-Navi. After which he's summoned to a meeting in the briefing room with the princess.

A sizable group of individuals is assembled in the briefing room where Deianeira informs them that she has spotted their goal - a lost colony ship (yes the one from the little history lesson before) marooned on a half destroyed planet. According to legend this planet, called Oron, is supposed to hold the savior of man. Strangely it seems that the princess cannot tolerate any male presence within a certain distance from her, which probably has something to do with her telepathic powers.

On the planet itself a wild young boy called Age (yes that's where the anime's title seems to be from) takes off a tentacle (yes, tentacle beasts after all!) of an indigenous lifeform for food. He heads back to the crashed spaceship in order to get his food processed - and apparently seems to consider it to be his mother - after which he thanks the tentacle beast (Futo) by feeding it a tree (which he impressively squashed with his hands).
Shortly thereafter the humans arrive with a landing party consisting of dozens of mechs and a small landing craft containing the princess herself. A small scouting party is sent into the crashed spaceship - and two psychic girls (Mayl and Tayl) fix it up again, only to be surprised from behind by Age, who sends them running of scared shitless.

Outside the spaceship the two psychic girls try to slow Age down with force fields, but those don't do anything to him so the princess decides to talk to him. As they are conversing, a massive sphere from the Bronze tribe is approaching the planet and the Argonaut prepares for battle. The people on the planet respond by taking off quickly, but Deianeira fails to convince Age to join them - leaving him stuck as giant ants descend all over the planet.

One of the human mech pilots, Iolaus, tries to take out the alien scouts by teleporting several units to them but he's too late. Shortly thereafter the crashed spaceship gets hammered by impacting aliens - and one suddenly lands right in front of Age. While the mechs and aliens continue fighting in the air - Age gets blasted by green goo from one of them bugs. Just as things start looking grim for the human forces, Age comes forth from the green haze and transforms into a giant mech from the Hero tribe himself.

With a single punch he blasts through dozens of aliens and smashes a hole into a mountain several miles away. As aliens refocus their efforts to take him down he takes to space and penetrates the alien sphere's shielding effortlessly. A relatively tiny alien commander in the center of the ship is shaking in his cradle as Age suddenly peeks in and blasts the entire sphere to smithereens. The aliens repond to this destruction by fleeing, as Age and masses of debris crashes down to the planet. Just before the end - Deianeira recognizes his mech as the final Nodos - within it a lone human kept by the Hero tribe.

Impressions

I was very impressed by this episode. I had absolutely no expectations going into this anime, but this episode ranks it clearly amongst the top of this season so far. The entire episode emanated style and a truly epic feeling, ranging from the drop-dead gorgeous backgrounds to the engaging musical score. Indeed even the mecha designs were quite good, although somewhat reminiscent of Zone of the Enders and the combat was awesomely animated.
In terms of character design, Heroic Age looks a lot like Fafner in the Azure which means a fair few people might dislike it. I never minded the character design in Fafner though - and I kind of like it here too. Yes most of the cast comes across overly familiar, but each of them is presented in such a manner that you simply cannot care about such trivial things when watching this.

Nothing about the setting or characters is particularly innovative, but it's presentation throughout the episode is very captivating. None of the characters, except perhaps Age - because he's so innocent and energetic, seem particularly interesting in their own right - but they totally suit the story and that's what makes them entertaining to watch nonetheless. The only two characters I think might turn out to be annoying later on are Mayl and Tayl - although they might just as well become awesome cute and comical relief it simply depends on how well Xebec develops it's story as Heroic Age progresses.
Upon looking back at the episode the characters give me a distinct 'been-there-done-that' feeling, most of the main characters being near carbon-copies of the main characters in Sousei no Aquarion. Yet when watching the episode again, none of that registers at all. The story simply overtakes any generic character types present - and turns it into a most enjoyable and even fresh experience.

I don't know if it's because I like science-fiction and mecha anime, or because this episode is simply amazingly crafted, but I was sucked in the moment the narrator said Golden tribe and it didn't let go until the ending theme (which I didn't like too much). I hear they've hired Angela for the opening theme though, so that should be very good when it's added in the next episode. As for now - I can't do anything else but rate this a 9.2 out of 10.

The Anime Drone Revived!

2007-04-25T00:45:00.000+02:00

Welcome to The Anime Drone - an anime blog from the perspective of a largely mecha and science-fiction anime fan. I decided to start blogging in order to present well-written anime reviews and impressions (like The Game Drone for PC gaming) as well as my own opinion on all those awesome anime out there. The writing style I'll utilize for this blog might be a bit abnormal in anime blogging - so I'll try to introduce it a bit as I go along in this post.
More importantly it should be noted that The Anime Drone has been around before (originally started exactly one year ago) and this blog will not be similar in terms of both form and writing. This blog will be both a more personal affair and feature a much more structured writing style. Some of the old entries might return in rewritten form however.

What to Expect

The Anime Drone will be home to my opinion on recent - and not so recent - anime and anything related to it. This will be in the form of episodic reviews, first impressions, anime reviews, previews, recurring features and whatever else I can think off as I go about my anime blogging! The main strength for this blog (aside from quality writing) should - eventually - be it's consistency... posting episode reviews on the same day every week, having recurring features every first day of the month, that sort of thing.
I've compiled a small list of currently planned entries in order to illustrate what I mean by a varied selection of anime coverage. It might take some time for each of these to be finished and uploaded, but for now they should serve as proper examples of the kind of entries you might expect from me as an anime blogger. Enjoy:

"Everyone loves Fillers" - article
Heroic Age episodic coverage
Monthly best anime selection
Pale Cocoon review
Picture parody on Heroic Age episode 01

Anime Preference

Of course I'll be blogging about anime I am watching and liking - in my own, not-quite-otaku, manner. So don't expect any extensive insight into Japanese popular culture, instead you can expect plenty of enjoyable reading (and viewing) regarding current, past and upcoming anime! My main preference lies with the mecha and science fiction genres, but this is a very loosely based preference and I tend to like - and watch - a wide variety of anime.
Regardless the anime I'll be most likely to cover on this blog will be the mecha and science fiction anime airing in a particular season. Plenty of other genres will grace this blog, but I expect the mainstay to be science fiction in the end. Then again you can't really predict this kind of thing, so let's get to blogging!

Concluding

Hopefully this introduction to The Anime Drone has managed to provide you with somewhat of an impression as to what this blog will be like. I invite you to revisit this blog again in the coming days and weeks as the blogging gets off to a start. The first episode review (Heroic Age first impressions to be precise) should be up by tomorrow afternoon, until then please do leave any ideas, suggestions, shout outs or other responses in a comment to this entry! ;)