- woe me woe me love me.. eh? -

currently listening to - Raison D'etre (nightmare)
mood - cool on the outside, confused on the inside

been fooling around happily when all the other foreign students are apparently preparing for their mid-term tests.

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thought i'd write this as a sidetrack topic but as i wrote my draft it got *very much* longer than i imagined it would be. so here you go, an otaku-ish post.

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fell in love with the manga Claymore recently. actually i started off with the anime, but i couldn't resist from spoiling myself ahahaha... currently the first cliffhanger had just ended in the anime, while i've already updated myself with the newest episode of the manga (Monthly Jump, June 2007).. yay..

to tell the truth, i don't know why i like it. i know that it's really predictable at times, and that it's such a typical adventure-type shounen manga (some people really don't like it because it's "too RPG").. maybe it's coz all this while, i've been reading manga with guys as the main characters (the so-called "heroes" of the stories) and i need some changes?

for claymore, it's different. the girl Clare is the main "hero" and the boy Raki is more like a "heroine", a person who supports and helps the main hero. what's more, the majority of the important characters are female, quite the opposite of Sukisyo! and Princess Princess (like Mai-Hime..)? yeap, girls kicking ass. but then it's not like the guys in this story are weak.. Raki's getting stronger under Easlay's (is the spelling correct??...) training.... and yeah Easlay of Alfons is STRONG.. probably one of the strongest in the manga (after Priscilla).

true, the setting is so RPG, but i'm a person who loves RPG so it doesn't matter. the manga portrays 3 types (?) of living creatures in the world: the demons (they're called the Yoma), the half-human half-yoma, and occassionally the humans.. yeah human vs demon, so typical. i know it's everywhere. take Trinity Blood, Blood+, D.Gray-man, etc etc etc...

the protagonists are the half-human half-yoma beings, and they're all women. they were once human, but turned into half-yoma because they took the yoma's flesh and blood. and trained (by an anti-yoma organisation) into warriors to kill all yoma, the antagonists (obviously). it's Ragnarok Online all over again!!!!! paladins and crusaders everywhere hahaha... and these girls are called Claymore by public because they fight with claymores. they are ranked by numbers based on their strengths and potentials. Clare's no.47, the lowest ranking, probably because she's only a quarter yoma (she took the flesh and blood of the deceased no.1 Teresa, who's killed by Priscilla)...

you might wonder why this species consists of only women. according to the manga, the organisation used to bring up male warriors, a long time ago. however these men couldn't control the yoma's force in them (apparently controlling the force is like controlling one's sexual desire, and men are weak at this perspective) and they turned into pure yoma very easily.

of course, female warriors will eventually turn into yoma too, but not as fast as men. and warriors who turned into yoma are called the Awakened(覚醒者). the Awakened are very hard to be defeated, especially the stronger ones like Easley (ex-no.1), Priscilla (ex-no.2?), Lucera (ex-no.1, killed by her own sister no.5 Rafaela. EDIT 12 Jun: apparently she killed Rafaela before Rafaela could kill her...), Riful (ex-no.1), Ligardes (ex-no.2, killed by Clare)... in fact, a few of the protagonists were half-Awakened, but they somehow managed to return to the human side - Clare (awakened twice?), no.6 Milia, no.9 Jean/Gene (Ligardes gave her a fatal blow, and she died stopping Clare's 2nd awakening), no.15 Denev and no.22 Helen.....

oops this post is full of spoilers..

actually the anime had just reached the death of Teresa (!!Paku Romi kakkoiiii!!!!!!!!).. but judging by the speed of the anime, i can see why the producer made it a 26 episode series and not longer. the anime's catching up fast. after reminiscing her past with Teresa, Clare's gonna battle together with Milia and the others, against the Awakened. and later she will encounter the worst warrior ever, no.4 Ophelia, who kills both humans and yoma without hesitation (even though killing human is against the rules). hence Clare and Raki (who were together all this while) will separate, for a very long time... 7 years... fortunately Clare didn't die because she was saved by Conan... a.k.a ex-no.2 Irene (pronunciation: ee-reh-neh). she's kakkoii tooooo!!!...........

okay i think i have to stop otherwise there'll be no more surprises (eh, for who?) .. i apologise for being so otaku today..

last spoiler: like i said just now, Raki's currently with Easley. how ironic (and PREDICTABLE!!!), that the protagonist is together with the antagonist, without realising each other's true identities. sigh.. oh, and Priscilla's living with them too, Easley's in love with her. XD

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by the way, is it me or something's wrong with the opening theme's lyrics.. i didn't know the word "woe" can be used as a verb... (for reference, the youtube video >>>>>>)

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1) kakkoii - cool. awesome.