Well, I figured that most of the Claymores were going to be bite it, but I’m still not sure which ones bit it specifically due to the Lion King’s rampage. I’m guessing that only the gals in Clare’s little cabal have survived this assault? I bet they’re all thinking that it would’ve been a good idea to ally with Riful right about now. Work smarter, not harder… then double-cross her when she lets her guard down.
Even if’s a little distracting that seemingly half of the male cast is voiced by the same guy doing Raki, there’s an amazing sense of tension hanging over him for his little sub-plot. You get the sense that he’d be a splotch of guts in the snow, right now, if he actually realized the depth of the shit he’s in. I’m really less surprised that Priscilla’s still bound to her flesh-eating ways as I am by how Raki didn’t find that out because she was chowing down on him. The reasonable guess is that she senses his Yoma-related family tragedy and sympathizes with it. The entertaining guess is that all these strong women in this world just find this pliant, emotional guy to be ferociously attractive boy toy material.
We’ve got five episodes left and there’s a tall order of things I’d like to see resolved in that time. Judging by my experience, though, and by the warnings of you lunatics, I’m starting to get the sinking feeling that little of what I want is probably going to be resolved in any satisfactory way. Maybe I ought to just to say (preemptively) that perhaps it just isn't a good idea to adapt a manga into an anime when the print series still hasn’t finished yet? It seems to be a frequent source of shows losing their way.
Watch this episode "Invasion of Pieta (Part 1)" below, decide for yourself and then read my comments on the previous episode here.
Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here. Follow him on Twitter: @tompinchuk
As to this episode, I was not expecting Raki to still be alive at this point. I figured he would either train to be a male warrior or die providing motivation for Claire to become emotionally stronger. Since Raki still seemed like a wimp at this point, I was going for the latter.
The survivors of this massacre executed by Rigardo were Clare, Miria, Deneve, Helen, Jean (of course those five survived. though I think Jean died in that battle in the manga) Cynthia. Zelda, Uma, and Tabitha
(there are others still alive like Galatea elsewhere too, but they were not part of the battle)
EDIT: Of course a couple of those who survived Rigardo will die too
@Lurkero: If it is unsure whether a show is going to have a second season following it, a studio is generally not going to do a cliff hanger ending. There are some other series in the genre that does the same thing: has to shoe horn in an ending because the second season they thought they had suddenly fizzled.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a cliff hanger, just the ending of that arc in the manga. That would satisfy me at least.
Just think about how Full Metal Alchemist or Samurai X ended. Those shows could have went on hiatus until the respective manga produced enough content for new seasons, but they chose to instead deviate from the mangaka's intentions and create their own plot. It's not like FMA or Samurai X were unpopular shows, so I think the audience would have picked them back up when they began again. Now Rurouni Kenshin appears to be getting the same treatment as FMA: Brotherhood in that they will redo the series and stick closer to the manga.
Another anime series that I enjoyed, Hunter X Hunter, will get this treatment also. So I guess the only options are to stop the show and create a fake ending or wait some years so that the show can be remade from scratch. It's a result of the fast production time anime undergoes as opposed to Western cartoons that stretch their seasons throughout the year.
If I were a person that didn't know that the Claymore anime was based on a manga, or I didn't know that the story continued, that would be a very unsatisfying end, especially if another season wasn't made.
I would tend to agree that would have been a less satisfying way to end the anime since it's story did not continue further