If there is one thing the internet has enough of, it is hate. Hate for shows, hate for people, and plenty of hate for characters. Unfortunately, we will be spreading such ire today. What would our former post be without its companion piece? However, I would like to point out this post isn’t about bad characters or poorly written development, it is about characters we dislike for inherent flaws in their personalities. I would even argue, if I can passionately oppose a character that means they are actually written rather fully. Once again we are trying to explore what, if anything, it means to dislike a character with such fervor. This, much differently from the previous post, can get a bit hairy and quite intense at times. But we will do our best to be respectful. Maybe.

I really hate fake strong female characters. They are female characters that the writers try to pass off as strong but are really just weak. Cecily Cambell from The Sacred Blacksmith is a prime example. We are supposed to believe that she is a strong swordswoman that can defend her self. But she mostly goes around being useless. This annoys me more that the standard token chick because at least you don’t have high expectations out of them. Another great example is Clarice from Claymore. Also belligerent women than are actually weak but the writers mistake being confrontational with strong. The fact that they kept portraying Sheryl Nome as a strong woman when she is clearly just fronting to hide her deep insecurities. The fact that people rally behind her as some sort of symbol of feminine strength really ticks me off. Also the fact that show never acknowledges any of Sheryl’s behaviors as anything but a virtue. This is in contrast to Ami Kawashima from Toradora whose same actions are seen as the weakness and defense mechanisms that they are. The other character that stood out to me as being horrible was Takumi Nishijo from Chaos;Head. He had to be one of the most unlikable protagonists I have ever seen. People usually complain about harem leads being generic and unsympathetic. Takumi has all the traits that make harem leads so hated and then either exaggerates those traits or has even worse traits on top of that. He is selfish, petty, lecherous, misanthropic, and just a disgusting human being. At least I felt some amount of sympathy for Tatsuhiro Sato from Welcome to the NHK. I have not one iota of good will towards Takumi and could not drag myself through a show with him as the lead.

I can be a harsh critic when it comes to character flaws, so where to draw the line was a little more difficult because once again this isn’t just about annoying characters, it is about characters that sort of epitomize traits that I dislike above all else. First up is a woman whose death I called for as each episode she further gathered my dislike, oh Flay Allster (from Gundam SEED), how I will always recall your attempts (and successes) at being a racist solipsist who uses her femininity in the worst ways with hatred. One must draw the line at trying to get nice guys killed. Squarely in the middle is Sakujun (from The Story of Saiunkoku) who has something not quite right about him from the moment you lay eyes on him. Sakujun acts in such a roundabout way that he takes advantage of good people so much so he borders, no, he is mentally abusive. He portrays the ultimate ends of using guilt and obligation to get what you want. And to round things out is Misa (from Death Note) whose ridiculous obsession with Kira makes her a gothic doormat. Her inability to see the things right in front of her is phenomenal and intensely frustrating as is her attempt to see anything Light does as love.

The oddity for me is Hinagiku Katsura from Hayate the Combat Butler. I normally adore characters like her. She has pink hair, she uses a sword, she is proud and confidante but kind and supportive and she loves someone from afar. But for some reason I really don’t like her as much as the rest of the cast. Unlike say Narutaki who actively hates Sanji I just don’t really like Hinagiku. I can’t put my finger on what exactly I dislike about her that stops me from liking her the way everyone else worships her. I do on the other hand get all worked up about her fandom that insists that the manga should be about her and that she is the best character ever. It is like everyone would rather be reading Hinagiku the Combat Student Council President. I myself like the lead characters as they are.

A character I have trouble understanding my dislike (this may be too tame of a word) for is Sanji (from One Piece). By all normal circumstances, he should rank rather high for me but it never happened. Sanji’s got a laid back style, he cooks, and he is a good fighter but something about his love sickness really doesn’t jive with me. And I also think this particular case has also boggled the minds of many of my close friends.

The challenge is the same as before. Take what we have given you and try and make an analysis of our character from the characters we hate. Also feel free to write in the characters you hate and what you think it means about you. I did find it a little harder to choose characters I hated than Narutaki. I think we both have affection for charters as deep as the other one. I think we also both like a wide variety of characters. The biggest challenge was for use to narrow out lists down to 3 characters. But for some reason I have a harder time hating characters.

I feel like just writing this helped me learn a bit about myself!

Poor Raki from Claymore has fallen into this chasm of despisement along with Saji and Lousie from Gundam 00. There are surely more to be told of but these three have been on my radar of late. Oh, how short-sighted of you people!

Let us first examine the youth known as Raki. He is maybe 14-years-old when he and Clare first meet and start their wandering together. Clare sees a part of herself and who she once was in Raki and their bond becomes extremely important. What makes Raki so significant is that there isn’t a story without him. Clare would have awakened in just a few chapters and there would be nothing left. Even putting that aside, Clare’s character growth hinges on this boy. Really, Clare is not so interesting in the beginning. She starts to become an interesting, multi-dimensional character thanks to her continued interactions with Raki. Raki brings some of her humanity back to her. That humanity is what moves her to question what the Claymores purpose is and to find out the secrets of the Awakened. Raki is a young boy, who starts with zero experience with a sword, not to mention they are fighting demons that even Clare has trouble with. I cut the guy some slack! The writing was on the wall that Raki was going to grow up and be a warrior. He wants to be Clare’s equal at the very least and at most he wants to protect her like she protected him. Lo and behold he comes strutting into town in recent chapters tall and handsome with Claymore-like armor, a broadsword on his back, and some unaccounted for years. He dispatches a Yoma with surprising skill and ease. Rather a far cry from the defenseless boy we once knew. Take that haters!

Saji and Louise’s story was actually a highlight for me while watching the first season of Gundam 00. They were shown in almost every episode for varying periods of time, sometimes even for just a moment. I laughed and smiled watching these two young people dealing with such normal things like school, parents, and dating. It was desperately sad to see Louise lose her parents and be in the hospital with her own injuries; to see the anguish in Saji when he didn’t know what to do for her; and to see him give her that ring only to have her reach out with only one hand left. It was touching and moving, even thinking about it now. Theirs’ is the only story that is about civilians, how this war affects the common person. It was great to see such a different perspective because these two kids get pulled into something so much bigger than themselves. They are the innocent people that are tragically affect by all of the political war mongering and finally thrust into it themselves. This was a wonderful lead up to what promises to be an interesting tale. If Saji and Louise showed up for the first time at the beginning of the second season and we saw their background in quick flashback people would be calling BS all over the place. A lot of their history is tangentially related to the rest of the cast but it all just coming together now.

You have to give characters a background, a story, a life to grow from. If all of these people just appeared when they were finally “useful” they would have no significance to the audience. People would be calling foul left and right on them. I am certainly not saying that no character is useless, oh there are plenty, but I feel like people throw it around so much it splatters on everyone who isn’t a seinen hero! I enjoy those types of characters, don’t get me wrong, but I have a wide range of people I like to watch. So I think it is important to step back and look at the bigger picture. Their lives are connected and there are reasons they are appearing on our screens. I’m not saying you should like these characters (thought I do) but they are far from being useless in these stories.

Top 5 Minor characters who are awesome and useful
5. Mei Ling (Card Captor Sakura)
4. Ozma Lee (Macross Frontier)
3. Wataru Tachibana (Hayate the Combat Butler)
2. Ensei Ro (Story of Saiunkoku)
1. Urahara Kisuke (Bleach)

*title quoted from J.M. Barrie

In the Claymore universe, there are demons called yoma who are shape-shifters. They hunt humans by eating their victims brains and then using the memories they gain to impersonate the people they have eaten to infiltrate their victims communities. The yoma are also stronger and faster than humans and can regenerate as well as turn parts of their bodies into weapons.

An unnamed human organization has created a special breed of warriors to combat the yoma, they are called Claymores. The organization takes young women and creates half-human/half-yoma hybrids that gain a degree of a yoma’s strength, speed, and abilities. These hybrids then have silver hair and silver eyes making them easily distinguishable from normal humans. The appellation Claymore comes from the humans they protect not from the organization or the warriors themselves. People call them Claymores because they wield gigantic Claymore swords almost as big as they are.

What first attracted my interest was the female dominated cast, in powerful roles. In fact, men rarely show up at all, minus Raki, until the very end of the series. It’s rare that a clearly shonen show has an all woman cast and it is not fan-service central.

Well, there is somewhat of a non-Raki male presence before the end; there are those two church knights in episode 4. But the major purpose of the two church knights is to show that you can be an awesome human fighter and that you are still nowhere near the same level as even the weakest Claymore.

When Claire appears she seems to be a flawless killer. Claire is certainly a stoic character, and I almost mistook her for completely emotionless. But as the story goes on I believe this exterior is melted to some extent through her interactions with others. Also, it helps to give depth to her motivation to find out she is the lowest ranked warrior. I think it is worth pointing out that Claire does have many qualities that are typical of shonen male heroes. But as the story progresses and we see some of her back story, I felt I saw a woman.

I think the writer wants Claire to be a mystery in the beginning. He wants Claire to be the same enigma to the audience that most people see when they see a Claymore. In fact, the writer tries to go out of his way to make Claire seem like a monstrous killing machine in the first few episodes. Most people see the Claymores as emotionless monsters only a little better than the Yoma they hunt. Only as the series progresses do we slowly learn that Claire has feelings, inner conflicts, and personal goals and desires.

In fact, in the early episodes all the Claymores we see are rather emotionless and serious business like. It’s not really until Helen and Deneve do we start to see Claymore who are somewhat playful or personality filled even if it’s a definitely psychotic version of playful or personality filled.

I like that Claire is the weakest of the Claymores. She win fights more on learning and cleverly applying new techniques or using teamwork with other Claymores and their abilities, more than winning because she has a hidden, previously unknown, mysterious power that makes her super strong and lets her win due to brute force.

Raki is vulnerable yet determined and I think Claire sees a lot of herself in him. Unsurprisingly, he has a strong desire to protect his savior and works towards becoming stronger. He also brings the only fully-human sided perspective to the situation. As his race completely rejects and abandons him because his family was killed by Yoma.

Raki is the stereotypical shonen hero who wants to get more powerful to protect the ones he cares for. In most shonen anime Raki would the protagonist who would grow stronger with his hidden previously unknown mysterious power and Claire would either die or be surpassed by Raki. Although it has yet to happen in the manga I feel one day Raki might be able to fight along side Claire as an assistant and comrade but I don’t see him ever surpassing Claire and I find it unlikely he will be her equal. His role will always be support. At least that is my prediction.

Since Raki also appears in the first episode, it t is almost strange that he wasn’t the main character. I like that. I knew what Claymore had in store but for a split second those formulas came to mind. I am quite enjoying this string of shows that have both female and male protaginists that both grow. We also have to remember that Raki just decided to become strong right when we meet him, but Claire we really don’t have a sense of how much time has passed but it seems like a significant amount.

Raki’s other importance to the plot is to be the naive person who has how the world works so the audience learns how the world works as well.

I don’t think Raki has totally been rejected by humans in general. I think he was definitely abandoned and cast out by his home village but he had several chances to stop following Claire and just settle down in another town that does not know his family was killed by Yoma. Both Raki and Claire were abandoned by the people of the town they lived in and they both had chances to leave the people who saved them but stuck with them despite the fact that their lives would be far easier if they stopped following the person who saved them. It’s not like Raki has to follow Claire. He wants to. That’s an important distinction.

I loved the comradery that became a ongoing theme. In a series where everyone seems like a loner, this is a nice touch. It makes the characters more tangible to realize they need other people. The friendships you see can sometimes be unexpected in the situation everyone is in. But then maybe that is what makes these vital, a lot of these woman I assume “grew up” together if you can call it that. You truly see this between Deneve and Helen who appear later as friends. While we don’t get full back stories of anyone except Claire, there is a lot of things one can infer through the way characters deal with one another. The the group of half awakened beings that form a kinship are especially strong as a group who have a common bond.

I think that I like all of the interactions between the Claymores because besides comradery you also see a wide variety of different relationships between them. You have fierce rivals, friendly rivals, devoted companions, standoffish business relationships, bullies, mentors, subservient lap gods, loyal retainers, and more. It’s almost like two Claymores don’t interact with each other in the same way. It speaks a lot to how quickly and carefully the Claymores are developed in the series. Since a lot of the Claymores don’t last a long time it would be easy to simplify their characterization, but the writer takes the easy way out in that respect.

I also have to say that, as we both sort of hinted, Helen and Deneve have the most interesting relationship outside of Raki and Claire. They are characters that would easily be voted as characters most able to have their own spin off series. They have a close almost sisterly relationship while still being sort of messed up 6 ways until Sunday really makes them fascinating characters. I’m also sure that there are like 5 million yuri doujinshi of them only being surpassed by the 6 million doujinshi of them getting raped at the same time. Oh doujinshi. :(

I’m also surprised you did not mention Jeanne who I was pretty sure is a character you would marry (or at least make your BFF with benefits) if she were not a fictional character.

Well, this was the great thing, I thought it had a steller cast in general. I liked Claire, Raki, Helen, Deneve, Miria, Theresa, and Jeanne. Okay, but you’re right Jeanne was my dearest. Although she doesn’t show up till much later she brings honor and pride, without arrogance. Her sense of duty to those around her, especially Claire, bring real depth to her personality. And lets not forget her totally awesome ability.

Raki and Claire’s relationship brings me back to my point about seeing a woman in Claire through a sort of seemingly male figure. But I must admit, the turn it took between these two happily surprised me. It could have gone a number of ways, but I liked this route. I also felt like this could create a really dynamic interaction that is not often explored.

I feel that the change of the relationship is unexpected and interesting but not out of the blue. Their relationship was definitely always building and always growing so it’s not like anything was thrown in just to be thrown in because it was time for something to change. It also subtly changes both characters without being to subtle as to be almost no change in the characters or too bold as to be unrealistic and out of character.

The ending was pretty weak in my opinion but this doesn’t devalue the show for me. I felt like the Claire and Raki relationship, that I thought would be dynamic, just collapsed in on itself and it was just a role reversal.

Well the dynamic part of the relationship really falls apart when the stop using the manga as a guide and start making their own ending. I have a distinct feeling that the writers of the anime did not fully understand how Claire and Raki’s relationship worked so they fell back on the formula they already knew and just changed the roles.

I also feel the writers could only do so much with the ending of the series. Where the manga ends and anime basically ends is a very open ended part of the manga. It seems the writers wanted to put some sort of ending on the series because it does not look like will be getting a second season of Claymore. They basically had to pull together plot threads that were not together in the original manga to make some sort of resolution. That kind of abrupt patch job will always lead to a ending that is less than it should be. I think all in all it did what is set out to do. They wanted to get you wanting to read Claymore while being and be okay with the ending if you can’t read the manga.

There are a bunch of things I would have liked to have seen but we never got to see but I think a lot of them just have not come up in the manga so there was not much to be done about it. I would have liked to have seen how Claymores are made and trained. We have a vague idea of how it’s done but I’m sure there is something important about the processes and how it’s done. I would also like top know what the deal with the Claymore organization is. It seems that even the Claymores themselves have almost no idea how the organization works and they seem to have their own less than savory agenda. I would have also really liked to have seen more done with the Yoma’s ability to take on other people’s shape and how you can never know who is a yoma. I think that could have made some really interesting stories but they stop focusing on it after the first few episodes.

There are things I wanted to know, but I don’t fell like the series suffered from not telling us. In fact, being brief and vague can be good when done right. I like when the writer lets me infer things, make guesses , and come to my own conclusions about some things. But you are right, these are all things that haven’t been throughly explored in the manga yet either, so we will get our answers eventually.

I have to say, nothing has capture me in the same way as Berserk did, until this show came along. Although not quite as violent and gory, it is enough to satisfy. This show has a pretty large following if the Internet can be believed. But I personally doubt we will be seeing anymore animated productions of this series. I suspect it is very well loved among otaku and did well in its time slot, but not better than expected. I guess we will just have to wait and see what is on the table for the spring line-up. I also expect to see theis series licensed in the near future. In any case, I am definitely going to start reading the manga.

This show just finished up in Japan and also on the fan-sub circut. Now you can watch it straight through, we were watching week by week. It’s fairly easy to come by, too. I recommend the Eclipse translation. And don’t forget, if you like this show be sure to mention it at cons and write in saying you want it licensed!

UPDATE: Claymore is now licensed by Funimation!