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A thread on 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyo G” board blew up around the idea that in the manga CLAYMORE, “the strongest character stayed the strongest from beginning to end.” Posters discussed the strength of Claire’s allies and enemies, the lore behind the Awakened Being system, and the origin of Teresa’s epithet “the Smile.” There were also calls for an anime continuation and comments pointing out how hard it is to visually tell characters apart given the silver-hair, silver-eyes restriction. The thread turned into a round of favorite-character shoutouts, showing just how much love fans still have for the series.
What people said
A female lead like this would actually blow up nowadays
Looks cool and aloof but she's such a brat underneath
Claire surrounded by the big-sister squad is genuinely adorable
Windcutter was properly strong too, but she drew a terrible opponent, it's a real tearjerker
Every male Awakened Being is strong
Thought Miria got hacked to pieces, then she shows up again with a nice clean scar on her face — that's kind of hilarious, love it
And she just stays strong and badass the whole time, love love love it
Really want the anime to cover the rest
Wasn't the anime's final stretch right around where it was about to catch up to the manga?
Would be great if they remade it with that same energy
When Claire's Yoma side awakens, she turns into whatever evolved form she wills herself into, like in the Northern War; when her Teresa side awakens, she becomes the ultimate super-powered Teresa
Teresa really does stay strong the whole way through
Why do you think a tiger is strong?
It's kind of stylish that she's so ridiculously strong across the board that she ends up with no standout trait, so her epithet is just 'the Smile'
She's basically a genuine statistical outlier
Isn't the final Teresa basically fans' own 'my strongest possible Teresa'?
Who's your favorite?
Mine's Cynthia!
I've forgotten like 70% of them
Who the heck is Rene
I'm riding for Octavia from Pieta!
Re: #33
A continent trying to weaponize Claymores, Yoma, Awakened Beings, and Abyssal Ones is terrifying
The whole premise is that the Dragon Descendants got too strong and had to be dealt with somehow, so it's not really a back-and-forth arms race between two sides
Isley's Awakened form is my favorite
Beautiful… it's a little sad that he lost to Priscilla, but he had dignity from start to finish
If they really went bold with the designs you'd end up with something like Rookie the gorilla-looking guy
The silver-hair-only rule is genuinely brutal
Maybe that's why Riful stays cute throughout
The main cast is distinctive enough that it's not too hard to follow while you're actually reading, though
Just picturing it makes me laugh
They basically only eat a few nuts and berries, so they probably don't need to go much anyway
Miata's cute too
Galatea mom…🍼👶 *suckle suckle*
Galatea as mom, Flora as big sister, little sister Riful — that's the dream family😋
I was genuinely sad when Miata disappeared
Even though while I was reading I kept thinking 'wait, who even are you people'…
Miata's the one who didn't disappear
The one who disappeared was the colored version of Miata's mom
Right, Clarice-mom
Oh that's right, the one nursing her was Miata!
My memory's surprisingly hazy on this, might reread from the start
Angel Densetsu, now that's nostalgic
It's set in Okinawa with a ton of characters who actually have Okinawan features, which is great
Background and context for this discussion
CLAYMORE (by Norihiro Yagi) ran as a manga until 2014, while the 2007 anime adaptation diverged from the source material partway through and wrapped up with its own original ending. The thread’s calls for “I want the anime to cover the rest of the story” and “remake it with that same energy” reflect fans’ hopes for an adaptation of the manga’s later, never-animated chapters that the anime couldn’t catch up to at the time. Where opinions split wasn’t so much over how strong each character is, but over an art-related point: the difficulty of visually distinguishing characters given the silver-hair, silver-eyes constraint. Defenders countered that “the main characters are distinctive enough that it’s not an issue while reading.” There was also a shared interpretation that Teresa’s epithet, “the Smile,” reflects the flip side of having every ability at a uniformly high level with no single standout trait — a nuance that may be a bit hard to grasp for readers unfamiliar with the series’ Awakened Being system and Claymore (warrior) lore. This article excludes personal insults and sexually charged posts, focusing instead on character commentary and discussion of the series’ structure.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “That manga called CLAYMORE where the “strongest” stays strongest from beginning to end lol.”
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