Claymore by Norihiro Yagi, Volumes 10-11

Genre: manga, fantasy

Claymore is the story of Clare, a half-human, half-monster warrior who is sworn along with her sister Claymores, "silver-eyed slayers," to protect humans from the flesh-eating Yoma who roam her world.

Though I have been reviewing this manga three volumes at a time, so much happened in these two volumes that I think reviewing volume twelve here as well would be absolute overkill.

So, volume ten!  First of all, I have to say that I love the cover for this volume even more than any of the previous gorgeous ones.  This volume continues where the ninth left off, with Clare and twenty-three of her fellow Claymores on a suicide mission to defend a northern village from what seems to be dozens of monstrous Awakened Ones (powerful former Claymores who have lost their human side and become Yoma, monsters).  The warriors are divided into teams and must immediately learn to adjust to each other's different fighting styles and techniques, as well as their various personalities.  As usual when Claymores meet, there are hostilities--even when they are fighting for their lives!

Many new Claymores are rapidly introduced, but despite the dominance of fight scenes in this volume, I felt that I was able to get to know and distinguish them very quickly.  We learn some of their traumatic backstories and, before very long, see some of them die fighting the Awakened Ones.  These death scenes are always gut-wrenching in Claymore, which says a lot considering that the series has tons of characters; the characters are such that one immediately becomes invested in their fates and usually strongly likes or despises them (for the latter category, that awful Ophelia comes to mind!)

On the other hand, there are many morally ambiguous characters.  Clare's former companion Raki (reportedly sold into slavery in the north in the last volume) has ended up traveling in the company of Clare's archenemy Priscilla and Isley, one of the most powerful Awakened Ones in this country. 

 Although we last saw Priscilla as a monster and know Isley to be trying to destroy the Claymore Organization, the two of them appear human in front of Raki and behave humanely towards him, taking care of him. Isley even begins teaching Raki to fight with a sword.  While I somehow did not gather from the first few volumes that featured Awakened Ones that they can retain a human appearance (even though Riful appears as a young girl in the last few volumes I reviewed), it seems that she is not the only one who can.  (On the other hand, some Awakened Ones never appear to be humanoid, which is a bit confusing!  Perhaps the mythology changed as the series progressed, or perhaps I just wasn't paying attention and missed something.)  Anyway, Raki is determined to grow stronger so that he help Clare fight and it is revealed that Isley is planning a major attack on the Organization while half of the Claymores are engaged fighting in the north.

The eleventh volume made me gasp and groan aloud more than a few times as I read it.  It is a brutal, brutal continuation of the Claymore epic which honestly I did not at all anticipate.  Here there be climactic last stands and character deaths, the deaths of likable and major characters.  The battle in the north between Claymores and an army of Awakened Ones continues in the village of Pieta, which fortunately has been evacuated.  Clare pushes herself to her absolute limits and alternates between despair and fierce anger as her comrades die in droves around her.

Meanwhile, the Organization have gathered their strongest warriors to defend their base in the south.  This includes Galatea, no. 3, who, despite her privileged position as a powerful fighter, has grown to resent the Organization's abuse of her fellow Claymores.  Galatea learns the extent of the Organization's callousness when one of their leaders explains that the Organization does not expect any of the weaker and "habitually disobedient" Claymores in the north to survive that battle.  She also meets warriors nos. 1 and 2, Alicia and Beth.  The two are actually twins, and are different from any of the other Claymores.  They have been brainwashed to be completely obedient to the Organization and are able to transform into Awakened forms (this generally means monstrous, with predatory animal features such as giant claws, tentacles, teeth, etc) without fully losing their humanity and becoming Yoma.

In yet another part of the country, Isley faces Luciela of the South, one of his rival Awakened Ones, in battle.  This is an awesome fight scene which promises to continue into the next volume.  Isley's Awakened form is extremely cool, and looks like a centaur.

Isley's awesome Awakened form

Once again, the eleventh volume in particular was a slightly soul-crushing read for me.  I didn't realize that I had become attached to so many of these characters until they died!  The fact that the Claymores die fighting because the Organization essentially decided to use them as disposable shock troops while they prepare their obedient, stronger warriors for battle makes their deaths particularly disturbing, and I begin to see certain themes of questioning and rebelling against corrupt power and institutions emerge more strongly and potently in these last two volumes.  This manga has really come a long way as far as complexity since the first volume!

Update for the 2016 Graphic Novel/Manga Challenge: I have now read 17 of 24 of the graphic novels/manga that I had hoped to read for this challenge.

Lysistrata by Aristophanes

Genre: play, comedy
Published: 411 BCE
Translated by Douglass Parker

The Peloponnesian War has raged between Athens and Sparta for many years.  Lysistrata, an Athenian woman, becomes fed up with the devastating war and her husband's refusal to even speak with her about the possibility of peace:

Lysistrata: "...When the War began, like the prudent, dutiful wives that we are, we tolerated you men, and endured your actions in silence.  (Small wonder--you wouldn't even let us say boo.) 

Too many times, as we sat in the house, we'd hear that you'd done it again--manhandled another affair of state with your usual staggering incompetence.  Then, masking our worry with a nervous laugh, we'd ask you, brightly, "How was the Assembly today, dear?  Anything in the minutes about Peace?"  And my husband would give his stock reply. 
"What's that to you?  Shut up!"  And I did." 

So Lysistrata comes up with a simple yet ingenious plan.  She summons the war-weary women of Athens and some from Sparta as well and announces that they are going to force their husbands and lovers to end the war by refusing to have sex with them until they call an armistice.  In the meantime, they will dress and perfume themselves as seductively as possible, wearing thin gowns and such, and the older women of Athens will seize and occupy the Acropolis.

I had somewhat high expectations for this play, having known it by reputation for a long time.  When I was younger, I imagined it must be a sort of Grecian "battle between the sexes," which in a way, it kind of is.  As I grew older and became more self-consciously a feminist, I assumed Lysistrata must be a feminist play, since it features women mobilizing together and wielding what power they have over men in a patriarchal society to bring about peace. 

However, Lysistrata is first and foremost a comedy.  It is not at all a feminist (or more accurately, proto-feminist) work.  Although women are the agents of conflict and change in the play, none of Aristophanes' characters are what one might call proto-feminist.  In fact, even the women in the play decry their own gender at times; Lysistrata laments that her comrades in the strike are so weak and useless.  That said, she also does have a few stirring lines which assert her dignity and the dignity of her cause.  "What did you expect?" she asks an Athenian commissioner who comes to try to persuade her and the other women to leave the Acropolis,

"We're not slaves; we're freeborn Women, and when we're scorned, we're full of fury.  Never underestimate the Power of a Woman."

Other than this disappointment, which I perhaps should have been better prepared for (Ancient Greek playwrights are not known for having had a high regard for women), I did somewhat enjoy Lysistrata.  Some scenes were funny, as when Myrrhine teases her husband by pretending to get everything ready for them to sleep together (bed, pillows, blankets, perfume, a better perfume, etc) and then running away.  I also have to commend the translator (Douglass Parker, in the edition I read) for translating all of these sometimes obscure Greek sexual puns and double entendres into English, which cannot have been an easy task.  That said, I avoid sex comedy films like the plague and found some of the humor here to be crude.     

While the play is not itself feminist, I do think it is one that feminists and those who are interested in gender studies, gender and power, etc, should check out.  Lysistrata and the other women are adamant that war affects everyone, not just warriors and not just males but also women and children and communities.  While the story is a myth, the play demonstrates that anyone can change the course of history by promoting peace, even if one works to do so by means of apparently simple or, er, unorthodox methods.  Also, phallic jokes are apparently timeless.

I was excited to see that one of my favorite fin-de-siècle artists Aubrey Beardsley actually created some striking illustrations for this play, but decided not to include any of them in this review because most of them are bordering on pornographic.  I do not really know the age range of this blog's vast audience (haha), but back in the day I did have many younger readers.  Anyway, though, I digress...

I am going to try reading another Aristophanes comedy, possibly The Frogs, which I have heard good things about.

This play is

bawdy         raunchy (yes, I realize that is a synonym for "bawdy," but it bears repeating)    

This play was on my Classics Club list! 

Claymore by Norihiro Yagi, Volumes 7-9

 Genre: manga, fantasy

Claymore is the story of Clare, a half-human, half-monster warrior who is sworn along with her sister Claymores, "silver-eyed slayers," to protect humans from the flesh-eating Yoma who roam her world.

I definitely have a new manga obsession.  While Claymore started out as a fairly simple tale about a female warrior and her companion, a boy she rescued from the Yoma, it has by the seventh volume expanded into a full-blown epic saga, complete with a complex mythology, larger objectives, and many, many more characters!

The seventh volume continues with the showdown between the sadistic Claymore Ophelia and the monster that I simply call "the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life."  (See my review of volumes 4-6 for some images.)  This is another freakishly beautiful fight scene.  Meanwhile, Clare and Raki try to get as far away from Ophelia as possible.  Clare sends Raki on to a village where he will be safe, and just after they part ways (with a kiss!), Ophelia shows up to kill Clare.  The other warrior is so much more powerful that Clare has little hope of defeating her, so she tries to trick her...unfortunately Ophelia figures out what is going on.

Clare is badly, permanently injured and saved from death only by the appearance of another very powerful Claymore.  This Claymore, Ilena, helps Clare to regain her strength and as a parting gift presents her with the single strangest present I have ever heard or read about.  However, Clare has barely said goodbye to Ilena when she encounters Ophelia again (!).  Now Ophelia has awakened into a monster, having used too much of her Yoma power during her last battle against Clare and so lost her human half.  Battle ensues between her and Clare again, continuing into the next volume.

The eighth volume features the finale of Clare's battle with Ophelia, and we learn something by Ophelia's past which makes her seem a little more human.  Er, even though she is now a gigantic snake monster with a woman's head.  The next arc sees Clare searching the nearest village for Raki.  However, while there she sees a party of her comrades leaving the village to hunt yet another Awakened One.  (Exactly many Claymores have gone crazy and turned into monsters over the years??)  Her search for Raki is unsuccessful, and Clare is interrupted by the appearance of one of the Claymores from the hunting party.

The girl is bloody and looks half-dead.  She pleads with Clare to rescue her comrades, who are trapped in a nearby cave with not one, but two very powerful Awakened Ones.  Clare finds the other Claymores being tortured by an enormous, hideous monster called Dauf and a pretty young girl.  The girl says she wants to force the Claymores to awaken and join her army of monsters to lead an assault on another Awakened One's army in the north. Clare must then fight Dauf, against whom she is very outmatched.  And, then, as if things were not bad enough, one of the most powerful Claymores in the organization, Galatea, arrives to take Clare back to the organization because she disobeyed their orders in fighting Ophelia instead of working with her.  (As if Ophelia were a team player, right??)  Under the circumstances, however, Galatea joins Clare in the battle against the monster.  

In the ninth volume, the fight continues.  The powerful Galatea distracts Dauf, while Clare manages to save Jean, one of the Claymores who has been chained up and tortured to the point of awakening.  Jean is a cool character, one of my favorites of the many Claymores we have met in the series so far.  With the help of Jean, ranked no. 9 in the organization, Clare and Galatea are able to defeat Dauf.  They are prevented from killing him, however, by the pretty girl who has been sitting in a corner of the cave commentating on the fighting all this time.  The girl shows her true face and turns out to be Riful, a very dangerous Awakened One indeed.  However, instead of fighting, she and Dauf disappear, though not before Riful reveals a tantalizing hint to Clare about the location of Clare's greatest enemy, Priscilla--the Claymore who killed Clare's beloved friend Teresa.

The volume continues with a new arc, "the Battle of the North."  Clare and twenty-three of the organization's most troublesome Claymores (hmm, suspicious much?) are sent to quell an army of Awakened Ones and Yoma in the north of the country.  The organization promises to forgive Clare for her disobedience if she goes and, furthermore, Clare learns that Raki has been captured and sold into slavery in the north in her absence. (Tsk tsk, Clare can't leave the kid alone for five minutes without something happening.)  Jean, no. 9, has declared that since she owes her life to Clare, she will follow the other Claymore until she is able to repay the debt.  Clare and Jean therefore report to the north together, joining the other Claymores who have gathered to prepare for battle.

There is a lot of tension between the assembled Claymores, some of whom threaten to turn violent.  Though they are all exploited by the organization, they are all eager to fight one another to prove a point or perhaps improve their number ranking.  The dynamics between the different warriors are endlessly interesting and one of the main reasons that I am enjoying this series so much.  I will doubtless review the next three volumes, featuring a gigantic battle between half of the Claymores in existence and hordes of monsters, very soon!

Update on my 2016 Graphic Novel/Manga Challenge: I have now read 15 of 24 of the graphic novels/manga that I had hoped to read for the challenge.

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Pages: 225
Published: 1851

This is a tale of a house cursed through the centuries by a man who was hanged for witchcraft--a house haunted by the ghosts of its dead and the terror of its living inhabitants.  The blighted house controls the fates of four Pyncheons: Hepzibah, an elderly recluse; Clifford, her delicate brother; Phoebe, their young country cousin; and Jaffrey, a devil incarnate whose greedy quest for secret wealth is marked by murder and terrible vengeance from a restless grave.

I always intend to read more American literature.  This week I have done pretty well, having read both a book of poems by Emily Dickinson and The House of the Seven Gables.  The Dickinson poems were sublime; a gushing review of those is in the works.  As for The House of the Seven Gables...

  I loved Hawthorne's lovely way of writing, his skill in telling stories about the past inhabitants of the titular house and weaving them into the present story.  I found the stories about the presumed witch Matthew Maule who cursed the Pyncheon family before his execution and the young, doomed Miss Alice Pyncheon to be mesmerizing, among the best parts of the book.  I appreciated Hawthorne's great attention to detail in painting the images and personalities of the characters, who are few but memorable.  I could just see Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon swinging his cane and smiling benevolently at Phoebe while malice lurks in his eyes, see Hepzibah fluttering nervously around her shop as she prepares to open her new business, a penny shop that the old gentlewoman is forced to start up in a desperate attempt to escape her impending poverty.

I loved the characters, loved the setting of the decrepit old house, loved the ancestral curse, and the connection with Hawthorne's own family history.  (Hawthorne's ancestor Judge Hathorne was one of those who condemned "witches" during the Salem Witch Trials, just as Colonel Pyncheon does in this book.  Hawthorne was so disturbed by his familial legacy that he changed the spelling of his name a little, adding a "w.")

The House of the Seven Gables is Gothic in that it deals with a decaying house, reclusive aristocrats, an ancestral curse passed down through the generations--in terms of themes alone, it closely resembles more straightforward Gothic tales like The Fall of the House of Usher.  However, there are no ghosts in the traditional sense, no dead maidens buried alive.  The horror in The House of the Seven Gables is more subtle, more delicate, and ultimately much less overpowering.  The characters of Phoebe, Hepzibah's teenage cousin who comes to stay with her and her brother Clifford, and Holgrave, an idealistic young daguerreotypist and lodger in the house, provide some contrast for the doom and gloom atmosphere of the House of the Seven Gables.  I liked Holgrave in particular; he is certainly my favorite character in the book.  Unlike Hepzibah, Clifford, and Judge Pyncheon, all of whom dwell incessantly on the past and their ancestral woes and money troubles, Holgrave supports social change and progress.  He resents the grip that the dead still have on the living, the chains of old customs.  He complains to Phoebe, "Shall we never, never get rid of this Past?" and goes on a bit of a rant:

"A dead man sits on all our judgment seats; and living judges do but search out and repeat his decisions.  We read in dead men's books!  We laugh at dead men's jokes, and cry at dead men's pathos!  We are sick of dead men's diseases, physical and moral, and die of the same remedies with which dead doctors killed their patients!...Whatever we seek to do, of our own free motion, a dead man's icy hand obstructs us!...we live in dead men's houses; as, for instance, in this of the Seven Gables!" 

Later in the book, Holgrave declares that he has become positively conservative almost overnight, but I preferred the original Holgrave, an angry radical who believed that the world must and will change for the better.  It is easy to see that he scorns the aristocratic Hepzibah and Clifford somewhat for their helplessness and fear of the outside world, when after all Holgrave has worked in various eccentric occupations since he was very young.  He says that he only lives in the House of the Seven Gables so that he may better learn to hate it and all that it stands for.  On the other hand, he also shows compassion towards Hepzibah in particular and is more than a little mysterious.  I also am fascinated by daguerreotypes and liked the role that the daguerreotype of Judge Pyncheon played in the story.

The House of the Seven Gables has a "flaw" in common with The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne's best-known book and the bane of millions of high school students.  I write "flaw" in quotation marks because I think that this is mostly a deficiency ascribed onto Hawthorne's style of writing by those who read his work today.  In the era of James Patterson and, more importantly, films, readers expect books to tell their story rapidly, to include lots of dialogue and cliffhangers at the end of most chapters.  Meanwhile Hawthorne invested pages and pages in creating a very particular sense of place and describing the daily habits of his characters.  And he went too far, at times.  He did!  I read a lot of nineteenth-century prose without suffering much boredom or annoyance; in fact, I enjoy the fruits of earlier authors' labors in creating mood, complex characters, and setting--I love a strong sense of place in a book.  However, at one point Hawthorne actually felt the need to write

"The author needs great faith in his reader's sympathy; else he must hesitate to give details so minute, and incidents apparently so trifling, as are essential to make up the idea of this garden life." 

When the author refers to the incidents he is describing as "trifling," that is a sure sign that they are less than riveting!  That chapter which describes the Pyncheon family's garden and Clifford's fondness for flowers is indeed the most wearisome part of the book; I struggled to hold my eyes open.  The beginning is also slow, but the last few chapters are positively fast-paced in comparison.

 Though I don't want to give anything away to those who haven't read the book, I will say that I was really struck by chapter eighteen, "Governor Pyncheon."  I never expected that plot twist and loved Hawthorne's uncanny style of narration in that chapter.  All in all, I feel I profited a good deal from reading The House of the Seven Gables.  Reading it was not always enjoyable, but since then I have thought about the story and the characters many times--always the mark of a good book!


Another favorite quotation:

"But these transparent natures are often deceptive in their depth; those pebbles at the bottom of the fountain are farther from us than we think." 

This book is

eloquent                        thought-provoking                           slow-paced

P.S. This book was on my Classics Club list!

Top Ten Favorite Heroines (and Anti-Heroines)

It's time for another Top Ten Tuesday post, and this week is a freebie!  It was difficult to pick among so many intriguing past topics, but I finally decided to list my top ten favorite literary heroines.  I have also included three anti-heroines, because these not-so-good women are simply too good to leave off the list.

1.

Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series

What a no-brainer!  Every bookish girl who reads Harry Potter wants to go to Hogwarts and be top of their class, just like Hermione.  

2.

Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

My favorite Austen book is actually Emma, but I much prefer Elizabeth to Emma Woodhouse.  She is witty, poised, strong-willed, and, yes, a bit proud and prejudiced.  

3.

Éowyn from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien

"I am no man!"  At least the very few female characters in The Lord of the Rings are pretty kick-ass.  Everyone in Rohan sort of leaves Éowyn alone in the hall of her forefathers to look after her cursed, ill uncle while Grima Wormtongue, Saruman's creepy henchman, haunts her footsteps.  After she is left behind yet again when the men of Rohan go off to fight, Éowyn breaks free of the "cage" she so fears and takes action.  She disguises herself as a male soldier and ends up defeating the Witch-King of Angmar, who can be killed by no man...  

4.

Nimona from Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Nimona is an exuberant shapeshifter who practically forces her supervillain hero Lord Ballister Blackheart to make her his evil sidekick.  The two clash often and hilariously, as their styles of evil-doing are sometimes incompatible.  However, this graphic novel also has a darker, more serious side.  I highly recommend it; you will love getting to know Nimona, Blackheart, and the rest of the characters!  

 5.

Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Plain and quietly strong-willed, Jane grows up oppressed as an orphan in the house of her unkind aunt and then in a harsh boarding school.  Even after she becomes a governess and falls in love with her employer, Jane's happily-ever-after is still far from straightforward.  I admire Jane's resolve and independence.

6.

Alana from the Saga series by Brian K. Vaughn

I love Alana from Saga.  She is flawed and very funny at times.  She would do anything to save her little family from the assassins and corrupt intergalactic governments that are always trying to do them in.

7.

Lyra Belacqua from the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman

Though I couldn't not include her, I have already discussed my love for Lyra in another post!

8. 

Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

9.

Clare from the Claymore manga series by Norihiro Yagi

My enthusiasm for the kick-ass female heroines in this series, which I'm in the midst of binge-reading and reviewing, partially inspired me to pick heroines as my topic this week.  Clare is a half-human, half-monster slayer sworn to protect humans from flesh-eating monsters called Yoma.  She is part of a sisterhood of forty-seven such "Claymores."

10.

Marian Halcombe from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

I just recently reviewed The Woman in White, one of my favorite Victorian Gothic novels.  Marian is a brilliant and determined young woman who must protect her rather helpless half-sister from her sister's greedy husband and her husband's friend, the diabolical Count Fosco.

And...the anti-heroines!

1.

Madame Bovary from Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary 

The infamous Madame Bovary is a fascinating character, sympathetic in a sense, but also probably not someone one could consider a "heroine." 

2.

Miss Jean Brodie from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Miss Jean Brodie, a teacher at a girls' school, gathers a small group of students around her and initiates them into the ways of, well, Jean Brodie.  She is not a woman to be summed up in a few words.  Her fascist beliefs and secret affairs draw the attention of the school administration, but her devoted group of girls would never betray her... would they?  This is a very short novel, and just excellent! 

3.

Hedda Gabler from Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler

I love Hedda Gabler!  It is probably my favorite Ibsen play, which is high praise.  The title character is the daughter of a decorated general, a woman with a flair for the dramatic and a great violence in her soul.  She has boundless energy and longs to do something important, something exciting.  Bored with her husband, her in-laws, and her life as a housewife, Hedda settles for playing with the love lives and careers of her friends.  If you enjoyed Ibsen's A Doll's House, then definitely read Hedda Gabler.  Hedda is a different kind of dissatisfied housewife than Nora, but, wow, is she a memorable character!

I hope you enjoyed this list and picked up a few new reading recommendations!  Thanks for stopping by and leave me a link when you comment so that I can check out your top ten list as well!

Claymore by Norihiro Yagi, Volumes 4-6

Genre: manga, fantasy

Claymore is the story of Clare, a half-human, half-monster warrior who is sworn along with her sister "silver-eyed slayers" to protect humans from the zombie-like Yoma who roam her world.  

I read these next three volumes of this exciting and action-paced series with a rabid eagerness and, at the end of volume six, once again encountered an evil cliffhanger.  Oh, Norihiro Yagi, you are the most malevolent of manga-kas!

First things first, though; I'll start with volume four.  This volume continues the story arc about the powerful Claymore Teresa and her new companion, a young girl who Teresa saved from a Yoma a few villages back, a young girl who turns out to be the human Clare.  Teresa tries to leave Clare with kind villagers so that she can have a normal, human life, but ends up having to double back and save Clare from the same bandits who threatened and had planned to rape Teresa in the third volume.  The bandits are brutal men, though no match for Teresa.  Furious at their slaughter of some villagers and their mistreatment of Clare, Teresa kills one of them in a fight.  In doing so, she violates the most sacred rule of the organization who hires (and creates?) Claymores: their job is to slay Yoma and protect humans, not kill them.  Teresa and Clare go on the run from the organization, but in the meantime four of the strongest Claymores are summoned together and ordered to hunt down and execute Teresa for her crimes.  The character of Priscilla, one of these Claymore who appears to be only a little girl, is particularly interesting and she promises to be an important part of the series.

I had been hoping the series would introduce more Claymores, and my wish definitely came true with these next three volumes!  In fact, so many new Claymores are introduced that it is a little difficult at times to tell all these beautiful, fair-haired young woman apart.  I loved this story line that focused on Teresa and "human Clare" and their strong friendship, since they are still my favorite characters even with the introduction of some others.  The fight scenes between Teresa and her Claymore comrades who are under orders to kill her are very well-done and I liked that the drawings increasingly emphasize the monster or Yoma side of the girls as they are fighting.  For example, their faces change and their eye colors shift and their limbs grow longer as they draw on more of their Yoma power during tough battles.

If the third volume clearly marks the point where I began to become emotionally invested in the series, then the fifth volume is really where the "feels" kicked in!  There is a new story line, titled "The Slashers," which focuses on Clare in the present day.  She and some of her fellow Claymores are instructed to hunt down and slay an "awakened one," an extremely powerful creature which is actually the remnant of a Claymore who has lost their humanity and fully transformed into an inhuman monster.  This monster varied from the typical, zombie-like Yoma and I have to say that it was creepy!  I liked seeing the interactions between Clare and the other Claymores.  We learn among other things that Clare is in fact ranked as the least powerful Claymore currently alive, and once again we meet some interesting new characters.  It is impressive that the manga-ka has managed to endow each of the twelve (and counting!) Claymores who have been introduced so far with a unique and remarkable personality.  They do have similar designs, though, and I usually have to rely on hair styles to distinguish them during the fight scenes.  Speaking of which, there are a lot of fight scenes in this fifth volume, but also some emotional depth.  Something happens in this volume which shocked and saddened me.

The sixth volume boasts the most absolutely horrifying, pee-your-pants scary manga monster I have ever seen.  Let's just go ahead and put that out there.

I placed a picture there to present a rough idea, but that one panel does not really do this creature justice.  It has the face of a human female, because it is another "awakened one" who was once a Claymore before she released too much of her Yoma power.  The way this monster moves her wings and hair and her neck, and the way she looks when she opens her mouth...just ugh!  I nearly dropped the manga and ran away screaming.  Forget fighting her, I would just take one look and instantly die of terror.

Anyway, in volume six the organization orders Clare to kill this lovely monster which has been terrorizing a village.  She is supposed to have assistance to kill the monster, in the form of Ophelia, the fourth-strongest Claymore (they are all ranked precisely in order of strength).  Miria, no. 6, had warned Clare about Ophelia and the other powerful Claymores in the last volume.  Because Clare is sort of semi-awakened, having unleashed too much Yoma power and almost become a monster forever during the episode in the cathedral city, Ophelia becomes suspicious that Clare is already a monster.  

She torments Clare and Raki and seems on the verge of killing at least one of them when the "awakened one," pictured above, makes her entrance.  She first attacks Clare but then turns on Ophelia, sensing her arrogance, and Clare and Raki are able to temporarily escape while Ophelia battles the monster.  The volume leaves off as they are running, trying to get as far away as possible before Ophelia comes after them.

Ophelia vs the monster

Ophelia is one scary, sadistic bitch.  I am actually not sure whether I would prefer to face her or that freaky, winged hair monster.  Oh, wait...just kidding, I'd take Ophelia!

It practically goes without saying that I adored these three volumes and will be starting on volume seven as soon as possible!  I have grown used to the style of art and now think it is really quite beautiful, so no complaints there.  The story has really taken off in lots of different directions since the fairly straight-forward first and second volumes, and I cannot wait to find out what happens next.  While I realize not many people read reviews of later volumes in a manga series, I will continue writing these reviews for every three volumes if only so that I can reflect upon what I read and because I enjoy writing about Claymore!

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Genre: mystery
Published: 1934
Pages: 322

Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of the year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer. A passenger lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside...

This is only the second Agatha Christie I've had the pleasure of reading--the first was And Then There Were None a few weeks ago--and I think I am already becoming hooked on her books.  Her style of writing is bare bones, she does not dwell on long descriptions of setting or characterization apart from what is necessary to tell an excellent, plot-driven mystery story.  Nevertheless, I found myself staring at the book's open pages for far longer than it should take me to read the text as I mentally ran through possible clues and racked my brain as to the identity of the murderer.  Well, Christie fooled me, so all my deliberation and reflection turned out to be for naught!

 Murder on the Orient Express stars one of Christie's two famous detectives, the Belgian Hercule Poirot.  Poirot is rather like Sherlock Holmes in that he is a well-respected detective known for cracking the cases which elude others and the police.  While he is also a bit arrogant--er, very sure of his powers of deduction--, Poirot differs from Holmes in his methods.  If Sherlock Holmes had been asked to solve a murder which occurred in one carriage on a snowbound train, he would likely pace up and down the corridor examining the crime scene, the floor, and the sleeves of all the passengers for suspicious substances which would in some complicated way allow him to deduce the identity of the killer.

Poirot, on the other hand, plants himself in a room and has each of the passengers (the only possible suspects, as the train is snowbound) come in for an interview.  He uses psychology to determine their guilt or lack thereof and, surprisingly, a bit of guesswork.  For example, Poirot asks some of the passengers questions which are intended to startle them into revealing something they may be trying to conceal.  He also analyzes phrasing and word choice... when he asks a woman if she owns a scarlet kimono (because the murderer may have been seen wearing one), she replies, "No, that is not mine," suggesting she may know whose it is, though she insists otherwise.  Poirot also rapidly alters his persona and method of questioning so as to best provoke answers or cooperation from the suspects according to their personalities.

The murder occurs fairly early on, as an unlikable American gentleman is murdered in his room at night.  Poirot begins his investigation the morning after the murder and interviews each of the passengers to obtain their alibis and any information they might have in the way I described above.  Among the suspects are a countess, the dead man's secretary, a conductor, a noisy American matron, and an English governess.  After interviewing each of these people and examining the clues (a handkerchief is found in the victim's room and a woman in a scarlet kimono was sighted in the corridor), Poirot finally lays out the solution to the friend who is helping him with the investigation.  I could be wrong, but I don't think the identity of the murderer is one that many people would be able to guess.  I changed my mind about who I thought the killer was at least four times, and by the end I did not have a clue!  I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  The next Agatha Christie that I read will be The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

This book is

brilliant                      diverting                 surprising

This review was one for my Classics Club list! 

Claymore by Norihiro Yagi, Volumes 1-3

Genre: manga, fantasy

Claymore is the story of Clare, a half-human, half-monster warrior who is sworn along with her sister "silver-eyed slayers" to protect humans from the zombie-like Yoma who roam her world.  I was attracted to this manga series by the beautiful covers and that premise, which reminded me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer if Buffy were set in a fantasy world which closely resembles medieval Europe.  While I was initially not impressed by the art and worried that it might turn out to be a typical shounen manga--lots of fighting and half-naked girls, little characterization or thematic depth--I quickly realized that Claymore is more complex and interesting than that.

The first volume opens with a village in distress.  Six people have been gruesomely murdered and everyone knows that the killings are the work of a Yoma.  Yomas are flesh-eating monsters, much worse than the sort of zombies you see in The Walking Dead because they are cleverer, more powerful, and much, much faster.  In addition, they can take on human form to disguise themselves.  Raki, a local teenage boy, soon encounters Clare, a Claymore who has been sent to hunt down and slay the Yoma terrorizing his village.  Claymores are dreaded and despised in this society despite their function as monster slayers, because they are half-monster themselves and may lose their human selves, allowing the monster to take complete control at any time.  However, Raki is fascinated by Clare (and more than a little enamored of her).  He is cheerful and naïve and treats her like an ordinary girl, which disconcerts solemn Clare.  She has come to this village to do one thing and one thing only: destroy a monster that feeds on human flesh, armed only with her claymore blade.  After further tragedy strikes his village, Raki ends up travelling with Clare against her better judgment.

This volume is immediately exciting and does a good job setting up the story and the universe.  There is also a lot of gore and plenty of fighting scenes which were well-drawn and well-paced.  I was less than captivated by the art in some of the panels.  The style is efficient rather than extravagant and extremely detailed, like in some of my favorite mangas, but on the other hand I have seen shounen manga with much uglier drawings.  And the covers for the whole Claymore series are gorgeous!

The second volume was my least favorite of the three I have read so far.  The arc about Clare and Raki's journey to investigate Yoma killings in a cathedral city is an interesting premise, but I felt that one fight scene dragged on literally for several chapters, even running into the next volume.  On the other hand, we do get to learn a little more about Clare and witness her chameleon-like acting skills as she disguises herself as an ordinary girl travelling with her brother in order to seek out the Yoma without being thrown out of the city by monks.  There is little dialogue in this volume due to all of the action scenes; I breezed through it in about a half hour!

The third volume, subtitled Teresa of the Faint Smile, was the one that made me eager to get my hands on the next, um, twenty-four volumes of this series now!  The first two chapters finish up the "Darkness in Paradise" arc from the last volume, in which Clare and Raki hunt a particularly powerful Yoma in a holy cathedral city.  The rest of the volume begins a new arc about another Claymore, called Teresa.  I immediately liked Teresa!  

And I was happy to meet her, because I had been wondering about the other Claymores and whether they resembled Clare.  While Teresa does superficially resemble Clare--she is a beautiful, blond young female--they actually are quite different both in their designs and their personalities.  Clare is serious and solemn and very willing to sacrifice herself to protect the humans who despise her from Yoma.  But Teresa is not afraid to bend or break the rules of the mysterious organization for which she and the other Claymores work.  She is fierce and has a bit of an attitude going on; I liked her a lot!  The first few chapters of this new story line about Teresa involve her seeking out a Yoma hiding among villagers and being followed through the woods after she finishes her job there, first by a strange, mute girl and then by a group of bandits intent on humiliating Teresa.  Yeah, needless to say, they've got another thing coming!

I love this series so far.  Honestly, I half-wish I had not picked the first volume up, because now I will become addicted to the series and have to read the next twenty-four volumes in the next week or so.  Then, I will have to watch the anime and obsess over it when I should probably be doing preparatory reading for graduate classes next semester.  Oh well!

I am keen to learn so many things about the characters, their backstories, and the world of Claymore.  Are all Claymores female?  How does one become a Claymore, and what is this organization that sends Claymores to different villages to kill Yoma?  I cannot wait to read the next volume and am considering breaking into the library tonight to get it a few hours early!

This manga has

strong female characters              lots of action       gore                         monsters                  

These three manga volumes count towards my goal in the 2016 Graphic Novel/Manga Challenge!