Claymore, gender, and the male gaze

[oyceter]

Claymore readers might be interested in this post on women warriors and the male gaze. Spoilers through v. 15. I kind of noodled in the comments, but my brain is too dead to come up with anything coherent.

Comments

[la_vie_noire]

I'm kinda dead now, but I have to say I totally agree, the thing about the awakened beings was actually what I said to a friend when I started reading the series.

[willow]

Don't have much brain power either - but I did find myself going WTF with the breasts?! When it came to some awakened A/B. I admit part of me does wonder about other labels - like how male Awakens don't look sexual but canon says they're very hedonistic while female Awakens do look sexual but are badass badasses from badass (and in some ways much more so than then men).

My mind wants to point out that the AF's are also female (and they creepily owned a powerful Awakened). And I can't help thinking that having female warriors was the Organizations fall back position so there's stuff there about women and power and control and whatever it is that being a Claymore does to their reproductive genitalia, and how they aren't treated as women by the Organization or the handlers - and there are thoughts swimming around about if Raki (as a possible love interest - which already makes me sigh cause I was all up on the little brother angle) represents traditional woman's concerns, just as Theresa's response to Clare might.

But in the end, I like that the women in Claymore are so much more than stick figures carried along by the plot that I can't actually make any connections like that while brain squishy - because they're too complex to get pushed into some off the cuff theorizing.

[willow]

Ok, I have no idea what I meant by 'other labels'. I am SO going to bed now.

[oyceter]

Yes, definitely! And I want to see where Yagi goes with the overthrowing the Organization storyline before making any final judgments. Though I do think the character design of the female villains does have a fan service aspect to it (but still on par with or even better than many other shounen series). And if the Awakened Beings are basically being manipulated by the Organization as well, it'd be interesting to see if it would even be possible for the Claymores and the ABs to team up, especially since the warriors of the North are special precisely because they have partially Awakened and managed to pull themselves back. So there's a lot of power there, if they can only harness it...

[willow]

My original love for Claymore's art was all about how Claymores are blonde with silver eyes and yet the art managed to make them all look different. I disagree with the thought they have the same body type, because I didn't see that. Miria originally seemed more muscular to me than Helen, Deneve and Clare - with Deneve having a seeming swimmer's body. Theresa also seemed heftier to me.

But my original focus was on how with a touch of bangs here, and short or long hair, they looked different. I could keep track of them, unlike the blondes in DC's universe - where I have to look at their uniforms to figure out who Stargirl is from Supergirl from Wondergirl from Spoiler/the new Batgirl.

I can even remember Claymore names; Illene, Theresa, Clare, Helen, Deneve, Detrietch, Galatea, A/B (Alice/Beth), Yuma, Rafaela...

If you've paid any attention to my reviews of books (or movies), I tend to be all about the descriptors; 'Blonde Girl With The Star' and 'The One With The Sword'. Claymore's characters stick with me - maybe it's the hero shots. Maybe it's the plot. But I'm remembering them

[oyceter]

I don't particularly remember the body types, but I am extremely grateful that the warriors all have different hair! I usually have very poor facial recognition skills, so being able to distinguish between all the characters, including some minor ones, is excellent!