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

[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!