So, the good thing is that the creators really pulled up and delivered a worthy finale for this series. The bad thing is that the story just stops in the middle, the show stops just as the characters are about to find out whether Takagi’s parents are alive. There is one OVA left, but with that one I again doubt whether it will provide full closure.
Now, we could hope for a second season, but Madhouse has a bit of a strange policy when it comes to its sequels. To name an example, they did make a sequel for Saiunkoku Monogatari and Chi’s Sweet Home, but they did not for Claymore. Generally speaking, they very rarely make sequels.
In any case though, I’m not unhappy with the way this series ends. This episode was restrained, yet entertaining. The atmosphere never faltered, and I like how this episode did conclude the story of Saya’s parents. We’re not exactly told what happens to them, but this can be left to imagination easily, and I actually think that it’s more powerful than if the creators would have outright stated whether or not they survived or got slaughtered. This episode also put a lot of meaning into their relationship with Saya, and it’s also good to see that the nurse and her friend got one final conversation.
Oh, and especially the backgrounds in this episode were better than ever. I’m surprised that that’s where most of the budget went here, but works really well, and this episode looked utterly gorgeous because of it.
Overall, out of all of Tetsurou Araki‘s works, this does remain my least favourite series. However, he still put forth a very skillful adaptation here, with some great production values and atmospheres, he really did the story justice for as simple as it may have been. This was the first fanservice series I have ever blogged. It’s a genre that I usually dislike because they often focus too much on the fanservice and forget to make the rest of their series interesting and compelling. High School of the Dead did not. Overall I consider 2010 to be one of the least impressive years of anime since 2005, however the fanservice genre is one of the few for which I feel that it has gotten better. That’s not to say that we’ve gotten rid of the crappy fanservice series of course (*coughkissxsiscough*), but I admit: we’ve gotten quite a few good ones.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
:(((((( is very shorttt HOTD i expect more…but now wehave to iamgined what hapens to parent of takagi.
I DONT LIKE IT THEY STOP IN THE MIDDLE THAT DONT MAKE SENSE :((( I WANTTT MORE EPISODDDDD I DONT UNDERStAND SOMETHING stuff :((((( I WANT MORE EPISODEEE
They didn’t make a sequel for Claymore because they butchered the last part of anime. It’s pretty much impossible to make a sequel to Claymore using the manga period
Raki never reunites with Clare and sticks with Isley and Priscilla, Clare returns to normal via Jean and not Raki. Her, Miria and the remaining Claymores are surrounded.
Isley battles Luciefla (sp) and beats her to near death, Lufiedla than runs into her sister Rafella.
Time Skip to 7 years later.
lol they ended just before the mall arc. to bad, i like that part a lot.
btw this Anime will surely have more mainstream appeal then Claymore also claymore had 26 episodes while this only had 12. plus the Manga just concluded the mall arc a couple of months ago so it hasn’t gotten to far for them to create a second season but I’m sure they will.
Though to be honest, their others shows either aren’t worth sequels, don’t need sequels due to good endings/no more source material, or just weren’t popular enough to get sequels…
But hey, Black Lagoon got sequels, that’s all I care about!
Over all, I thought the HOTD anime was pretty good, even with all of the excessive fanservice. They left an open-ending for Takagi’s parents, which happened exactly in the manga and I felt was appropriate.
I actually felt this was one of the stronger anime series this season, considering how well a lot of the the scenes were coordinated. I hope Madhouse will take up another season of HOTD (as long as there’s enough of the manga plot to make into another season).
Thank you for blogging this series! 😀
I too thought it was a good series. I read much of the scanlations and found that the actions, plots and dialogue to be as close as possible to the manga and even though I’d read considerably further than the show, I never felt as though I should hope to skip ahead–the show itself stood on independent (albeit zombified) legs and became of its own in its own. Thoroughly enjoyable, Madhouse did us a favor this time around.
Although fanservice is a total turn off for me, I just ignored those scenes and moved on to the actual story. It was quite amusing. But nothing that I would probably remember.