Claymore

Information of Anime

In a world of ancient time, people fear monsters called youma.  Youmas eat humans & humans don't know how to defend themselves from them.  An organization created Claymores, half-youma & half-human wielding large swords to fight with youmas.  However, they are only females & are referred to as Silver-eyed witches due to their silver eyes being able to spot true youmas disguising as humans.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

The story follows one Claymore named Clare.  In one of her missions, she saves a village from a Youma that's living in there.  A young boy named Raki, who had his parents eaten by the Youma, is interested in her & follows her around as he doesn't know anything about Claymores.  Like many people, they fear Claymores as they have youma blood in them.  However, Raki see her as a normal person.  When the village found out that Raki's brother was a Youma after Clare kills it, the village bans Raki & leaves him out to survive on his own.  Clare decides to take him in as her chef as Raki has nowhere else to go.  The story continues as we learn more about Claymores through Clare & Raki's journey.  But that ends short.

When the relationship between Clare & Raki gets good, the show goes back in time & introduces Tessea, the top Claymore in the organization.  The story shows how Tessea picked up a young Clare & how she broke the ironclad law to save her.  The story goes through Teesea's death from a particular Awakening Being named Priscilla & how Clare became a Claymore.  After the brief arc, the story shifts back to present time where Clare finally goes hunting for Awakening Beings with other Claymores.  However, it turns out that they were tried to be put to their deaths by the organization for breaking their limits.  Surviving the mission, they are being cautious about the organization & their actions.  This would later have Clare & Raki go their separate ways for the time being as she is being hunted.  Raki promises to her that he'll become strong to protect her when they meet again.

Fleeing from the organization temporary, Clare disguises herself as a man & travels from town to town to find Raki.  Along the way, she manages to borrow a right arm from a former Claymore after losing her's from a battle.  Clare's search would lead her to the whereabouts of Priscilla when she tries to save some Claymores from a dangerous mission that involved killing one of the big three Awakening Beings in the land: the Dweller of the Deep, Eastly.  Priscilla's location in the north where she joined the army of the power Awakening Being of that icy snowy land.  Little did she know that the organization is already waging war in the North & the organization has assigned Clare to be part of the army.  Also, it seems that Raki is heading up there as well.  However, he has reached the point where he manages to meet Eastly & doesn't know about the war between Eastly's army & the organization as Clare & other Claymores are battling in the city of Pieta.  When he gets closer to Pieta, Raki discovers that Priscilla is an Awakening Being when he finds her eating human flesh.  What he doesn't know is the relationship between Priscilla & Clare.

Intense battles occur in Pieta as many Claymores fall dead to a powerful Awakening Being, the Silver Eyed Lion King.  In the battle, Clare reaches close to her limit as Raki races towards Pieta as he learns that the lowest ranking Claymore is there.  However, a partly awaken Clare defeats the Lion King & goes after Priscilla after sensing their yoma powers.  There, the two fight on top of a volcano as Raki & other Claymores that are friends with Clare go to the battle site & Eastly watches the battle.  From there, Clare becomes an Awakening Being & nearly defeats Priscilla until Raki steps in to stop her as he believes this battle is senseless & cruel.  Jeanne, a Claymore that offered her life to Clare after saving her by reverting back from an Awakening Being, gives up her life to change Clare back.  The battle ends with no victor as Eastly takes Priscilla with him & tells the Claymores that they will met again. 

The show ends with the Claymores go their separate ways as none of them are returning to the Organization as they will be challenging them.  Raki continues to follow Clare even though the path she'll take will be very dangerous.

My Personal Review

Claymore is a great show that made me think differently about it.  I wasn't expecting a lot from the show, but it has caught my attention.  However, it does have a fair amount of gore due to blood & body parts flying around the place at times.  It's still watchable for a large number of people.  However, it does have some partial nudity.

Animation

The character designs are a bit strange.  Most noticeable is Clare's face.  It seems to change a lot in terms of the structure of her face.  Sometimes it's chubby & short, & sometimes it's wide & squished.  Raki's seems to be okay even though he's a support character.  All the characters aren't dressed too fancy as they are quite plain.  This is a good thing really as it gives off that old world style.  Overall, I felt the character designs, mainly the faces, are something from the 90s.

The backgrounds are okay.  Has some detail in terms of the age of the buildings.  The smaller stuff are usually plain though since as the tables & cabinets.

The colours are mainly on the dull side.  The shading is dull as well & you'll probably won't find any bright colours anywhere in the show.  It really gives off that old age feeling very well.

In terms of the animation movement, it's mainly realistic stuff.  No funny or strange movements.  However, I have some questions about how the blood flies.  Although I haven't actually seen real life gore, some of it seems a bit unnatural.  Plus, the movements of big Yomas & Awakening Beings don't match well with the background.  When they take steps where it seems that they make a slight stop, the background keeps moving.  This is noticeable when you watch the Invasion of Pieta arc.

Sound

The sound effects are on the realistic side.  The clashing of blade & the sound of flesh being pierced is very clear.

The seiyuus here are ok.  Clare's voice fits well, but I have a little problem with Raki's.  The seiyuu's voice is a bit too girly & high pitched & the person is a male.  This seiyuu tends to do young male roles from what I've seen in his past works.  But, it fits Raki's personality ok nevertheless.  Also, he sounds more mature later on in the show.

The music is on the rock & medieval side.  However, the music is quite forgettable & at times I don't realized it's being played.

Story

At the start, it was mainly understanding Claymores & their organization.  Although people fear them, the head of the village or someone from a higher authority could hire them as a "no other choice" answer.  However, their view would change slowly in each episode based on Clare's actions & Raki's words to the people.  Clare protects Raki from Youmas & Raki protects Clare from the people.  With this, one would expect some sort of character development.

The development of the characters seems to play a good role in the show.  Clare showing her gentle human side because of Raki being like a little brother to her.  I would be expecting some sort of change in her throughout the show.  Raki on the other hand may play an important role as well.  However, his feelings about Clare & Claymores doesn't change as they are pretty much key to Clare's development.  But it would be nice to see Raki going from weak to something stronger as the show progresses.  If he doesn't, it can drag the show down.  However, the show makes up for it with the Teesea & Clare arc & when he leaves Clare to get stronger himself.  Strong development in the past arc even though it's a bit lengthy & shown near the beginning of the show.  After that arc, things really get interesting for an otherwise standard common storyline where an organization tries to punish their member(s) for breaking one of their rules.

As the show gets deeper, the story builds up nicely with Clare's hunt for Priscilla coming back as she now knows her location.  Her character does get stronger & more human, which is a good thing.  Raki was a mixture for me.  I thought he got stronger, but it was only by words.  His skills are unknown as he disappeared for a good portion in the middle of the show.  I assumed that he got very strong after travelling alone & surviving up to that point.  However, he still seems weak when he was watching the battle between Priscilla & Clare.  It makes me wonder how he managed to survive up to now.

The ending is an open one, even though it got Clare & Raki together again.  However, it leaves too much mystery about the Organization.  Continuation from the manga is really a must if you want know what happens next.

Overall Conclusion

Claymore is something that should be watched.  Although I say this when the show has just started at the time of writing this review, I have high expectations for this show now.  Recommended if you want some old age stuff with action in it.

Claymore gets an eight of out ten.  The story has grabbed my attention with some interesting characters.  I hoped that the show will take it strongly with some good character development from Clare & Raki.  Clare managed to meet my expectations, but Raki is a flip flop for me as I don't know what he was doing off-screen during the middle of the show.  As for the storyline, it's very well written when you get deeper into the show.  But the ending leaves you wanting more as it's not really complete.

Last updated on December 26, 2007