Claymore

Story: The original concept is fairly decent, the fights are also quite entertaining. The world is not very rich though, it feels very plain overall. I also had a hard time getting into it because of some other problem which I describe below.

Art: The artwork is actually fairly good, the main issue is that it is way too repetitive. It's very focused on the characters and lacks background also.

Character: I can't tell who is who, can you? No seriously. This is also why I put so low marks for the art. Poor creativity there. Character progression is also almost non-existent.

Enjoyment: It's very hard to enjoy reading it when on each chapter, I have to figure out who is who and what the hell is going on.

Overall: Repetitive, plain, no humor, straightforward. Not sure what's so good about that manga. The anime is a bit better though, maybe because it doesn't look as plain.

Claymore starts off full of mystery and suspense in a world that slowly reveals itself to you. The relationship between Raki and Clare is one of the strongest points and the action is killer good. The first half of the manga is dare I say almost perfect. It pulled me in so much that I bared through the second half which is where Claymore lost my interest and my hope for it's future.

While reading the manga the half way point should be fairly obvious (not going to call it out for spoilers reasons.) The second half starts with promise but soon descends to fights you don't care about and characters getting screen time that they don't deserve. For the majority of the second half Clare and Raki are no where to be seen which as I said earlier is one of the strongest points of this manga. A lot of new characters are introduced on the fly and the author acts like you care about them almost as much or more than the characters you've been with since the very beginning.

To make it worse bad guy after bad guy pop up almost instantly one after another. The bad guys have no back story and are just "pure evil" which is fine but you know they'll just die and be replaced in 5 chapters.

Now I did still enjoy Claymore overall not as much as I could have but it's first half is good enough to pull this manga up from the depths. Although the second half hasn't impressed me too much I still have a shimmer of hope for Claymore as it continues.

Claymore is a splendid manga, from beginning to end the reader gets stuck inside the story always wanting to read more and more.
His peculiar "last boss" that has appeared since the beginning of the manga had a great development, along with Clare's group.
If you seek a manga with fantastic story, individual character developments, shed some tears, you've found the right manga.
I would not like to do a long review, but the myanimelist forces me to write, so from now I'm going to write a pudding recipe, if you want to continue reading, feel free, my manga review is over.
Chia Seed Pudding:
Ingredients:
1 cup vanilla-flavored unsweetened almond milk
1 cup plain low-fat (2 percent) Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup (preferably grade B), plus 4 teaspoons for serving
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Kosher salt
1/4 cup chia seeds
1 pint strawberries, hulled and chopped
1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted
Directions:
In a medium bowl, gently whisk the almond milk, yogurt, 2 tablespoons maple syrup, the vanilla and 1/8 teaspoon salt until just blended. Whisk in the chia seeds; let stand 30 minutes. Stir to distribute the seeds if they have settled. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, in a medium bowl, toss the berries with the remaining 4 teaspoons maple syrup. Mix in the almonds.
Spoon the pudding into 4 bowls or glasses; mound the berry mixture on top and serve.

Honestly, I was surprised by this manga. Not because of the story line but just how well balanced it was. It was constantly at the fine line of being between, "Oh great, another 'I will avenge this person and such'" and "Wow. Look at all the people being killed." I was very tempted to stop reading the manga at the beginning but there was just something that kept me reading. I think the author did a spectacular job at keeping the reader's attention and wrapped up the story very well. The last few chapters kinda blew my mind especially how well the storyline was done and the characters are definitely interesting (in a good way). Almost every aspect of the story was kept in a very fine balance and that is something a very talented author could do even though there were many times where I would be, "Wow, really? Really? Okay?" But yeah. Overall, I really enjoyed this manga despite some of it's weird moments and small loose ends. I truly think the majority would enjoy this manga especially if you pay attention to the details.

Story 5: the plot of claymore focuses on a hero's journey approach for the first half of the series, but in this it stumbles pretty constantly by making the protagonist constantly reactive instead of active in her world, meaning she has little to no agency as a character. Still its held up by solid world building and a good supporting cast that still earns the investment in the narrative. Until the last act, when the plot twists so freaking hard that I swear half the cast lost their spine. Its so ridiculously out of nowhere that it almost ruins the entire series because it means that the previous worldbuilding was now made null and the characters who had little agency, now have absolutely none.

Art 9: The art is most easily described as a "polished berserk". In that it is very graphic, visceral, and filled with detail that is just a feast for the eyes, but it has the extra note of being really smooth, characters are all beautiful and elegant in their renditions, and the way the motion is drawn, ohhh damn is it just the most savory dish on the manga buffet. Out of anything in this series, the art holds it up the most because it is just consistently excellent.

Character 6: the problems with the characters arent immediately apparent, because at first each character feels well written, they feel dynamic and deserving of their place in the series. Even the protag, with her bizzare levels of stoicism and lack of expression make sense in the way they give context. However, the problems are revealed later because no one has an arch, and if they do, they are way too short. This is compounded with the fact that the characters have little agency whatso ever, meaning it really can be hard to care about them.

Enjoyment 8: Now, regardless of the criticisms this series is entertaining. its visceral, fast paced, and has the slightest hints of philosophy that trick you into thinking on a deeper level as you watch the mass mutilation that can only be compared to the likes of berserk. And even when it falls off, it still continues to be a worth while experience for the excellently creative designs and visual style.

Over all 7: Claymore in regards to its writing is a very poor mans berserk, in almost every way, but that does not mean its truly 'bad'. Its visceral, beautiful, and has sparks of great story telling that appear now and then, and did I mention that the art is amazing, because man is it amazing. This series is not for someone that will close a book solely because the narrative lacks good direction, as you will become frustrated very very quickly if you are that person. Instead this series is more for the hunger fiend that just needs to sink thier teeth into a juicy manga flank steak with a side of home made potato casserole washed down with some smooth cider and topped off with a slice of mass murder torture and gore...ahhh, tastes like heaven.

I feel like I should have written this review a long, long time ago because Claymore is my favorite manga of all time. I keep coming across amazing titles and there are some I consider outstanding masterpieces, but this manga will always be important and special to me no matter what. It doesn't mean other titles cannot stand a chance against it, I just love it very much.

The first volume of Claymore was one of my few spontaneous purchases. It didn't look like something I could find interesting, I was approximately 12 or 13 at the time, kind of a weaboo that was just starting to understand the value of certain titles... but I bought it, driven by what I could describe as my own intuition that was telling me I'd regret it if I put it back. Needless to say, my intuition was right.

Story: 10/10.
Claymore is just as dark and angsty as it should be without being a heavy story to comprehend. There are three major sides in this story: humans, Yoma (monsters that feed on human flesh and blood) and Claymores, half-human, half-Yoma warriors that are created and trained to eliminate those dangerous creatures. Yet they are not seen as some knights in shining armor, neither they are knights. It's their job and they do it well, asking for nothing in return. And the more you learn about this world, the more you start to wonder if you were right about nice guys and villains or if there's more to it than it seems to be.

Art: 8/10.
Norihiro Yagi's art style is rather peculiar and it's not for everyone. Given that this manga has been published for 13 years, improvement is to be expected. I like the semi-realistic style of Claymore and how well it fits the nature of the story, creating a fitting atmosphere. Yagi is very good at coming up with very interesting and grotesque designs for Awakened beings (Claymores that crossed their power limit), capable of creating terrifying creatures, creatures that most definitely will scare you.

Characters: 9/10.
Poor Raki, everyone seems to hate him for no real reason at all. I like this guy. I like him because he knows exactly what he has gotten himself into, he's loyal, determined and his growth as a character is very impressive. Small spoiler here, please excuse me: he grows up and turns into a handsome, strong young man who is fully capable of standing up for himself, so there is absolutely no need to hate on this particular character. If he went through zero character development, I wouldn't bother paying so much attention to him, but I will always defend this guy because he is an example of a well-written character.
Clare, the protagonist of the Claymores' side, might seem like a cold and emotionless, somewhat boring woman at first. But she is the character you are going to stick with for most of the manga, you see how much she changes as she meets new people, makes friends (as trivial as it sounds, friendship is one of the most important themes in shounen after all) and demonstrates many different sides of her personality.
I'd love to talk about every single character and their role in the story, but it will take forever. What I love about Claymore is how different the characters are, they have different personalities, their own flaws and problems and even villains are not just evil for no particular reason at all (several examples: Ophelia, Riful and Isley).

Enjoyment: 10/10.
It's my favorite manga for a reason. It is very easy to read, it is intriguing, entertaining and epic. Each arc brings you closer to answers to your questions and reveals secrets and details you might have not even thought about. I love how realistic and grotesque at the same time this manga is. I dropped the anime somewhere in the middle because I had to catch up with the manga, so I cannot say anything about the adaptation, but if I could, I'd add a few extra points for the soundtrack as well. It's outstanding, don't forget to listen to it when you read the manga.

If I were you, I would try to avoid comparing Claymore to Berserk. Berserk is darker and heavier and there's really no story that could stand on the same level, at least in the dark fantasy segment. Claymore is amazing the way it is and deserves to be more popular.

Claymore


The anime adaptation of the manga ends in Chapter 50, if you want to switch from anime to manga, it is best to start with the war in the north, as the differences to the manga already appeared there. The last 3 or 4 episodes of the anime were not canon.


Claymore is a manga that actually surprised me in a positive way, not only in terms of the main story itself but also the fights, representation and implementation. If you are looking for a good Dark Fantasy (in the direction of Berserk), you will certainly find it here. Just as interesting to see how well the drawing style of the Mangaka had changed between the first chapter and its last, the level of detail was massively increased.


But where it shone positively manga, it also cast a shadow. And unfortunately, this contains a number of negative aspects that tripped the title itself.

First and foremost, the main story (especially the background of the claymore and organization) was quite subtle and it was also built solid. What the problem with this is clearly the consecutive fights that I could almost call story blockers. Story-relevant opponents well and good, but so often an irrelevant monster appeared, which was simply thrown into the story to hold the reader off for another 8 chapters. This was a massive problem, especially from Chapter 120. In general, you could have left out the last 3 Awakened Beings and changed the main story for the antagonist a bit, but NOTHING would have changed in the end result. However, these 3 have almost a total of 25 chapters which made it very annoying and destroyed the tension enormously.

I have little complaint about the final finale, it wasn't perfect, but a satisfactory conclusion for the plot and the main antagonist.

Unfortunately, the anime had screwed up the plot armor from fight to fight, whereas so many characters died at the beginning, there were almost no deaths towards the end, although the opponents were around 50-500 times stronger than the claymore themselves.

There was also a big problem with the characters. There were some backgrounds, but the characters mostly stayed flat until the end. You can get them absolutely zero sympathies no matter how you take it.


Story

The basic idea and the setting are very interesting and it stayed that way. Likewise, the resolution to the story and the background for everything has been quite solid. Unfortunately, as I said, there were too many story blockers that had no relevance. Even if you skipped some of these chapters, you would hardly notice any difference. Unless a new character is introduced again who has no personality or background.

The closer you got to the semi-finals, the more complicated everything got. New characters appeared one after the other, and so did the enemies. It wasn't confusing, on the contrary. It looked irrelevant. You just wanted to know how the main story of Clare would go on, instead, you had to deal with any other fight for another 10 chapters.

The irony is that the opponents that were not story relevant actually had longer fights than the relevant enemies. That surprised me, among other things.

But apart from the weak story blockers, the main plot had a subtle implementation. Even if a lot would have to be repaired.

Drawing/illustration

The drawings were quite meager at the beginning but meager on average. But this improved quite quickly and the drawing style of the characters became more and more high quality, as well as the representation of the environment, fights and monsters more and more detailed. Towards the end, I have to say that some of the monsters were extremely cool in design.

Characters

The focus was never on the characters and that is an absolute fact. Inserting backgrounds is not a feat and it doesn't help a character become immediately noticeable. They lacked a great deal of personality and character. There were 1-2 CLaymores that actually had some personality. The rest were copies with different hairstyles.

At least one has to make an effort with the antagonist to the end and make it appear understandable. As a result, she didn't seem as flat and monotonous as the other characters.

Conclusion
Claymore is undoubtedly a very interesting and promising work. And by far one of the weakest 7/10 ratings I could give. The manga had many qualities, but these were often undermined by a lack of creativity and incorrect implementation.

At least I am glad that the implementation of the main story was saved.

Story:

Actually main story , the column of the path of our protagonist looks like a simple revenge/vengeance story but with side stories of other characters and politic plot twists creates different couple of powerfull inner stories and collobration of all these stories with the main one is the richness about this series.

Art:

Its not detailed as Berserk or crafty as Vagabond but still at its own unique magical and unreal touch... Its like illusion.. Had beautiful moments and bad moments but second half of the series is generally looks better compare to the start. But it was one of the artisticly one of the best per month shounens ı've ever seen.

Character:

This is the best thing about the series are the characters. Very likeable and memorable .. I never forget some of 'em specially

Enjoyment: Full with likeable and unlikeable characters with different varation of motivations + full with plot twist surprises and settle beutiful moments

Overall:

Its a 90-93/100 series to me

I found Claymore to be one of the more enjoyable series I read and watched. I ended up reading the Manga as I loved the anime and HAD to know what happened next. I am glad I did as the story and world continues to grow and evolve in logical way. I'm not an artist so I can't really add much on the art style but I did love how each Claymore even with just keeping silver hair and eyes consistent across all each had a unique and recognizable and often memorable design. The growth and power scaling of the characters and battles also seemed to be paced well and didn't feel too unexpected for the most part. I felt overall that you got a good idea and understanding of each character and groups ideals and motivations throughout the series as well. While the ending could be seen as a little predicable the story to get there was well worth reading.

In this review i will try to contain as little spoilers as possible.

Claymore is a dark fantasy shonen series, written and illustrated by Norihiro Yagi. It's set in a world filled with man eating monsters called Yoma, where the only line of defense against them is a group of female warriors known as Claymores, after the famous swords they carry. The story follows the adventures of such a warrior, Clare, and her tale of revenge.

The story is not particularly deep and not something special, but it's very good in emphasizing on the character's humanity and their struggle to keep their powers in check and has a few nice twists here and there. The main problem is the pacing during the later parts of the story, which makes it a bit confusing and the last 20 or so chapters feel like a never ending battle. Ultimately, there is a payoff though, since the series ending is actually pretty nice and makes perfect sense.

One of the highly positive aspects of Claymore is it's characters and especially the protagonist. Clare is a great lead and experiences a good deal of character development throughout the story and watching her and her struggles is very enjoying. Actually, she is so good, that when she is not present for like 10 chapters in a row, twice, the manga feels like a different and certainly half as good series. Since Claymore is a character and not plot driven story, this creates some pacing issues, which is a problem for a monthly series, but nothing serious if you just read it all at once.

The supporting cast is quite big by the end of the series, with many of them not being very interesting, but the ones who matter are also well developed and pleasant to watch.

The art is kind of awkward at the beginnig, because the author overuses the negative space and many images look way too white. Thankfully, he sorts out this problem after the first 3 volumes and it helps that Norihiro Yagi is very talented at portraying and encompassing the concept of movement during the fights, which makes for awesome action sequences.

When it comes to enjoyment, i think that it's pretty subjective thing, but the twists, the characters and the great action are surely to keep your interest.
All in all, a fantastic series that are absolutely worth binge-reading (i did it in 4 days) with intensity, blood, and engaging characters. It's highly recommended for people who like dark fantasy manga and want a strong, badass female lead. For people who like Berserk, Attack on Titan, or watched the anime, this is a must read!

story-6
Sadly, with such an awesome premise, the story falls flat on many occasions. The intro arc is super intriguing. Enough to pull you into this messed up world with mysteries scattered throughout.
I just feel that the journey towards the answers I wanted were somewhat boring, and dragged out too long. And then when the answers are revealed they just didn't feel satisfying enough for me. The story itself, imo, could be rewritten to be at masterpiece level, but what we have is a bunch of interesting ideas that didn't quite pay off.

art-7
Beautiful art as needed. The mangaka has an amazing talent for detail, but only when the scene demands it. Otherwise, the art still looks fine throughout.

character-6
Full of forgettable characters sadly. I can count on 1 hand the characters I have any feelings for at all after the book ended.

enjoyment-7
While the book has many downsides, I'd say there is some interesting things here. I did see my enjoyment drop as a progressed through the story, but every once in a while something would get me hyped up enough to start binge reading till i simply got bored again and took a break.

overall-7
Last thoughts
I'd 100% recommend the beginning. The premise of it will pull you in for a while. It just somewhat falls apart as time goes on.

Monsters called Yoma roam the world preying on humans all the while disguised as them to blend in. But woman warriors called Claymores are striving to destroy the Yoma. They are the world's only hope but they too are Yoma but also half human, they are condemned to a life of fighting back their savage urges, in addition to this condition they have supernatural speed and power this helps them in their battle to wipe out the Yoma.

Claymores do more than hunt down Yoma, they act as a police force against themselves, constantly keeping their Yoma side in check with their human heart, but no matter how hard they try... they fall to their monster side, and this means their life must be ended by another Claymore. It is this that the main character Raki realise how lonely a Claymore must be.

The storyline for Claymore is dark but the artwork is crisp and realistic, the character Clare is one of my favourite characters in Manga, her personality and looks are impressive. The background artwork is perfect it is light and open the land reflects the people, a society worn by continual Yoma attacks. Both the art and story blend together wonderfully to create the image of a dark, fantasy world. Claymore isn't a feel good story it is a brutal portrayal of a chaotic world that is ruled by violence and power hungry souls.

In my opinion Claymore is a light read in comparison to Deathnote or Full Metal Alchemist but provides a good mental break from them, the author isn't afraid to show the dark side of humanity and the fact that we are so fearful and judgemental that we can be as dark and brutal as Yoma themselves.

Plot development and storyline :
The storyline of Claymore is set up on a medieval island world, infested with monsters called “Youma”. Youmas can shift their shape, disguise and live as humans within society. They retain the memories and knowledge of the human body they reside in, so normal humans can’t recognize them in their perfect disguise. Youmas eat human innards to live and can’t resist the urge to eat innards more than two weeks. So eventually they end up murdering humans brutally, to eat their guts.
A mysterious group called “The Organization” creates half human-half youma hybrid female warriors who kill youmas in exchange of money, that is collected by The Organization.
These hybrid warriors are called “Claymores” because they fight youmas using large and heavy “Claymore” swords that they always carry on their backs. People also refer to them as “Silver eyed witches” as all of the Claymores have silver colored eyes.
Youmas and Claymores are powered by a demonic energy called “Youki”. Youki grants them extreme strength and shape-shifting ability. Only Claymores can sense Youmas disguised as humans and kill them because they bear Youki, the same power as youmas.
People despise Claymores, as they are also half monsters. So the claymores are quite anti-social, cold natured and sometimes maniac. Killing people is a taboo for Claymores as proof of them being allies of humans, despite being half monsters. Claymore warriors don’t require much food and sleep as normal humans and they don’t age. So they are very effective weapons against youmas.
The island world of “Claymore manga” is divided into 47 regions. There are warriors ranked from 1 to 47 based on their overall abilities and each one of them are assigned to a specific region.
Claymore has pretty interesting character development. It starts with the protagonist, organization’s weakest warrior, no.47 ‘Clare’ completing her missions as a claymore. As the story progresses, Clare’s tragic past, her reason ‘to live’ and ‘become a claymore’ gets revealed. She gains comrades, experiences deadly battles and life-turning events. As time passes, characters grow stronger and experienced, new mysteries pop up.
The origin of youmas, the actual identity of the organization and its secrets and lots of exciting stuff happen throughout the whole manga. The most powerful of Awakened beings, “The Abyssal Ones” and the one above them, ‘Priscilla’... the manga continues as the story gets more and more intense, revolving all those characters.
It starts as a simple action-supernatural manga, but slowly it draws in the reader. It’s true beauty unfolds with heart-breaking tragedy and intense battle scenes. There’s no useless part in Claymore. All of the battles declare “Survival of the fittest”. A little gory, as the whole manga involves a lot of bloodshed and death. The swordfighting styles and techniques used in Claymore are ‘Real’, just a little modified and made compatible with the supernatural stuff.
Art:
Claymore’s art is as good as it’s storyline. All of the action scenes are drawn perfectly clear. Then comes the eye-catching background art. In some pages, backgrounds are drawn so perfectly that it’d seem like photographic sketch.
At first, people won’t notice Claymore’s character designs particularly. There are a lot of Claymores (Characters) in the manga, who may look almost same as one-another. You may think bad of Claymore’s character designs, but i assure you that it’s exactly the opposite of what you think.
According to the theory, all of the claymores have silvery eyes, hair and they wear a specific type of dress provided by the organization. With these restriction in characters’ features, there remains a very little room to make changes for each Claymore character. Yet the mangaka, YAGI NORIHIRO Sensei fully utilized this limited range of development. With slightest of differences in their hairstyle, shape of face, facial arrangements and unique personailities, he created every single claymore character significantly different from another, with those restricted features as handicap. And he successfully continued the ‘nearly impossible’ task of drawing all those characters with their minimal differences unchanged through all the chapters of Claymore. Due to the storyline, Claymore has some gory scenes in it. But NORIHIRO Sensei pulled it off so perfectly that it won’t creep people out much, even though it’s gore.
Why people should read Claymore:
Extreme display of swordfight, splendidly drawn actions scenes. It’s captivating storyline would make you glue up with it until you finish (though it’s ongoing). Alongside excellent art, Claymore’s plot is better than many popular/famous works of literature.
So dig in as fast as you can, and enjoy it’s awesomeness!

“Die for others, live for others”

As the story begins there’s a little drama and horror beneath it that gave me a shot to continue reading. As I continue, the flow of the story begins intriguing and exciting, then soon I noticed that I have been hooked up in continuing reading it. Protecting and revenging are the main cause of this manga, they have been passed over to be able to live longer and do what is incorrect.
An action, sci-fi and adventure type of story that revolves on the life and belief of the main character. There are also mysteries and intrigues that I found out that makes me carry away.

Story: [10]

It's about girls that was abandoned or cast away from their past and then they have been adopted by some kind of organization for them to take care of and afterward they will become a warrior that enters in a survival like arena; those who left standing are able to continue while the others who don’t will sadly face their fate. Self-interest is the main purpose why they live so far; glory, fame and power such as. A bloody and sword-fighting scene that excites me through reading, that’s why I certainly love it because the story/plot is progressing and well developed.

Art: [8]

The art is detailed and captivating, every battle scenes, equipments, special attacks are shown on every chapter, and there's some mild nudity shown, but there are some chapters that disappoint me.

Characters: [9]

What I love about the characters is their personalities, different attitudes, and different ways of thinking, and also their battle techniques which are shown on how the way they fight. Every character has a unique power to show which add some effect to the story, but sadly to say it lacks on character improvement, few are really progressing and the others are like the way they are in the first place and sometimes they die quickly out to the manga.

Overall: [9]

Ten because it's story is not boring to read and quickly to adopt.

A nice manga to read, the story is progressing, an action thrilled story that gave me excitement, and the twist and intrigues about the story that brought me to read all the way, but there I think something is lacking and the sad part are few characters are improving, the art sometimes fail for me, and release date of every chapter takes long to wait which is the saddest part.

A kind of manga for those who want action, adventure and shounen just like me and people who have patience to wait for a long time on every chapter, worthy to try, as for me I like it a lot.

(just for the record, this is a slight alteration of my anime review)

Claymore is like Berserk, with more boobs and less context. That is how I see this series.

Claymore’s strong point is not its story, which to be frank is linear and straight-forward to the most part. The basic premise is about fighting fire with fire and thus the monsters that plague humanity in this series are to be dealt by humans possessing monster abilities. It sounds interesting to build something around it but that only happens in terms of characterization amongst the cast and not in terms of world-building. So yeah, we have monsters and monster hunters and a Medieval-like world. If you expect anything more to it, you won’t get much other than vague explanations of “there is this organization here and that band there”. There will be very little info about why the world is as such until late in the story where it simply changes most of the main characters instead of filling up the blanks. The pacing of the story can easily be divided into short arcs with each one having its own set of monsters and settings. Each one adds something to the whole, but as I said, it only does it in terms of characterization and not much world-building.

In all, the story is average and goes nowhere in specific thus it gets less than the base (4).

Characters on the other hand are the meat of the series, as most of the selling point is their psychoanalysis and interaction with one another. Claire, the main heroine, begins as a heatless killing machine and along the way we get to see a lot about her which make her far more than a robot without will, following orders and going around killing things just because she was ordered to do it. The same can be said about most other main characters, such as the rest of the Claymores and that annoying sidekick Raki.

A thing to notice is that this series reverses gender roles. The Claymores are all women yet behave as brute males, while Raki is a guy and is a spineless idiot who is better fit as a daddy’s girl. Feels weird but it is not negative.
What does feel negative is the adversaries, the Yoma, who to the most part are just mooks that exist to be killed or generic bosses. And as I said we get very little about where do they come from. Not only that, but they don’t really feel like monsters most of the time. Rather they are shape shifting cannibals with too human behavior for the gruesome creatures they are supposed to be. Makes them look stupid.

But who cares about them, the story is about the Claymores, whose worst enemy ends up being their own selves, as they slowly all turn to Yoma themselves. Yes, nice idea to build something around it but since the story is loose, it kinda ruins it. Plus Raki is an extremely annoying character, unable to be sympathetic to anyone. He is supposed to be the guy who reminds Claire that she is still human and make her have cozy feelings and such but ends up being a burden who the only thing he does is nagging, making unrealistic remarks, standing in the way, and generally causing more trouble than help. Supposed, that is what it means to be human but come on; monsters are eating people alive everyday and he wanted everybody to be a big happy family. This stops being humane and ends up being utter bullshit. If humans are so naive, then hail to the cunning cannibalistic Yoma.

In all, the main cast is interesting and gets lots of immersion but at the same time it is left without complete catharsis, the enemies outside the frenzied Claymores are cardboards, and Raki is an ass. Thus, they are a bit above average (6).

The art is very good as far as shapes and backgrounds go. High on detail with lots of visual effects and dark palette colors to transmit the feeling of a grim world overrun with dread and death.

I found the character figures rather unappealing, as the way the faces were drawn felt weird. Plus, all Claymores look too much alike because of their identical uniforms, weapons, hair color and eye color. Also the common Yoma are drawn too simplistic and human-like and it’s easy to see them just like brawn-skinned bandits with fangs.

Action scenes are ok but not that great. Although there is a lot of gore going around, most of it is limbs flying and fountains of blood gushing all over the place. Internal organ anatomy is way off. Most battles don’t last much either.

In all, the aesthetics are great but character figures are kinda identical and simple and there is very little actual battle duration for such a heavy on action series. Art gets a rather good mark (7).

I don’t find much reread value in this series, since the story is too linear, simple, and has Raki in it. (3)
My enjoyment is also low (4), as the negatives outnumber the positives.

If this series had more variety in faces, more duration in battle, a more complete world-building, and Raki would be dead from the first chapter, then I would give it a 10.

This manga starts off weak with the first 20 chapters in particular being extremely weak in all aspects. It was only just starting to get interesting more than a third of the way through the series, causing me to drop it for something more original.

Art: In the first 20 chapters, the monsters are extremely boring in design, being nothing more than a featureless silhouette of a large man, every single one of which looks the same. The faces of human characters are janky looking as well, with eyes not spaced in regular or attractive ways. I find the action to be drawn somewhat poorly in terms of paneling and logic as well. Often times, battles are simply people teleporting behind one another and floating in the air (characters cannot actually teleport or fly). I know it’s fantasy, but the lack of realism in fight art, whether it be lines of movement, sword reach, or armor functionality, bothers me. The context and strategies in the fights are mostly typical of other standard battle shounen.

Luckily, the monster design improves to become truly impressive by about chapter 30, and the art improves generally on top. The art in many fights has the same problems however.

Worldbuilding/Story: By chapter 60, the story is becoming interesting, but the world is still extremely bland. I am ⅓ of the way through the series and there is practically no world building. Every town is simply a default medieval town with no unique features to distinguish one from the other. I have no concept of what their economy, religion, politics, or culture is like because there simply isn't any. For example, even when the characters visit a large city that is the center of a major religion within the first 5 chapters, we only see about 2 locations in the entire place, one of which is the inside of the character's hotel room. Despite being in a religious center, I learned almost nothing about the beliefs of people in this world or the lore of the religion, other than it being vaguely Catholic. Another example is that it was recently revealed that Clare's organization operates in 47 provinces, but I have no idea what/who rules any of those provinces, including the ones that Clare has been to. Also have very little information about the organization and no information on the origin of the base demons they fight.

Character: The characters are serviceable, but I did not particularly like any of them. It does not help that all of the "claymores" look very similar. There is a character that I did not like, however, which is the boy that Clare is protecting. He’s whiny and generally just gets Clare injured by ignoring what she tells him to do.

If I read every manga on my TBR list, I may come back to this series to see if it continues to improve until the ending, but with an extremely weak first 1/8 and a mediocre first 1/3, I couldn't rate the series higher than an 8 even if the end was flawless.

Starting out slowly, with a tragic story of the lives of those in the villages under Yoma oppression, then gradually expanding the story further and deeper than you might have imagined at first, this manga leaves you very little space for thoughts like "oh it's just another fighting shounen".

Under the explicit scenes of combat and gruesome looking monsters called Yoma, an intriguing story set in a well-crafted universe of "Claymore" unravels at ever-increasing pace, escalating into a conflict between unlikely allies and foes so enticing- you'll feel the Youki flowing right into you.

Story: 8/10

Although it is a combat-based manga, the underlying story is intelligent and filled with unexpected plot twists.

Art: 9/10

The characters look proportioned and beautiful, environment isn't any worse and in the latter chapters the monster design certainly doesn't leave anything more to be desired. Combat scenes are brutal (though the blood is there just in the right amounts) and really take you there.

Character: 8/10

A multitude of characters is introduced and none of them are exploited more than they should, I have yet to find myself disliking any of them, even those rather one-dimensioned ones.

Enjoyment: 8/10

"Claymore" is extremely addicting to read, it is quite easy to forget yourself and immerse in the story.



Overall: 8/10

This review will mostly cover the aspects of what makes Claymore a battle manga, noting the good and the bad. I will give a quick rundown of my thoughts on the story, art and characters.

Story: It's not too out of the norm and we've seen many other series with similar structured story, it's good enough to progress for the sake of the series. 7/10.

Art: Not in terms of base character models within Claymores since a lot of them just look too similar to really differentiate. Also, the landscapes were a bit generic and the male character models were quite off most of the times. However, what really shines is seeing the awakened beasts and their designs, they're definitely something special. There hasn't been a single awakened form design that I really didn't like. When seeing a creature drawn like Isley's awakened form, it is surely a work of art. 8/10.

Characters: Despite being a character driven series, none of the characters really seemed captivating to me, nor makes me feel drawn into. In fact, there were more characters that I simply couldn't care less for than the ones I really liked. More of a run of the mill characters in both design and backstories. 6/10.


Now, onto the putting my focus on what I really want to talk about. Claymore at it's core is a battle manga, which means that it's a character driven story structured in a way where the main protagonist becomes stronger for the sake of reaching their own goal. With that said, the scale of power weighted amongst characters must be consistent. The main character, Clare, takes in the flesh of Teresa, most powerful warrior in series. In the context of the story, this makes her quarter yoma(considering the Teresa like all other Claymores, was half yoma) This ensures that the main character cannot supersede Teresa's power at any point in the story, which the story makes sure of that. It wouldn't be right for Clare to jump through the ranks to miraculously become a sheer monster without her reaching her ceiling.

The scaling of power as well as the progression had been fairly consistent until towards the latter half of the series. The big problem in a battle manga, the level of power between characters must be consistent, believable and reasonable. My main gripes towards this series is that the main villain is rather unduly overpowered. The level of strength between Abyssal Ones held a strong hierarchy within the pyramid, a structure in the series where these characters were amongst the top level fighters in the series and yet, Priscilla has the power to outright fodderize all three of the characters which ruins what the story has built up to and just treats them like a joke, this just isn't right. This actually was possible considering Alicia and Beth, whom both were rightfully comparable to the Abyssal Ones. The introduction of other stronger beings than the Abyssal Ones had really lessened the enjoyment and consistency from me. I can somewhat compare this problem to the second half of part 2 Naruto, where select few characters managed to become way too powerful in a uninspired manner, completely throwing a lot of the characters and what made them strong under the bus.

It's a great manga of the action/fantasy genre.
It's a manga that take place in medieval times that enforces the idea that in order to defeat a monster you need to become one. Emphasizes the importance of love, teamwork and friendship. Good amount of drama and plot twists. In spite of the initial setting it's a really complex manga.
It's packed with action and has amazing plot. Even though it might seem pretty generic and basic at first, the art and action keeps you going until you reach the point where things start to get real and get entirely sucked in.
Out of all the manga I've read as a 1 decade long manga enthusiast.. for me Claymore is number one... BY FAR.

STORY: 6
Claymore is the story of the "Silver Eyed Witches", half-human half-demon beings who fight man-eating monsters called Youma. The main protagonist is one of these witches-warriors named Claire, and the majority of the plot is about her quest for revenge. Despite the basic premise, the story evolves to become a bit more complex; in the end I found it to be Claymore's weakest aspect, as it remains largely predictable. The one time it tries to surprise the reader with a big revelation it does introduce some unexpected elements, but the author did not employ the said elements in any other way throughout the manga (i.e. there are things that are mentioned but never or briefly shown), so it is rather disappointing in the end (especially with the fact that some explanations seem not so coherent and more aimed to perplex the reader than anything). There are some moments you definitely do not see coming and they are great, but more connected to the fights themselves than to the plot. Luckily, everything else is very good.

ART: 8 - CHARACTER: 7
The art is satisfying, with a great character design managing to keep every warrior different from the others despite all of them being similar for plot reasons and them being so many. The monster design also shines with some absolutely great looking and menacing demons. It's too bad that the environement are not drawn to their fullest potential as they could have been more varied and detailed (the Medieval setting had so much potential for this). It doesn't help that the landscape is always destroyed in the fights either. Remaining on the characters, they have not the deepest characterization but they are enjoyable nevertheless. Every one of them has little nuisances which make them interesting, especially the seven main Claymores who are the protagonists of the manga. The villains are a bit of hit and miss, since some of them are quite charismatic while others are too cliché with the standard high and mighty attitude given from the fact that they are incredibly powerful.


ENJOYMENT: 8
The balancing between action scenes and plot developing is one of Claymore's greatest point: fights are long and immersive and most of the time when you are just about to get bored from them they resolve just the right way and you can catch your breath with explanations, strategies and the likes. The rythm is, as a consequence, very engaging and you always feel motivated to continue the reading. Fights themselves are often dramatic, with high tension and filled with a little more blood and dismembering than your average action manga (by no means Berserk-level gore, but it still is something); they often employ strategy and this make them less predictable, though they are sometimes resolved with a convenient power up in shonen fashion. This is one of the thing I disliked the most: despite being basically a seinen, Claymore employs too many expedients and structures typical of shonen mangas (that is to say warriors with a number to represent their strength, convenient power ups, class of stronger demons and so on) which hinder the overall potential of this work. I would have like it to be more mature and anti-conventional in these details and it had the potential to do so.

So overall we have a fantasy action manga that does not particularly excel in any aspect, though some of them are great, but the alchemy of them works quite well and will keep you hooked if you are a fan of the genre. In fact, I was tempted to give this an 8, but considering all the flaws that I think there are in this work I opted for a 7, which is more fitting to my overall standpoint.