hbarrows - 2017-01-12 15:19:32

Claymore is a series released in 2007 produced by studio Madhouse. On paper this should be an exceptional show since it was made by a studio giant and arguable the best out there, and released in the so-called “golden age” of anime. This anime contains everything it needs to be successful in the industry and hailed as a masterpiece: Beautiful women wielding epic weapons, large-scale battles as well as small “assassin’s creed” type infiltrations as well as political intrigue by touching on subjects such as alienation, prejudice, loyalty and vengeance. But sadly this is not the case, Claymore is not a masterpiece and hailed as a benchmark of the genre, but it is a superb anime and still deserved to be watched. So why is Claymore the way it is? Falling in between good and amazing, doing more than enough in some categories but not enough in others.

Story:

Claymore is set in a fiction world resembling medieval Europe with a supernatural twist. The story is about a mysterious group called The Organization as they make incredible female warriors who are half-human, half-yoma. Yoma are in a sense a cross between a vampire and a werewolf. Yoma’s are creatures who can hide themselves in the bodies of other people and can thus parade around as said person whilst devouring human being as they chose. At night they are most likely to reveal their true forms which strongly resemble werewolves. To locate and destroy these monsters and restore peace is the very reason for the Claymores existence, but not for free the organization charges said village a fee for slaying the Yoma that is in their town. The village only pays if the Yoma is killed by the Claymore, it the Claymore so happens to fail their task, then another will be dispatched by the organization to deal with the Yoma.

Characters:

Claymores are named after the giant swords that they wield. Besides that they don’t really have many human characteristics. In this story we follow a Claymore called Clare as we explore her life as a Claymore and why she choose to become one as we go back to see her past and the events that has transpired for her to get to this point in her life. Clare is a very exciting character to follow in the first half of the story. She is not to strong as most action-adventure heroines in anime as that would make for her not to have any obstacles in he way and would make her fights against Yoma’s less interesting as the outcome would be pre-determined. Clare is actually the weakest Claymore in the country, since all Claymores are ranked from 1-47 depending on their skill level and effectiveness against Yoma, we get to find out that Clare is ranked at the absolute lowest and is thus looked down upon as inferior by other Claymores she runs across. The anime does switch gears in the early half of it and decides to focus on a different character: Theresa, who seems to be the complete opposite of Clare. Theresa is ranked number 1 in the organization at the time and is regarded as the strongest Claymore to ever exist, she can easily dispatch of any enemy that threatens her including other Claymores that are ranked in the single digits. Theresa is a nice change of pace to Clare, not that Clare is boring or uninteresting in any case, but Theresa just adds a new level of confidence but also allows us to see how the other end of the scale feels like. Theresa and Clare’s narrative seems distant from each other, but as you follow along you get to see that their stories are intertwined which produces an unexpected but great effect.

The other characters feature in this anime aren’t especially noteworthy. Raki who is Clare’s apprentice starts off as a well-meaning character and adds much-needed humanization to Clare at the start of the show, but throughout it’s 26 episode span, he becomes more unbearable. The other minor characters are other Claymores that Clare and Theresa come across on their separate journeys as well as other they get paired with on difficult missions. The other Claymores aren’t especially great characters, but they fill their role of supporting the main characters and not drawing the audience’s attention of the leads. Some of them do get notable screen time and their backstories developed which does lead to some interesting dialogue. But this show is a show focused solely on their main characters, so not much can be expected from the other background characters but they do their jobs.

There are clear parallels between the Claymore anime and The Witcher series, which are novels that have been adapted into video games. Witchers like Claymores are paid monster hunters which have had their bodies altered at a young age to give them the necessary strength and abilities to do their jobs. They both have cat-like eyes, don’t involve themselves in human politics, and are positions that operate with only one gender: being males for Witchers and females for Claymore. The parallels go on every further as they are both hated by the human factions and looked down on as not being fully human, but are also depended upon by humans do to jobs that only they can accomplish. Both stories even involve the main character taking on a sort of apprentice of the opposite gender in the form of Raki(male) in Claymore and Ciri(female) in The Witcher. Both Raki and Ciri aspire to be like their savers Clare and Gerald the main characters of their respected tales, but ultimately know they cannot achieve that goal due to genders restrictions of the profession.

Animation :

Since the anime was done by the powerhouse that is studio Madhouse, we can expect a certain level of polish and animation from them considering other notable works from them include anime Death Note and Trigun. The downside about it being made the studio is that we will probably never get a second season of Claymore as Madhouse are notorious for not continuing popular series such as HighSchool. Of. The. Dead, No Game No Life, Btooom! and Black Lagoon. The animation for Claymore is fantastic and while some might argue that the colours used are dull and unappealing, I think it fits well with the medieval setting. The use of mostly grey’s are browns creates a great atmosphere for the show and immerses you in the world and the story of it.

Sound:

The sound for the anime was just as good as the animation, since both complemented the show without being to overbearing. Weather you should watch this dub or sub, I would have to say watch it the original Japanese only because Raki is so irritating as a character that having him in English is just unbearable and can at least be tolerated in sub.

Negatives:

My issue with Claymore is that I feel it lost steam as it went along. The anime had so much potential to be a stand out in the year consider other great anime that came out during that period like Gurren Lagann, Code Geass R2 and Baccano! The anime started off amazing introducing a great world with interesting characters that you connected with, but as it progressed it started becoming less medieval supernatural action, and becoming more pure shōnen battle anime. With ridiculous power-ups by Clare leading to her becoming one of the most overpowered main character I’ve seen in recent memory. Clare was perfectly leveled in the beginning allowing for her to get progressively stronger as the show goes on due to her past, but as the show did progress she took a massive spike in power when in the end she was one of the strongest individuals on the show without her getting any real consequences for obtaining that power. I would have rather seen her progress slowly up the list on Claymores and eventually getting into the single digits by having different more powerful Claymores teach her and her taking up more high-level missions whilst tracing back her past.

Towards the end, in her last fight I felt as if i was watching an episode of Dragon Ball Z because of all the overpowered super levelling that was happening. Theresa never used her max power at any point: the most she ever went up to was 10%, but at least her powers made sense to an extent since she was number 1, whilst Clare’s made no sense as she was the lowest ranked Claymore and struggled to take down even regular Yoma’s. My other huge problem with the show as I’ve referenced before is Raki, at the very beginning when Clare adopts him he was a necessary character as what and who Claymores are explained to the viewer through him since neither knows anything at the beginning. But the last couple of episodes he became the most irritating and frustrating character in anime (yes, even worse than Shinji), he didn’t impact the final moments of the anime at all and just was a waste of screen time.

tl;dr

Overall Claymore is a great anime series with a lot of entertaining fights, great characters and an interesting world. If you enjoy The Witcher series (books or games) or have an interest in medieval times with a fantasy twist; you’ll be in for a treat. I wouldn’t say it’s a masterpiece or a must watch by any stretch of the imagination, but I would say it’s worth your time to at least check. I also feel that the show is great for newcomers to the anime medium as it’s plot is simple to follow, action-packed and contains both an english dub and sub.

Scoring:

Story: 7.5/10
Characters: 8.2/10
Animation: 7.6/10
Sound: 8/10

[7.76/10]

Enjoyment: 8.6/10
Overall: 8/10

zstokes - 2016-11-15 00:50:52

Great universe and characters, but the final episodes took it too far. How many times can you come back from the dead? How many times can you overcome impossible enemies for no reason whatsoever? How many times can the heroes lose limbs before it becomes ridiculous? Overall, it felt like being trolled by the author: Not very enjoyable.

gschroeder - 2016-10-16 01:39:18

The manga is way better. The anime is terrible and makes all the characters seem overly cocky plus bad dubs and the manga is more indepth.

lesley30 - 2016-08-23 11:39:01

Title: Claymore
Stars: 5.0
Genres: Action, Fantasy, Adventure, Supernatural, Demons.

Review: In the world of Claymore a secret society created a new type of soldier called Claymore with the purpose to fight demons who infest the world.
It's a cruent anime, the action is very good and is also my favorite anime, i bought all manga because the anime has stopped.
I think this is a must see for all people who like the fights with supernatural powers.
Great characters and a lot of enjoyment with an exciting story.

Just watch it.

ljerde - 2016-07-22 03:44:54

Review in Spanish

ernser.henriette - 2016-06-03 19:19:51

TlDR: A fast paced show with a great cast of characters. Whilst the show may not be for everyone, those that enjoy watching good fights and a great story wont be displeased! Give it a shot if it sounds like your kinda show!

This review will contain no spoilers for the show! (Or at least as few as possible)!

Story: Throughout this show we follow Claire as she hunts down a certain being who has caused her much pain. Along the way we meet many interesting and complex characters. While the story may not be all that deep, it does have good pacing and rarely strays form the main plot. 

Animation: I give the animation a 7/10 not because it's bad per say but because it does have it's issues. During fights there will be times when the characters are still yet the camera moves about to simulate movement. At times this can come off as lazy. This anime also does have a habit of using flashbacks which can be good or bad depending on the viewer.

Sound: I gave the sound a 10/10 based on both the ost and the voice acting. First lets start with the background music. When action scenes are going on there's a powerful almost metal sounding track that plays. As well there's also a fanfare type soundtrack that plays when our characters go on a adventure. Basically the soundtrack often fits the mood of the show very well. Next let's talk about the voice acting. Now I watched this show dubbed. Therefore those who watch this show subbed may have a different experience. Overall I would say that the voice acting was great. Each characters voice felt like it fit quite well. So props to the funimation ladies for delivering an awesome experience. Oh and special shout out to Stephanie Young for her role as Claire. That yelling must have been murder on the vocal cords! 

Character: Most characters within this show are interesting. Certain characters will stand out whilst other characters will likely be quickly forgotten. As well some characters deaths will be heart wrenching whilst other characters deaths will be forgotten. All in all the cast of characters is where the heart of the show lies. So either you'll fall in love with the characters and want them to survive, or you'll care little for the characters and their survival. I give the characters of Claymore an 8/10

Enjoyment: I give the enjoyment an 8/10. Some of the early episodes weren't particularly griping in my opinion at least. However once the main plot gets going I had difficulty going to sleep excited for the next episode. If your interested in trying the show before buying you can watch it at funimation's website. Overall I would say that the show is blast and worth a shot if you like watching bad ass females murder monsters.

hettinger.francis - 2015-04-20 03:01:33

                                >>DISCLAIMER

My reviews consist of my short thoughts immediately after finishing a series and should be treated as such. They are also explicit (I use curse words) and may contain spoilers.

                                >>DISCLAIMER

      So the main two reasons why I watched this was because it had a dub and a female lead. It succeeded in those two things. So as far as that goes 10/10 fantastic, my standards were met, great job!

       While that is true I am being a bit sarcastic, it did fulfill those two things and honestly I liked Claire I liked her story and motivations. The world it setup was interesting and appealed to my typical needs for a shounin. All the side characters (claymores) had enough personality that they were distinguishable and you could really feel for them and their personal motivations, which when they literally all look the same is big. I thought this would bother me more and it did to some extent I mean they were all muscular woman wielding huge swords with blonde hair and grey eyes, but they found a way to give each character its own look and personality and I commend them on that. NOW that's all the good things I can say. Raki or whoever could literally be cut from this CLEAN... I'm serious, even the parts where people interact with him id quite literally enjoy just being confused at people interacting with thin air then to hear his sick winy voice. I honestly feel like they wanted to give Claire some kind of entrance and have an initial outside perspective on the claymores and they used his character to do that but THEY DIDNT HAVE TO or THEY DIDNT HAVE TO KEEP HIM, instead of going with Claire he just shouldn't of and the focus could of shifted to her, problem solved. I mean the writing in this was GOD AWFUL and he was the main offender. Seriously I know how shounins are and there is a certain aspect of dialogue that is expect but COME ON. Here is a fun drinking game, after episode 3 if you hear someone talking about a claymore going over their limit take a shot and if your not dead by episode 21 then you must be a youma and congrats you can start offing these annoying little bitches while they struggle with figuring out where their limit is and how dangerous it is not to exceed it even though 90% of the time its totally cool and they come back EASY PEASY. Yeah I really wouldn't recommend this anime the cheesiness accompanied by the awful writing and need to make you have sympathy for the characters got worse and worse until the end I just found myself with my hand in constant face palm. 10/SMH

pablo70 - 2015-01-25 00:17:21

I found Claymore to be a very enjoyable series. I should mention that I haven't read the manga, which I understand differs quite drastically in the way it ends.
The animation was decent, if you can get past the prevalence of massive foreheads that seems to plague the people of these lands.

The characters were - with one very notable exception - interesting and engaging. Clare made for a good protagonist and the other Claymores had enough character to make them distinct, and to give it some impact when something bad happened to them.
The exception I referred to was Raki. I think that was his name anyway. I wanted him to get stabbed. Seriously, I reached the point where I was imploring Clare to run him through. I cannot recall a more annoying character in anything else I've watched. I have nightmares about him repeatedly shouting Clare's name, over and over and over again.

Worth watching but it will make you want to strangle the boy

clinton.schamberger - 2014-08-12 09:28:58

Fans of swords and sorcery have to check it out, while those turned off by gore and violence probably should avoid it.

ladarius.wisoky - 2013-06-30 17:24:41

Claymore takes place in a medieval fantasy world. So ya expect really big swords, gore, blood and limbs everywhere. It actually reminded me of Freezing (I watched Freezing 1st) but without all the panty shots, boobs and cloths getting ripped like toilet paper.

STORY:

Claymore's story is fairly simple, humanity is plagued by monsters who can disguise themselfs as humans and slowly eat all the town's people. Only Claymores trained female warriors who can sense Yoma in their human form and have to power to slay them. The plot is quite linear usually going along the lines of The Organization give Claire (Our main character) a job to slay a Yoma/s (the monsters of the series) in X village or cave Y. The pacing of the story is usually done in short arc which all tie in to eachother. While the first one isn't that great i found the arc about Claire's past to be one of the best simply because of the character Tressa of the faint smile. I like how the series is straight forward and to the point, the show is mostly action so there's no breaking in between fights to talk about each characters philosophy on why they fight like in some action shows.......

Characters:

The characters are properly the driving force of the show of me anyways. The best bits of the show is character interactions between Claymores while fighting yoma. The show mainly focuses on Claire a Claymore out for revenge and ranked 47 on the listing of Claymores. But there was one character which almost ruined the show for me and that Raki. He doesn't do any of importants and just really gets in Claire's way most of the time. Plus his voice from the english dub almost wanted me to mute every scene i seen his lips move (ya thanks for that voice Todd Haberkorn). Another thing to note is the gender role reverse. Claymores act like man from a series like Berserk while Raki acts like a confused little girl. All the main cast are fairly interesting and get a fair amount of screen time each but i was disappointed that we never got to see the 1st and 2nd ranking Claymores in the show.

Animation:

The art style for the show is pretty different from most animes. Claymore's uses a very dark/dim palette which really makes the world there in dark, depressive, grim and that death is just around the corner waiting for you. This makes the blood splatter really stand out since the blood is colored quite bright and really contrasts against the dull dim world in which the Claymore's live in. While most of the character designs where good i found that all the Claymore's all look too alike i mean same armor, swords, hair and eye color. Plus this could be just me but I always found Claire's face alittle off. I think it has to do something with the pointlyness of her nose or how it positioned or something.

Action scene for the most part have solid animation. Sure they use short cuts some times like just simply having a still picture with silver lines just going everywhere but apart from that it's pretty good for it's time. It's no Black Lagoon but still pretty good.

Sound:

The music sets the mood perfectly and there is some memorable soundtracks as well. The opening is not the best but for some reason it always got me hyped for the show i guess it's because it quite shorter than most anime openings only clocking in at 1:00 and it's mostly just guitar solos with some what of a cheesey sounding 80s styled anime singer to it.

I only ever watched the show dubbed and it's a fairly solid dub cast (par Raki) with Stephanie Young who the voices of Robin from One Piece and Arachne from Soul Eater playing the voice of Claire and Christine Auten giving us a sexy yet dangerous voice for Teresa.

Enjoyment:

Claymore is simple straight to the point action with a cast of quite likable characters. Although i wish it had gave an explaination of how Yoma ever came about and abit more on world building and the ending of the series is just terrible. It simply just stops and is far too open ended leaving me with more unanswered questions. It's one of them ending that makes you considering reading the manga Raki is just plain annoying and everything that came out of his mouth i completely disregarded. Although even with these flaws i really enjoyed this show so much that i rewatched the whole show again. I guess i just really enjoyed the show which would lead me to give it a biased score of 8.5/10 but my final score would be

7/7.5/10