Plot Summary:
In a world rife with deadly creatures called “Youma”, a young silver eyed woman, Clare, works on behalf of an organization that trains female youma half-breeds into warriors with the ability to destroy these creatures. Considered a rogue for picking up a stray child & almost losing herself to her youma side by “Awakening”, she is constantly assigned rather dangerous missions…

Company:
Madhouse Studios

Cast:
Houko Kuwashima as Clare
Motoki Takagi as Raki
Romi Paku as Teresa
Aya Hisakawa as Priscilla

Genre:
Fantasy, Adventure, Medieval

Air Time:
Claymore aired from April 03, 2007 - September 25, 2007

DVD Availability:
Avex Trax has released the first 15 episodes on DVD and is releasing them in DVD compilations of 3 episodes each along with Limited Edition packages as well. Claymore will be fully released on DVD on March 26, 2008.

Episodes:
Claymore is a 26 episode long series, with possibility for a sequel.

Review:
Graphically, Claymore is above average. Backgrounds are carefully painted and there’s no shortage of blood during gore scenes.

Each of the Claymores are all drawn uniquely with subtle features which set them apart despite them all carrying near identical traits. The creative design on the fodder Youma is fairly bland but the uniqueness of the Awakened Ones compensates for it.

Claymore provided a compelling story which was perhaps the main driving force of my continued watching. The first few episodes have such a perfect pace of story progression which was lost towards the end as they begin to try and stretch events.

Character development is fairly well done. Certain characters are addressed more or less than others. That said, they did everything right in the development of Teresa. The couple episodes which she stars in are some of my favourite.

The score in Claymore fits the mood well, the Ending Theme in particular is incredible. On the most part the music fits the mood well, it has ups and downs but is generally solid. The sounds of the fights are visceral and gritty, whether it be the clangs of swords, the spatter of blood or the rippling of muscles. Voice actors play their part well, and once again with Romi Paku’s voicing of Teresa being my favourite. Not much criticism here, basically Claymore sounds awesome.

Claymore like most anime began with a bang. Delivering both gory hack n’ slash and compelling story, much like Berserk, the first 12 or so episodes were phenomenal. As the series continued, however, it slowly went downhill. Fight scenes became less detailed and almost DBZ-esque with long monologues and power-up scenes and the story progression grinds to a halt. Don’t get me wrong though, Claymore does deliver, and unfortunately like most anime the first half of it is significantly better than the second.

On a final note, Claymore contains both good and bad aspects. If you’re a fan of crazy gore involving demons, petit blond-haired girls and big swords then Claymore in the anime for you, and you might even get a fairly epic story thrown in to boot. Ultimately Claymore does shine and gives fans of medieval adventure anime something to sink their teeth into while the wait futilely for the rest of the Berserk manga to be adapted into anime.

Final Rating: 4/5

This review was brought to you by Ondema!

Credits:

• Anime News Network (ANN)
• Wikipedia
• Avex Trax

written by ondema \\ tags: Adventure, Fantasy, Medieval