Claymore is a lighthearted story about love and friendship and not getting chopped to pieces. Or rather, that's what I'd like to say. There's friendship, and there's possibly love. At some points it's almost lighthearted. Claymore is the story of a continent beset by man-eating monsters that can disguise themselves as humans. Our protagonist Claire is a Claymore, one of the group of almost exclusively female warriors tasked with detecting and destroying said monsters. We follow her roaring rampage of revenge as she slices and shittalks her way through everyone she encounters in a bid to take revenge on the ones who stole her childhood from her. Or rather, that's what I'd like to say. She's not exactly roaring for most of the series. Even so, a lot of people die and there's lots of dismemberment and body horror, as you might expect in a series where people fight monsters with giant swords. Also there's a sinister organization called the Organization that create and administer the Claymores and charge exorbitant fees for their services; they're totally not the bad guys, come on, they just dress in all black and say vague things about a Plan and set Claymores to execute traitors and troublemakers because that's just what you do. Also Riful. Riful is a delight and a treasure. Also the hilarious contrast between this and Norihiro Yagi's previous work, Angel Densetsu. An anime was made of the first half of the manga, but had to end rather abruptly and weirdly since the manga wasn't finished at that point. I hope it someday gets the FMA treatment; Claymore: Sisterhood would be pretty cool, yo.
I have the anime's theme song! I still haven't finished the last few chapters because the site I was reading them on doesn't work anymore, but I think they have it in volume form at the library now! Aka, I've incorporated Claymore stuff into many, many AUs that I only write in my head. Being able to sense yoma's movements before they attack and having Claymores turn into monsters when they lose control hit littler!me like a bolt of lightning
The only thing I didn't love was distinguishing the Claymores; given that they are all pale skin, pale blond hair, wearing identical armor … Each has a distinctive hairstyle, face and personality but I still found it confusing at times.
Claymore the manga finished a little while ago! I liked the end, sort of. Okay, I found the end to be terribly confusing the first time through. But I liked it when I reread it.
oh hey we have claymore fans here ::D and seconding the riful love, riful is great. and irena was just a stone cold badass.
Can someone explain the end to me? I think I wound up missing a large chunk of stuff in the middle, so it made less sense than it ought to.
Spoiler: claymores ending so the organisation is part of a larger country, and the island is basically testing grounds for a superweapon against their ancestral enemy, the dragonfolk, and the youma thing is made from two dragonfolk theyve got chained up in their basement. meanwhile priscilla is overpowered because of her own hatred and unable to stop even though she's subconsciously horrified at what she's become, and clare's awakened form is teresa, because they didn't put a youma in her, but teresa's remains. clare awakens to teresa who is hella strong because clare believed her to be, and they manage to kill priscilla. the spy leaves the island and is told that the claymores and the rest of the island really, really don't want jack shit to do with that war, so please leave and never return. did that answer it?
So pretty much the ending I expected, because spoilers don't bother me. Cool. I like the "to fight monsters, you must become one" trope if handled well, and Claymore does an excellent job of it. And no excess fanservice-y stuff or a lot of the other manga tropes that annoy me. The Claymores' outfits are a little too revealing to be realistic, and the rebel Claymores even more so, but I cannot recall the art ever focusing on it in that horrible male-gazey "hey let's ignore the critical fight going on for a second to look at her underwear" way that annoys me.
I forgot that I loved Alicia and Beth, especially Alicia's awakened form. Claire's partial awakening with all the blades in the North was also entirely my aesthetic 8) And Jean, and Riful...ahhhh, so many good character designs
The artist is so good at demonic monstrous things that were once human. They really do look goddamn scary at times.
I love Dae as well. Just nonchalantly releasing monsters because his bosses didn't specify not to, and later chatting with Priscilla as she's eating him.
