Claymore appeared in my life when I barely began to pierce the yoke of dark fantasy and I was enticed for more after a childhood of growing up with classic romantic adventures like Star Wars and Narnia but as I grew up I started to have a more pessimistic and anxious fear of the world and the dark and bleak world of Dark Fantasy were more comforting so fit my more bleak perception of the world around me and the gloominess felt familiar
after hearing Claymore whispered around the community of Dark Fantasy I remember being genuinely stunned by the series artwork mixing elegance with grotesque body horror and the steeped grim tone albeit I forgot the minutia of the story but the series branded itself me with scenes of women one-handing giant swords slicing extremities off of monsters that seemed to have the detail of greek statues given flesh and twisted into a macabre nightmare.
Claymore was a genuine diamond in the rough for me it had a stellar monster hunter premise with the artwork to really sell the fantastical aspects of the story with a creative premise to muse me into reading it with exhilaration breezing through the first 12 volumes of the series, unfortunately, I had a break-off point with the series around the 12th volume and encoutnered a slight problem that being tied to the character design
Claymore is more or less Clare's story of revenge and while I found it easy to glue myself and really attach to the character of Clare that is more or less due because of her role as the protagonist and the proportional amount of spotlight she gets compared to the other Claymores in the story.
This doesn't get helped by the fact that all the Claymores have a universal uniform they all wear.
they all wear the same armor as Clare and aside from some minute facial structure differences that vary depending on the character and as well as hairstyles it really makes it hard for some of the characters to stand out more so than others at the very least I believe that the author could have created a character chart to keep track of all the characters especially since they all bare overlapping similarities.
but I also really like the varied hairstyles of the different claymore Clares bob short hairstyle really gives a sense of practicality to Clare as a character since longer hair could get in the way when she takes out her hair this is further shown by Teresa who openly keeps long and wavy beautiful hair which seems more to flaunt beauty during battle or at least show the arrogance of her skill and power while Clare is barely trying to survive and get revenge
Claymore is like Bloodborne hitting Berserk and the Witcher all at the same time and it works so well the fights in Claymore are delivered through a partially tag-team experience as they attempt to take down monsters of nightmarish existences chipping away and fighting tooth and nail.
while I do realize that a lot of shonen or fighting manga do have their moments of teamwork between its two titular main characters or rivals I inwardly cringe at the moments it takes to get there and I think Claymore is such a fresh release where our characters are in a deadly situation acting as a united fighting force
the main power system relies on the manipulation of yoma energy in order for the Claymores to pull off badass and awesome techniques like detecting and predicting enemy yoma based on their energy or twisting your fucking arm for drilling power and its this creativeness derived from a singular power source that makes the fights feel like uphill battles because the characters work within preset limitations.
hopefully, anything I've said has enticed you enough to dip your hand into this series and if so I can come out of this review proud I didn't know how long to make this but glad you read to the end and I hope you enjoy your day
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