Claymore
a review by SamTheSauceMaster
a review by SamTheSauceMaster
You can't afford to become a monster, you can't afford to lose your mind. You now must fight for something you want to protect now.
Fighting for a past that will consume you it's not anymore your choice.
So now...stand up warrior. Even if your flesh it's not of an human anymore... you have the right to keep living like one if you still have a mind and a gentle heart.
___
# The words in the previous section...these were the thoughts that flashed straight away in my mind after have watched the epilogue of the last episode of Claymore :
a dark fantasy, supernatural and gore oriented anime produced by studio MADHOUSE in collaboration with
The show is an adaptation of the homonym manga published by Shueisha on Monthly Shonen Jump (2001-June 2007), Weekly Shonen Jump( June 2007-October 2007) and finally Jump Square (October 2007-2014) and that created by Yagi Norihiro-sensei.
So...yes, here we have the first points to make clear about Claymore with the actual information I gave:
This show, even if it has a pretty dark, a little impegnative and also has a pretty decent characterization of its own "key characters", obviously from my point of view,...well the magazines are talking.
The anime adaptation that I watched and now reviewing not only covers 11 volumes of the 26 that completes the manga, making it an incomplete anime for the obvious reasons that ended 7 years later (and also to note that the 11 volumes in the anime are like in the manga...so good job to MADHOUSE for the factor "no fillers")...Claymore still remains a Shonen
(demographic target of male teens between 13-17 years old ) and that's a fact that remains for the whole course of the anime experience and that everyone can feel on their skins... but it's still really a good one even with only those 11 volumes and its "open ending" in the anime that yes, it kinda let you wish for more but it's a pretty decent ending that leaves the watcher with actually something at the end.
The structure and the development is on the same line of everything that it was been published from the end of the 90's and the middle-end of the 2000's on Jump...and this is another reason why Claymore amazed me!
I am going to explain myself a little better: I think we are all too familiar with how battle shonens works.
We just start with an apparently strong character as the main protagonist, that beats everyone ass for the first 3/4 arcs, he mets a big guy, he goes to training, beats the big guy, gain some kinda of character development, go into the next location, etc... the circle repeats itself until there is a tournament or war arc blah blah blah.
Welp... Claymore shares a similar structure....
BUT STILL I found it more than interesting for the simple reason that in Claymore...
more you become strong...more you are doomed to become the painter of the next bloodbath of innocents. More you become powerful...more you are going near the limit where you can't go back and you become a monster.
And not only you have nightmares every night about that inevitable day... but you can't avoid it.
You can fight that urge and try to still remain human... but one day you'll break and that is inevitable.
This concept and the continuous battle non-stop deep inside you to stop your urges is the bread and butter of Claymore and the fact is that gives A LOT of space for this concept and theme in the show even if anyone can see that is a narrative formula that it was used and reused a lot of times.
And this exact contrast that in my opinion that makes it a really interesting concept to give a chance even if you are not a gore/medieval fantasy/shonen type of person.
This anime has a typical combo of elements from Seinen mangas (demographic target of male young adults of 18-19 years old and more) ... but still keeps the structure of a Shonen, making it a really entertaining bridge for the two demographic categories.
It's an optimal compromise for peoples that are searching a more meaningful SHONEN experience while trying to keep the classical character development formula of this category but with a more adult depth.
To be honest I started watching Claymore without a clue of what I was going into... but with only keeping in mind 3 words that my fellow otaku bros always told me...."Sam....CLAYMORE > BERSERK".
And you know what? That's an ERROR that everyone could do now that I lucidly think about it because comparing those two titans of the Gore Fantasy...
it has no sense, but not because one of the two titles is better than the other from my point of view or one it's the son of the other and has a same base theme (but honestly I would take the side of Claymore in the war... but that's a talk for another day) but cause they have a different demographic target and so they take with them the cliches of their own demographic target for what was required to them at the beginning of their publish. Especially in Claymore case.
CLAYMORE = Shonen
BERSERK = Seinen
They are in different dimensions with 12 years of difference and so they are titans of the genre that both started in two different eras. I agree that they possibly have a father-son relation with how they managed Guts and Clare...but Claymore has a more standard formula from my point of view but that doesn't actually take control of what it wants to give.
And... the fact is that this creative work has some ways to wield his sword against a big shot like THE "Berserk" and this can tell you that maybe, not the anime but at 90% the manga of Yagi-sensei it's worth a shot if not one, but many affirm this and are still "happily confused" on the identity of this work.
But I think I wrote a lot in this section for just only being an introduction.
So let's jump in analyzing the plot.
_______
# 
They have no mercy... man, woman, elders, kids...they just cut them down without any care, eat them and take the forms of humans before starting their cruel killing and torture session again that culminates with eating other humans organs.
No human can stop them... but an unnamed organization offered their answer to the problem...the group of warriors called "Silver Eyed Witches" but that are commonly known between the normal inhabitants of the continent with the name "Claymore " for the swords that they carry with them.
These female mercenaries are the results of experiments with the objective to let absorb the flash and blood of a Youma into an human... and for this exact reason the Claymore warriors, even if they gave their body to the experiments and became weapons for the sake of humanity, are feared as "Half-Youmas "
Our story starts when in a little village in the south of the continent a Youma starts to torment it and to eat people each night.
For this cause, the mayor decided to contact the Organization and doing so, it sent one of the nearest witches to the location....the Claymore named Clare.
Here our heroine will met one of the 2 survivors of the first attack of the wild Youma in the village, the young boy Raki that, drove by his curiosity and desperate desire of vengeance for his parents killed by the Youma, start to approach and talk to the half-demon hoping that she will avenge his parents instead of him.
Clare coldly answer to the hope of the boy with a:
"It's only a job. I don't care about your vengeance".
But eventually and fortunately for our now broken Raki, Clare herself will be the woman that will save him from the fangs of the hidden Youma that planned to assault our boy that same night before heading out of the village... but the plans of the demon will be torn-apart by the simple fact that Claymore warriors as half-demons has the ability to feel the Yoki and the Yoryoku a.k.a the stored energy and the released aura that each Youma posses and controls...and so what I can say?
Bye bye to the small fry. The warrior will slash the Youma and she will leave in the direction of a new job.
But after the end of the job our poor Raki will have no more an home and a place to return and so he will start to wander in the middle of nowhere until one day, in a village near some woods, will met another demon and so a Claymore will again appear...that will be no other than Clare.
The boy after seeing again his heroine save him again, he will not esitate to ask if he could start to travel with her.
He has no home, no loved ones and has no idea to what to do about his life...and so he ends up offering himself to become Clare cook-companion for her journey with the objective to slice down monsters.
Clare past flashes in her mind in that moment... memories of a past where she was still a kid and that she walked along another woman...another warrior...another Claymore.
And so... the woman will allow the boy to accompany her in her journey.
A journey apparently empty, where she is going to struggle in every battle for still keeping her sanity...with only one objective for our mercenary.
Cut down the head of the "horned demon" of that day of a cursed past... trying to still remain human.
After all... Claymore warriors are also Half-Youma.
And the limit that separates Rage and Insanity...is made of thin walls of paper.
2) PLOT ANALYSIS
Okay... here we are boys and gals!
This will be the SAUCE of this whole review and so I want to start kinda weirdly with a maybe stupid question... can we, humans, manage to keep our "animal side" inside the limit of our minds?
Well, obviously there are going to be lots of different thesis...but this no end research is a big theme inside this work.
Because I think you can guess already what Claymore main content is...and so...yes.
Claymore is a tale about vengeance and how to move on from it , other than having a really REALLY shonen-ish start and not a tale about "yeah, let's killl all freaking demons/titans/monsters" like now they use to do.
The fury of our main heroine, Clare... is always against only one being. Not the world, not the whole demon-race. Just one.
And all the stereotypical training and "kinda circular" structure typical of shonens anime and manga is going to be done not because she has a big inspirational dream, want to save the world or noble reasons. Even with the help of our boy Raki... the main mindset will remain the same in in the beginning phase of the show and her deepest desire will always torment Clare in the middle and especially at the end of it.
She wants to see blood run down on her blade without a care and to survive so she can gain the power to cut down who torn apart away her "sister". And this mostly generic formula is surprisingly good in the world of Claymore!
This is the tale of your typical little girl, but that suffered a lot and more then everyone her age should at the point to even fake madness to not be eaten.
And when she __ _finally find another being, independently if she was a monster or not, that loves her ...she see madness when the monster is taken away from her from... just from another girl but that unfortunately passed through the limit___ and couldn't turn back anymore.
So... now, you. Seasoned reader or not... you are probably thinking: shounen-ish tragedy" ?>
Well my fellow otakus...."the answer is simple".... it's HUMAN! This is an "HUMAN AT SOUL " tale... even when the rules of the story are "even if you try your best, you are going to become a MONSTER"!
In fact I bet that more experienced readers might already get it... but the limit I talked about before...It's the limit that an half-demon MUSTN'T AND NEVER go too near to.
Claymores....are not other than "time bombs" that could explode ANY TIME and not become just Youmas.
No no no no, you think they are going to become just weaklings??? AHAHAHAhahahah...
...
They are going to become "Awakaned Beings", monsters that could kill in a couple of minutes whole towns and slay low ranked Claymores. Mostly only the warriors in top 20 can hope to SURVIVE a battle against them and only the top 5 can do a 1vs1 against one of them.
And if we make a Claymore in the top 5 position an "Awakened Being"...well we obtain not only the main interest of the HUMAN anger, despair and killing instincts of Clare, but also genocides, genocides, genocides...
that are actually nothing if compared to what one of the "Abyssal Ones", a.k.a "Youma kings" to semplificate the argument, can do.
And so... this is what hurt the most and that can let you understand why Claymore is so human and sad.
The fact that the Claymore warriors sacrifice everything they have...to just condemn themselves to become monsters sooner or later for their objective.
This is no mere power up that you can control with training. This is A CURSE that YOU MUST TRAIN AND CONTAIN each freaking day because if you don't do it... your own sisters that shared with you the pain of the battlefield are going to chop your head in an instant.
Hate like an human, become a monster for the humans, and hope to die while fighting inside for giving your last breath as an human. And if you become a monster...just hope to have forgotten everything because you are going to realize that you were only a pawn of someone that used you.
And so...i think that now you reader understand the first section under the disclaimer.
These were the mere words of a simple beginner reviewer and narrator... but I think that those were the most accurate words to say to this group of warriors that gave their whole beings to a bloody and desperate past.
Faintly hoping that something like this will never happen to others... while knowing or not even knowing the fact they could possibly became the next authors of the bloodshed of innocents of a tomorrow.
Realizing it and doing the first step to salvation is the real objective of this show. And what it means...well I guess that only the manga readers knows it lol. UwU
______
#
Honestly I wanted to write here a not really complex technical section with giving an opinion on animation and soundtrack before to closing the review....but I dumbly forgot one important thing in battle shonens and similar: Power Ups and how they are paced!
This aspect is a crucial one for the genre and so I need to talk absolutely about this...and how this show doesn't do absurd things with them even going mostly fast with this. And the reason why is for the rule that i told before about:
More you are strong, more the power is "heavy" and more you are possibly near to doom.
And I must confirm that, yes, power ups are really simple in this anime and at the same time freaking powerful ...but it's good like that because they are not actually power ups but like they say more than one time they are "techniques" (except the last one in the last arc of the anime and the awakening powers from other "Silver Eyed Witches" like Deneve and Helen ). So it means that they are just basic mastery of one art without doing crazy stuff in most of the cases, thing that goes well with the medieval world where the work is set.
They need to train yes, but this are skills that can be mastered only with years and years of fighting and slowly reaching the limit. And with years I mean years like decades.
And actually this makes sense even with the "not aging factor" of the warriors. Also, another thing that goes well is that the warriors for mastering a skill mostly needs just these 3 things:
-Sword Mastery
-Yoki perception
-Yoryoku control
And this 3 stuffs are in posses of basically every half-youma female warrior in the show in lesser or bigger quantity.
The only thing that I don't really liked is the way on how Yagi-sensei kinda cheated when Clare learned Irene technique...but I guess he could have made an huge error with the pacing of the story if he wouldn't made that choice, making it take an huge break that will have lead to a terrible slow down in our heroine development probably.
The pace of Claymore is pretty fast at the start and in the middle. Even when it takes a detour with the flashback arc of the whereabouts about Clare past it's pretty interesting and not only for the important facts that happens but also because it felt really complete and not rushed from that moment on...until the last arc.
In fact I need to admit that the last arc it went really, REALLY slow and basically it was just only A LOT of fights episodes without many situations in much more depth, except the end climax, but MADHOUSE did a good job with adapting them and at least made them enjoyable and pretty good for that time.
I personally don't have really anything about to say on animations. Obviously they are not absurd stuff but for the technology and techniques of 13 years ago they are really something, even if not the best I've ever seen. I think that animations of studio BONES shows at that time were better than the animations of Claymore, but these are fluid and not too impegnative for the eye...at least for me.
And finally...let's talk about the sound design...or I would desire to also talk about sound design but my hears made me dive inside the show thanks to those sounds and that's everything I can say.
There are not crazy tracks (except the battle themes) inside here but they knew how to make the right atmosphere every time, even if there were not a big variety in the tracks.
They completed the story and the action really well and except some electric guitars in battle they were not too invasive. So REALLY GREAT JOB with sound MADHOUSE.
So...what can I say anymore? We finally reached the end.
But before to jump in the final thoughts section, some ost samples here:
Here we are at the end of the review after more than 3300 words lol. If you, reader , patiently read the entirety of this review I guess I need to at least give you a thank you to have absorbed my boomer reviewer skills and also hope that it was worth it XD. But I guess you are here to read the final judgment and so...here it comes:
43.5 out of 46 users liked this review
