a5c7b9f00b In a world rife with deadly creatures called &quot;youma&quot;, a young silver eyed woman, Clare, works on behalf of an organization that trains female youma halfbreeds into warriors with the ability to destroy these creatures. Considered a rogue for picking up a stray child and almost losing herself to her youma side by &quot;Awakening&quot;, she is constantly assigned rather dangerous missions. &quot;Claymore&quot; is a dark fantasy anime set in medieval world in which specialized group of female characters (called claymores) fights with monsters. There is also some sort of conspiracy going on. It is in many ways similar to popular &quot;Attack on Titan&quot; and the general atmosphere of the series resembles &quot;Berserk&quot; to some extent.<br/><br/>I have ambivalent feelings about this anime, because it has both some significant strengths and very apparent weaknesses.<br/><br/>PROS<br/><br/><ul><li>the story starts off really well. The world itself may not be very original (it looks like a gender-inverted Witcher rip-off), but nevertheless it&#39;s interesting and climatic, claymoresmonster-slaying beings with certain, significant limitations are well-constructed, viewers are smoothly introduced to them and hinted at secrets hidden inside the world</li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>the main character is really interesting, her back-story captivating, and the narrative does a good job in gradually revealing information about her with some minor, but unexpected twists. </li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>anime has almost all-female cast, yet it&#39;s virtually devoid of any gratuitous nudity and sexual objectification of women. They are presented in almost asexual fashion. Sometimes their sexuality is subtly played with but is essentially avoided. Why it is a significant pro? Becauseit is originally Japanese TV series for teenage boys, one could expect absolute worst, including some teen ultra cheap erotic fantasy. Note that manga avoids it to a significantly lower extent (although it&#39;s still notbadmost from its genre)</li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>there is absolutely no typical Japanese manga humor. Some people, including me, really appreciate it. </li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>animation is really good, and it has its own distinct toned down color palette, which I find appealing and fitting the atmosphere of the anime well</li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>fight scenes are vivid, spectacular, action-packed and entertaining. </li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>soundtrack is acceptable</li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>contrary to many viewers&#39; criticism I find the depiction of relationship of the protagonist with certain boy an engaging one</li></ul><br/><br/>CONS <br/><br/><ul><li>around half of the show the quality of the story begins to deteriorate and the show degrades itself into mediocre stereotypical over-the-top duel-driven anime.</li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>it&#39;s even worse than that. The biggest problem with the anime emerges when it gradually changes perspective - from fights of one claymore with single monster to full-fledged epic battles between multiple mega strong enemies. It isn&#39;t the problem per se, but in this case the narrative loses sight of virtually everything other than intensifying epicness of the numerous duels. OK, the show was supposed be action packed, but it ends up consisting almost only of battles.</li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>as a result the other appalling flaw is multiplied, namely typical for anime &quot;talking while fighting&quot;, i. e. characters providing detailed combat commentary, live coverage of mental states of battle-participants and all sorts of annoying exclamations, emotional outbursts, trash talking, special move explaining and random philosophizing. </li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>the series has unsatisfying and rushed ending. As a result too many things are left unexplained. For example the hinted secrets about the world stay secret, they are unveiled later only in manga</li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>there are too many too similar secondary characters</li></ul><br/><br/><ul><li>typical Japanese (or should I say comic book?) obsession with ranks and comparing different characters in relative strength is overused and annoyinghell. Another problem which started to be apparent just in second half of the series</li></ul><br/><br/>SUMMARY<br/><br/>This show has many flaws, but in the end I really enjoyed it, to be honest, much more than my rating (6/10) suggests. It is that low, because I have the impression that anime didn&#39;t live up to the potential it promised in its first half. Btw - in that aspect manga isn&#39;t even the slightest bit better. But it doesn&#39;t mean anime wasn&#39;t good, on the contrary it was definitely entertaining and I&#39;d recommend it to anyone who likes duels set in fantasy worlds. I&#39;m very picky about the animes I watch and even more picky about the animes I actually like. So for this one to get a high score from me is no small feat.<br/><br/>Claymore at its core is a dark action fantasy.It follows a human/demon hybrid warrior named Clare and her gary-stuish morality pet Rocky(he&#39;s not that annoying)they go from town to town to fight demonsgiving to Clare by her boss the organization. The name Claymore derides from the huge sword she wields. The plot from the first few episodes seems like its a boring monster of the week show,but by episode 7 that thought will change.It will turn into so much more and won&#39;t let up.<br/><br/>There&#39;s a lot of secrets in this show.What happens to a claymore when they go over their yoki(demon)limit? Hmm let&#39;s just say that they get more bad-ass(which is not much of a feat since they&#39;re already that) that&#39;s for sure, but it comes with some…consequences. Another would be why are all the claymores female?If there were male claymores what happen to them?If you want answers watch. The show is rather gory. I mean blood and limbs getting detached is like a common theme for every episode. So if you&#39;re squeamish I wouldn&#39;t watch this.<br/><br/>Pros <br/><br/>The Characters- are so badass it&#39;s not even funny. Literally the first few minutes of the first episode will clue you in on just what kind of main character you are dealing with, and the dark fantasy tone has been set. You will not find a mary-sue/damsel in distress in this anime. Which is surprising in itself this being from Japan and all. However,I found that the manga&#39;s, that this is based upon, author is female. That would explain a lot of things. You would have to play where is waldo or in this case where&#39;s the mary-sue to even begin to find one,and seriously good luck with that. Also character development on Clare and the rest of the claymores is skimpy but memorable.<br/><br/>Voice Acting-top notch quality. Very good.<br/><br/>Animation- very nice and the battles are fluid.<br/><br/>Music- creepy and fits the mood.<br/><br/>Cons <br/><br/>Skimpy Character Development- Even if the character development is memorable it&#39;s still skimpy. Some characters are literally introduced in one episode and then gone by the next few. They might show back up at the end.Or not.Clare herself is not spared this.<br/><br/>Clones- What I mean by that is all the main characters, the claymores, look like each other. They all have white blond hair, silver eyes that turn into a catlike yellow complete with slit when they use their powers, the same uniform, and while the few odd ones out might have long hair all the rest will have a tomboyish bob. This includes Clare. I mean seriously I have mistaken Clare for other claymores more than once. The only way you can really tell them apart is by their personalities. Would it have hurt to give them at-lease different colored hair? Their silver/yellow eyes and their demonic powers were more than enough to tell us they are not fully human.<br/><br/>My kunfu is better than yours-This happens when a character likes to talk about their attacks/powerups before,during,and after an attack. While it&#39;s not near the level of Bleach, and of so I&#39;ve heard Naruto and Dragonball Z, it&#39;s still annoying regardless.<br/><br/>The Organization- They give the claymores their orders,but who or what these characters are(besides the claymores) that make up the organization is never explained. I hear its not explained in the manga either.<br/><br/>The Ending- Way to open ended. A whole lotta lose ends and characters are never given closure. This can be rectified in a second season, but that&#39;ll probably never happen.
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354 weeks ago