Ranked #36

Claymore (Manga)

Claymore is a Shounen-based action adventure series that features a medieval-like world where "Youma" exist to become predators in eating humans. To defend the human population, an organization enlist warriors where humans or "Youma" identify them as "Claymores". While the situation stands out as it is, there are several different layers to the story that made this manga a fascinating read.

Throughout most of the story, it falls upon the fate of a Claymore warrior named Clare who deals with several themes of losing comrades, attempts on getting revenge, becoming stronger, and learning new information bit by bit as the manga progresses. Along with the fact of holding a strong bond with a exiled village boy named Raki, Clare will also deal with many dangerous encounters of strong opponents that are known as "Awakened Beings". While there are some cliche areas most readers should be familiar with from a Shounen-based series, there are other unpredictable areas of the story such as learning new information about the "Abyssal Ones" and the Claymore "Organization" itself. With the many entertaining and twisted areas of Claymore, the story certainly brings out many promising results to enjoy from the manga.

As for the characters, Clare is usually the main focus to the series but she certainly is a well-developed character to the story. Along with the present events that happen to her in the story, readers will also learn about Clare's interesting past before she joins the Claymore "Organization". While traveling with Clare, Raki also sets upon his life goal in order to become a stronger individual. Also, many interesting and unique characters are introduced to the story that provide their own personality or background. Among the different characters, several of them usually play out a necessary or interesting part to the story itself.

As for the artwork, the early chapters were a little disappointing due to the character designs being a little too plainish to its readers. However as the story progresses, the artwork certainly gets a lot better with the character designs, background images, and fight scenes that take place in the manga.

Overall, Claymore provides an intriguing story and characters that makes this a worthwhile read to check out. I certainly recommend this manga to readers that are interested in seeing a Shounen-based series providing some promising and fresh results.

(This review may be edited if necessary.)











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This is the best manga by far. The story is about girls with big swords (called Claymores by others) hunting down Yomas (demons who plague the world). It's incredibly violent and bloody which is awesome. The story only gets more interesting once it reaches the Teresa Arc, which talks about Teresa, the strongest Claymore ever, and how she meets Clare (the main character). This story is interesting because of the many conflicts and plot twists that will keep you reading it over and over. There's mild nudity too, not bad.

Must read.