Claymore's setting can be described as Dark Fantasy; it's very grim, there's virtually no comedy or fanservice; it's violent and a lot of people die. So first of all, what is this anime about: Claymores are half-monster girls (not as sexy as it sounds) who defeat actual monsters ("Yoma") with their giant swords. But since there are part monsters themselves, they might turn into "awakened beings" who are even more dangerous than normal monsters. The main characters are a young woman named Clare, who seeks revenge for a beloved person from her past and her sidekick Raki who doesn't really do anything, except whine.
Probably the first thing that you'll notice, is that 95% of the characters are female. What, a fighting shounen with females who aren't weak? Exactly. I have to be honest here if it wasn't for the strong women in Claymore; this show wouldn't have that much identity. That's a pretty poor statement, but I still really appreciate the author's decision, since action anime with girls are still pretty rare.
I didn't like the number of character deaths though. Too many characters die 2-3 episodes after they're introduced, which made it hard to like any of them (except for Clare). The fact that most characters look the same didn't really help (same clothing/armor and very similar hair and faces).
This show had an interesting art style and I really liked the atmosphere in Claymore, it felt really dark and edgy. The music was decent too and there are a few tracks that really stood out. Animations are good too, the action scenes usually look fluid.
The ending was by far the worst aspect of this anime. It wasn't satisfying at all and felt like there was so much left (which it was since the anime only adapts 40% of the manga). But what this anime adapt was pretty good and for the most, I felt very entertained. After you finished this show, you either want to quickly read the manga, because this anime made you a Claymore fan and you want to see the real ending or you're just disappointed and want to never touch Claymore ever again because of the ending(in my case it was the former ^^).
