~art
This is a relatively new show [2007] but the animation isn't really dazzling. I couldn't detect any CGI which is a shame [Don't get me wrong I really hate CGI when it's used for visual art, but it's excellent for motion]. There are some excellent fighting scenes nonetheless, probably due to animators great sense of angling and proportions, their clever use of special f/x like slow-motion and blur but also by capturing the right level of fierceness in the characters' faces while in battle. Just their faces and their screams alone kept me riveted to the screen during the fights.
The art style I really enjoyed, the coloring and shading gave Claymore the overall appearance like you were reading a graphic novel, very dark and gritty. All the towns were modest and medieval looking, the forests were foreboding and the beasts were downright scary.
~audio
I watched this show both in Japanese and English. I'm pretty comfortable with watching it either way...but I do tend to watch dubs because I'm a terribly slow reader and I would be reading the captions the whole time and never once get the chance to fully take in the scenes or see characters' faces. But I did watch Claymore in both formats and I did enjoy the English dub mainly because the language was rough and real, there's no nice, censored fluffy language in this one....yes!!!! All the voice actors were very serious and intense, the females all sounded like fierce warriors and were to be taken seriously, no one sounded cutesy or “princess-like” in this anime.
The sound f/x were also great for this series, I liked the sound of of the swords clashing at high speed, the sound of steel grating against the yoma's claws and the whistles of the pyrotechnics and the boom of a building being smashed... I even liked the roars the monsters made. So I would say the audio and visual aspects of the show worked well together to make the show dark and gritty without being too gloomy or depressing.
The musical choices of the OP and ED could have probably been better. I think that they do match the overall tone of the series but I just wasn't too crazy about them... but the music they use within the episodes are pretty cool like that one freaky,warped sounding song that they play whenever something is about to happen like a battle, that song I love. Every time I hear it I'm like “Oooooh ssssshhhiiiiiitt, something's about to go down.”
~story
A good story is one that gets you hooked, feeling compelled to know what happens next. A good story evokes emotions from the viewer like sadness, anxiety, tension, laughter and all the rest. A good story will even make you forget that it's a story. Claymore is that type of a good story. I think what works for me with Claymore is the equal combination of emotion and action. I really dislike shows that seem to just have a lot of senseless action that leaves you wondering why they're all fighting in the first place...same thing goes for shows with excessive emotional drama [and there were a few points in this show when I wanted to grab that boy, Raki, by his hair and yank him out of the scene with his constant crying and sniveling]. I don't mind people crying and stuff but the constant whining or overly anxious people get on my nerves. Claymore tends to find a nice balance between the two.
What I also liked about this story format was the use of flashbacks that extended for 3 or more episodes, especially since it gave great insight into Claire's mind and also understanding the importance of Theresa. And since Claymore is a much longer running manga series, the animation company too the practical approach and focused on Claire's story which offered a decent conclusion. Whether or not they decide to continue the story about “The Organization” or the other Claymores isn't that important...because we still had closure for Claire's story.
~characters
This is one of the few anime shows out there that falls into the shonen category considering it's a predominantly female cast. I'm not saying that there aren't shonen anime shows out there that don't sport a majority or all-female cast for example, there's Mai Hime. But even with a show like Mai Hime, you can clearly see that it was made with a cuter, more girlie sense of aesthetic compared to the much gruesome and violent Claymore. Also most noticeably with Claymore is the absence of feminine sexuality. Going back to the Mai Hime example, there were all the requisite breasts jokes/comments, “panty shots” also a swimsuit/beach episode which is pretty common for a shonen anime with female leads but Claymore steered clear from all the anime cliches and kept things as realistic [within the context of this particular story] as possible. Some of the female demons walked around bare-chested and even that didn't seem exploitive, ecchi or hentai-like.
Claymore has a fairly large cast mainly due to the fact that we see a large number of these “silver-eyed witches” throughout the anime, all varying in skill and rank. But even with all these claymores walking about I found it most commendable and a credit to the character design team because even though all the claymores are tall, thin and beautiful with blond hair and silver eyes, they manage to provide each claymore with their own unique appearance. It's fairly easy to distinguish one claymore from another, some had different bodies while others had differently shaped eyes or hairstyles. And as I say this I find it funny because this show manages to pull off having distinguishable features for a large cast while other anime shows have much smaller casts and their characters all look alike [whether they're related or not].
Since the cast was too large it doesn't make sense to speak about all of them on an individual basis here in this review and most likely you will become attached to Claire since she is the central character of this series.....but I also liked Theresa of the Faint Smile very much.
~verdict
This show gets more than a passing grade in my book and I have watched it multiple times. So I highly recommend it for those who enjoy the adult side of anime.
