Claymore vol. 1

Creator: Norihiro Yagi

Publisher: Viz Media (English version)

Pages: 187 (27 volumes in total)

The world is plagued by monsters known as yoma, they prey on humans and can take human form to hide amongst their victims. The only ones to stand a chance against these monsters are a group of silver eyed, young women known as claymores. These women make a living killing the yomas and are well known for their combat skills, but they are also feared as claymores are not truly humans anymore. To gain the strength to fight back the yomas they had to become half yoma themselves, always struggling to not lose their humanity and let the monster inside them take over.

I have mixed feelings on the page layout of this book, as it seems to be good at slowing down the pace for some heartfelt moments but on the other hand, when it comes to the action sequences it does not always hold up. Not that it is at all bad, but it is not great either and for an action oriented series like this one it is just so important to nail those moments.

What artstyle you like and dislike can be very subjective but for me the people in this book are all just really ugly. It is probably intentional to some extent but my biggest problem with it, is how their small faces and big foreheads makes it really hard to read their expressions. The drawings simply does not convey emotions well enough. An example of that can be seen on the right, where a yoma is begging for his life in the speech bubble but still looks totally devoid of emotions in the drawing.

I cannot shake the feeling that i have somehow seen this kind of world and story before. When you compare it to a serie like Berserk it ends up felling like a subpar version of that in almost every aspect.

Pros:

• Good emotional moments.
• Interesting main character.

Cons:

• Subpar action.
• Ugly faces.

Score 5/10: Decent