Claymore - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating

[stormy001_M1A2]

Animation Quality: 8
Voice Actors: 8
Script: 6.5
Editing: 6.5
Emotional Involvement: 7

Good: Good voice acting by the girls (though choice for Flora is bit strange) , nice set piece scenes (Theresa's fight) , nice build-up, atmospheric art, brutal characterization, pragmatic view of things

Bad: Embarrassingly corny dialogue (Raki especially), unrealistic character development, some fight scenes too simplistic, some characters were neglected, not very good background music

Solid 7 from me, I already purchase the DVD of Claymore. Quite a good effort and I enjoyed it a lot despite some misgivings in ep 20 - 26.

[Rhyel]

Animation Quality: 9
Voice Actors: 9 ( 10 for Teresa, Miria and Clare)
Script: 9
Editing: 8
Emotional Involvement: 9 (10 for Teresa and Clare moments)
Music: 9
Sound Effects: 10

Claymore Positives

Nice background art.
Nice medieval vilages and danger places.
Nice sword fights.
Many cool characters, not only the main characters.
Great music and sound effects.

Claymore Negatives

It is over now.
not sure about a new season.
Raki is not death.

[Echoes]

I have had an enormously good time watching Claymore. Of all the series I have been following, this has been the one I always anticipated the most, I couldn't wait for the new release. I always watched in awe as the plot and battle unfolded, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The plot was very engaging, almost too good, since they didn't have time to explore it all. The characters were very well designed and they managed to introduce a good amount of different ones without the series becoming chaotic. I don't think I've ever seen this many interesting characters in one anime. Strength in numbers, certainly. Mirria, Helen, Jeane, Clare, Teresa, Flora, Riful, Easley, Ophelia, Galatea, Irene, Undine, I adored them all. I might even have left someone out.

I was especially fond of the Teresa and Ophelia arcs, those were some of finest works I've seen in a while, and also some of the most interesting characters.

The only thing that I found to be a little flawed was the ending, as many others have pointed out before me. The Priscilla fighting sequence at the volcano just seemed a little too shounen, but the last half of episode 26 gave a very nice, open ending that I thought contrasted the flawed first half. I really, really hope there'll be more Claymore animated in the future, but if not, I'll be sure to read the manga, which I've already begun picking up a few volumes of. Not that easy to get a hold of around these parts, though.

I was always highly entertained when I watched Claymore, it was the show of the season for me and I'm so glad I didn't miss out on it. All in all I think I'll rate it a 9.5, and give it a 9 rating here. A strong 9, and one of the animes I don't think I'll ever forget.

[Fenrir_valindri]

Animation Quality: 8; would have been higher, but it fell and jumped alot.

Voice Actors: 9; They did an excellent job here, only Flora's voice and the "warped voices" stopped this from being a 10

Script: 9 until they started to diverge, it became a 5 after that, it went downhill so fast.

Editing: 8; they really did not do too good of a job with certain scenes, they felt very clunky, but overall it was still good.

Emotional Involvement: 7; I really felt for every character, until the end with the butchering of Raki and several other characters' well...character.

Music: 7; the music was really wierd at alot of points, but some of the songs really grew on me, the opening and the ending were always great though.

Sound Effects: 8; tie fighter sound effects, I mean really...most of the other sound effects were quite good though


Gave the series an 8 overall, they earlier episodes were amazing, and despite the animation quality that would jump from episode to episode, I still enjoyed the look throughly.

The last few episodes really killed the series for me, I just could not enjoy what they were doing to the story.

[Darklord_bg]

This series was like a bumpy ride for me - it was like a two-humped camel with two really high points (the Theresa Arc and the Northern Campaign) a good but not too impressive middle part and a really weak beginning and ending.

It started off like a generic shounen series with a little more blood and gore than usual. The first four episodes were pretty boring and I was already considering dropping the show after episode 4 but I'm glad I did not make that mistake.

Then came the Teresa Arc, which in my opinion and probably for many more of you guys featured the best episodes in the series(5-8). Episode 6 was one of the most emotional episodes I have seen in anime. Ep's 7-8 featured some of the best action fight scenes accompanied by superb animation and music. The conclusion of episode 8 was a literal jaw-dropper! I was so shocked that I couldn't take my eyes of the screen and I decided to follow this series until the end.

Throughout the next ten or so episodes the show remained consistently strong and had enough action and intrigue to keep me watching it. Some high points during this middle part were the return of Irene, who was my favorite of the Teresa hunting squad, the introduction of the Abyssal Ones and the fight against Ophelia. Nevertheless, none of those short arcs quite reached the level of excitement of the Theresa Arc.

The Northern Campaign was the second high point of the series. It started off introducing several new characters - Flora, Undine, and returned a few "old favorites" - Miria, Helen, Deneve. I could really feel that something big was coming up and I was not disappointed - the coming fight scenes surpassed all the others in the middle part of the show. The culmination and the best part of this arc was definitely the fight against Rigaldo. First, the ease with which he dispatched with four(3 actually) of the strongest characters was really chilling. It was really sudden to see some characters who just got introduced to be butchered so easily. Second, the fight of Clare against Rigaldo was one of the most emotional and tense moments of the show. I could really feel Clare's anger and frustration escalate.

Unfortunately, after Rigaldo's death the show plunged downhill again. Here's where it started differentiating from the manga. I thought initially that the script writers differentiated from the manga in order to bring the story to a logical conclusion. Unfortunately that did not happen and the outcome of the anime was the same as in the manga with a few exceptions. The last couple of episodes featured some overly used cliches and some really cheesy moments, so that's why I didn't like them at all. I felt like it was a huge disappointment after the awesome previous episodes. I would be fine if they followed the manga and ended it at the end of the Northern campaign or if they decided to change the ending and bring the story to a close. Unfortunately, they did neither.

Overall, I would recommend people to read the manga, since it is a really great work and watch several key episodes animated - the Theresa Arc(5-8) and the Northern Campaign(18-24), since they were superbly animated.

7/10

[RoryTate]

A 9 rating from me. An excellent show, and definitely within my top three anime's of all time (perhaps even tied for number one overall).

Highlights:
- a fully realized setting/world, strong characterization, and a story/plot that deeply immersed viewers
- the strongest, best job of setting up, and most shockingly realized motivation for any protagonist I think I've ever witnessed (Clare watching Theresa die)
- great use of setup (when required) in the few slower episodes to give stronger emotional impact to what follows (Pieta is the best example of this)
- excellent op and ed songs, and an epic, sometimes unique soundtrack, with several good songs that have stuck in my head
- avoiding a stock good-guy kills bad-guy ending, and instead focusing on the internal battle fought by both...the protagonist wins and the antagonist loses, but not in the expected manner
- a show that I will watch again and again more than any other, as there is a lot of depth to the story (starting around ep 5 or 6 I watched each newly released ep twice in a row so that I wouldn't miss anything)
- great animation quality and use of visuals/direction to tell the story, many times giving it the greatest impact possible I believe
- the pathos in the way Claymores are "set apart" from human society, although they work to save and protect it...my favourite type of setting
- the fact that there is a possibility of a second season

Difficulties:
- overuse of mook youmas
- the excellent soundtrack could have been used better at times
- the whole Riful arc was average, dragged noticeably in the Dauph battle, and introduced an unneeded (and dare I say inappropriate) loli character (I truly dislike loli's where "they don't need a reason to exist -- they're loli!" Ha!)
- some dragging and pacing problems with a couple of the final episodes, including the long Rigaldo and Priscilla fights, and the number and length of flashbacks and recaps
- a lack of a truly great villain overall:

• org was very promising, and future hints are given that this will play a bigger role, but their motivation never got explored and they ended up only two dimensional
• AOs (Riful, Easley) appeared stupid and anemic in leaving opponents alive and unharmed, and as a result did not feel fully challenging to the reader/viewer, even though they challenge the protagonist(s)...IMO great villains should do both (see online discussions of Jon Irenicus in Baldur's Gate 2 for an example of a great villain as I describe)
• the internal struggles (controlling youki as the main representation of this) were the best villain overall, being well set up and with several shifts in their understandings (partial awakenings, Jeane's mind vs body separation, etc), plus they included many meaningful metaphorical interpretations (anger, self-loathing, understanding oneself, the monster within us all, etc), but unfortunately they just did not get quite enough of the story time IMO, therefore it felt a bit strange when they returned to the fore, completely eclipsing (tee hee) the other conflicts in the last episodes
• the struggle for Claymores to be accepted as humans was well set up, but again, similar to the org, was never really explored, and any resolution of this is pretty much forgotten at this point, though again, Raki's actions and Miria's words point toward some interesting possible future developments

- some of the battles appeared cartoonish, in the way the characters barely moved their swords, and the animation quality dropped noticeably therein (even the best fight sequence of Theresa's battle royale -- which will likely reach legendary anime status in the years to come -- suffered at times from this)

So, most of the difficulties only tend to highlight the good parts, and are minor overall.

The worst part of Claymore, however, has to be that there is a manga version of it. No question about it. DIE MANGA DIE!!!

[crazyhorse]

I gave it a 8/10.

I absolutely love Claymore and it was wonderful to see the scenes in the manga animated. it became the anime I looked forward to watching every week and I would rant and grumble about how long it would take for the next episode to come on and get subbed (which was subbed very nicely and quickly so thank you very much Eclipse ).

It was wonderful until the part it started deviating from the manga. I haven't even READ the chapters released in Japan and so far only kept up with the American release (I just know the basics of what happened after the war) and even I could tell that the show was going downhill. The episodes became slower, being dragged out by boring Raki scenes and flashbacks (oh why did they have to show Teresa's head getting chopped off a gazillion times?) Then came the ending and oh god was it rushed, rushed and cliche. What's even worse is that they STILL left it with an open ended ending. I think an opened ended ending that was faithful to the manga would have been much better IMO.

Well this series really deserved a 9-10 from me, but sadly the last few episodes brought the overall score down since they were very disappointing to the point I didn't even make it my priority to watch the last episode as soon as it came out. O well it was still fun and now it's time to catch up to the manga!

[therationalpi]

I'm writing the review without reading anyone else's thoughts beforehand.

I believe tis series was good, though not great. I would recommend the first portion of the anime to anyone who like action anime. In truth, the series peaked at episode 8, because the Teresa storyline was so strong. However, after that it begins a steady decline. Up until around episode 20, I would say that the show is still very strong. However, after episode 20 the quality starts to go downhill as the writing begins to faulter.

The series was inconsistent. It had some great moments, and a few very good story arcs. But it also had a poor ending, and Raki was just plain annoying.

Overall, I would recommend the series, but I would say not to expect much from the ending.

[Goofus Maximus]

I'll be very happy with it, if my hopes that the anime ended purposefully ambiguously for allowing a second season divorced from the burden of the manga.

Even if that doesn't happen, I thought it was pretty good, though not as dark at the end as I'd hoped...

[hamstar]

this anime was great until it blew up in FLAMES toward the end.

7/10

[crazyhorse]

Originally Posted by Goofus Maximus

I'll be very happy with it, if my hopes that the anime ended purposefully ambiguously for allowing a second season divorced from the burden of the manga.

Even if that doesn't happen, I thought it was pretty good, though not as dark at the end as I'd hoped...

Yeah I have a feeling it was ended like that because it opened a chance for a second season of the anime with no manga storyline to burden it, but still if a second season does start, I think it'll fail miserably if the writing quality doesn't improve from how it was the last few episodes.

[Goofus Maximus]

Hopefully they'll learn more words than "unforgivable" and "kill!"

Another thing that makes me suspect a second season are all the "side chapters" coming out, which I suspect gave the manga-ka some time to help write anime script framework, or help with said anime script writing. Nonetheless, I think that most of the second season will be along the lines of "days in the life of a fugitive claymore" than any overarching story arc...

Ugh. I just got a horrible brain-fart! Crossing Claymore 2nd Season with the quality and style of episodes from "He-Man"!!! I may need to sear my eyeballs out of their sockets...

[jor8888]

6/10 animation sux. makeup story sux.

I hope Karas artists get to do the next season.

[DarkBlood]

I liked the series very well, the only thing that I see as huge FAIL is the ending, the last episodes were so painful to watch.

[yononaka]

A good anime relative to everything that's out there, but unsatisfying for me personally. I was hoping for something more serious, but this became an exercise in take-backs. I greatly dislike take-backs in series that make it seem in the beginning that they aren't going to have (many of) them. (As opposed to series where take-backs are a given from the beginning.) I don't know why people were surprised about the ending, I expected something like that after take-backs started as early as in the first AB hunt. (Technically with Clare's awakening in the church, but I gave them that.) I might not normally root for something like The Org, but in this case I rooted for them to get all the cheaters eliminated

[redmeat]

Here's my 25 page essay on claymore for those of you who are interested

Spoiler:

Overall the show was good except that the ending was bad.

[FrozenArctic]

overall, the anime was really good.
but when the fight in Pieta began and the series was coming to an end, it kinda started going downhill....
maybe if raki hadnt tried and interfered with everything, the ending might have been better!
but anyway, claymore was overall a great anime and definitely one that i will watch again in the future!!

[Sorrow-K]

I'm surprised so many people hated the ending, since that was pretty much what saved this show for me. It started degenerating into mindless action towards the end, particularly with the fight against Rigardo which promised so much, but delivered so little, but the ending, while not actually resolving anything, had the required amount of drama and tension and a good plot-twist which played to a theme of redemption-over-revenge. But, more importantly, it made Claymore feel like a "story" again, rather than just another throwaway action anime. It had the same sort of feeling as the backstory arc, which was the clear highlight of the anime.

Anyway, I'm giving this a "7". When reflecting on Claymore, I tend to think of events, like the backstory, the comradery between the Slashers, the battle with Riful and saving of Jeane, and then the ending where

Spoiler:

Jeane returns the favour to Clare

rather than all the fights and whatnot. Obviously Raki was a low-point in all of this, but I tolerate his character a lot more than I tolerated Shirou from F/SN, who a lot of people compare him to. I think Madhouse's efforts of establishing atmosphere with subtle use of music and directing need to be complimented as well... although, as we know, they're really good at this sort of stuff.

Ultimately, this is a series with flaws, but there's enough good stuff here to make it worthwhile and, while I'm clearly in the minority on this, I really liked the ending. On the whole, not brilliant or terribly innovative, but not bad either. It's a really old-fashioned anime in a sense, but it's quite memorable in some instances, so I liked it.

[Guido]

Well, that's sums up. The anime ended with the advent of the autumn season that starts this week, but the storyline keeps going on in the manga. In addition, that Claymore is the first title from the spring season which I finished all.

The title's name appealed much to my interest, particularly with the wave of posts repeatedly expressing their content and amazement that Claymore was getting an anime adaptation.

I didn't know what to expect back in late March, henceforth, I joined the hundreds of fans out there (in other words, you people) and gave it a shot to Claymore anime.
I was never let down at all once I watched the first episodes. It avoided most of the traditional shounen cliché which typical of the stories of the genre to start the show or introducing the characters.

Rather it set the plot in motion with the introduction of the characters right away, as the first four episodes made their job to answer the basic questions on what is going on in the mainstream world of Claymore.

The Teresa arc essentially answered the key questions on regards to Clare and her drive for becoming a Claymore, as well as introducing one of the most powerful yet charismatic characters in the likes of Teresa; my vote for the Best Female Character of the Year is guaranteed to her.

The Slashers arc introduced several faces which would become supporting and yet characters with their own weights and pasts in the likes of Miria, Deneve, and Helen. Successfully portraying as believable with their own sets of troubles, tribulations, and tragic memories.

People became highly displeased with how things turned downhill at the middle of the Northern Campaign arc, and outraged with the conclusion of the anime-original Priscilla arc.
I do not possess stricts standards as to properly judge adaptations into anime like several manga viewers do, and I cannot tell otherwise to the legion of many anime viewers that felt betrayed or at least not happy with the conclusion.

To myself I tend to judge anime and manga separately and not as the same thing. I as well felt a little bit down that few things (in my case) went too easy, cliché or inconsistent with the outcome to the conclusion.
However, there were quite a few to some salvageable incidences within the last arc, and not let's forget that for the previous twenty episodes, which faithfully followed the manga from head to toe, delivering a compelling story through its characters that are driven by the realization of their own limitations, sense of guilt, and fears rather than their strengths.

At least I can well say that the last episode dropped a fair share of hints about the main characters making their quest of preparations for their coming comeuppance against the organization.
The Org is an ironclad power whose motives remain as of unknown in the anime (yet to be revealed in the manga), but nonetheless, to my understanding have influenced humanity's sheer terror of yoma to rely exclusively upon them for help.

And not everything in this world can be perfect. Claymore was not the exception; sooner or later the cliché and formulaic shounen had to butt into the series.

However, I am surprised that most of the mainstream population voted an average of 80% for Claymore in general. With things going wrong for the rest of the fans on how the series ended I was expecting a mainstream average of 70%, but guess that even for a poor ending that isn't enough for the many fans out there to discourage them on liking the rest of the anime.

I'm very glad to lastly expressed my thoughts for Claymore. Soon, the Claymore thread is going to move into the Old Series subforums, and the voices which have been keeping it busy would go down quietly, leaving only the main core of Claymore otakus to continue disscussion of the manga monthly issues now that the manga storyline is about to resume again in November.

The only thing that I dislike, that was not precisely the end for me, was their off-timed use of the music for certain tensed situations throughout the episodes. Some music tracks just felt out of place or did not fit at all with a particular, anguished scene.

Overall, I rated Claymore with the average of the sum of all ratings that I gave to each individual episodes, earning an average of 86.53%

[Schuyler]

This could of been a 10, but I give it a 8, was going great to they started to change things 20+, but it still a good watch.