Claymore by Norihiro Yagi, Volumes 10-11

Genre: manga, fantasy

Claymore is the story of Clare, a half-human, half-monster warrior who is sworn along with her sister Claymores, "silver-eyed slayers," to protect humans from the flesh-eating Yoma who roam her world.

Though I have been reviewing this manga three volumes at a time, so much happened in these two volumes that I think reviewing volume twelve here as well would be absolute overkill.

So, volume ten!  First of all, I have to say that I love the cover for this volume even more than any of the previous gorgeous ones.  This volume continues where the ninth left off, with Clare and twenty-three of her fellow Claymores on a suicide mission to defend a northern village from what seems to be dozens of monstrous Awakened Ones (powerful former Claymores who have lost their human side and become Yoma, monsters).  The warriors are divided into teams and must immediately learn to adjust to each other's different fighting styles and techniques, as well as their various personalities.  As usual when Claymores meet, there are hostilities--even when they are fighting for their lives!

Many new Claymores are rapidly introduced, but despite the dominance of fight scenes in this volume, I felt that I was able to get to know and distinguish them very quickly.  We learn some of their traumatic backstories and, before very long, see some of them die fighting the Awakened Ones.  These death scenes are always gut-wrenching in Claymore, which says a lot considering that the series has tons of characters; the characters are such that one immediately becomes invested in their fates and usually strongly likes or despises them (for the latter category, that awful Ophelia comes to mind!)

On the other hand, there are many morally ambiguous characters.  Clare's former companion Raki (reportedly sold into slavery in the north in the last volume) has ended up traveling in the company of Clare's archenemy Priscilla and Isley, one of the most powerful Awakened Ones in this country. 

 Although we last saw Priscilla as a monster and know Isley to be trying to destroy the Claymore Organization, the two of them appear human in front of Raki and behave humanely towards him, taking care of him. Isley even begins teaching Raki to fight with a sword.  While I somehow did not gather from the first few volumes that featured Awakened Ones that they can retain a human appearance (even though Riful appears as a young girl in the last few volumes I reviewed), it seems that she is not the only one who can.  (On the other hand, some Awakened Ones never appear to be humanoid, which is a bit confusing!  Perhaps the mythology changed as the series progressed, or perhaps I just wasn't paying attention and missed something.)  Anyway, Raki is determined to grow stronger so that he help Clare fight and it is revealed that Isley is planning a major attack on the Organization while half of the Claymores are engaged fighting in the north.

The eleventh volume made me gasp and groan aloud more than a few times as I read it.  It is a brutal, brutal continuation of the Claymore epic which honestly I did not at all anticipate.  Here there be climactic last stands and character deaths, the deaths of likable and major characters.  The battle in the north between Claymores and an army of Awakened Ones continues in the village of Pieta, which fortunately has been evacuated.  Clare pushes herself to her absolute limits and alternates between despair and fierce anger as her comrades die in droves around her.

Meanwhile, the Organization have gathered their strongest warriors to defend their base in the south.  This includes Galatea, no. 3, who, despite her privileged position as a powerful fighter, has grown to resent the Organization's abuse of her fellow Claymores.  Galatea learns the extent of the Organization's callousness when one of their leaders explains that the Organization does not expect any of the weaker and "habitually disobedient" Claymores in the north to survive that battle.  She also meets warriors nos. 1 and 2, Alicia and Beth.  The two are actually twins, and are different from any of the other Claymores.  They have been brainwashed to be completely obedient to the Organization and are able to transform into Awakened forms (this generally means monstrous, with predatory animal features such as giant claws, tentacles, teeth, etc) without fully losing their humanity and becoming Yoma.

In yet another part of the country, Isley faces Luciela of the South, one of his rival Awakened Ones, in battle.  This is an awesome fight scene which promises to continue into the next volume.  Isley's Awakened form is extremely cool, and looks like a centaur.

Isley's awesome Awakened form

Once again, the eleventh volume in particular was a slightly soul-crushing read for me.  I didn't realize that I had become attached to so many of these characters until they died!  The fact that the Claymores die fighting because the Organization essentially decided to use them as disposable shock troops while they prepare their obedient, stronger warriors for battle makes their deaths particularly disturbing, and I begin to see certain themes of questioning and rebelling against corrupt power and institutions emerge more strongly and potently in these last two volumes.  This manga has really come a long way as far as complexity since the first volume!

Update for the 2016 Graphic Novel/Manga Challenge: I have now read 17 of 24 of the graphic novels/manga that I had hoped to read for this challenge.

Claymore by Norihiro Yagi, Volumes 7-9

 Genre: manga, fantasy

Claymore is the story of Clare, a half-human, half-monster warrior who is sworn along with her sister Claymores, "silver-eyed slayers," to protect humans from the flesh-eating Yoma who roam her world.

I definitely have a new manga obsession.  While Claymore started out as a fairly simple tale about a female warrior and her companion, a boy she rescued from the Yoma, it has by the seventh volume expanded into a full-blown epic saga, complete with a complex mythology, larger objectives, and many, many more characters!

The seventh volume continues with the showdown between the sadistic Claymore Ophelia and the monster that I simply call "the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life."  (See my review of volumes 4-6 for some images.)  This is another freakishly beautiful fight scene.  Meanwhile, Clare and Raki try to get as far away from Ophelia as possible.  Clare sends Raki on to a village where he will be safe, and just after they part ways (with a kiss!), Ophelia shows up to kill Clare.  The other warrior is so much more powerful that Clare has little hope of defeating her, so she tries to trick her...unfortunately Ophelia figures out what is going on.

Clare is badly, permanently injured and saved from death only by the appearance of another very powerful Claymore.  This Claymore, Ilena, helps Clare to regain her strength and as a parting gift presents her with the single strangest present I have ever heard or read about.  However, Clare has barely said goodbye to Ilena when she encounters Ophelia again (!).  Now Ophelia has awakened into a monster, having used too much of her Yoma power during her last battle against Clare and so lost her human half.  Battle ensues between her and Clare again, continuing into the next volume.

The eighth volume features the finale of Clare's battle with Ophelia, and we learn something by Ophelia's past which makes her seem a little more human.  Er, even though she is now a gigantic snake monster with a woman's head.  The next arc sees Clare searching the nearest village for Raki.  However, while there she sees a party of her comrades leaving the village to hunt yet another Awakened One.  (Exactly many Claymores have gone crazy and turned into monsters over the years??)  Her search for Raki is unsuccessful, and Clare is interrupted by the appearance of one of the Claymores from the hunting party.

The girl is bloody and looks half-dead.  She pleads with Clare to rescue her comrades, who are trapped in a nearby cave with not one, but two very powerful Awakened Ones.  Clare finds the other Claymores being tortured by an enormous, hideous monster called Dauf and a pretty young girl.  The girl says she wants to force the Claymores to awaken and join her army of monsters to lead an assault on another Awakened One's army in the north. Clare must then fight Dauf, against whom she is very outmatched.  And, then, as if things were not bad enough, one of the most powerful Claymores in the organization, Galatea, arrives to take Clare back to the organization because she disobeyed their orders in fighting Ophelia instead of working with her.  (As if Ophelia were a team player, right??)  Under the circumstances, however, Galatea joins Clare in the battle against the monster.  

In the ninth volume, the fight continues.  The powerful Galatea distracts Dauf, while Clare manages to save Jean, one of the Claymores who has been chained up and tortured to the point of awakening.  Jean is a cool character, one of my favorites of the many Claymores we have met in the series so far.  With the help of Jean, ranked no. 9 in the organization, Clare and Galatea are able to defeat Dauf.  They are prevented from killing him, however, by the pretty girl who has been sitting in a corner of the cave commentating on the fighting all this time.  The girl shows her true face and turns out to be Riful, a very dangerous Awakened One indeed.  However, instead of fighting, she and Dauf disappear, though not before Riful reveals a tantalizing hint to Clare about the location of Clare's greatest enemy, Priscilla--the Claymore who killed Clare's beloved friend Teresa.

The volume continues with a new arc, "the Battle of the North."  Clare and twenty-three of the organization's most troublesome Claymores (hmm, suspicious much?) are sent to quell an army of Awakened Ones and Yoma in the north of the country.  The organization promises to forgive Clare for her disobedience if she goes and, furthermore, Clare learns that Raki has been captured and sold into slavery in the north in her absence. (Tsk tsk, Clare can't leave the kid alone for five minutes without something happening.)  Jean, no. 9, has declared that since she owes her life to Clare, she will follow the other Claymore until she is able to repay the debt.  Clare and Jean therefore report to the north together, joining the other Claymores who have gathered to prepare for battle.

There is a lot of tension between the assembled Claymores, some of whom threaten to turn violent.  Though they are all exploited by the organization, they are all eager to fight one another to prove a point or perhaps improve their number ranking.  The dynamics between the different warriors are endlessly interesting and one of the main reasons that I am enjoying this series so much.  I will doubtless review the next three volumes, featuring a gigantic battle between half of the Claymores in existence and hordes of monsters, very soon!

Update on my 2016 Graphic Novel/Manga Challenge: I have now read 15 of 24 of the graphic novels/manga that I had hoped to read for the challenge.

Claymore by Norihiro Yagi, Volumes 4-6

Genre: manga, fantasy

Claymore is the story of Clare, a half-human, half-monster warrior who is sworn along with her sister "silver-eyed slayers" to protect humans from the zombie-like Yoma who roam her world.  

I read these next three volumes of this exciting and action-paced series with a rabid eagerness and, at the end of volume six, once again encountered an evil cliffhanger.  Oh, Norihiro Yagi, you are the most malevolent of manga-kas!

First things first, though; I'll start with volume four.  This volume continues the story arc about the powerful Claymore Teresa and her new companion, a young girl who Teresa saved from a Yoma a few villages back, a young girl who turns out to be the human Clare.  Teresa tries to leave Clare with kind villagers so that she can have a normal, human life, but ends up having to double back and save Clare from the same bandits who threatened and had planned to rape Teresa in the third volume.  The bandits are brutal men, though no match for Teresa.  Furious at their slaughter of some villagers and their mistreatment of Clare, Teresa kills one of them in a fight.  In doing so, she violates the most sacred rule of the organization who hires (and creates?) Claymores: their job is to slay Yoma and protect humans, not kill them.  Teresa and Clare go on the run from the organization, but in the meantime four of the strongest Claymores are summoned together and ordered to hunt down and execute Teresa for her crimes.  The character of Priscilla, one of these Claymore who appears to be only a little girl, is particularly interesting and she promises to be an important part of the series.

I had been hoping the series would introduce more Claymores, and my wish definitely came true with these next three volumes!  In fact, so many new Claymores are introduced that it is a little difficult at times to tell all these beautiful, fair-haired young woman apart.  I loved this story line that focused on Teresa and "human Clare" and their strong friendship, since they are still my favorite characters even with the introduction of some others.  The fight scenes between Teresa and her Claymore comrades who are under orders to kill her are very well-done and I liked that the drawings increasingly emphasize the monster or Yoma side of the girls as they are fighting.  For example, their faces change and their eye colors shift and their limbs grow longer as they draw on more of their Yoma power during tough battles.

If the third volume clearly marks the point where I began to become emotionally invested in the series, then the fifth volume is really where the "feels" kicked in!  There is a new story line, titled "The Slashers," which focuses on Clare in the present day.  She and some of her fellow Claymores are instructed to hunt down and slay an "awakened one," an extremely powerful creature which is actually the remnant of a Claymore who has lost their humanity and fully transformed into an inhuman monster.  This monster varied from the typical, zombie-like Yoma and I have to say that it was creepy!  I liked seeing the interactions between Clare and the other Claymores.  We learn among other things that Clare is in fact ranked as the least powerful Claymore currently alive, and once again we meet some interesting new characters.  It is impressive that the manga-ka has managed to endow each of the twelve (and counting!) Claymores who have been introduced so far with a unique and remarkable personality.  They do have similar designs, though, and I usually have to rely on hair styles to distinguish them during the fight scenes.  Speaking of which, there are a lot of fight scenes in this fifth volume, but also some emotional depth.  Something happens in this volume which shocked and saddened me.

The sixth volume boasts the most absolutely horrifying, pee-your-pants scary manga monster I have ever seen.  Let's just go ahead and put that out there.

I placed a picture there to present a rough idea, but that one panel does not really do this creature justice.  It has the face of a human female, because it is another "awakened one" who was once a Claymore before she released too much of her Yoma power.  The way this monster moves her wings and hair and her neck, and the way she looks when she opens her mouth...just ugh!  I nearly dropped the manga and ran away screaming.  Forget fighting her, I would just take one look and instantly die of terror.

Anyway, in volume six the organization orders Clare to kill this lovely monster which has been terrorizing a village.  She is supposed to have assistance to kill the monster, in the form of Ophelia, the fourth-strongest Claymore (they are all ranked precisely in order of strength).  Miria, no. 6, had warned Clare about Ophelia and the other powerful Claymores in the last volume.  Because Clare is sort of semi-awakened, having unleashed too much Yoma power and almost become a monster forever during the episode in the cathedral city, Ophelia becomes suspicious that Clare is already a monster.  

She torments Clare and Raki and seems on the verge of killing at least one of them when the "awakened one," pictured above, makes her entrance.  She first attacks Clare but then turns on Ophelia, sensing her arrogance, and Clare and Raki are able to temporarily escape while Ophelia battles the monster.  The volume leaves off as they are running, trying to get as far away as possible before Ophelia comes after them.

Ophelia vs the monster

Ophelia is one scary, sadistic bitch.  I am actually not sure whether I would prefer to face her or that freaky, winged hair monster.  Oh, wait...just kidding, I'd take Ophelia!

It practically goes without saying that I adored these three volumes and will be starting on volume seven as soon as possible!  I have grown used to the style of art and now think it is really quite beautiful, so no complaints there.  The story has really taken off in lots of different directions since the fairly straight-forward first and second volumes, and I cannot wait to find out what happens next.  While I realize not many people read reviews of later volumes in a manga series, I will continue writing these reviews for every three volumes if only so that I can reflect upon what I read and because I enjoy writing about Claymore!

Claymore by Norihiro Yagi, Volumes 1-3

Genre: manga, fantasy

Claymore is the story of Clare, a half-human, half-monster warrior who is sworn along with her sister "silver-eyed slayers" to protect humans from the zombie-like Yoma who roam her world.  I was attracted to this manga series by the beautiful covers and that premise, which reminded me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer if Buffy were set in a fantasy world which closely resembles medieval Europe.  While I was initially not impressed by the art and worried that it might turn out to be a typical shounen manga--lots of fighting and half-naked girls, little characterization or thematic depth--I quickly realized that Claymore is more complex and interesting than that.

The first volume opens with a village in distress.  Six people have been gruesomely murdered and everyone knows that the killings are the work of a Yoma.  Yomas are flesh-eating monsters, much worse than the sort of zombies you see in The Walking Dead because they are cleverer, more powerful, and much, much faster.  In addition, they can take on human form to disguise themselves.  Raki, a local teenage boy, soon encounters Clare, a Claymore who has been sent to hunt down and slay the Yoma terrorizing his village.  Claymores are dreaded and despised in this society despite their function as monster slayers, because they are half-monster themselves and may lose their human selves, allowing the monster to take complete control at any time.  However, Raki is fascinated by Clare (and more than a little enamored of her).  He is cheerful and naïve and treats her like an ordinary girl, which disconcerts solemn Clare.  She has come to this village to do one thing and one thing only: destroy a monster that feeds on human flesh, armed only with her claymore blade.  After further tragedy strikes his village, Raki ends up travelling with Clare against her better judgment.

This volume is immediately exciting and does a good job setting up the story and the universe.  There is also a lot of gore and plenty of fighting scenes which were well-drawn and well-paced.  I was less than captivated by the art in some of the panels.  The style is efficient rather than extravagant and extremely detailed, like in some of my favorite mangas, but on the other hand I have seen shounen manga with much uglier drawings.  And the covers for the whole Claymore series are gorgeous!

The second volume was my least favorite of the three I have read so far.  The arc about Clare and Raki's journey to investigate Yoma killings in a cathedral city is an interesting premise, but I felt that one fight scene dragged on literally for several chapters, even running into the next volume.  On the other hand, we do get to learn a little more about Clare and witness her chameleon-like acting skills as she disguises herself as an ordinary girl travelling with her brother in order to seek out the Yoma without being thrown out of the city by monks.  There is little dialogue in this volume due to all of the action scenes; I breezed through it in about a half hour!

The third volume, subtitled Teresa of the Faint Smile, was the one that made me eager to get my hands on the next, um, twenty-four volumes of this series now!  The first two chapters finish up the "Darkness in Paradise" arc from the last volume, in which Clare and Raki hunt a particularly powerful Yoma in a holy cathedral city.  The rest of the volume begins a new arc about another Claymore, called Teresa.  I immediately liked Teresa!  

And I was happy to meet her, because I had been wondering about the other Claymores and whether they resembled Clare.  While Teresa does superficially resemble Clare--she is a beautiful, blond young female--they actually are quite different both in their designs and their personalities.  Clare is serious and solemn and very willing to sacrifice herself to protect the humans who despise her from Yoma.  But Teresa is not afraid to bend or break the rules of the mysterious organization for which she and the other Claymores work.  She is fierce and has a bit of an attitude going on; I liked her a lot!  The first few chapters of this new story line about Teresa involve her seeking out a Yoma hiding among villagers and being followed through the woods after she finishes her job there, first by a strange, mute girl and then by a group of bandits intent on humiliating Teresa.  Yeah, needless to say, they've got another thing coming!

I love this series so far.  Honestly, I half-wish I had not picked the first volume up, because now I will become addicted to the series and have to read the next twenty-four volumes in the next week or so.  Then, I will have to watch the anime and obsess over it when I should probably be doing preparatory reading for graduate classes next semester.  Oh well!

I am keen to learn so many things about the characters, their backstories, and the world of Claymore.  Are all Claymores female?  How does one become a Claymore, and what is this organization that sends Claymores to different villages to kill Yoma?  I cannot wait to read the next volume and am considering breaking into the library tonight to get it a few hours early!

This manga has

strong female characters              lots of action       gore                         monsters                  

These three manga volumes count towards my goal in the 2016 Graphic Novel/Manga Challenge!