AniMania: CLAYMORE

I had seen Claymore on the shelf at my local entertainment store for a while, but I had avoided watching it until now, mostly because I feared it was going to fall into that whole “girl with sword” stereotype. Not that I have anything AGAINST girls with swords; I am a HUGE Motoko fanboy, so that should tell you where I stand on the matter. For me, it’s a question of sincerity.

There is a huge glut of shows out there that feature girls with big swords, girls with big guns, but really, these shows are more about girls with big — well, you can guess where I’m going with this. Not that Motoko isn’t sufficiently well endowed — dodges sword attack — but so many of these would-be “tough chick” heroines couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag. They aren’t convincing. Having big boobies is NOT a magical ability, and the fact that your top somehow keeps coming off doesn’t mean you have superpowers. So when I saw Claymore on the shelf, I passed it over, thinking it was just another entry in the long line of boobs ‘n blades. Man, was I wrong.

My first clue that there might be more going on here came when I opened the packaging of the complete box set. Along with the three thin pack volumes, I found not one, but TWO books of art and character descriptions. It would be hard to describe my excitement. In these tough economic times, such extras have almost become a thing of the past. The anime industry was feeling the sting of a major contraction long before the rest of the economy tanked, and one of the sad realities of this was that certain painful cuts had to be made. It used to be that even shows which were only mildly popular came with a whole boatload of stuff. Now, about all you get is the disc and some trailers, and maybe some textless openings and endings. Getting two art books was really something. I popped in the disc, and sure enough, the extra features section was LOADED. In addition to the requisite trailers and opening and ending animation, the first disc also sports an Episode 01 commentary and cast auditions. The other discs include more commentary and staff interviews.

All this boded well. I hadn’t been so excited about a series that I wasn’t already a fan of for quite a while. If this much trouble had been taken in the packaging and bonuses for the show, then something must be up. I watched, and was hooked.

Claymore is set in a medieval fantasy world that is plagued by horrible demons called “Yoma.” The Yoma go on murderous rampages, killing and eating for human flesh. The only ones capable of fighting these monsters are the super human warriors known as Claymores. Giving their name to the title of the show, the Claymore are both respected and feared, because while they are the only thing strong enough to challenge the Yoma menace, their strength comes at a terrible price. A Claymore gets her power from being part Yoma.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the Claymores are all beautiful women. Our heroine, Clare, is quite the bombshell. But here again, this show defies the stereotype. The female cast is not at all warm or jiggley. Instead they are cold and remote, wrapped in layers of steel armor that give them a hardened, inhuman appearance, with personalities to match. The art for the series is exquisite, rich in detail that makes the characters and their world look and feel real. It embodies everything that’s good about the comic book aesthetic, where just about every shot could be framed and stand on its own.

The show shares Clare’s philosophy on violence. The action starts early, and never stops. Thankfully, the same is true of the plot as well. The story opens with a scene reminiscent of Kurosawa, with the villagers desperately trying to decide what to do about the demon which is terrorizing them. The headman announces he has sent for a Claymore, a prospect which is almost as frightening as the Yoma itself. Clare arrives; bad-assery ensues. In the process of killing the monster, she inadvertently takes on the young boy Raki as her charge. Just when things are threatening to get warm and fuzzy, we learn another horrible truth about life as a Claymore.

Because they draw their powers from being part Yoma, all Claymore are doomed to one day transform into Yoma themselves, at which time they must be killed. The usual practice when a Claymore feels she is losing the ability to control the beast within is to send for an executioner to dispatch her before she transforms, so that she can die as a human, without becoming the thing that she hates. The grim task is usually carried out by a close friend. This gives the show a very dark, desperate feeling. Between the action and the drama, the show keeps up a brisk pace. The plot branches out, introducing other elements, and, of course, other Claymores.

If the series has a weakness — and even steely Claymores have a couple of chinks in their armor — it would be its willingness to occasionally indulge in large binges of talkiness, and some really melodramatic dialogue. The early episodes are fraught with long expositions which do an effective but sometimes tedious job of explaining the world of the show. Some of the phrases wear thin from overuse, like the townspeople’s habit of calling Claymores “silver-eyed witches.” Such problems, however, can be overlooked. Language often suffers in translation, and the world of Claymore is filled with moments of such rigid stillness and brooding silence, punctuated at frequent intervals with sudden violence, that any spoken words might feel out of place here.

The casting, however, is dead on. Stephanie Young does an excellent job of making Clare suitably chilly while maintaining hints of warmth. And if you like femme fatales who know how to use their weapons, you might also like her performance as Mana in Negima. Swords, guns, whatever, as long as you know how to kick ass. Todd Haberkorn, the voice of Allen in D. Gray Man and Death the Kid in the upcoming Soul Eater release, plays as Raki, the young man whom Clare befriends. The rest of the cast contains many talented and suitably deadly ladies, with various other Claymores being voiced by Brina Palencia (RomeoxJuliet, Spice and Wolf), Caitlin Glass (Fullmetal Alchemist, Negima), Christine Auten (Air, Tokyo Majin), and Monica Rial (Azumanga Daioh, Witchblade). If you have the chance, check out the new Soul Eater clips of Monica as Tsubaki opposite Brittney Kabowski as Black Star!

You’ll have to wait until next year for the release of Soul Eater, but you’ll only have to wait until the next column for more AniMania, so be sure to check back soon.