Claymore the Complete Series DVD Review
Madhouse FUNimation Adapt Norihiro Yagi's Kureimoa Manga
Nov 18, 2009 Dominic von Riedemann
In July, Animation Boy™ got a chance to check out the conclusion of Madhouse/FUNimation's Claymore (Kuremoa in Japan) on DVD. Despite not having viewed the previous 5 DVD's, it was surprisingly easy to get drawn into this dark, violent story of half-demon women battling flesh-eating monsters and their own weaknesses.
Now that Claymore The Complete Series has come out on DVD, does this initial assessment hold up? Yes, this series has a great plot and character development, but director Hiroyuki Tanaka has a bad habit of dropping gigantic monologues into fight sequences.
Hiroyuki Tanaka Directs Madhouse/FUNImation's Claymore The Complete Series
This anime follows Clare, a young Claymore who hunts Yoma, demons that feast on human flesh. Due to the fact that they're part Yoma, the Claymores are the only ones who can successfully destroy these demons. However, the Claymores' biggest asset is also their biggest weakness: if they draw on their powers too much, the Yoma side takes over and they become what they fear.
Clare not only has to hunt down an insane Claymore named Priscilla, but must also contend with the inner politics of the Claymores' Organization, and ensure her own powers don't spiral out of control as well.
What pulls Claymore beyond your typical revenge-quest anime is the well-rounded characters. The heroes have their fatal flaws and many villains have genuine reasons for doing what they do. Clare initially holds herself away from humanity – knowing that they hate her as much as they need her – but finds herself becoming drawn to the young boy Raki, who was banished from his village after a Yoma slaughtered his family.
Priscilla, the major antagonist of the series, is to be pitied as much as feared: the viewer empathizes with her agony even as she commits the acts that doom her.
Animation-wise, Claymore rocks. When they're on the ball, Madhouse Studios does impeccable animation as films like Mai Mai Miracle, or the original Gunslinger Girl series, can attest. The character designs are well-executed (not an easy task with so many similar characters) and the backgrounds are gorgeous. Yes, there are some camera pans across static images, but those images are so nicely done that it isn't an issue.
Problems? The fact that everyone will suddenly stop fighting for 5 minutes – to allow one or more characters to drop a load of infodump – gets distracting after a while. It's a shame because the action sequences are otherwise well-crafted and feature some fascinating monster designs (the anime crowd has always put together cool monsters, but Claymore goes above and beyond here). One wishes the writers had taken the time to slot all that info into other sections piecemeal, instead of bringing fights to a crashing halt.
DVD Extras
In addition to the usual trailers and textless songs, each DVD features interviews, voice casting tapes (very cool) and audio commentary on selected episodes. While the audio commentaries occasionally threaten to descend into total lovefests, there's a lot of mutual respect amongst the cast and crew, and they're genuinely excited about working on Claymore.
However, the coolest extra is the two enclosed booklets that feature character designs, background art and printed interviews with several members of the crew. Not only are they some great visual eye candy, but the booklets add extra dimension to the major characters in the series. One wishes more DVD sets would follow Claymore's lead.
The Final Analysis
Put together hot women swinging big swords, well-crafted characters, smoking Madhouse animation and loads of guts n' gore and you have a winner anime. If director Hiroyuki Tanaka had dumped the constant monologuing during the otherwise-rockin' action sequences, Claymore would get even higher grades. As it stands, even non-anime fans should find something to like in this series.
Claymore The Complete Series gets an 8/10.
Claymore the Complete Series DVD
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