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Claymore TV Series:-

 

Why the series is named after a landmine remains a mystery to me, but claymore are half human/ half beasts. They are also "silver-eyed witches" and all are female. Creator Norihiro Yagi might be a misogynist, or maybe he likes babes who are slightly built and able to wield a big-ass sword with no muscle mass whatsoever. Hard to say... The show opens with lumpen proletariat eeking out a miserable existence in some dustbowl worthy of Kenshiro from Fist Of The North Star fame. The prols are a bit bothered because yoma seem to be eating their neighbours. Yoma are also half human and half beasts, but unlike claymore, they can be blokes as well as sheilas. They can also change shape, which makes them tricky to spot in a village which looks like most of the inhabitants are already well on the way to beastliness themselves.

The head man has engaged the services of a mystery organization, which is sending a claymore to rid the town of the yoma. He made this decision without consulting anyone, which rules out his chances of a job with the United Nations. The nervous prols are not reassured, since they know that claymore are pretty much the same as yoma, they just have nicer breasts and better hair styles.

Enter, slowly, from the depths of the desert, our young heroine, Clare, who walks through the town, eyeballing everyone for signs of yoma-ness. She carries a big-ass sword on her back and no apparent food or drink - this is one tough babe, you just know it. A young boy, Raki, makes the sensible decision to immediately strike up a conversation with this angel of death, possibly hoping for her phone number. He certainly seems keen on finding out her name.

Raki has had a tough time of it: both his parents were eaten by yoma; his uncle gets chewed during this episode, and as if that's not enough to be going on with, Raki's brother, Zaki, turns out to be the yoma, who promptly tries to eat young Raki. No wonder this lad is an emo nightmare.

Raki is saved, in the nick of time, as Clare makes a stunning entrance by bursting through the ceiling, cutting off the yoma's right hand, then his left, then slicing him very neatly vertically right down the middle. She would be a sensation on Iron Chef.

Shortly afterwards, the village decides that the sensible thing to do is throw Raki off a cliff, just in case he has inherited the yoma gene. I suspect that this village gradually turned into what we now call Germany sometime in the 1700s. Raki doesn't die, of course, but wanders aimlessly in a duststorm until he collapses. He wakes up to find himself in a comfortable bed, being attended to by a kind-hearted man, who explains that all expenses have been prepaid by Clare, and that he should really stick around, since the wife does a great all-you-can-eat smorgasbord at 6 o'clock.

Raki, not having had anything to eat or drink in presumably days, does the smart thing and dashes straight out looking for Clare. He finds himself in a wooded forest, which is presumably not all that far from the dustbowl of his own village, which goes to show how global warming can be very area specific. Another yoma, this time female, impersonates Clare, but blows her cover by describing herself as a claymore, something which Clare would never do, since she hates the term. Raki is held hostage, but Clare appears from behind a fir tree and the standoff looms. The big-ass sword gets tossed aside, the yoma makes a dash for Clare and succeeds in putting her entire arm through Clare's waist. This only causes the claymore to get seriously pissed off, and after a brief tumble through the brambles, Clare manages to cut off the head of the offending yoma, heal herself, tell Raki her name, and invite the young labrador to tag along as her cook.

Thus endeth episode one.

From the looks of things, this is yet another series made with little money, time or creativity. My guess is that about 20% of the episode's budget was used during the opening song. In low-budget series, most of the money is saved for the action sequences, but not in Claymore. It's hard to find any real visual highlights anywhere in this first episode. The character animation is very limited, the backgrounds are cheap and nasty, the sound effects are minimal.

If you like demonic stories with shape-changing demons (and God knows there are enough of them, and some really good ones at that), then Claymore might give you some excitement along the way. For me, this series is looming as a time vampire with very little bite.