APADFTMOM Day 28: High Priority Reading: Claymore

If I have a chance to talk about my reading calendar, I’ll talk about my reading calendar. At the end of February I bought a calendar for the sole purpose of giving myself daily reading goals so I could read consistently while also finishing things that I had dropped out of laziness. It’s worked wonderfully so far and with the end of the month on the horizon, it’s about time to fill up June. For May I decided to buckle down and finish reading Claymore, which I started and dropped a few years ago for no particular reason. I loved it. We’re talking about it today.






Claymore by Norihiro Yagi takes place in a world where demons known as Yoma hunt humans and prey on their entrails. These Yoma can disguise themselves as people and blend into a community seamlessly, making Yoma attacks difficult to predict and even more difficult to prevent. In order to combat these demons, there exist special warriors known as Claymores. These Claymores are half-Yoma swordswomen known for their silver eyes and their signature claymore-style swords, and each one is a specialist in exterminating Yoma. The organization through which Claymores work ranks each one based on power with a number between 1 and 47. The story follows Clare, the Claymore ranked number 47, as she is swept into the ever-changing conflicts of a world tormented by Yoma.




There are a lot of moving pieces to Claymore and the series brings a lot of ideas to the table at any given time. There are plenty of other conflicts aside from Yoma attacks: The existence of elite Yoma known as Abyssal Ones, the hopes and desires of each Claymore, the secrecy of the organization that manages the Claymores, Clare’s involvement with an orphaned human boy named Raki, and the dark history of past Claymores known only to a select few current Claymores, to name a few. Each conflict is thoroughly explored and resolved, and new conflicts branch from existing or resolved ones to keep the story moving in a coherent fashion.




Claymore is much more the story of the world of Claymore rather than the story of Clare. Clare is the protagonist for the series, but her role is more of the audience’s eyes than the central focus. Being the weakest Claymore of her generation means that Clare is both limited as to what she is able to defeat and not respected enough to be in on some of the larger plans at work. Clare is an established character within the world of Claymore but her position in that world is such that any revelation that is new to the audience is new to her as well.




The world of Claymore is surprisingly simple despite how much is going on in it at any given time. Everything in the story stems from three main existences: Humans, Yoma, and Claymores. Yoma and Claymores as the two main forces of the series and both are given lots of intricate detail. For Claymores this includes a lot of characters being introduced throughout the series, all of them seemingly identical at first but made to feel like individual people. Yoma are given this to a degree as well, although their individuality is mostly limited to their physical appearance with only the strongest Yoma being given actual characters.




At first glance, the ranks of Claymores are filled with clones. Each one as the same hair color, eye color, armor, and sword, and their organization treats them as such for the most part by only distinguishing them with numbers ranking their strength. Through Clare’s eyes, the reader is able to see that each Claymore is their own person with their individual likes, personalities, and motivations. Claymores are dehumanized by their employer as numbers and the people they fight to protect as cold-blooded hunters, but there is a special culture within the ranks of the Claymores that they have established due to being such a close community.




One minor point of conflict within Claymore is that the Claymores are hired for their work. Claymores are not dispatched to deal with Yoma unless the community first pays the organization while requesting assistance. This leads to poorer communities coming up with crude ways to handle Yoma problems on their own, and it helps to frame the organization as a company more than a public service. There are very few ways to deal with Yoma and the organization knows this and is willing to exploit it.




Issues with how the organization handles their dealings help give Claymore a sense of political intrigue along with its supernatural battles. Claymore is more than just a series where swordswomen hunt and kill demons; It is about the burden that each Claymore carries. A prominent theme of Claymore is humanization. This is taken literally as monsters disguised as people are killed by people who are half-monster, but Claymore also applies this to its overall plot structure by focusing on the Claymores as they struggle for power within their ranks and resist against an employer and a world who see them as tools. Claymores are defined by their swords and nobody is able to see past that aside from the warriors themselves.




While Claymore is a very well-written series that balances action with societal conflict, there is something special to be said about how well the series is drawn. The art in Claymore is very clean yet detailed, especially in regards to the Yoma. As the series goes on, Yoma designs become more and more rooted in body horror but presented with a touch of absurdity to keep the designs creative but not disgusting. A lot of designs are primarily centered around sharp angles and the female body, but never presented in a sexual manner to preserve the integrity of what the designs represent.




Claymore shares a similar tone with Berserk by contrasting knights with horrific demonic monsters to present a dark atmosphere, but Claymore’s tone is much lighter due to the circumstances surrounding its plot. Claymore is much more of an ensemble piece that focuses on the plight of the Claymore as opposed to the plight of Clare herself. Clare is not that tragic of a character, and Claymore joins the long list of series that do not have an antagonist as universally hated as Berserk’s Griffith. In terms of visuals, however, there is a shared aesthetic.




Claymore is available in its entirety via the Shonen Jump app for that sweet, low price of $1.99 a month, and access to Claymore alone is more than enough to justify the cost. To be honest, if you enjoyed the White Walker subplot of Game of Thrones then I think you’ll love Claymore. It has a lot of that same energy but with far more consistent writing from start to finish.