Review: Claymore Vol 1 by Norihiro Yagi

Synopsis:

A Claymore - a female warrior named for the sword she carries - travels from medieval village to village to destroy Yoma, monsters who disguise themselves as humans and who are almost impossible to kill. Claymores are half-humans, half-demons who willingly transformed themselves by mixing their blood with monster's blood. Claire, nicknamed silver-eyed killer, is such a powerful Claymore, she can slay a Yoma using only one hand. But she must constantly struggle to keep from becoming a monster herself.

Pages: 208 pages (Paperback)
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC; 1 edition
Released: April 4, 2006

So this volume contains the first four chapters of the very successful series from Monthly Jump. The chapters are Silver-Eyed Slayer, Claws In the Sky, Memory of A Witch and The Black Card.

Claymore is a manga I've been wanting to read for awhile now. I'm a big fan of Jump and after catching up on some titles, I thought I'd give this a go.

Claire is a Claymore, a half human half monster whose sole mission in life is to kill the monsters. The monsters that Claymores hunt disguises themselves as regular people in order to infiltrate an unsuspecting town and eat the tasty, tasty humans there.

In the first chapter, she meets Raki a young boy whose family was killed by the monsters. Unlike the other villagers, he isn't afraid of Claire and tries to befriend her. In the third chapter, he ends up following her and becoming her cook.

The dynamic between the two so far is needed to show us how Claire's human side isn't really human. Raki is innocent. When he cares for others and acts human. Claire, on the other hand, is cold, distant, and efficient in her job. She looks human, but definitely doesn't act like it. This gives her a very lonely and sad aura. What's the point in getting close to others when she's a Claymore, who will eventually become a monster one day?

The artwork is okay. Usually the first volume isn't a true indication of the mangaka's abilities and as the series progresses, I'm sure the artwork will get better and better.

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Overall:

Volume 1 of Claymore is a great introduction so far. I already enjoy watching Claire and Raki and can't wait to see where the mangaka takes them. There is a lot of blood in this series, so if you are squeamish about that then perhaps this isn't for you. However, the characters and story is good so far so definitely check this out.

4 stars

note: mangaka is a manga author