This review will mostly cover the aspects of what makes Claymore a battle manga, noting the good and the bad. I will give a quick rundown of my thoughts on the story, art and characters.

Story: It's not too out of the norm and we've seen many other series with similar structured story, it's good enough to progress for the sake of the series. 7/10.

Art: Not in terms of base character models within Claymores since a lot of them just look too similar to really differentiate. Also, the landscapes were a bit generic and the male character models were quite off most of the times. However, what really shines is seeing the awakened beasts and their designs, they're definitely something special. There hasn't been a single awakened form design that I really didn't like. When seeing a creature drawn like Isley's awakened form, it is surely a work of art. 8/10.

Characters: Despite being a character driven series, none of the characters really seemed captivating to me, nor makes me feel drawn into. In fact, there were more characters that I simply couldn't care less for than the ones I really liked. More of a run of the mill characters in both design and backstories. 6/10.


Now, onto the putting my focus on what I really want to talk about. Claymore at it's core is a battle manga, which means that it's a character driven story structured in a way where the main protagonist becomes stronger for the sake of reaching their own goal. With that said, the scale of power weighted amongst characters must be consistent. The main character, Clare, takes in the flesh of Teresa, most powerful warrior in series. In the context of the story, this makes her quarter yoma(considering the Teresa like all other Claymores, was half yoma) This ensures that the main character cannot supersede Teresa's power at any point in the story, which the story makes sure of that. It wouldn't be right for Clare to jump through the ranks to miraculously become a sheer monster without her reaching her ceiling.

The scaling of power as well as the progression had been fairly consistent until towards the latter half of the series. The big problem in a battle manga, the level of power between characters must be consistent, believable and reasonable. My main gripes towards this series is that the main villain is rather unduly overpowered. The level of strength between Abyssal Ones held a strong hierarchy within the pyramid, a structure in the series where these characters were amongst the top level fighters in the series and yet, Priscilla has the power to outright fodderize all three of the characters which ruins what the story has built up to and just treats them like a joke, this just isn't right. This actually was possible considering Alicia and Beth, whom both were rightfully comparable to the Abyssal Ones. The introduction of other stronger beings than the Abyssal Ones had really lessened the enjoyment and consistency from me. I can somewhat compare this problem to the second half of part 2 Naruto, where select few characters managed to become way too powerful in a uninspired manner, completely throwing a lot of the characters and what made them strong under the bus.