Claymore 16
Posted: June 9, 2010 Filed under: Claymore 5 Comments »Norihiro Yagi – Viz – 2010 – 17+ volumes
I know I say this every time I get a new volume of this series, but even without knowing anything about what’s going on, even jumping in the middle of a plot-heavy shounen series, Claymore is great stuff. I still really need to go back and start from the first volume, and I will. With six months between new books (I assume we’re caught up with Japan), hopefully I’ll be able to pick up at least a few volumes before 17 comes out in January.
The hardest part for me is that the story jumps around to different groups of characters, but all of them have an interesting story, so I’m not all that lost. Or rather, I am lost, but I’m enjoying the ride enough that I don’t care.
This volume opens with exposition, an old man explaining to a group of three women what’s up with… what appears to be the villain. We see the villain, along with a woman she’s kidnapped, and learn that what she has planned is bad for the world indeed. Another big clue that she was evil was the fact she had cut off the captive woman’s arms and legs and was making her do some sort of reading without them. So… I’m pretty sure I was right on that one.
Elsewhere, we meet up with a group of two women traveling south. They meet up with a Claymore who explains the southern situation to her, how she wouldn’t advise they go any farther, et cetera. They ignore her, and engage in what is a pretty awesome fight scene, made even better by indestructible zombie dolls programmed to eat demon flesh. This scene (which I’m pretty sure I’m missing the nuances on, the zombie dolls are probably really awful in a way I’m not getting) was great, not only as a way to break up all the exposition, but also just as an action scene as well. It had interesting enemies and the fight itself was great, made even better by the fact we got to skip over the boring parts where the zombies were killed again and again as they wore their enemy down.
Now, this review isn’t useful to anyone who actually reads the series, since I’m not familiar with any of the characters or creatures. But from an outsider’s perspective, the volume’s great, and that’s an impressive feat from a shounen series sixteen volumes in. Even if it’s taken a dip in quality in the recent volumes, I don’t really care, because I’m ready to start at the beginning and be taken on an epic action fantasy ride.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
-(I assume we’re caught up with Japan), -
Yep.
-what appears to be the villain.-
*A* villain :) There’s a couple major ones- this one is Riful aka Riful of the West. Then there’s Isley of the North, the guy being attacked by the zombies. They’re known as ‘Abyssal Ones,’ and both insanely powerful, even the Claymore organization is afraid to take them on, and thus a bunch of zombie things being able to pull even him down is scary indeed.
-Elsewhere, we meet up with a group of two women traveling south. They meet up with a Claymore who explains the southern situation to her, how she wouldn’t advise they go any farther, et cetera. They ignore her, -
Helen and Deneve! The most *fun* pair in the series. They have better things to do than follow warnings, like indulge curiosity :)
[...] Black Blizzard (PopMatters) Lori Henderson on vol. 4 of Cirque du Freak (Comics Village) Connie on vol. 16 of Claymore (Slightly Biased Manga) Ed Sizemore on vols. 1 and 2 of Deadman Wonderland (Comics Worth Reading) [...]
“Another big clue that she was evil was the fact she had cut off the captive woman’s arms and legs”
To be fair, in Claymore world, cutting off limbs sometimes seems to be a way of saying hello.
Riful’s a fun villain — the combination of her looking and talking like an innocent kid, and the insanely nasty things she actually says and does makes for great black comedy.
Claymore’s a pretty solid series. Volume 1 is a bit pilot-ish, and the Rabona arc in Volume 2 and into Volume 3 is the low point of the series because it’s just overstretched, but everything after that is good stuff.
Thanks for offering the explanations. I really do enjoy this series, and am going to pick up the first few volumes very soon.
I’m glad you told me that the series takes a little while to get going, too. I think I might have been discouraged if I read those and thought it might take forever to get going.
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To be fair, in Claymore world, cutting off limbs sometimes seems to be a way of saying hello.-
Depending on whether or not the person is a defensive type :)
(Claymores can be defensive or offensive. Defensives, like Deneve, can regen a lot better. Offensively, like Helen, tend to get cooler moves, but also suffer more if hurt. They can’t regrow limbs, only reattach)