Claymore: Volumes 1 & 2
Label: Manga Entertainment.
Release date:8th June 2009
Certificate: 18
Discs: 2. (5 eps per disc)
Running time: 228 mins approx
Video: 16.9 anamorphic
Sound: English 5.1, Japanese 2.0
Subtitles: English.
RRP: £19.99
Brief synopsis:
Based on a popular and long running manga of the same name, Claymore presents a dark, disturbing and violent tale set in a medieval fantasy environment where immensely powerful warrior woman travel the lands ruthlessly destroying humanoid monsters which threaten to decimate entire villages in some of the most brutal and gruesome ways known to man. However these swordswomen, known to the public as “Claymores” after the immense swords that they wield, aren’t defenders of justice or champions of the people, they’re agents for “the organisation” and they themselves are hybrids, part human, part monster. As the old saying goes, “send a monster to fight a monster”, and The Organisation knows only too well that it can extract a hefty sum from any village in need of the monster slaying services of it’s operatives. Though they themselves are feared and despised by the general population almost as much as the monsters they are sent to defeat, these women put not just their lives on the line every time they fight these monsters, but also their very sanity and humanity as they also battle to control their own monstrous nature. This monster in each of their hearts grows ever more powerful with every battle and will one day take them over from within, turning them into the very things they live to destroy.
One of these Claymores, a beautiful yet emotionally detached young woman by the name of Clare, saves a young boy from a monster attack. When his fellow villagers shun him after the attack, Clare reluctantly agrees to escort him to the next village in the hope that someone there will take him in. As they journey together, Clare finds that interacting with a regular human who finds her neither disgusting nor terrifying begins to reawaken the compassion and basic humanity she had abandoned so long ago.
Comments:
From the basic premise of this show you’d be forgiven for expecting to see some busty babes with big tits in bikinis wielding big-ass weapons in a generic swords and sorcery world. Well, if that’s what you’re after then you’re going to be somewhat disappointed. There’s plenty of big ol’ swords but a distinct lack of sorcery, lots of pretty women but more in a “severe blond Russian fashion model” way than a “busty Baywatch babe” style and if you’re waiting for the gallant hero to ride in on his horse and save the day then you’ll just have to keep on waiting. What you do get instead is a dark, grim medieval style fantasy tale with a well-crafted script full of bloody action and more twists and turns than a Cornish B-road. Claymore’s creator and artist, Norihiro Yagi, loves playing with the standard tropes seen in your usual medieval fantasy setting, poking and prodding and subverting them in such a manner as to keep the audience enthralled all the way through. This anime follows the original manga quite faithfully though, as the manga is still ongoing and is projected to run for the next few years, the anime does have to deviate away quite heavily after about episode 20 in order to reach a conclusion. Also, I’m not sure that the swords they carry are truly “Claymores” from a purely technical point of view but, to be honest, the name brings over the impression of a really big-ass sword and that’s what counts.
Visual:
When it was first announced that the Claymore manga was to be adapted into an anime there was concern that much of the distinctive art style of the original artist would be lost in transition. Thankfully this didn’t turn out to be the case as the animation has stayed true to Norihiro’s style, which can be felt in everything from the character designs to the incredibly detailed backgrounds to the violent and gory fight scenes. No punches have been pulled with the slash-tastic battle-damage and high body count making this a show purely for the more mature fan. Like Hellsing Ultimate, which we have been reviewing recently on this site, Claymore has earned it’s 18 certificate the old fashioned way; not thorough foul language and sexual activity but through mutilation, decapitation and evisceration. With a colour palate that heavily favours browns, greys and gold (and lots of blood red) it would be easy for this show to seem somewhat muted visually but this isn’t the case. Much attention is made to the small details even if it’s just in the background, the fight sequences are well planned and animated and even “non-essentials” like weather effects and shadows are utilised with great accomplishment. As would be befitting of a show of this calibre, the conversion to DVD has been handled well with clear, crisp video quality throughout.
Audio/Subtitles:
In the original Japanese, this show boasts one of the best collections of vocal performances in recent years assisted greatly by the sheer weight of talent that’s been brought to bear. There’s a cast awash with strong female characters voiced by a veritable who’s who of female seiyuus including the likes of AMG’s Belldandy & Skuld, Tenchi’s Ryoko, Black Lagoons Revy, the eponymous lead of Naruto, Bleach’s Captain Hitsugaya, Rosario and Vampire’s Moka; the list goes on and on. But, whilst the original Japanese track easily falls into the “divine” category, the English language version is unfortunately a more “hit and miss” affair. I’ll give the production team tasked with the job their due, the translation’s good and they’ve pulled in quite a few well known and experienced voice actresses to try and replicate the success of the original language track but there’s a number of issues I had with their output. These mainly had to do with mispronunciations of names and technical terms from within the Claymore universe. I couldn’t help but think that making the cast sit and watch at least a little of the original would have worked wonders. Also, the actor voicing the main, and pretty much only, male protagonist was so ear-gratingly irritating that I had to keep swapping the audio track whenever he got up to speed. Additional to this, for some strange reason it seems that the Casting Director thought it would be a really good idea to make two of these scarily powerful, though still feminine, warrior women sound just like stereotypical Californian valley girls on a day out at the mall. This was all quite enough for my ears and with a swift “I was like… What-ev-er” from me the audio was flicked back to Japanese and there it stayed for the duration. It probably didn’t help that over the course of this show’s entire 26 episode run there were no fewer than six (not two or three. Four shall thou not count and five is right out!) ADR directors helming this particular dub ship. If too many cooks can spoil the broth then in this case they mangled the entrees and massacred the cheese-board as well.
Now I’ve gotten that out of the way I’ll talk about the music, which is quite frankly, excellent. Both the opening theme (a guitar heavy rock ballad) and closing theme (a more Choral and Celtic influenced rock track) were brilliant choices for this show and are well worth checking out in the extras section of each disc. When originally released as a single in Japan, the ending theme “Danzai No Hana” (lit: flower of conviction) actually had an English language version as it’s B-side which I’m surprised wasn’t used as the dub version’s ending theme. Somewhat of a missed opportunity there I feel. The rest of the soundtrack also pulls heavily from the more “rock” end of the spectrum though there’s many an aural nod to traditional Celtic or European music as well as a plethora of age-old Japanese styles invoking a real “old world” feel to the proceedings.
Extras:
Even though we’re getting an impressive total of 10 episodes spread over two discs (though I fully expect volume 3 onwards to only sport 4 episodes per disc) this doesn’t mean that they’re being skimpy with the extras. There’s; Audio Commentaries for both episode 1 and 8, Textless Opening (Raison D’etre) and Closing (Danzai No Hana), Audition tapes for five of the Dub cast members and a rather interesting interview with Director Hiroyuki Tanaka
Claymore: Volumes 1 & 2 is available now from most online and high street retailers. As usual, both Amazon and Play are currently offering this release at some heftily discounted prices. The official site for this series can be found here.
Reviewer: Penfold