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.
Book Description
Special Offers and Product Promotions
- This item is eligible for our 4-for-3 promotion. Eligible products include select Books and Home & Garden items. Buy any 4 eligible items and get the lowest-priced item free. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This nondescript but pleasant manga is set in the generic fantasy landscape where little medieval towns are separated by large tracts of wilderness, and monsters must be dealt with by traveling for-hire monster slayers. The monsters here are Yomas, shape-changing creatures with a taste for human innards; the slayers are Claymores, young women who have been injected with Yoma blood so that they can recognize and kill the monsters—but who then must struggle to keep their own humanity. In the episodes in this volume, a young boy watches one Claymore arrive in his village and do her thing. He sees her as a person rather than a creepy semimonster and follows her after he learns her name, Claire. The rest of the book shows Claire and her naïve tagalong going through a series of confrontations with Yomas, in the worst of which Claire is summoned to kill her best friend, who feels herself losing control over her Yoma side. The elements of this story certainly aren't fresh nor is the art especially striking. However, as it goes along, the book does generate sympathy with Claire as slayer/victim, maiden/warrior, savior/fiend, showing that even tired material can still be interesting when presented unpretentiously. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Norihiro Yagi won the 32nd Akatsuka Award for his debut work, Undeadman, which appeared in Monthly Shonen Jump magazine and produced two sequels. His first serialized manga was his comedy Angel Densetsu (Angel Legend), which appeared in Monthly Shonen Jump from 1992 to 2000. His epic saga, Claymore, is running in Monthly Jump Square magazine.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Engaging stuff, and it only gets better!,
By
This review is from: Claymore, Vol. 1 (Paperback)
I'm a Claymore fan. I'm recently reading the 10th book in Japanese and I'm loving it. When I first saw this comic, I knew right away that I was going to like it. It reminded me of "Gunm"(Battle Angel Alita) in that it appeared to be a pure action piece but actually had much deeper themes. I have to admit that the art in the first few volumes isn't perfect, but like Rumiko Takahashi who found her stride somewhere in the middle of "Urusei Yatsura" (Lum), you can recognize a huge difference in creator Norihiro Yagi's art (yes, it's Yagi, not Yago) when you get to #6. Maybe earlier, but it really hit me at #6. I hope Viz continues to put this out in English as this title deserves a wide fan-base. The pace is slower for this comic to come out in book form because it is published in the Monthly Shonen Jump (as opposed to Weekly Shonen Jump). Monthlies tend to have more mature, less commercial titles and are therefore usually more interesting. When they hit book form, they are packaged just like the weekly books however and so tend to get some prime shelf-space.
I had to snicker at the Publisher's review of the comic being 'pleasant' though. There is hacking, slashing, and a lot of bleeding, but it's stylized enough not to be gory (bloody, yes; gory, no). No cutesy stuff either. No animal side-kicks, no easily packageable fluff. Just great story, great art (trust me, it does get better), and great characters. I only wish the books came out faster.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Claymore: Knights with Silver Eyes,
By
This review is from: Claymore, Vol. 1 (Paperback)
Claymore first came to my attention via the scanlation exchange community. I'm a sucker for a woman warrior story, especially a story that has such a compelling heroine as Clare. I soon became enamored of the series not only for its original blending of archetypes that so uniquely identifies Japanese manga, but for the depth of its world building and character development.
The story revolves around Clare, a female warrior whose whole existence is given over to hunting Yoma, shape-shifting monsters who devour human entrails to survive. In the first story arc, we meet Raki, a young boy who encounters and is fascinated by Clare when she comes to his town upon request to eliminate a suspected yoma infestation. During the course of her mission, Clare eliminates the yoma but her actions inadvertently cause the townsfolk to reject Raki. Thus, the two end up journeying together and the true adventure begins. To say that Claymore is fantasy is incorrect. In later volumes, it becomes clear that Claymore is, in fact, a slipstream story. There are hints in the art and supporting characters presentations that foreshadow this, but the hard facts have only just come out in the scanlated serializations. As I mentioned, the characterizations are what keep me drawn into Claymore. Clare and Raki's relationship is very endearing, all the more so given Clare's desperate struggle to resist the inhuman "modifications" that she has been subjected to which allow her to fight the yoma. Raki's devotion to Clare and her own tenderness and concern toward Raki (which happens despite her attempts to avoid them), drive the pair down a long road of hardships and separation. Clare's own back story is heart-wrenching, and even the supposed "villains" are shown to have not sprung from the background "whole-cloth", but rather to be human beings who all came down through harsh experiences to land where they are. I think the fact that the story starts out more or less simply with a few mysteries that then deepen and broaden above and beyond the spheres of influence of the immediate characters also pulls me in and keeps me going. This is not to say that the story or art are perfect. There are a few "gimme's" that are somewhat hard to swallow in the plot and how Norihiro-sensei draws human heads, hair, and faces can, at times, be joltingly bizarre. However, in the overall view, there is such depth in all the details of the story and graphics that you can easily lose yourself sifting through it all. Another point that keeps me reading the story is the innate nobility of Clare and her friends. Some Claymores succumb to the temptation to cruelty. Other even give into the alien flesh inside them and become "Awakened Ones", a sort of super-yoma evolution of Claymore. However, Clare and her companions fight to retain their humanity and protect what they can. This resonates deeply with me in that it doesn't paint the world completely black and white, but rather acknowledges the role that personal responsibility and choice play in how we find our places in the scheme of things. This level of insight raises Norihiro-sensei quite high in my esteem. This is a seinen manga, intended for male readers. Women may find the overly endowed heroines and frequent nudity off-putting, although the fact that women are presented as the only "stable" platforms for anti-yoma weaponry may assuage the more overtly feminist. Regardless, the story is telling in terms of emotional content and lack of cliche in plot. It truly is an original concept worthy of having on your shelf. Additional pictures and reviews available at http://darwinsevolutions.com
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Episodes 1&2, for those following the anime,
By
This review is from: Claymore, Vol. 1 (Paperback)
Claymore, Vol. 1 / 9781421506180
I've actually watched the complete Claymore anime first before getting into the manga; when I started deconstructing the incredible anime series on my blog, a kind reader was nice enough to mail me the first five manga volumes as supplemental material. I wasn't sure how closely the anime followed the source material, but so far it's been a very close match, with some extra (and delightful) details available in the manga. I really love the artwork in this volume -- the drawings are black-and-white, and manage to be very detailed but with a consistently 'clean' simplicity that I find really appealing. The original formatting of the Japanese book was maintained instead of flipped, so you do have to read right-to-left and back-to-front with this volume. The right-to-left reading is a fairly simple adjustment for my eyes (though I do sometimes forget when I drop down a panel), but the back-to-front reading was a bit harder for my hands to get used to -- it's hard to shake years of muscle memory at the drop of a hat, but in this case it's worth it. Volume 1 provides the following scenes: Scene 1: Silver-eyed Slayer Scene 2: Claws in the Sky Scene 3: Memory of a Witch Scene 4: The Black Card For those following along with the anime series, this volume corresponds to: Episode 1: The Great Sword (An adaptation of Scene 1 and Scene 3 from the manga.) Episode 2: The Black Card (An adaptation of Scene 4 with an opening shot illusion to Scene 2.) This volume follows the introduction of Clare and Raki, their meeting one another, a decision to journey together, and the receipt by Clare of Elena's black card. If you liked the anime series, I am certain you'll like this manga volume; I recommend it for extra detail and backstory on the Claymores and their organization. ~ Ana Mardoll
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
