Posted by Caldi-Chan on Dec 27th, 2007
A Shonen Jump Advanced Title at Viz Media, Claymore (story and art by Norihiro Yagi) has proven at most to have interesting themes, but also cookie cutter storytelling. I’ll break it down to show what I mean.
Story
What’s a good way to draw readers in? Why, a dead body of course! This makes a reader want to turn a page and find out what happened. So that’s the hook right there to draw in a reader. It seems the first town has a bit of a problem with a demon that likes to feast on humans… which when I think about it, is a stereotype for demons; hey, not all demons are bad and feast on humans! I can live with this though, since in the world of Claymore, demons are bad, and Claymores are there to defeat these creatures. Gives new meaning to the word “Slayer†if you know what I mean.
The first initial chapter is the basic “This is the main character, this is what she does, then she goes and does it” deal. Simple, as if it was a basic storyboard with words for an anime. Which is okay, but the flow and pacing is a bit too quick for my liking considering this is supposed to be a manga. The next chapter follows the same format, except now we see a bit more into the lifestyle of the Claymore, Clare, though not much. It seems she gets assignments and moves from town to town doing her duty, while her boss follows behind to collect the fee.
Given the pace of fights, there’s not a whole lot to the story. The only things the readers are told is that Claymores are there to defeat Monsters and Demons, and that they themselves, while human, have actually gained their powers from eating the flesh of demons and monsters. Oh, and men apparently don’t survive the “change†as well as women do.
That’s just the basics though. My only complaint here is that the story needs a bit more work. However this is just the first volume, so don’t let my review stop you from checking it out. It seems to be a popular manga with most guys I know.
Art
I’ll be honest; I don’t like the art. I remember when I first glanced at this manga at Ai-Kon 2007, and telling myself the artist should be shot. In my honest opinion, the artist only did a partial job. It has a feel of being more like coloring book art then an actual manga with tone or shading. In fact, most of the detail which can be usually found in eyes are left blank unless there is an extreme close up of a person’s face. Tone on backgrounds are almost nonexistent, and shading is very minimal at best.
The most detail to be found, when I look at it from a creative point of view, are during the fight scenes, on demons, and Clare. Yet even then, shading is very minimal unless you’re looking at a close up.
The artist also seems to have a very bad sense in drawing the common nose; that, or he’s trying too hard to combine the anime and realistic styles. 
I can’t rightly put a finger on it. It just looks really bad to me. I’m told that the art gets better later on in the series, and that’s a main reason why I haven’t given my initial judgment yet. In my honest opinion, my first impression is that this artist needs to put their pen down. In comparison, the story was better.
I realize that most will disagree with my commentary here in regards to the creator’s work. However, as a person who has read countless manga, this art just feels half-finished. It needs to be fleshed out a bit more. If it was, I’d not have that many complaints, save the ones about noses and eyes looking too strange.
Other information:
Volumes 1-11 are currently available. According to the Viz Media Site.
Artist Norihiro Nagai has another Manga spanning 15 Volumes, by the name of Angel Densetsu.
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Hmm… The one color piece you have here doesn’t look too bad; I’ve definitely seen far worse. The sample interior artwork, however… yikes. It’s a good thing her(?) mouth is so big, because the apparent lack of a nose would make breathing quite difficult otherwise!
Sounds like your basic, stereotypical demon-slayer storyline to me. Which is fine as far as it goes, but the market seems fairly saturated with such stories of late…
The interior art is of the kid who loses his whole family to the demon that was in the first town. I forgot his name, but he was the main reason why the art felt half finished to me. Several scenes with him in it were minimal in the art department. Noses can be seen on a side profile, but frontal view, usually has a tiny dot, or no nose at all.
It irks me though.
According to the Claymore community, the first few volumes are like this, but later on the artist applies his manga ka skills and fleshes it out more.
Yeah, that sounds anime-ish all right… the trend in anime for the last 10-15 years has been to make noses as minimalistic as possible, to the point they all but disappear in a frontal view. They’re still visible in profile and from an off-center perspective, but if you’re looking dead-on at someone, their noses are just a simple comma-shaped line at most.
That’s okay for anime, but manga art is supposed to look more detailed than something designed for animation purposes. This just looks like any number of fanmade 4-koma I’ve seen over the years (and this is not a compliment).
I hope he does improve in later volumes, though…
Now see, If he had stuck to one format I’d have no problem with it. Flesh it out, and stick to one style. If he was going to use realistic, fine, but if that’s the case use a realistic style on the entire face.
If he was going for anime-ish or Manga style, do it that way. What we have here is a bad combination and it isn’t even a completed combination.
Note that eyes are just circles. In most manga they have detail of some form, even at that distance on the faces.
The fight scenes between Clare and Demons did use some shading to indicate speed and stuff by the use of lines but in some places it was over used, while shading on faces were non existent except for the eyes, and noses looked too realistic at the same time.
I remember when reading this, and writing this my friend Swan was defending the art so much that he actually got mad at me, when I told it as I saw it.
Half finished, switching from realistic to anime/manga style, and just over all bad.
The excuse/ reason for the feeling of bad half finished art is that the creator was rushed, and therefore did it on pourpose. (?)
I cannot confirm it however, but if that’s the case I am curious how his other Manga Angel Densetsu looks.
Looking at the cover it seems to be a very similar style.