Anime-Review - Claymore (Englisch)

Dieses Review entstand vor einiger Zeit für MyAnimeList, und ist entsprechend auf Englisch. Ich werde mir nicht die Arbeit machen es zu übersetzen, dafür ist der Anime auch einfach zu irrelevant. Kurzfassung: Guckt nicht den Anime. Lest den Manga. Danke. Und jetzt gebe ich ab.


 

First of all, let me state that I absolutely love the original manga Claymore written by Norihiro Yagi. In my opinion, it's one of the best and most drilling shonen manga of our generation, with great, deep characters, a fantastic story with good twists and so on. Well, several years ago, it was decided to make an anime out of it, when 'Claymore' wasn't finished yet. Did it pay off?
Hell no, it didn't.

'Claymore' is, and let me underline this twice, one of the worst manga-adaptions I've ever seen, an abominable example of what can go wrong if an adaption doesn't stick to the original or does focus on the wrong points.

Story
The anime follows the path of the manga for a while, until it breaks on a certain point and goes for his alternative ending. The problem is, the story of the anime lacks impact. It doesn't manage to hit the viewer in certain scenes (Theresa, North, Riful, ...) like the manga did, instead the narration mostly feels like mediocre-fantasy. Scenes get rushed more than in the manga and some characters are even pictured differently, if not entirely weaker. And eventuelly, there are the last episodes which are all fanfiction. They're so bad and repetitive written I really got angry how terrible the source material was burned. In two or three episodes you basically get the same scene four or five times, containing the same message, a girl crying for her family for example. Also, the plot goes in circles for the last episodes, as the writters clearly didn't know how to let things end. What you get on the final is an expectable fantasy-climax which makes no sense in the context of the original, and which abandons several side-plots and important characters (Riful?). Let's just never mention them again. And of course you get lots of melodrama. The claymore-anime-ending is surely one of the worst you'll see in this medium, especially if comparised to the manga.

Characters
Like the manga-versions, only more shallow, stupid and annoying, clares personality changed quite a bit, especially towards the ending, and while awesome characters from the original at least appear (some of the great four) they quickly disappear and have no valuable point in the narration of the anime. Overall, I didn't really feel with the anime-claymores, and I would descripe them as a weaker version of their originals. And dont let me start about Raki. His character got shredded completely.

Art
While the manga-art is a bit strange at first, it gets better and better as the story goes on to the point where its unique and iconic. Unfortunately, the anime skipped that development and sticked to the strange-part. Unfortunately the second, they didn't adapt the original-art, but tried to make a style which resembles him in his strangeness but ultimately, comes out as ugly. This is just my opinion, but the art of claymore is ugly and cheap. The character models, especially in the later parts of the story, are by far more elaborated and nicer-to-look, while the anime seems to have a kit for shallow claymore-characters with funny-blonde hair. The awalened beaings mostly look cheapy-monstrous and are shitty colorized, the eyes dont have the sharpeness of the manga. And the mouths... aren't well-drawn at all.

Sound
The soundtrack tries to be all-medieval over the times. Sometimes, it manages, most of the time it doesn't. I really think Claymore would have deserved a better soundtrack. It's such an epic story with lots of fantasy, perfectly fitting for great choirs and quick action-beats, but all you get are exchangeable low-fantasy-beats you would hear in every other anime too. The OP and ED are of course exchangeable too, nothing memorable that sticks in your head more than five minutes.

Overall
Here's my honest and safe suggestion: Read the manga. It does everything better than the anime, and I mean everything. While the anime-story goes completely down at the end, the manga only starts, the characters aren't well-pictured at all and overall, the anime just feels like a experience worse than the original, forced low-fantasy where thrilling fights should take place. I cant recommend Claymore to anyone, not the anime. There wont ever be a continuation, of course, thanks to the ending. Fortunately.

- Yoraiko