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Reviewed by Michael Aronson Clare and the orphan Raki travel to the town of Rabona, where a Yoma has been stalking priests in the cathedral. The creature could be one of the guards, or even a priest, but this time Clare won’t be able to sense its aura. Does she stand a chance against the stealthy Yoma? That was foul play, Yagi. Shame on you. A murder mystery is only as good as the build to its climax; you cheat with the reveal, and no amount of characterization, quirky dialogue, or complex themes will win back the audience. Unfortunately for Claymore, it’s lacking in all of the above. What remains is a shallow but serviceable action series featuring a dervish of a protagonist and illustrated beautifully. There isn’t much to the overly stoic Clare, but she’s as cold-hearted and ruthless in her tasks as the best warriors of fiction. What she lacks in personality, she makes up in supernatural senses, which put her at an advantage against Yomas – and a significant disadvantage when she has to suppress those powers before solving this volume’s mystery. Yagi writes himself into a corner when the culprit of a series of murders within a cathedral clearly seems to be the newest supporting character with a significant role. If the mystery turned out to be that character, as was made so obvious, the mystery would be an incredibly predictable letdown. Instead, Yagi pulls a last-minute fake-out and reveals the killer’s identity to be a figure – not even a character – that wasn’t even properly introduced to be considered a suspect. Moreover, the nature of this character doesn’t make a lick of sense, nor the fact that this character would have waited so long for Clare to recover from wounds in order to deduce its identity. My complaint for the previous volume was that Claymore wasn’t attempting any daring narrative feats when it could clearly aspire to more. However, this second volume worries me that perhaps it can really only do one thing and one thing alone well: action. Given the glut of shonen titles out there, there really isn’t much demand for another action-centric series. Thankfully, Claymore is generally executed better than average, but it leaves much to be desired. Comment on this review of Claymore v2 on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
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