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DVD Review


DVD cover

Claymore
Volumes 5 and 6

 

Starring (voice): Houko Kuwashima, Aya Hisakawa, Hana Takeda and Hiroaki Hirata
Manga
RRP: £19.99
MANG3030
Certificate: 15
Available 12 October 2009


A brutal scourge stalks the land. Yoma, monsters driven by a hunger satisfied by only one quarry - Humanity. The dark breed knows but a singular foe: Claymore. Human-Yoma hybrids of extraordinary strength and cunning, the Claymores roam from skirmish to skirmish delivering salvation by the edge of a blade. Thus continues the twisting tale of Clare, one such sister of the sword driven by pain in both victory and defeat. War has been unleashed, and certain death looms, yet the silver-eyed soldiers harbour an even greater fear - The uncertain horror of Awakening. Rigaldo, a foe more force of nature than warrior, stands in the way of survival. But neither madness nor monster will sway Clare, not with vengeance so near...

Claymore is based on the manga by Norihiro Yagi. It is produced by Madhouse Studios and directed by Hiroyuki Tanaka. Claymore: Volumes 5 and 6 features episodes 20-26 of the 26-episode series.

The series centres around a Claymore called Clare who has a painful past and whose path toward vengeance is marked by violence, solitude and scorn. That is until she meets and rescues a young boy, Raki, who helps revive the spirit and compassion of his half-human, half-monster saviour, even as she recalls the fateful events that led to her becoming the thing that many - humans and monsters, alike - have come to fear.

Disc five picks up on the events just after the three awakened beings attack Pieta. Clare is placed into one of five squads, each consisting of five members. Each squad is assigned to an awakened being - with 2 back up squads. While this fight rages on, Raki continues his search for Clare. He meets up with a man and a women named Isley and Priscilla who are heading to the town of Pieta. After a while all of the three awakened beings are defeated, leaving the claymores a day's grace, but after the rest the main invasion begins and the enemies are much stronger than the previous three. After a while all of the awakened beings suddenly retreat and Rigaldo, one of the most feared and renowned awakened beings, appears and instantly wipes out Veronica, Jean, Undine and Flora - four of the five captains. With only Miria remaining, Rigaldo concentrates all his effort on wiping her out with only Helen, Deneve and Clare on hand to help Miria.

However, the more people that Rigaldo kills the more Clare starts to tap into her Yoma power and, by the end of this disc, Clare manages to only awaken her legs and gains yet another advantage to use against awakened beings.

Extras on disc five include an interview with art settings Nobuhito Sue (Kusanagi) (4 min, 18 sec); an audio commentary on episode 19; textless opening and closing titles.

As the sixth disc opens, the battle between Rigaldo and Clare continues, but shortly after the start Raki makes it to Pieta only to find out about what Clare is slowly becoming. By the end of the first episode on this disc Rigaldo is finally defeated, but Clare is unable to change back to being human and asks Helen to take her life. It turns out that Priscilla is in the north and senses Clare's slow awakening and reveals her power causing Clare to go into a rage and disappear from Pieta. Shortly after this Miria, Deneve and Helen follow Clare to a volcanic area where Clare and Priscilla are already fighting. Shortly after their arrival to this fight Clare goes into shock and cannot fight, so the three claymores have to fight Priscilla on there own. Clare becomes angry, causing her to awaken even further. Whilst all this is going on, the injured Jean finds Raki and convinces him to follow after Clare.

Priscilla fully awakens, revealing a massive amount of power, but this is still not enough to hold Clare back.

Extras on disc six include an audio commentary on episode 26; Original TV Commercials (7 min, 07 sec; textless opening and closing titles; and a Production Art Gallery.

This is an excellent value for money collection, which will please fans who have been following the series.

9

Carl Simpson

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