Month: December 2023

Claymore
by Norihiro Yagi
published in English at Viz.com
2015 (originally published in Japanese 2001-2014)

I am excited that I finished reading all 155 chapters this month!

Terrifying monsters with superhuman strength roam the land, often stealing the appearance of specific people to hide in a community and (secretly) feast on their family and neighbors. The only defense: hiring a Claymore, a silver-haired, silver-eyed woman warrior who can detect and defeat such creatures. The Claymores themselves are spooky, can survive terrible physical harm, and don’t appear to need human companionship. They are held to a strict (but not visibly moral) code, and if they violate it, their peers track them down and brutally execute them.

This is the dark story of several of these warriors, who work at the behest of their governing body, The Organization. The Organization ranks them to engender competition, and won’t let them intervene in human affairs even when it would be ethical to do so. The Organization also appears to send small groups of them on suicide missions for unknown reasons. What is really going on? Why are there so many monsters? And why is the Organization so obsessive in controlling the Claymores?

This tense and very violent story (not for kids!) unfolds at different speeds, with increasing battles and characters, but also increasing mysteries about the motivations of the Organization and the increasingly coordinated (!!) monsters. The origin of the Claymores themselves and the apparent leaders of the monsters are slowly revealed, with some secrets kept until the very last chapters.

The monsters range from simple to extremely complex and fanciful designs. The Claymore warriors themselves look somewhat Eastern European to me, and the artist distinguishes the matching-armor-wearing women with distinct hairstyles. The reason they are all women is explained over the course of the story, and the limited female nudity is intended to make some of the creatures more terrifying – I think it works well.

Great story, old-school drawings, great monsters, great comrade-in-arms bonding, solid (grim) story. I enjoyed this story very much.

Why Ophelia Couldn’t Leave
by Joo Ahri & Samo
published by Tappytoon.com
2021

Here’s a webtoon/manga for the goth kids. :). This doesn’t follow the Tappytoon themes I’ve described earlier (a modern person wakes in a video game or novel), but instead this is a straight story.

Ophelia’s beautiful mother, Isolde, has married yet again! This time, rather than watching her stepfather die of a mysterious ailment like his predecessors, Isolde dies with her new husband in a tragic – and very strange – carriage wreck.

Ophelia is bereft. Alec, her young step-brother, asks Ophelia to to stay in his family home so he won’t be completely alone, and while the household is unfriendly, she may not have any better options. But when investigators come about the carriage crash, and people start turning up dead, Ophelia wonders what she’s gotten herself into, and whether she can keep her mother’s secrets.

This is a drama, a murder mystery, a story about self-absorbed parents, a tale of vengeance, and possibly a warning about trying too hard to attract romantic attention. It is 50 chapters long, the story is complete, the period costumes from [some European period setting] are pretty, and the images of Isolde float charmingly in a halo of her daughter’s affectionate memories. I enjoyed it.