Been watching this on and off the last few months and finally finished it tonight. It was one of those shows where you get to the end and you wonder why it took 26 episodes.

I mean, it starts out decently enough. The problem is it just never gets any better. The only part I thought was moderately interesting was the Teresa and Priscilla arc. Speaking of which, POSSIBLE SPOILER!!, Priscilla must be one of the most annoying villains I’ve ever seen. What’s her excuse for being a total b****?? Was she just born psycho? Is she a very very extreme case of sore loserism?

Then in keeping with the tradition that anime writers are incapable of independent thought, the story doesn’t even attempt to be coherent after episode 20 where the manga runs out. Every 5 minutes Clare dings a level with no apparent explanation aside from sheer willpower, a la every other anime that features the protagonist valiantly overcoming increasingly insurmountable odds. And of course by the end of the series absolutely nothing has been resolved and everyone kinda just goes back the way they came, all set for a sequel.

Anyway, it was still pretty enjoyable on the whole I guess. A big plus was that Clare and Teresa are played by Kuwashima Houko and Romi Paku, who played the main characters in my very favourite anime, and so are my very favourite voice actresses by association. Also, I have to commend the writers on coming up with a seemingly endless stream of generic female names. And hairstyles. Unlike other anime where the 20513 characters can be differentiated by the most improbable shades of hair and eye colour, all the Claymores have to be blonde and silver-eyed, which means the only differentiator here is hairstyle – long/short, straight/wavy, fringe/no fringe, braids etc. It still got pretty confusing after a while, but A+ for effort.

Hopefully in the manga (I think it’s still ongoing?) Raki grows a bit taller before he meets Clare again. The whole relationship thing is a bit awkward when she’s 1.5 times his height.