Review: Claymore, Vol. 11

Claymore: Kindred of Paradise, Vol. 11
by Norihiro Yagi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Claymore, Vol. 11 / 978-1421515717

I've watched the Claymore anime before following the manga, and I absolutely love both. I love the crisp, clean, black-and-white artwork, and I'm finding that the "action" panels are getting easier to follow as I progress into the series -- I think that the artists behind this series are truly talented and skilled at conveying a complex story and wonderfully emotive characters.

And, on an excited side note, I notice now that the entire series is available in e-book form as Nook Books; I hope they'll be ported to other stores soon, to serve as many readers as possible.

Volume 11 provides the following scenes:

Scene 58: The Assault on Pieta, Part 2
Scene 59: The Assault on Pieta, Part 3
Scene 60: The Assault on Pieta, Part 4
Scene 61: The Assault on Pieta, Part 5
Scene 62: Kindred of Paradise, Part 1
Scene 63: Kindred of Paradise, Part 2

For those following along with the anime series, this volume corresponds to:

Episode 23: Critical Point, Part 1

Note that the anime Episodes 24, 25, and 26 are unique to the anime and do not correspond to the manga series.

Spoilers ahead!

This volume concludes the Northern Campaign arc and marks the departure of the manga from the anime.

Clare confronts Rigaldo in a desperate attempt to keep Miria alive and safe. By awakening only her arms and legs, she is able to finally defeat him. Here is where the manga and the anime part ways. In the anime, Priscilla arrives and Clare fights her while still in her awakened form. In the manga, Priscilla is nowhere to be found and it is in Pieta that Jean sacrifices the last of her life in order to bring Clare back to her human form. Once Rigaldo is dead and Clare is human again, the remaining army of Awakened Beings move in on the decimated Claymore forces. From a distance, Priscilla and Isley note that their auras are winking out of existence, and we fade to black.

Back in Sutafu at the headquarters of the Organization, the men report that the Claymores sent to the north have all been wiped out. Galatea notes that the ones sent to the north had been rebellious in various ways, and that it's very convenient for the Organization to make such a clean sweep of their forces -- the newly promoted novices will presumably be more tractable, at least for awhile. Galatea is then taken to see Number 1 Alicia and Number 2 Beth in action: the two women are twins, and Alicia is able to fight in a fully awakened state while her twin holds her soul back from the brink of awakening. Alicia defeats the half of Isley's forces that were sent to eastern Sutafu; in the west, Riful will defeat the other half of the army while noting that Isley sacrificed the whole of them as pawns.

In the south, Isley confronts the third Abyssal Creature: Luciela of the South. While Galatea senses their combat from afar, Rubel reveals to her that Luciela, a former Number 1 warrior, awakened purposefully in an attempt to fight in a style similar to Alicia and Beth. But Luciela's sister was not a twin, and was unable to maintain the soul link and Luciela was lost to her awakening. That sister has wandered the continent since then, seeking her sister in order to make amends for her failure: Number 5 Rafaela.

~ Ana Mardoll