Manga Review – Claymore Vol 15 by Norihiro Yagi (4.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Teen
Genre: Manga/Fantasy
Length: 200 pages
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC
Release Date: November 3, 2009
ISBN-13: 978-1421531496
Stand Alone or Series: 15th book in the Claymore series
Source: Bought
Rating: 4.5/5 stars

This is the 15th volume in the Claymore series, which is set to wrap up with volume 27 later in 2015. This was another excellent installment in this shounen manga series. These last couple books have been a vast improvement over volumes 11-13, which I felt were the weakest of the series so far.

Clare and crew show up in the Holy city of Rabona to take on Bloody Agatha. After that battle Miria shares some truly shocking truths about the Claymore organization. Then we cut to a scene where we finally find out what has become of Raki, who has grown into a powerful warrior. Then Clare and two other Claymores leave on a side mission to track down Raki. Renee and Raki have an encounter and then shortly after Renee leaves town she is captured by Riful. Riful wants Renee to try and awaken the merged being of Rafaela and Luciela.

Again as you can tell from the above a lot happens in this volume. The story jumps around quite a bit, which I am not a huge fan of…however I am getting used to that in this series. I am also starting to have an easier time matching all these names and faces (this has been kind of difficult because all the Claymore look so similar).

There are some seriously amazing plot developments here. Really this is one of the pivotal books in this series. This book brings a big revelation as to the origins of the Organization and of course lots of awesome battle scenes. There were a few books that lagged in this series but books 14 and 15 have been very awesome again.

The illustration continues to be wonderful detailed and the action scenes are plentiful and spectacular. There were a few volumes earlier in this series that I felt were very repetitive (introduce a new Claymore, learn her special power, watch her fight, rinse, repeat) but we appear to finally be getting out of that lag.

Overall this was an outstanding volume in the Claymore series. This has been an excellent fantasy shounen manga series that is appropriate for teen and older. It’s action packed, has some awesome world-building and wonderful characters.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Graphic Novel Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge