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For several years, we’ve been hearing about potential live-action adaptations of beloved manga and anime. Most of the series that are getting the live-action treatment are popular shonen fare like My Hero Academia or One Piece, but it looks like CBS is taking this a bit darker by adapting Norihiro Yagi’s Claymore series, with Heroes’ Masi Oka working on the adaptation.

According to the official announcement, Masi Oka, best known for playing Hiro in Heroes, will serve as executive producer on the series, though it isn’t out of the question to see him acting in the series. Oka is well-known as a manga fan, so it isn’t surprising to hear that he has been tapped to bring one to American TV.

The original Claymore manga ran from June 2001 to October 2014 and was set in a dark fantasy world where humans were routinely hunted by shape-shifting monsters called Yoma. To protect humanity, a group of human-Yoma hybrids are created and are typically called Claymores due to their trademark swords.

What is unusual about Claymore is that, though it is considered a shonen manga aimed at young boys, it has many more mature elements throughout. In addition to the violence and elements of gore, sexual elements – particularly the denial of sexual pleasure – are an important part of the story. The fact that CBS Studios is looking to adapt it is surprising, to say the least.

There is also the focus on Maki Osa in the recent announcement as producer and potential star of the series. Claymore is one of the few shonen series with a female focus, with all but one of the Claymores being women. There is a concern that the adaptation will end up focusing on Osa’s character rather than the multiple, very interesting women that carry the series.

We won’t know, however, until more details emerge about the live-action Claymore adaptation. While it has been given the go-ahead by CBS Studios and Propagate Content, they still don’t have a writer attached to the project. No release date or any other details have been announced yet.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

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• Flying whales, mechs, and Miyazaki vibes: Inside Netflix's Leviathan anime with the people who made it
• How AI translations of manga continues the 'enshitification' of the medium, and why Japanese publishers are "less precious" about it
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