Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 24

CLAMP – Del Rey – 2009 – 28 volumes

This was a pretty fun volume, and more in the spirit of the earlier part of the series.  The group makes their way to the country of Clow.  Since they have to be there “at a specific time,” they find themselves stuck in a space of several hours that loop over and over again, complete with people they interact with.  The group realizes that interacting with the people to break the loop causes the people to disappear, possibly killing them (this is left ambiguous, they sort of melt).  I especially like that Miyuki-chan is missing from the city scene the third time it’s shown, as if Syaoran and company have somehow vaporized her through their efforts.

The second half of the volume is a flashback to when Syaoran and Sakura first met.  This story makes a little more sense, because I wasn’t sure whether the real Syaoran had travelled to Clow and when exactly he had been kidnapped and replaced with “Syaoran.”  The thing with who Watanuki is makes a little more sense this way, too.  Syaoran seems to be acting on destiny here, maybe moreso than anyone else in the series, since he (and everyone else) is so sure that he and Sakura are meant to be together.

I also like that Syaoran and Toya still don’t get along.  That made me laugh.  I also liked that Sakura asked right off to call him Syaoran, with no honorifics.  I believe it took her all series to use his first name in Cardcaptor Sakura.  We also get to see Fujitaka and Nadeshiko, though for some reason I thought that Fujitaka was Syaoran’s father in Clow.  Maybe I remember wrong, or maybe that was a different Fujitaka, or a different Clow, or a different time, or something.

The one thing I was curious about is that… Syaoran mentions that he’s always known Sakura, from the seventh day before her seventh birthday until his body “reached this age and form,” or “always.”  He mentions that he turned back time as part of his wish, because he wanted to meet Sakura right at the moment they met again.  Or… maybe he’d been kidnapped and aged to adulthood, and wanted to go back to being young and go back in time so that young Sakura would still recognize him?  He’s aged some since he was seven, but… I don’t know.  I also wonder when Sakura was switched for “Sakura,” and how old she is?  Hmm.

Now I have to wait for the rest of the volumes.  I think I’ll save them up and read them all together again.  Tsubasa really does read better in big chunks.