Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 18

CLAMP – Del Rey – 2008 – 28 volumes

Back to business as usual in this volume.  There is some more story explanation at the beginning of the volume that set me straight on a couple more things.  Things actually do make sense at this point, which is great.  I see what happened, sort of, and I can see that… for whatever reason not stated as of yet, Syaoran left Yuko’s dimension and left Watanuki in his place, and then was cloned and imprisoned, and then the clone traveled around gathering feathers so that Sakura could visit all dimensions for a purpose not yet stated.  Easy enough to grasp.  Fair enough, CLAMP, you’ve won this round.

Business as usual continues in the new dimension, where Sakura uses her traveling companions in an Angelic Layer-type battle game headed by Lantis, Geo, and Eagle from Magic Knight Rayearth II.  I don’t see this going anywhere spectacular, aside from the fact we get to see how everyone in the small group is dealing with each other now.  Exposition, exposition.  I wonder if more important matters will pop up in this dimension later, or if this will just be a transitional period.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 17

CLAMP – Del Rey – 2008 – 28 volumes

Things sort of go back to a semblance of normal here, or they do the best they can, at least.  There’s a complicated bargain struck with Yuko that helps save Fai’s life, but it’s not as much on the up-and-up as Yuko makes it sound (as far as Fai’s well-being goes, anyway).  We do get a random plot event from XxXholic explained, however, which is never a bad thing.  I was pleased to see that water come back into play here.

Kurogane’s genuine concern for Fai is quite touching, as is his sacrifice, as is what appears to be Fai’s… er, reaction.  Fai is my favorite character, and it’s because of things like this.  He’s quite chipper when he becomes conscious, but he reveals that his pleasantries are actually stripped of what he had given them before, and he gets quite serious when he finds out what the group has let Sakura do for them.

Sakura puts herself at risk as the final leg of the bargain, in order to pay Yuko.  This is probably the first time this has happened, and I wasn’t expecting it at all since Sakura is so terribly lucky.  I figured she would just dodge everything and come back unscathed, but she pays the price, and aknowledges that everyone is paying a price for her selfish whims, anyway.  She also uses a gun, which was kind of weird.

There’s also an interesting plot point surrounding a feather still present in the X world here, and Fuma unveils the fact that he is (unsurprisingly) related to Seishirou.  I’m going to have an X fangirl moment, so forgive me and just skip to the next review.  Subaru/Kamui seems to be the preferred pairing in this story, which was an interesting fan pairing from the original X.  But we do get to see a little bit of Fuma torturing Kamui, although in a much less hardcore and more goodnatured way than we see in X.  Kamui is resistant to it, and attacks him for Subaru’s sake, and stops when Subaru asks him to stop.  But Subaru also seems to have had dealings with Seishirou, and asks after him.  This also implies Seishirou/Fuma, another interesting pair from X.  Of course, both “pairs” in Tsubasa are of the brotherly nature and not romantic at all, so their not pairings in the traditional sense.  Which leaves the way all the more open for the heavily implied pairs from the original series.

Subaru’s such a nice boy.  It’s so nice to get to see him again.  I wonder what his final fate will be in X, or if we’ll ever get to see it.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 16

CLAMP – Del Rey – 2008 – 28 volumes

Okay, I’m just going to jump right back into the swing of things here.  I picked a bad place to stop, because this volume starts right in the middle of an action scene and contains one of the biggest pieces of story explanation in the series.  Reading it in English did help immensely, and I finally understood all of what was going on here (Kamui calling Syaoran “game” was pretty awesome, and I finally understood the subtle differences between Syaoran and “Syaoran,” aside from the latter going on a murderous rampage and all).

The X setting was marginalized in favor of the explanations and dimension-crossing and the breaking of the seals and reclaiming of the souls and divying up of the magic powers, but I still got to see Kamui and Subaru, so I was a happy camper.  Additionally, when “Syaoran’s” murderous rampage started, he began by bending the cocky Kamui over and nearly ripping his arm off, so that was another great scene.

And then there’s poor Fai.  I still don’t like what happened to him here, but I did like how upset Kurogane got over it.  Much like CLAMP seems to have hung a sign in XxXholic that says “we would like to slash these two, but this is a men’s magazine” in relation to Domeki and Watanuki, the same thing happens here with Kurogane and Fai.  Fangirls have been with it from the beginning, but it becomes harder and harder to deny in the story from here on.  Harder than in XxXholic, where it’s not… all that prevalent, but still.

Tsubasa 15

I think this series really is best in large chunks.  I swing between loving it and thinking it’s sort of lukewarm, but as a really fast-moving action series, it’s best when a lot of stuff goes down at once so you can appreciate it.  I’ll probably start saving up 2-3 volumes to read at once in English.

The part that went down in XxXholic 10 was shown here.  Syaoran finally goes off to join the group.  Only sadness can follow.

What wasn’t sad was how pumped I got about seeing all the characters from X again.  You got the briefest glimpse of Kamui last volume, but after a scuffle with Kurogane, Fuuma shows up too, and we get a two-page spread of all 14 dragons of heaven and earth.  Well, 12 of them at least.  I was staring at that page and enjoying it for several minutes, but it was driving me crazy that two characters from X were omitted (with new people subbed in their place), one from each side.  I had to cheat.  I just could not remember Seishirou and Subaru.  They appear in 3 series each!  All three series are ones I’ve read in both English and Japanese.  They’re like the CLAMP goddamn posterboys, and I couldn’t remember them.  It really bothered me.  Someone strip me of my CLAMP fangirl badge immediately.  Please!  Take all my CLAMP in 3D Land figures away!

I had forgotten their function in this bit of story.  Seishirou has already appeared in Tsubasa, but we’ll see more of him, along with Subaru, a bit later.  Well, really, we’ve already sort of seen Subaru.  Let me just say that I like the pairings (so to speak, they’re not romantic in nature) in Tsubasa more than X.

But the Tokyo that appears in this dimension is one that is pelted in acid rain.  One where water is a precious resource.  It’s like a CLAMP version of the Road Warrior, except with X characters who fight in hand-to-hand combat over water instead of fighting in cars over gas.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Tsubasa 14

I haven’t read this series in awhile. I just got the newest volume in English, so I figured now is as good as any other time. I’m three volumes behind the Japanese release, unfortunately, which puts me about… three volumes ahead of the English release? Or something? Do I even care about the series that much? Not really, but I still think it’s a genuinely entertaining read. I do care about having the awesome hardcover Japanese volumes though, which are decked out in fancy character portraits.

Mostly the action is contained in the library. After revealing much about Kurogane in the last volume, most of this volume is concerned with hunting down the original memory book and getting Sakura’s feather out of it. While fighting some of the library security in a hopeless situation, Syaoran goes a little berserk. Kurogane notices.

Kurogane also questions Fai about his knowledge of magic pretty frequently in this volume, and Fai actually demonstrates some power towards the end. That was very much welcome. Let’s hear more about Fai shortly.

The last page of this volume: Kamui! It gave me serious X flashbacks, especially since all the cloaked figures nearly mimic the first page of X… with the exception of the crossbows, of course.

Tsubasa 13

Yay! We finally get some real background from one of the characters! We’ve gotten spotty hints about most of Syaoran’s life, and I suspect there’s nothing else we need to know about Sakura, but what about Kurogane and Fai? Well, CLAMP knows you would rather hear about Fai, but this entire volume is dedicated to Kurogane’s backstory.

I don’t really want to talk much about it soas not to spoil it, but it talks about him growing up with his mother and father and how he came to serve Tomoyo. In a cool twist, the kingdom has Kendappa-oh as Amaterasu and Tomoyo as Tsukuyomi, which is pretty awesome. Syaoran sees all this courtesy of a book they run across in Recourt, but other than the flashback and connecting the dots at the very end, nothing actually happens to advance the plot.

That’s okay. I’m looking forward to other things that happen a bit further down the line than this.

Tsubasa 12

You know what this series was missing up until this point? YAMAZAKI. That’s right. If we’re going to have Tomoyo, the least we can do is have Yamazaki and his stories. Oh my God, I lost it when I saw him. Rika was also there, but I didn’t really even recognize her until I saw Yamazaki. He told a couple whoppers, and the translation notes try to justify these before mentioning that they may be lies, which I also liked. Oh my God, YAMAZAKI. Thank you very much.

So yeah, yeah, the end of the Dragonfly race. More cryptic Kuro and Fai moments, which I am enjoying immensely at this point. Blast from the past, lost of funny stuff with Nokoru, and hangovers, and a bunch of other stuff happens. Syaoran’s eye hurts more and more too.

There’s a real nice panel of Sakura holding the feather in the little wand that made me like this Dragonfly race a little more, too. It made me feel good. I really wanna read more of this in English now, and I’ve even ordered the most recent two volumes in Japanese, which I haven’t bothered with yet, so that’s cool. I’m in a Tsubasa mood.

Tsubasa 11

My roommate got another sustained yell from me.  I really got into this series, so I decided to switch off and read 16 inbetween 10 and 11.  16 is… hard to read.  The sustained yell was just “FAIIIII!”

But yes, 11 was one of the better volumes.  There were many spirited moments, including lots and lots of true-to-character moments from everyone from Tomoyo to Yuko to Nokoru.  It was good to see Nokoru acting the way he should, it’s been forever since I’ve read the CLAMP Campus series, and Nokoru was awesome in those.  Now all we need is more Suoh and Akira and I’d be set.  Akira in particular is the most adorable of the bunch.

We get the start to the final leg of the Dragonfly Race.  I don’t remember liking the Dragonfly race too much the first time I went through this, but reading all the volumes together helps because reading the race in its entirety is a lot better than getting only pieces of this race every few months.  Bah.

I liked Fai in this volume.  A LOT.  Fai is probably my favorite in this series.  He’s the most jovial, cracks some of the best jokes, and is still the most mysterious.  Hooray for Fai.  Actually, reading all these back to back really raised my opinion of this series.  I was quite entertained, where previously I had only respected it on a mediocre level.  I laughed at several parts (I laugh a lot at Kurogane, who overreacts in a much better way than Watanuki), and the contest and traps and whatnot were quite engrossing.  Maybe it was the old-school CCS and I’m confusing my love for that series with this one, but either way, I enjoyed this stretch of the series immensely.

Tsubasa 10

For some reason, no mention is made of the rather obvious reference with the bowtie-clad glasses-wearing small detective in the “Unchronicled World” segment at the end.  Detective Conan, hello!  Usually they’re quick to point out non-CLAMP references like that.

The end of the Shura/Shara arc was kind of a cop-out, but I do love Ashura.  We also find out about the time-travel aspect, which is fine and dandy by me.  I’d actually like to see more of that.

Piffle World though… that blatant reference hurt.  I had forgotten about Miyuki-chan until just then, too, her appearance was much more obvious than usual.  Plus, she raced, and that was cool.  The important thing though… TOMOYO!  Though we’ve seen Tomoyo in the story before (obviously), I had forgotten she’d never met up with Sakura before.  Tomoyo is Tomoyo is Tomoyo, I suppose.  The scene where she ran past an awe-struck Kurogane and right up to Sakura and declared her the hero was to die for.  Also, I got a kick out of the video taping and the costume-making.  I know I was complaining about the RG Veda elements last time, but this is different.  This is Cardcaptor Sakura, you see.  For some reason, even though it features the main characters, this series just does not have enough CCS in it.  Major, major points for Tomoyo.

And on that note, the line “There’s a lot of faces around here I feel like I should know!” killed me.  This series should not be that obvious.  This race features the most crossover characters yet, too, but it’s almost all people who have been in Tsubasa before.

Tsubasa 9

You know, at this point I’ve gotten used to the same set of characters appearing in every series. That’s just par for the course. What I’m not cool with is the fact that CLAMP also seems to be ripping their own plots off now (RG Veda here, and X a bit further on). I read this some time ago, but I had forgotten completely about this part in the story somehow (even though Ashura and Yasha are on the damn covers of the Japanese release). My roommate was more than concerned when I let out a sustained yell when I got to the last page.

To be fair, we only get light RG Veda elements (though it’s been forever since I read that series too, I have the English version but I haven’t been keeping up), but still… that last scene hurt. There are some new story elements that come up here, including significantly more plot than we’ve seen in awhile. The team immediately teleports out of Shara when Mokona says that the feather is in the sky, and since Mokona-Sakura-Syaoran are separate from Fai-Kurogane, the question comes up about what happens during a separate teleport. Also, we get lots of commentary from the villian this time. Nothing clear, but whatever was going on has been thwarted somehow.

Dammit, I still like Ashura.