I should make it known now that I’m falling back on these two series, as I read and re-read the newer mangas in order to form sound opinions on them. So for today’s Manga Beat, I decided to re read the xxxHolic and Reservoir Chronicle Tsubasa series. Now, it should come as no surprise what kind of manga these are when you read the titles. After all, they come from CLAMP (Magic Knight Rayearth, Card Captor Sakura, Chobits, Angelic Layer, X/1999), so they’re bound to please CLAMP fans.

Stories

xxxHolic

Watanuki Kimihiro can see unearthly things — ghosts, spirits, and other strange stuff. He’s had this abillity ever since he was a child. Now, he finds himself in a curious shop belonging to Yuuko, a strange and mysterious woman that can grant wishes… for a price. No sooner does he meet this woman, he ends up working for her as payment to grant his wish. That wish being to no longer see spirits. During the time he works for her, four people come to the shop all making wishes, but they aren’t from Watanuki’s world…

Reservoir Chronicle Tsubasa

The four who arrived outside the shop are Syaoran, Fai D. Flowrite, Kurogane, and Princess Sakura of the Clow Kingdom (who is asleep at this point in time). They have come to see Yuuko for various reasons, and their wishes, when applied to each other, are all the same to some degree. Which is to be granted the abillity to travel to other worlds. As a group, they make the payment of items that Yuuko names. Then, they are given a very familliar white rabbit-like creature, Mokona, while a black one stays behind for communication reasons. Does the name “Mokona” sound familliar? It should; the orginal Mokona was first seen in Magic Knight Rayearth. Yuko says that she and one other met the orginal and made the pair in xxxHolic and Tsubasa in preperation for Syaroan’s journey with Fai, Kurogane, and Sakura. Thus the seperate and yet intertwined stories begin. Watanuki works for Yuuko in xxxHolic, while Tsubasa sees the dimensional travelers searching for the lost fragments of Sakura’s memories, which take the shape of feathers.

Further Information:

It’s all one huge epic story, and to review them seperately would be a mistake; they cross over quite frequently, and it’s a large and complicated plot. In xxxHolic the concept is all about Hitsuzen, which happens to be a cause or effect based on ones choice. In other words, there are no coincidences. In Tsubasa, they travel from world to world, and go through many trials in order to restore Sakura’s lost memories. Many events happen and sometimes, the events are almost deadly.

It should also be pointed out that many characters in Tsubasa have been recycled from other CLAMP titles of the past. However, they are not necessarily the same characters from one story arc to the next. They may look the same and even act the same, but they are almost entirely different people; they could be good in one story arc and evil in the next.

Art

The art is done by the CLAMP team, a group of women that started out in manga with doujinshi (fan comics) and were offered a publishing contract due to how professional their works were. Their style is unique, with long arms (especially in the case of Watanuki) and exaggerated facial expressions used to convey the emotions of characters.

Anime vs Manga

However, I feel that the anime version of xxxHolic didn’t do CLAMP justice. While the style looks good in the manga and is suitable for the story, in the anime it just looks off somehow.

By comparison, the style used for the Tsubasa anime is rather pleasant… which is somewhat jarring. According to most sources, the anime and movies for both series were done by different studios. The xxxHolic anime, in fact, cut out most of the crossover scenes, and either moved the story chapters featuring Tsubasa characters around or edited them out altogether. However, the anime for Tsubasa still includes crossover moments, mostly ones where they use the white Mokona to contact Yuuko with the black Mokona, Modoki, back at her shop. It’s somewhat disapointing, considering that the people on the Tsubasa side of things are tied to Watanuki, xxxHolic’s main character.

It’s jarring and conflicting to have all these key elements included in Tsubasa, yet be all but nonexistent in xxxHolic. I can only hope that in future releases of each anime, where they intertwine more that they will be left intact. If not, I’ll probably be forced to stop watching that series altogether, simply because I believe it would take away from Watanuki’s unique history, background, and story in regards to the Clow Reed line.

Other Information:

* At 20 volumes and counting, Tsubasa is CLAMP’s longest work to date, beating out X/1999 (which was abandoned after Volume 18).

* CLAMP has made clear their intent was to use Tsubasa and xxxHolic as a means to link all of their major works together. Thus, all these recurring characters are hardly coincidental.

* It’s largely due to inter-studio ownership tangles that xxxHolic’s anime lacks most of the connection to Tsubasa. This probably won’t change in the second season. * An xxxHolic game was released for the PS2 in Japan in August.*Vic Mignogna of Full Metal Alchemist fame, is slotted to voice Fai. D. Flowrite in the english anime of Tsubasa which has five english released volumes, and a collectors box by FUNimation.

If you liked that, try...

1. Caldi’s Manga Beat 01: What’s New in the Manga Pile.
2. Manga Beat 03: What’s new in the Manga Pile.
3. Manga Beat 04: Whats new in the manga Pile? Dramacon By Svetlana Chmakova!
4. Manga Beat 08: Angel Sanctuary Vol 1.
5. Manga Beat 09: Zombie Powder, Vols. 1-2.

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