Right now, I'm reading a manga titled "Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle", which translates to: Chronicle of the reservation of wings. This manga series is created by CLAMP a famous mangaka quartet who previously created Cardcaptor Sakura, RG Veda, X/1999, The New Legend of Chun Hyang and many others.
The manga tells a story about a princess from the land of Clow who lost her memories by opening a relief found on one level of a ruin, which resembles wings. In preventing her from being pull into another dimension, her childhood friend cling onto her. Soon after, her heart disappeared into many dimensions in form of wings of hitsuzen (inevitability). The princess goes by the name of Sakura and the childhood friend goes by the name of Syaoran.
In order to reserve/ retrieve Sakura's hitsuzen wings, Syaoran is thrown into the den of the time space witch, whose name is Yuko. While he and Sakura are there, they met with Fai D. Flowright and Kurogane. But for their wishes to come true, each must pay equivalent prices. Fay paid by giving up his magic markings, which supress his magical ability. Kurogane paid by giving up his ginryu (silver dragon) sword and Syaoran by giving up his relationships and the memories he and Sakura shared since childhood.
And so from there, Syaoran, Kurogane, Fai and the sleeping Sakura embarks on a journey to retrieve her wings.
Critics on series: In my opinion, the manga is way better than the anime, because it's more detailed in the story telling and the art. In the anime there are scenes missing from the manga, and additional scenes which are not included in the manga. One manga volume speaks of 1/3 if not 1/2 of an episode.
The opening soundtrack for the anime is called: Blaze by... Kotani Kinya and the ending soundtrack is called: The Sand of Time by... I forgot who T____T. But both opening and ending soundtracks are nice,it suits the first season and it goes with the story depiction of the retrieval of memories and the consequences that comes with it, whether it's good or bad.
The series also talks about forming friendships (depicted by Syaoran making friends with Fay and Kurogane), broken communications (Kurogane not understanding Syaoran's circumstances to revive Sakura), and alternate universes (i.e. There are other worlds out there beyond our reality). The Sakura and Syaoran that all the world's population knows is different from the Sakura and Syaoran of this manga. The Sakura and Syaoran in Tsubasa is not necessarily be the Sakura and Syaoran that is from Card Captor Sakura.
Within the manga and the anime there are additional characters from other anime or manga such as: Souma, Chii, Sumomo, Yoko and Chun Hyang. Souma comes from RG Veda along with Yasha and Ashura. Chii and Sumomo comes from Chobits, and Chun Hyang comes from Shin Shunka Gaiden (Legend of Chun Hyang). Other characters such as the twins from the informant house in volume 7 or 8 of the manga comes from Dukylon an early series created by CLAMP. Another set of characters from another popular series created by CLAMP that can be found in this manga series is the 3 detectives from Clamp School Detectives; Suoh, Akira and... Nokoru.
Overall thought: If you love CLAMP's work, then this manga series is for you, the art is exceptionally great, the story line is interesting. You will thirst to know what happen in the end, but there's no ending as of yet. I suggest you don't watch the anime unless you are curious of their voices. The anime is not as good as the manga aside from the colouring and animation.
If you do plan to watch the anime I suggest you watch it Japanese original dubbed and english subtitle. I don't trust the dubbed version due to bad audio. The english translated manga is published by Del- Rey under Ballantine Books. The Japanese manga is probably published under Kadokawa Shoten or Hanaoto. You can find the volumes at Kinokuniya, The Galleries Victoria on level 2. They cost roughly 17 - 18 dollars a volume for the english translated ones. The Japanese version would only cost 10 dollars. The english version is only up to volume 20 and the Japanese version is up to volume 20+ or somewhere near the end.
Additional thought: The manga depicts both the present and the past, therefore every little frame draw out emotions from the readers such as myself. Mostly sadness and hardships are depicted through the flashbacks of Sakura's and Syaoran's childhood. They all corresponds with the feathers collected.
Labels: anime talk, manga talk, Tsubasa
