Tsubasa Chronicle

I will be firm in saying that nobody, NOT ONE OF YOU would have given this anime the time of day if it hadn't recycled characters from better anime. CLAMP, in a move of sweeping lack of creativity, decided to make another franchise by reusing their old characters. I gotta say, smart move, CLAMP--your cash cow is ready to be chopped up and sold. And this is what Tsubasa Chronicle is: a sell-out. The story is bland and boring. Dimension-travellers bound together for whatever reasons, but you know, viewers won't care because they get to see Sakura and Shaoran or whatever his name is gogaga over one another once again and two yaoi-fodder guys vacillate between passion and disgust of one another. The art was mediocre. It wasn't good, wasn't bad. Nothing special. Like the sound. I cannot give the characters a good rating because they aren't characters. They are just themselves from the old anime transported to a new one to serve a purpose. They aren't developed, they aren't deep, it isn't good. I was yawning and scratching a lot while watching this--that can't be good. Overall, this is unfabulous crap. Don't watch it. Unless you're a CLAMP fan and you won't listen to me.

"For all my life... I've wanted strength. I didn't want those things precious to me to be taken away from me anymore. But, to have strength means to invite disaster to come to you. And strength alone can't really protect you." Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles... took me a while to get into it. I don't really know why, but I feel like it might have just been because of the slow start, but it also might have been because of the slightly cliché story. However, once I started paying more attention, it got more interesting with every episode. The story unfolded a little more, the characters gotmore lovable, and the fight scenes got a lot better. So, without further ado, let's get this review started, shall we? As I previously stated, the anime had a bit of a slow start, and the story was a bit of a cliché. It's about a boy and a girl. The boy being a villager, the girl being a princess. Both have been best friends since they were children. One day, the princess and the boy spend the day together, the princess having something supposedly important to tell the boy, but is not able to. That night, an unknown magic force calls the princess, and a ritual is performed. However, the boy saves her before the ritual is completed, but she looses every single one of her memories. The kingdom's priest then teleports the two of them to the Dimensional Witch, where they are also greeted by two others meeting with her, one a swordsman, and the other a mage. The Witch then tells the boy that in order to help the princess regain her memories, they must go dimension hopping, but at a price. In order to have the power to do that, the boy must give up all of the princess' memories of him. Even if they recover all of her memories, she will never remember him. He agrees, and the story is about the princess, the boy, the swordsman, and the mage as they all travel together, looking for her memories. As they go dimension hopping, they run into trouble nearly every world they visit, and help out the people of that world, involving overthrowing evil rulers, stopping a gang war, and fighting demons. Like I said, the whole "Girl loosing her memory" is a bit of a cliché, but their journeys together make it a lot better. I liked the artwork a lot. The anime was made by Bee Train, the studio behind Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~, Murder Princess, and the .//hack series. The artwork in Tsubasa reminded me of all of the other animes that Bee Train made, so it felt familiar to me. For those of you who have watched those other series as well, if you enjoyed them then you're going to be satisfied with the artwork of Tsubasa. I own both seasons of Tsubasa on DVD, so I own the English Dub. That means I have not seen the Sub version yet, but I thought it was fine. I liked Vic Mignogna as Fai, he was probably my favorite character. I also liked Monica Rial as Sakura, but the only problem I had with her was her singing. It must have sounded better in Japanese, but I didn't like Sakura's singing voice in the English version. Jason Liebrecht played Syaoran, and I enjoyed listening to his voice, as well as Christopher Sabat as Kurogane. Overall an interesting choice for the dub cast, but it could have been better in my opinion. Alright, now it's down to the characters. To start off, we have Syaoran, the male protagonist of Tsubasa. He's calm, collected, a really good kicker evidently, and he's willing to risk it all in order to save Sakura. Sakura is the main female protagonist, and she is kind and caring to everyone. She's the kind of girl who would be totally worth saving, unlike a few other main female protagonists in certain animes... next is Fai. Fai was, in a word, awesome. He's funny, he's smart, and he's asking for a deathwish by calling Kurogane nicknames like "Kuro-poo". Speaking of Kuro-poo, he was my second favorite character in Tsubasa, just because he was so crazy angry all the time, and it makes for some pretty hilarious moments. Now, for the one character that I loath... Mokona. It probably has something to do with all of the annoying animal sidekicks in anime, but Mokona was probably the most annoying of all of them. It's the high pitched voice that makes me the most angry, but it's also how obnoxiously cute it is. Other than Mokona, I liked all of the characters. I liked this anime a lot. If it were on TV, I'd watch it every week once a new episode airs. I liked it, but the slow start kind of gave me the wrong impression of it at the start, but if you want to understand the story, it's required of you to watch it from episode 1. After a few episodes though, it gets better, trust me. For those of you who enjoy animes with mostly enjoyable characters and good fight scenes, you'd enjoy Tsubasa. If you can't stand slow starts and annoying animal sidekicks, then steer clear. But overall, I'm liking this series so far. Now, if you'll excuse me, time to start watching Season 2.

Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE is one of my favorite manga series. I was happy to discover that it had been made into an anime series, and after I stopped watching it after the first 16 episodes, I decided to pick it up again. I was only planning on finishing the first season, and after making my way through the last 10 episodes I needed to watch, I've definitely been dissuaded from watching the second season and just sticking with the manga, which I will be referencing throughout this review. (No spoilers though!) Story: The story is drawn out, and the series is riddled with fillers and randomthings that weren't true to the original manga. When it was true to the manga, it was plagued by slow pacing. Things were added that were just there to stretch out the episodes to the allotted 25 minutes, such as long pauses in conversations, flashbacks, and unnecessary, lifeless panning shots. The story itself is broken into arcs: as the main characters travel, each world they visit is its own arc, which is more or less self-contained. They're not too complex, and they all follow the same basic formula: the group lands in a world, a feather is somewhere in the world they landed in, some bad guys want the feather for themselves, fight the bad guys, move on to the next world, rinse and repeat. This persists until the end of the season, but not necessarily by fault of pacing - the manga followed the same formula up until the Tokyo arc, so it's hardly surprising that the anime followed suit. Art/Animation: The animation itself is very... lacking. Tsubasa is a beautifully drawn manga, but the anime... not so much. The proportions, especially the facial proportions in particular, are wonky. Bee Train did not do a very good job of translating CLAMP's style of manga into animation. As far as the actual movement... there isn't much of it, and when there is it's still very stiff. Scenes that should've been dynamic weren't dynamic at all. In a word, it's underwhelming. Aside from the wonky proportions and the not-so-stellar animation, the character designs are solid. I am also fond of the color choices: generally bright, colorful, and pleasing to the eye. Sound: The sound is the thing about this anime that really shines. The opening is good and the ending, sung by Maaya Sakamoto, is beautiful. The background music was penned by Kajiura Yuki, and you can't go wrong with her; her music gives the series a feeling of mysticism and magic. Overall, the soundtrack is absolutely stellar. As for the voices, after reading the manga for so long, hearing the characters speak out loud was a bit jarring, but I got used to it. Yui Makino in particular does a great job as Sakura, and is an excellent spiritual successor to Sakura Tange (who voiced Sakura in the original Cardcaptor Sakura series and was not working as a voice actress at the time Tsubasa was animated). I also enjoyed Tetsu Inada as Kurogane and Daisuke Namikawa as Fai. I only watched it in Japanese so I can't speak for the English dub. Character: Call me a CLAMP fangirl, but I love it when they crossover their characters. That said, a majority of Tsubasa's character are, indeed, not original to the series. However, individually, they vary from world to world, so despite the bad impression that the phrase "recycled characters" leaves, there is diversity. However, with different sets of characters in each world, not much depth is given to the supporting cast. On the other hand, the main characters are well-written for what they were given. The characters' backstories - particularly Kurogane's and Fai's - were never animated, so their motivations and subtleties in characterization might be a bit unclear. But for what it was, it was done well. The main cast is diverse in personality and their dynamic is very good - they work well together both as comrades and as a makeshift family. One thing that did suffer, however, is the relationship between two particular characters (who I will not name so as not to spoil). As the series goes on, it appears that the writers decided to disregard all subtleties regarding one character's romantic feelings for another character. It really takes away from their development and it gives the impression that the writers just wanted to rush it and appease the viewers with a romantic relationship rather than have it develop more slowly (and much more satisfyingly) as it did in the manga. Enjoyment: Lots of filler material makes this series feel very boring and stretched out. Like I said before, when two characters are having a conversation, it seems like they're going as slow as possible just to waste time. There are long pauses in between statements, even right in the middle of sentences! It made some parts very annoying to watch, and had me thinking, "When will this be over?" The pacing issues are a huge detriment to this series. On top of that, the fillers aren't even that interesting to watch. I was disappointed to find out that the last episode of this season is also a filler! I did, however, enjoy the Outo arc in particular. I still got some entertainment value out of watching the characters I love, but the pacing and filler dragged down my enjoyment of the show by a lot. Overall: The only things really holding this series up are the characters and the music. Everything else about it, especially the pacing and filler, is painful. CLAMP themselves disowned this adaptation of their manga. But if you're willing to tolerate the constant filler, I say go for it. However, if you'd rather have your share of Tsubasa without all the filler, I recommend heading over to your local bookstore.

Merchandise

Links may contain affiliate references

Studio

Producers

Themes