Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle

When you think of crossovers, you probably think of horribly done fanfiction. You probably think of fans making impossible, even nonsensical combinations of characters and storylines. More canonically, you might even think of the few TV or OVA specials of some shows or anime, respectively, that crossover or simply just cameo characters into a crossover. CLAMP, however, has managed to do something completed different with their amazing crossover anime, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle.

It's actually difficult to call Tsusbasa: Reservoir Chronicle a crossover anime. Fans of Cardcaptors or Cardcaptor Sakura will notice that in the poster to the left, the two main characters of the story are indeed taken from one of CLAMP's previous anime series, one that I grew up with and is close to my childhood heart. However, you'll also notice that there are two other characters in the poster that are completely original. In a sense, they are actually all original. What CLAMP has done is they have taken some characters from previous anime series that have created, but removed all of the characters' backgrounds and histories within their original world. Now, they have a completely new life, history, and destiny. This makes Tsubasa a much cleaner and more natural-feeling crossover to the point that it simply doesn't even feel like one. Instead, Tsubasa feels like a completely original story, which it is, clearly geared toward fans of the CLAMP universe, yet is still open and new enough to attract hoards of new fans.

 The first thing I feel should be addressed at large is Tsubasa's plot and storyline. The anime is praised for the concept of the storyline, though is very often criticized for becoming confusing toward the second half and end of the series. There are a variety of reasons for this, one of which lies in the anime: IT WAS CANCELLED. CLAMP's second season of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle got such poor reception that it was immediately cancelled. This, I feel, was a stupid move. CLAMP has yet to create anything as great at Tsubasa since they emergency-cancelled it. Several times, in CLAMP-official AMV's and OVA's, they have tried to return to Tsubasa, a clear indicator that they are at least aware of their mistake. Anyway, back on track, the story was not complete by the second season. It hadn't even hit its most definitive parts that explain the entire story, which all occurs in the last third of the story. Instead, CLAMP tried to rush these by create two OVA series, each a few episodes long. The OVA's did not flow very well into each other, but did explain some of the real story going on. Sadly, though, it also leaves some of it out, leaving the original manga readers as the winners of this situations. Boo, manga-reading.

At its core, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle is built upon the basic love formula. Boy, Syaoran, loves girl. Girl, Sakura, loves boy. See, this is pretty simple. Girl, Sakura, is suddenly trapped at the bottom of some mystic ruins by an evil interdimensional sorcerer, Fei Wong Reed, who steals all of the girl's memories since birth and scatters them across the many dimensions. This is seriously what the anime pulls in the introduction of what would appear do be a love story, but it thankfully isn't as confusing as the anime's ending parts. Due to his love for Sakura and protagonistic qualities, Syaoran vows to travel across all of the many dimensions in the universe to find all of Sakura's memories and return them to her, which have been materialized as beautiful white feathers.

Syaoran is sent to Yuko, the Dimensional Witch, a mystical witch who can grant any wishes, so long as an equal price she decides upon is payed. Yuko sends Syaoran off with the power to cross dimensions with two companions, Fay and Kurogane, as well as the traveling aid, Mokona Modoki. However, there is quite a steep price: Syaoran sacrifices all of Sakura's memories of him, removing him from her existence.

So Syaoran, the comatose Sakura, Fay, Kurogane, and Mokona leave for the first world. After obtaining her first few feathers after one or two worlds are traveled, Sakura awakens, unaware of what is going on or who Syaoran is. Syaoran knows why this is and accepts it, knowing this is the only way to return the princess's memories to her. Yes, she's a princess. Many worlds are traveled, probably a good ten or so within just the first 26-episode season. The anime does a fantastic job with creating beautiful and entertaining worlds, keeping the story fresh without a truly consistent setting. The amount of detail put into each scene and the appearance of the characters is visually awe-striking. One of CLAMP's greatest accomplishments, in my opinion, is their artwork for Tsubasa.

One of the worlds the group travels to is a gang-ravaged city where everyone has their own fighting spirit to summon. In another, a mysterious castle is alluring the children of a town into its walls, locking them away. Another has native gods sealing nice people with death seals. My favorite world, personally, involves a world within a world through the use of high technology. DREAMCEPTION The second season doesn't disappoint either; such worlds are featured as those centered on a giant aerial race across the land, a war that persists across time-travel, a cartoon-style satire, a world ruled by the adorable Kero from Cardcaptors, and even a post-apocalyptic Tokyo.

As the group travels from world to world, they grow close to each other, so much that Fay even calls them a family. However, other concepts are introduced too about the characters. It is revealed that Syaoran has been blind in his right eye inexplicably all this time, and he has on several occasions lost control of his arms or body to an unknown presence. In addition, Kurogane continues to suspect Fay of hiding something. Though Fay swore not to use magic after Yuko took his magical tattoo as payment, Kurogane is suspicious of just why doesn't still use magic. These mysteries and others are built up all the way to the OVA's.

However, after traveling all of these worlds, the plot gets confusing and far more dark. At this point, CLAMP canceled the anime, which meant they went to making the OVA's. The OVA's are closer in style and story to the manga, which had darker elements, more violent battles, and quite a bit of blood. The OVA's are done in this style, and it a departure from the semi-lightheartedness of the anime. Anyway, the group is now in post-apocalyptic Tokyo. While in the world, something breaks free from Fei Wong Reed's imprisonment: Syaoran! But wait, Syaoran has been with the group the whole time! This is a confusing part of the storyline. It is revealed that long ago, Fei Wong Reed placed a seal of death on Sakura when she was a child, and Syaoran gave up his freedom to save her. Fei Wong agreed to his price, though he cloned Syaoran while he was imprisoned. The clone was going to be Fei Wong's tool to gather the feather, who wants to use their power combined with that of Sakura to bring back something. However, during its creation, Syaoran made a last minute effort to rip out his eye and imbue it in the clone, giving it his soul and not that which Fei Wong planted in it.The clone was then sent back in time in Sayoran's home world, replacing him as though Sakura's death seal never happened. Interestingly, this means that the Syaoran from the entire story was actually a clone, but the original could see through the eyes of the clone.

However, now that the original Syaoran has returned, Syaoran's eye returns to its original owner, breaking the clone's true self free. The clone reverts to its violent self, focused only on collecting Sakura's feathers for Sakura and, transitively, Fei Wong. The clone realizes that it will need more power, and it attacks Fay violently. THE CLONE THEN EATS FAY'S LEFT EYE. Not only is this simply a dark and gross concept to conceive, but it also grants the clone the magic of Fay, making him incredibly powerful. The clone then flees after fighting its original, off to find more feathers. Fay is saved by being turned into a vampire by the vampire twins they saved while in Tokyo. Seems like everything is going toward vampires in this generation. After this, though, Fay becomes much more reserved.


In a later world, it is revealed why Fay hasn't been using magic: it causes him to kill people. When he was young, he was born with a twin in another world. The king of that world saw twins as a deadly, evil omen. He killed many townspeople and locked the twins away. Fei Wong appeared, willingly to save one of them. Fay's twin chose to save Fay and not himself, and Fay was then cursed twice. The first curse would cause him to kill anyone who was magically more powerful than he. The second curse would destroy the world that the first curse activated in. With Fay's magic halved due to becoming a vampire and Sakura retrieving more feathers constantly, the first curse is initiated. Sakura is stabbed by Fay, but she was prepared for this. Sakura splits her being into body and soul. The body is easily recovered by the group, but the soul is nowhere to be found.

The second curse begins to take effect, but Kurogane sacrifices his left arm to save Fay from death and his curses. Finally, in gratitude, Fay contacts Yuko in the next world, Japan, who wishes for a new arm for Kurogane, paying for it with the remainder of his magic. In this world, a passage into the Dream World is found, where Sakura's soul is. Syaoran travels there, but is met by the Syaoran clone. The two fight once more, until the magnitude of their battle breaks out of the Dream World and back into Japan. Here, the soul of Sakura steps in the way of their battle, cut by both their sword. It is then that the plot gets even more confusing: Sakura reveals that she too is a clone made by Fei Wong Reed, not the real Sakura that Syaoran has been questing for. She disappears, and the Clone Syaoran leaves in anger.

Yuko reveals to the group that Fei Wong is with the real Sakura in a pocket dimension in Sakura and Syaoran's home world, Clow Country. The group travels there to save Sakura, but is met once more by the clone of Syaoran. The clone suddenly has a change of heart and tries to help the group, but is instantly killed by a silent Fei Wong Reed. Fei Wong retrieves the clone Sakura, inexplicably, and uses the combined power of both Sakuras to end Yuko's immortality, caused by a fellow sage from Cardcaptors having sealed her in time. Fei Wong has now proven himself Clow Reed's superior. Seemingly unamused, the group battles Fei Wong and does finally kill him. However, he does not go down easily. Fei Wong traps both Syaorans, both Sakuras, and another replacement of Syaoran in another world known as "Watanuki" in a void of nothingness. Watanuki turns out to be the protagonist of a spin off, xxxHOLiC.

The two clones at this point fade away, leaving behind two feathers. Sakura uses these feathers to escape the void, at Syaoran's prompt. Finally, Syaoran and Watanuki realized they are out of luck, trapped. However, Watanuki reveals that he too knows of Yuko; in fact, he is employed by her. Both Syaoran and Watanuki make wishes with great prices to escape. Syaoran must continue to search the dimensions to find a way to revive the clones, and Watanuki must stay at Yuko's shop forever. And so, the two escape. Syaoran reunites with his companions, but tells Sakura he must leave again for a short journey. Fay, Kurogane, and Mokona voluntarily go with him, showing the bonds they have formed.

Clearly this is a confusing plot that is hard to understand without actually reading the manga or anime. I agree that CLAMP should have been clearer with the plot, or at least have repeated/cleared up a few concepts. Now that we've addressed the plot and the setting, briefly, the characters need some mentioning: very well done. CLAMP actually found a way to tie their odd way of using characters into the concept of their story: as the group travels dimensions, some people will exist as another person with the same soul and essence as they would in any other dimension, but with a totally different background and history specific to their incarnation in that world. CLAMP uses this to repeat some characters across several worlds, though it does start getting repetitive toward the end of the series when the stopped using many other original characters. Also, the characters that CLAMP crosses over from X, RG Veda, and Chobits are not featured very much, as they could have been through this.

Specifically, a few characters stood out to me as great. Fei Wong Reed and his assistant, Xing Huo, are not those characters. These villains were very, very ambiguous for almost the entire series, which was frustratingly unclear. Fei Wong Reed's true agenda still was not entirely clear at the story's end. And just what was Xing Huo, a failed attempt to revive Yuko? Some things with the plot clearly needed a little clearing up. Also I think it would have been interesting to expand more on the original souls of the clones of Syaoran and Sakura, but this was forgone for storyline purposes. Since this did clear some things up, in a sense, I cannot really complain.

Now, CLAMP created two original characters to travel with the Cardcaptors-derived protagonists: Fay and Kurogane. Fay was my favorite character in the anime; I'm partial to magic users. The story does a good job of really expanding upon the backgrounds of Fay and Kurogane. A few whole episodes of the anime are devoted to explaining Kurogane's haunting, horrific past of loss, and the manga gives several chapters over to Fay's tragic, cursed background. Fay, however, is a humorous optimist in the group, often also using humor to diffuse any situation. He's an adept fighter well designed to be more than just a magician in the group, and his curses make him more than just a hero as well.

Kurogane is a very interesting character. I sincerely felt sad for Kurogane when the anime touched on his past of losing his father and mother in battle with demonic monsters in ancient Japan. However, Kurogane is the more characteristic story brute. He has a log of physical power, and gradually opens up to the group, particularly Syaoran. Kurogane is special in that he has special relationships with other characters. He is deeply connected to another Cardcaptors character, Tomoyo (Madison in the dub). The other one is...

 YES, MOKONA. MOKONA MODOKI READY TO GO, WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Mokona is a close second favorite to Fay as a hilariously comical addition to the group. As Mokona puts it, "Mokona's a Mokona." In reality, Mokona is a magical creature created by Yuko and Clow Reed to transcend dimensions. In the plot, Mokona is useful for contacting Yuko, finding feathers, and going from world to world. However, in the plot, Mokona is the #1 source of comic relief. Mokona got many laughs out of me, and his/her/its voice actor does a great job of portraying comedy without being annoying. As for how Mokona relates to Kurogane, Mokona commonly annoys Kurogane, calling him names like "Kuropu" that enrage the fighter.

Ultimately, I strongly recommend Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. I liked it more than Cardcaptors, perhaps even more than Gurren Lagann. While there is certainly some of the anime that is geared toward fans of CLAMP's works, it is an inviting show to all audiences. As Anime TV puts it, try it for a few episodes and if you don't like it, you can stop there. However, I implore you to get into this show. It has beautiful themes about what defines and constitutes life, the cost of one's desires, and how far one should go to make their own dreams come true.