Category: Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations

Well, I think that with the way this has turned out, I think that there’s a good chance for more OVAs of Tsubasa Chronicle to appear. I’m not going to write a full fledged review about this series, because I feel that my own bias is just too big, especially with the second episode. In any case, this episode was pretty good, even though it was much quieter than the last one.

In the end, my big gripe with Tokyo Revelation is that a lot of the character-development really came from nowhere. In this episode, it was Sakura’s turn to change dramatically, though I feel that the creators would so have profited from another episode, to get all of the developments right. Right now, I can understand how Sakura feels that she’s been incredibly irresponsible, and that she wants to change, but this doesn’t automatically make you able to be a fearless killing-machine, like she demonstrated in this episode.

One character whose character-development did get handled perfectly was Kurogane, though, and Fye too made very interesting progressions in this episode. I was also glad to see that finally the huge plot-twists of the previous episode made sense, and how the different characters of Kamui and his brother tied in with the overall story. The background art was also as lovely as usual, so there are no complaints there either.

Now this is more like it! This episode was much better than the first one. I still have a lot of problems with it, but at least the music has become much better. The amount of new plot-twists is also baffling. In one episode, the plot has been pushed forward as much as the original TV-series did in 52 episodes. Still, I don’t yet consider the Tsubasa Chronicle OVA to be better than the series.

That doesn’t mean that the series didn’t have its problems, though. What was Bee-Train thinking, putting such a dark story in the NHK-channel? I now also finally understand the reason why so many fillers were added. Bee-Train knew that there was no way to put some key-moments in this arc on the air, so they decided to just go with their own story and do what they were good at.

For me, the biggest problem with this episode is that it was really far-fetched. The battle underwater was already pushing my suspense of disbelief (how long can people hold in their breath anyway? And how can these guys flawlessly fight each other, just as easily as if they were on land), but that turned out to be just the tip of the ice-berg.

So, basically Syaoran was already as a kid a very talented magician. In there, he created a clone and gave this clone his eye. The task of this clone was to collect the feathers that would come out of Sakura in about ten years. In order to prepare for that, the clone-Syaoran got his eye sealed and moved to the clow-country where he made friends with Sakura, and later fell in love with her. For some reason beyond me, the original Syaoran was sealed away by Fei Wong, but he could see everything that the clone-Syaoran did.

To make things even more complicated, Syaoran is supposed to be a descendant of Clow Reed. Sakura is also the daughter of some king of the Clow-country, which gives us many hints that she too is a descendant of Clow Reed. It’s strange to think that I spent more than 52 episodes watching some very strange kind of incest-relationship… Also, Fei Wong turned out to be yet another descendant of Clow Reed, hinting that he’s either Syaoran’s father or some kind of uncle.

In any case, while clone-Syaoran is fighting under water, Fye jumps in and just starts using his magic from out of nowhere, even though he vowed not to use magic without his tattoo. Clone Syaoran then BITES the guy’s eye out, which turn out to be the source of his power. Strangely enough, Syaoran gains Fye’s powers by eating Fye’s eye. Syaoran’s powers, by the way, also increased greatly with this. Apparently, the seal on his eye was broken at this point (don’t ask me how or why), and now he’s strong enough to even pwn Kurogane.

In the meantime, the real Syaoran was helped by Xing-Huo (who was punished by Fei Wong afterwards (read: killed)), goes to Yuuko and is teleported to the Clone Syaoran. The two fight, but Clone-Syaoran is now much stronger than the real one due to Fye’s magic.

The feather turned out to be in the middle of a cocoon, in the middle of the pool. Apparently, this was the thing that kept the clean water flowing. Somehow, Sakura’s soul ended up in that cocoon. When Sakura’s body got near the cocoon, it disappeared, and I guess it ended up in the cocoon as well. She then prevents the real Syaoran from killing the clone-one. Clone Syaoran then cuts up yet another cocoon and the feather comes out. He gives it to Sakura and then walks off on his own, leaving her. Kamui, who I guess was unconscious for this time, magically reappears and pulls a person out of this cocoon. Apparently, this person was the reason why he was so protective of the water, and he’s glad that this person is okay. Seriously, the next episode has some real explanation to do, because both subplots need a lot of explanation to make sense to me. The more I think about it, the more questions I have. You can say a lot of Bee-Train, but at least they managed to make sure that everything in the tv-series made sense. Was the manga also so incredibly confusing at this point?

Oh, and there’s one character that I’ve really disliked in the new OVA: Sakura. Oh, how deep did she fall. First, she sleeps for more than an entire episode, then she wakes up, goes “Syaoran! Syaoran!”, gets overwhelmed by the new Syaoran, and falls asleep again. I seriously liked the lovable heroine from the TV-series much better.

Ah, finally! A year after the series ended, Tsubasa Chronicle gets continued. Let’s hope that the DVD-sales are high enough to give the creators enough motivation to animate the rest of the chapters of the manga. Let me start with the bad points, though. First of all: the music. Let’s face it, it’s nothing when compared to the series. Yuki Kajiura made way for decent pop-tunes or recycled versions of the lesser tunes of the original series. The art style has also changed severely, and turned into a strange combination of the original one with xxxHolic, and its long limb. Mokona also has shrunk and Fye’s hair grew. Another thing I didn’t like is how the creators just decided to ignore the fillers of the series, and just continued after the library-arc. It’s a shame, because while the fillers didn’t really progress the story, they did flesh out and develop the different characters a bit. The result is the most noticeable with Sakura: she turned from a growing heroine back into her useless old self who keeps sleeping. One thing that’s more personal is how it took me a long time to get used to the fact that this series isn’t done by Bee-Train anymore. There’s no overabundance of still shots to build up atmosphere, the dialogue is kept short and to the point, there are no insert-songs and there’s a much larger attention to the different action-scenes. And really… Shaoran must be some kind of machine or something. He basically stands for minutes at the same spot with an arrow in his leg without even flinching. I mean, doesn’t such a thing usually hurt? In this episode, the Shaoran-lookalike also awakes, though unfortunately I’ve already been spoiled about his true identity, which took away a bit of the surprise. Okay, those were the flaws. Apart from that, I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. The world of Tokyo (wasn’t that were Kurogane grew up as well?) is totally opposite of what I expected it to be, and I like the idea of acidic rain, spoiling all of the water. I’m interested in how the people who live outside of the two towers get their water, if both sides refuse to give them any. Especially if the rain has been pouring down for fifteen years now. The character-animation may also be a bit buggy at times, but especially the background art is terrific, and they blend really well together. The best part of the episode was the conversation between Kurogane and Fye, though, because finally Fye gets a bit of depth to his character. It really seems that he can’t just stop putting up his facade, even if he wanted to. Of course, this was just the introductions, and something tells me that the best parts of this arc haven’t even started yet. I predict that my complaints for the next episode will only be 25% of the ones I had for this episode, because it’ll be easier to get used to the new art-style. In any case, I do like how the creators kept the long limbs into the character-designs, because that’s what I originally liked about them. Next episode will be up in January, and I’m looking forward to it!]]>