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I'm Posting Much Lately! *so proud*
Now it's time for, What Does Kay Think About CLAMP's New Manga.
I am currently in possession of volumes 1-3 of XXXholic, and volumes 1-4 of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle (insert your own goofy capitalization here). The former is full of weird highly experimental art with dreamy smoke everywhere, the latter is full of pretty and flowy and I think they're beautiful and bold, and the stories themselves are surprisingly cohesive for a mishmash of CLAMP characters. They claim that the characters exist outside of themselves; Sakura didn't just exist as Cardcaptor Sakura, she also existed as Sakura, independent of her series, and so they could easily transplant her into Tsubasa and she'd be a familiar character in a new role.
And, boy oh boy, I understand that, don't I? Sasha and Jillia and Dominick and Jareth understand that.
XXXholic I don't understand too well, but here's what I have so far. Watanuki Kimihiro is a young man who A) spells his last name with the unfortunate kanji "4th Month 1st Day", which just happens to be his birthday, April 1st, April Fools, this poor young man, B) has a rather remarkable physical resemblance to Harry Potter, and C) frequently suffers hostile and unpleasant visions, and man would he like to get rid of them.
So he winds up visiting Yuuko, a stunningly beautiful and voluptuous and more than slightly creepy "witch" who will cure problems like these -- for a price. And that price is your most precious possession...
Yuuko spends her time lounging around, smoking, drinking like a sailor, wearing very stylized clothing that falls off her. She's the CLAMP alcoholic smoker version of Jillia. She's even got Katrinka's combination smirk of "I know you think I'm sexy" and "I know things about you that you don't know". Jillia had to train for years to learn how to mimic that look.
XXXholic is, as far as I can tell, proof that CLAMP looked at Gohou Drug and said, "Well, this has a lot of the gay, and hints of the creepy in places. But... we want something that has a LOT of the creepy, and hints of the gay in places, and instead of randomly referring to drugs, it should be ON THEM." (The gay in XXXholic is lesbianesque and weird.)
It's fucking creepy. I love it. I read an episode where a woman comes in with a tube and she says to Yuuko that weird things have happened with it, but it's an heirloom and she doesn't want to get rid of it, she just wants some advice, and Yuuko's like, hmm, don't open that, you'll be fine. But it winds up getting opened anyway and inside is the proverbial monkey's paw, and the woman decides she'll be fine, and makes a happy wish or two. She starts the story a very happy sweet woman, and ends up psychotic, screeching at inanimate objects, and the monkey's paw strangles her to death. Yuuko and Watanuki come to collect the monkey's paw and put it back afterwards.
Back on the fluffier side of things.
CCS!Syaoran is an archaeologist in a vaguely desert-like fantasy kingdom, where CCS!Touya is the king and CCS!Yukito is his disturbingly pal-sy high priest or something. Meanwhile, good old Sakura is the princess and disturbingly pal-sy with Syaoran, who keeps thinking "THIS IS THE PRINCESS" and tries not to notice when she jumps on him and tries to make him dinner and generally makes herself as wifelike and available as possible. She is disappointed by his attitude, but perseveres. They Are In Love.
Then, a bad person comes and steals Sakura's power -- contained within her "wings", each individual feather of which represents a memory of hers. Yukito tells Syaoran that she'll die unless they're recovered, and Syaoran takes it upon himself to seek them out and save her.
Meanwhile, Elsewhere in AU Japan, Princess [CCS no] Tomoyo is exiling her protector, Kurogane. He is, basically, an asshole. He's a scary scary frightening ninja man, and he kills people with indiscriminate psychotic enjoyment, and he is fiercely dedicated to becoming the strongest ninja in AU Japan, and intends to do this by basically killing all the others. (Also featuring RG Veda!Sohma, at random.) Tomoyo tells him that he needs to learn to control himself, and discover the true meaning of strength, and maybe even discover how to use his true power instead of flailing around.
Meanwhile, Elsewhere in Some Other Place, a lot of people are dead, and Fye says his farewells to [RG Veda no] Ashura-ou. The king is sealed in a coffin of some sort in a pool of some sort, and Fye is clearly not sorry, although he's clearly not happy either. I have no idea what's going on there, but a lot of people are dead and Ashura-ou is sealed and Fye is fleeing the country, no, he says, the world. To anywhere Ashura-ou can't reach him. [Chobits no] Chii is a catgirl Fye has created, and she adores him and goes along with this idea with little regret, so he transforms her into a barrier and tells her to warn him if Ashura-ou awakens. Then, he gets the hell out of there.
All three men wind up speaking to [XXXholic no] Yuuko, the Dimension Witch. Syaoran's quest is to get Sakura's memories back. Kurogane's quest is to get back home. Fye's quest is to go anywhere Ashura-ou isn't and never get back home. All three of them will travel together, she says, because only together can they do what's necessary to fulfill their wishes, but Yuuko grants wishes at a price...
Fye has to pay with the tattoo off his back -- a key to his power, although not the source of it. (Tattoo is really cool, BTW.) Kurogane has to pay with an heirloom shiny katana. Syaoran has to pay with his most precious possession: Sakura's love. Even after he returns all her memories to her, she won't know or care about him.
But the other choice is letting her die. And thus the three go across dimensions collecting Sakura's feathers, and she totters along with them bewilderedly, occasionally having hideously hideously cruel moments with Syaoran, who spends half this manga holding back tears only because he knows she wouldn't understand why and would feel bad.
Regard: I love Fye. He's so cute. And he's vaguely evil. And he's cunning. And I want him and Kurogane, who is just hot, to have sex. Look at them! You know they should have sex. I'm like 90% sure Fye is gay -- he's had Chii all over him in his lap and [MKR no] Primera writhing underneath him and he's danced charming around Sakura the whole four volumes with nothing but benevolent interest. Even [MKR no] Mokona thinks they're slashy; he keeps hiding in Kurogane's coat and mimicking Kurogane's voice and professing love for Fye. (Fye thinks this is charming, but oh, the hatred Kurogane has for the hateful little puffball.)
So quitcherbitchin. Just because XXXholic is full of heterosexuals and the occasional lesbian doesn't mean CLAMP's abandoned the gay!
I'm full of love.
Edit: I think the best part is that these two works have been licensed... by Del Rey. You know, the big sci-fi/fantasy novel pbulisher. They've apparently decided to branch out into manga -- check out what they have to say about it on their page. I have great hope for the quality of these publications. They translate all the names nicely and in proper order, they seem devoted to keeping the pages right-to-left, and (best of all) they have the following quote:
"Manga is a medium, not a genre."
You can't tell me that isn't the warmfuzziest thing you ever heard a big publishing company say about manga.
I am currently in possession of volumes 1-3 of XXXholic, and volumes 1-4 of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle (insert your own goofy capitalization here). The former is full of weird highly experimental art with dreamy smoke everywhere, the latter is full of pretty and flowy and I think they're beautiful and bold, and the stories themselves are surprisingly cohesive for a mishmash of CLAMP characters. They claim that the characters exist outside of themselves; Sakura didn't just exist as Cardcaptor Sakura, she also existed as Sakura, independent of her series, and so they could easily transplant her into Tsubasa and she'd be a familiar character in a new role.
And, boy oh boy, I understand that, don't I? Sasha and Jillia and Dominick and Jareth understand that.
XXXholic I don't understand too well, but here's what I have so far. Watanuki Kimihiro is a young man who A) spells his last name with the unfortunate kanji "4th Month 1st Day", which just happens to be his birthday, April 1st, April Fools, this poor young man, B) has a rather remarkable physical resemblance to Harry Potter, and C) frequently suffers hostile and unpleasant visions, and man would he like to get rid of them.
So he winds up visiting Yuuko, a stunningly beautiful and voluptuous and more than slightly creepy "witch" who will cure problems like these -- for a price. And that price is your most precious possession...
Yuuko spends her time lounging around, smoking, drinking like a sailor, wearing very stylized clothing that falls off her. She's the CLAMP alcoholic smoker version of Jillia. She's even got Katrinka's combination smirk of "I know you think I'm sexy" and "I know things about you that you don't know". Jillia had to train for years to learn how to mimic that look.
XXXholic is, as far as I can tell, proof that CLAMP looked at Gohou Drug and said, "Well, this has a lot of the gay, and hints of the creepy in places. But... we want something that has a LOT of the creepy, and hints of the gay in places, and instead of randomly referring to drugs, it should be ON THEM." (The gay in XXXholic is lesbianesque and weird.)
It's fucking creepy. I love it. I read an episode where a woman comes in with a tube and she says to Yuuko that weird things have happened with it, but it's an heirloom and she doesn't want to get rid of it, she just wants some advice, and Yuuko's like, hmm, don't open that, you'll be fine. But it winds up getting opened anyway and inside is the proverbial monkey's paw, and the woman decides she'll be fine, and makes a happy wish or two. She starts the story a very happy sweet woman, and ends up psychotic, screeching at inanimate objects, and the monkey's paw strangles her to death. Yuuko and Watanuki come to collect the monkey's paw and put it back afterwards.
Back on the fluffier side of things.
CCS!Syaoran is an archaeologist in a vaguely desert-like fantasy kingdom, where CCS!Touya is the king and CCS!Yukito is his disturbingly pal-sy high priest or something. Meanwhile, good old Sakura is the princess and disturbingly pal-sy with Syaoran, who keeps thinking "THIS IS THE PRINCESS" and tries not to notice when she jumps on him and tries to make him dinner and generally makes herself as wifelike and available as possible. She is disappointed by his attitude, but perseveres. They Are In Love.
Then, a bad person comes and steals Sakura's power -- contained within her "wings", each individual feather of which represents a memory of hers. Yukito tells Syaoran that she'll die unless they're recovered, and Syaoran takes it upon himself to seek them out and save her.
Meanwhile, Elsewhere in AU Japan, Princess [CCS no] Tomoyo is exiling her protector, Kurogane. He is, basically, an asshole. He's a scary scary frightening ninja man, and he kills people with indiscriminate psychotic enjoyment, and he is fiercely dedicated to becoming the strongest ninja in AU Japan, and intends to do this by basically killing all the others. (Also featuring RG Veda!Sohma, at random.) Tomoyo tells him that he needs to learn to control himself, and discover the true meaning of strength, and maybe even discover how to use his true power instead of flailing around.
Meanwhile, Elsewhere in Some Other Place, a lot of people are dead, and Fye says his farewells to [RG Veda no] Ashura-ou. The king is sealed in a coffin of some sort in a pool of some sort, and Fye is clearly not sorry, although he's clearly not happy either. I have no idea what's going on there, but a lot of people are dead and Ashura-ou is sealed and Fye is fleeing the country, no, he says, the world. To anywhere Ashura-ou can't reach him. [Chobits no] Chii is a catgirl Fye has created, and she adores him and goes along with this idea with little regret, so he transforms her into a barrier and tells her to warn him if Ashura-ou awakens. Then, he gets the hell out of there.
All three men wind up speaking to [XXXholic no] Yuuko, the Dimension Witch. Syaoran's quest is to get Sakura's memories back. Kurogane's quest is to get back home. Fye's quest is to go anywhere Ashura-ou isn't and never get back home. All three of them will travel together, she says, because only together can they do what's necessary to fulfill their wishes, but Yuuko grants wishes at a price...
Fye has to pay with the tattoo off his back -- a key to his power, although not the source of it. (Tattoo is really cool, BTW.) Kurogane has to pay with an heirloom shiny katana. Syaoran has to pay with his most precious possession: Sakura's love. Even after he returns all her memories to her, she won't know or care about him.
But the other choice is letting her die. And thus the three go across dimensions collecting Sakura's feathers, and she totters along with them bewilderedly, occasionally having hideously hideously cruel moments with Syaoran, who spends half this manga holding back tears only because he knows she wouldn't understand why and would feel bad.
Regard: I love Fye. He's so cute. And he's vaguely evil. And he's cunning. And I want him and Kurogane, who is just hot, to have sex. Look at them! You know they should have sex. I'm like 90% sure Fye is gay -- he's had Chii all over him in his lap and [MKR no] Primera writhing underneath him and he's danced charming around Sakura the whole four volumes with nothing but benevolent interest. Even [MKR no] Mokona thinks they're slashy; he keeps hiding in Kurogane's coat and mimicking Kurogane's voice and professing love for Fye. (Fye thinks this is charming, but oh, the hatred Kurogane has for the hateful little puffball.)
So quitcherbitchin. Just because XXXholic is full of heterosexuals and the occasional lesbian doesn't mean CLAMP's abandoned the gay!
I'm full of love.
Edit: I think the best part is that these two works have been licensed... by Del Rey. You know, the big sci-fi/fantasy novel pbulisher. They've apparently decided to branch out into manga -- check out what they have to say about it on their page. I have great hope for the quality of these publications. They translate all the names nicely and in proper order, they seem devoted to keeping the pages right-to-left, and (best of all) they have the following quote:
"Manga is a medium, not a genre."
You can't tell me that isn't the warmfuzziest thing you ever heard a big publishing company say about manga.
no subject
Thirdbook is "standalone" because you can pick it up without having read the other books. Also, I don't HAVE to write Secondbook for Thirdbook to make sense. ^^; It's a fantasy-thing (one of many x_x). A... strange fantasy-thing. I've pleaded with it to go away, but it won't. Plus, one of the ways I could write it is just too cool. XD