I have been a fan of CLAMP since before I even knew what they were. My first introduction to them was a manga volume my friend Anne brought to school. I read it with no idea what manga was, or anything about the story, and simply marveled over the drawings, and what I could get of the plot. It was not until much much later (ie years) that I now know what I read was the second volume of Magic Knight Rayearth, which incidentally became the first of CLAMPs works that I read in full. Avoiding spoilers, (well immediately) the ending to MKR was one of the most interesting things I had ever come across.
The second of CLAMPs works that I really got into was Cardcaptor Sakura. I watched the anime first, and it wasn’t until later that I was able to read all of the manga, but it became another of my favorite series.
I continued along in my otakudom, reading other CLAMP works Angelic Layer, X, RG Veda, Clover, Chobits, CLAMP Campus Detectives, and I enjoyed all of them (except Chobits). Magic Knight Rayearth, Angelic Layer, and Cardcaptor Sakura were by far my favorites.
So one day I was in the Waldenbooks down in Blacksburg for one of SD and my’s trips to town, and I spotted a manga on a display. It caught my eye because at a glance it looked like Sakura and Syaoran. Well suffice to say I was shocked when I read the back to find out it *was* Sakura and Syaoran. It was a new series Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. I was thrilled. Two of my favorite characters of all time were back, and whats better, the world they were going to were going to be filled with tons of CLAMP characters.
So I read it, and it was pretty good. I eventually got the XXXholic which is seperate, but runs alongside Tsubasa’s story. Eventually the anime was announced, and I was even more thrilled, but eventually…I dunno it became monotonous? I stopped getting the anime episodes the day they came out, and I actually looked forward to new XXXholic manga and anime releases than Tsubasa, and basically it dropped into the background. I still read it, it was still good, but it wasn’t great, and I wasn’t sure why.
Well I was surfing the Internet, and stumbled across someone’s blog that pretty much summed up the problem I was having with it. Syaoran was a horrible one-dimensional character. At the beginning he was the endearing Syaoran that we all knew and loved from Cardcaptor Sakura. Blushing glances thrown at Sakura, stumbling over words between them and such. When she was in trouble he did not hesitate for a second to help her…but that was just it. He started out on his quest with her, Fai, Kurogane, and Makona and all he cared about was the feathers and we were like ‘Awww, he’s giving up everything for her.’ but he never stumbled, never faltered. His one and only focus was getting her feathers, and while there were the occasional blushing glances, there was nothing else going on. That was why I drifted away. I felt like nothing was happening, and that there was no room for anything to happen.
Below here are spoilers. So don’t click unless you’ve been keeping up with TRC, or don’t particularly care about spoilers.
