Tsubasa 16 Reservoir Chronicle

Rating T+ Genre manga Author CLAMP Publisher Ballantine Books

First time readers: beware! Do your homework first or else you will be stranded. Intoxicated by the illustrations. I first read this volume without a hint of previous knowledge about the series and I quickly got lost and became very bored. Do not make such an impulsive mistake!

After doing some research, I found I admire CLAMP. It is a group of talented artists in Japan that have been constructing knots of stories that unravel in different worlds.

In Tsubasa, characters from different series come together just to keep one of them alive.  Of course, the character in question is Princess Sakura, a helpless girl whose memories become feathers that have been scattered throughout worlds. Without them, she will die.

For what little happened in volume 16, I was surprised to see she did not die already. The princess was sleeping in a bubble of water throughout the whole two fight scenes. Characters blurted out simple (but were supposed to be dramatic) statements regular readers would understand. The severity of our 2-dimensional little friends’ situations would lose all other readers.

Maybe that was done on purpose to prevent new audiences to gain interest. You would have had to be there from the beginning to be one of the cool kids who understands this. Uh, now I’m jealous!

Syaoran is one of the characters who runs around and searches for these valuable feathers. He’s obligated to this duty because the princess is an old friend even though the feather that contained the memory of him was destroyed. There is silver lining… he gets to travel.

This comic is a soap opera with super powers. It is a big hit in Japan but, personally, I like laid back humor. Slap the characters across the face to wake them from drama-land, then hand them a beer and go tell jokes while saving the world with their unique powers. Although, do not change the illustrations; they are meticulously gorgeous.