Mini-review: Tsubasa, Vol. 7 Posted July 9, 2006 at 10:15 pm

I’ve had a stack of unread manga ever since TRSI’s last Del Rey sale. With things getting back to normal post-vacation, I’ve had time to start working on that backlog. Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE, Vol. 7 was the first such title to come off the queue.

Tsubasa #7 (cover)

First off, Tsubasa is a CLAMP title—a name I’ve come with excellence in the manga craft. The group’s artwork is some of my favorite because it is consistently crisp and clean. Tsubasa, in particular, features a slew of intricately detailed characters that show off a flare for artistry that few of CLAMP’s contemporaries can match. I can also appreciate that the group neatly ducks some of the popular themes of the anime and manga subculture like mecha and the ever-present Japanese high school setting in favor of some truly unique and interesting stories.

The basic premise of the story is that a core group of characters—Syaoran, Sakura, Fai, Kurogane, and Mokona—travels from world to world in search of Sakura’s feathers, which hold her lost memory. It’s not unlike the American sci-fi cult classic “Sliders,” of which I was also a fan. CLAMP’s take on the paradigm works well, though, because they spend enough time at each stop to flesh out a new world, introduce a cast of memorable supporting characters—which tends to draw heavily on CLAMP’s sizeable back catalog—and move the main characters forward on their path. In fact, there have been so many characters introduced in the series up to this point that a separate character guide will be published later this year just to keep track of them all.

There’s nothing particularly noteable about this volume plot-wise, but it did make me aware of how CLAMP is using the premise of traveling between worlds to redefine the rules every few volumes. Volume 7 contains some great twists that just wouldn’t work in another setting. Overall, I think this volume comes across as one of the stronger ones so far simply due to some well-executed storytelling. I’m interested in seeing where this series will ultimately go.