In which I ramble on about various elements of xxxHOLiC, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, and FMA
(Although I discuss my feelings about the ending of xxxHOLiC, I don’t believe I spoil it. The majority of this post, however, won’t make sense to anyone who hasn’t read most of these series. As a result, this post will probably only make sense to one or two people who might read it. If anyone still pays any attention to my journal. I never really write in it, after all.)
Apparently xxxHOLiC is now over. I had mixed feelings about reading scans online after I had caught up with the published books, but I desired to see the series all the way through to the end before another couple of years had passed until all the books are released over here in the states. I was honestly not expecting it to end so soon - I read the last chapter without realizing that it WAS the last chapter and then had to go back and reread it in context of it being “the end.” I’m…still not sure how I feel about it. I had purposefully avoided making predictions except for anticipating something ambiguous and bittersweet (after all, this is CLAMP), but I did have hopes that it would resolve some of the outstanding questions left over between it and Tsubasa. I suppose the ending fits the tone of the series, but I will confess that the part of me that grew up reading Western literature that (generally) wraps up all of its plots in a more final matter wishes for something a little more concrete. Or at least something that tells me in a little more detail what happens to all of the characters I’ve grown to care so much about. But it is what it is, and it remains one of my favorite manga. I’m currently rereading it to see if I can slowly come to understand it a little better. I had to laugh when I read Yuuko’s lines in the second volume where she is first explaining how the Mokonas came to be to Watanuki, who is, like us readers, rather confused: “This isn’t the kind of story where understanding makes you smart, or not understanding makes you dumb.” Thank you, Yuuko, for making me feel a little less stupid.
Rereading (several times) has helped me understand Tsubasa a little more, though I still don’t claim to fully understand what went on in that series. I honestly can’t think of a story that I’ve spent more time trying to wrap my head around, but I love it even though it though parts of it confuse the heck out of me. I understand why people love to curse at CLAMP, but I also understand why their works are so popular. CLAMP’s themes and ambiguous, symbol-laden storytelling take more than a little getting used to, especially for someone like me who is fairly new to the world of comics. It’s taken me a while to adapt to taking the time to study the artwork, layout, and expressions instead of just glancing to see which character was speaking as I read my way through the dialogue bubbles.
But even though Tsubasa contains some of the most confusing plot twists involving time loops and clones that I have ever seen and has more angst than seems probable, I love it. It puzzled the heck out of me the first time I read it, but I’ve grown to love it more each time I’ve reread it and seen the way bits and pieces of plot and foreshadowing and character development are all woven into the tangled mess that is the whole (“tangled mess” including xxxHOLiC and pretty much every other CLAMP series due to its crossover nature). Part of its appeal to me is the “traveling to other worlds” plot. I’m a sucker for stories that explore other worlds and that explore character’s reactions to worlds very different from their own. Even though there was a little less of this element than I would have liked (and this was a good thing - if there was as much detail as I would have wanted, the story wouldn’t have been anywhere near as tight), it still made it a lot of fun.
For me, though, the main draw to the series lies in the characters of Fai and Kurogane. Now, I love the entire main cast of xxxHOLiC - I found the characters and their reactions to and relationships with each other highly enjoyable. I adore Watanuki’s flailing, Yuuko’s mysterious-yet-playful personality, Doumeki’s snarking, and Himawari’s blitheness that overlays a dark secret. I also love both of the Mokonas - they manage to be adorable little mascot/team pet type characters without being horribly annoying (I’m sure Watanuki and Kurogane would disagree with me, but I enjoy the humor their teasing brings to both series). On the Tsubasa side, however, it could very easily be argued that Syaoran is a rather bland protagonist. He certainly has a lot less of a quirky personality than his “other self” Watanuki. I’m not as well read in popular shounen manga as I should be, but I’d say he’s likely a far cry from the “normal” modern shounen protagonist. He’s more like an old-style, clean-cut type of hero - polite, determined, book-smart intelligent, sincere, focused, driven, unwaveringly loyal to his love interest and willing to do anything to protect her. Indeed, his main personality trait is debatably his determination to do anything to protect Sakura. Sakura, especially early on in the series, is also arguably rather featureless (especially when compared to her CCS incarnation), though she does have the excuse of having lost all of her memories (and thus her personality). She does regain some spunk as the series progresses and even strives to make herself more useful to her traveling companions instead of being a deadweight damsel in distress. Both Syaoran and Sakura DO change some throughout the course of the series (although it gets even more complicated when you factor in the clones) - it would be impossible for them to escape unchanged after going through the events of an epically mind-bending story. However, I would argue that what is most important to both sets of the couple remains unchanged at the end of the tale - namely, their relationship with each other. What is important to Watanuki, Syaoran’s “other self,” DOES change: at the beginning of the series he wishes to no longer see spirits, but the catalysts of his various relationships change his wish to the point that he rejects the granting of this wish and instead chooses to retain his ability and make use of it as he waits in the shop to see Yuuko once more.
More relevant to Tsubasa, Syaoran and Sakura’s fellow protagonists, Fai and Kurogane, change drastically throughout the course of their story. It seems to be an interesting reversal of what I would deem conventional storytelling - usually the main protagonist’s dynamic change is measured against the more stable and static minor protagonists, but in this tale the side protagonists are the ones whose considerable change is contrasted with the main character’s relative stability (Syaoran does mature somewhat and grow in his abilities, but as I stated above, what is most important to him does not change). Through their interactions with Syaoran, Sakura, and, most important of all, each other, Fai and Kurogane undergo some fascinating parallel-yet-contrasting character development. I can’t think of another literary example of opposite characters that alter each other’s destiny that is executed in such a captivating manner. These characters are extreme foils of each other, even down to their backstories and their status as pawns in the tremendously complex plot games being played by powerful magicians mostly behind the scenes. Kurogane is a blunt, straightforward swordsman who actively fights to achieve his goals, who wishes to return home, who has been tasked with finding the meaning of true strength by the princess who sent him (unwillingly) on this journey, and whose most important item was the sword that symbolized his strength and was a link to his past as well as a bond with his princess. Fai, in contrast, is a seemingly cheerful but highly secretive magician (one who refuses to use magic even if his life is in danger) who passively goes with the flow, who wishes to run away from his home, who has been cursed and who believes himself to be cursed, who tries not to care about others and to not be cared about by others in return because of these curses, and whose most important item was the magical markings placed on his back to restrain his magical abilities. Over the course of their journey, Kurogane gradually begins to see through Fai’s teasing and his masks, Fai comes to realize that his fellow travelers care about him, and both of them grow to care deeply for the children in their care. Kurogane goes from being a person for whom strength was of the upmost importance to sacrificing strength in the form of his blood and his left arm to save Fai; someone who once had no problem in taking a life that threatened him saved someone who tried to kill him, having learned empathy in a way that echoes back to what his parents tried to teach him when he was a child. (The high price of “protecting” someone is one of the more interesting themes that is explored in this series - in so many stories, the big strong man promises to protect the frail girl, but the consequences and responsibilities that protecting entails are not always so realistically addressed. Both Kurogane and Syaoran have to live with the rather costly responsibilities of protecting another’s life.) Through Kurogane’s sacrifices, Fai is able to move on from his rather horrific past (I don’t think I’ve seen a more angst-ridden past in anything outside of books about the Holocaust) and learn to value his own life. (I also find the theme of sacrifice for others as explored in both Tsubasa and xxxHOLiC interesting, as both feature instances where one character has sacrificed for another in which the character who had been sacrificed for was not at all pleased with the character who had made the sacrifice for him. The Jorogumo’s lines to Watanuki are especially memorable, as typically in stories sacrifice for others is seen as noble and a good thing regardless of the hurt it causes others who worry about the one who did the sacrificing.) At the end of Tsubasa, what was most important to Kurogane and Fai has changed because of their journey and their interactions with each other (and, to a lesser extent, with others) - Kurogane casts aside his sword at one point to rescue Fai, and Fai embraces his magical powers once he regains them and utilizes them even though he no longer has the restraining markings. Their changing desires and personalities provide a captivating contrast with Syaoran’s steadfastness.
On a completely different (yet thematically related) note, after the recommendations of many, I finally read Fullmetal Alchemist. I yet again caved into my desire to finish the story and read the rest of it online after I had finished all of the volumes that my local library had (volumes 1-23 all on the shelf at the same time with none missing - it was obviously hitsuzen that I read this series). It was definitely an enjoyable series, and I’m sure that I’ll reread it someday and perhaps get around to analyzing it properly, but I found some interesting parallels between FMA and Tsubasa/xxxHOLiC that intrigued me. Equivalent exchange is a big deal in both series, both in alchemy and in Yuuko’s system of granting wishes. The fact that the dead can’t be brought back to life is also a major theme. In FMA, the protagonists (as well as select others throughout the series) are the ones who attempt to bring the dead back to life, and they pay a horrific price for their endeavor. In Tsubasa, the villain is the one attempting to bring someone who has died back to life, and he’s willing to break space, time, and reason to achieve his wish. Speaking of villains, the main antagonist of both series is a created being, and both villains were created from individuals who work mostly behind the scenes to thwart said villain. (Hohenheim’s blood was used to create the homunculus in a flask, and Hohenheim plots for centuries to subvert the homunculus’s plan. Fei-Wang Reed was, presumably, accidentally created by Clow Reed when he had a fleeting wish that Yuuko open her eyes once more. [I assume that he was a created being because the way he shattered/dissolved when killed was the same as the clones, who were also created beings.] Clow, though dead at the start of the series, along with Yuuko, set up quite a lot of the plot in an attempt to stop Fei-Wang Reed.) Both villains have extremely strong desires and don’t care how many deaths are caused by their pursuit of their wish. Even though the “creators” of both villains have done a lot of the background work in ensuring the villains’ downfall, ultimately the protagonists of both series are the ones who deal the finishing blow.
The price of wishes and desires is also thematically explored in both series in that both protagonists pay heavy prices as a result of their wishes. Syaoran disrupts space and time when he wishes to save Sakura and is imprisoned by Fei-Wang Reed; Ed and Al lose their bodies (Al’s entire body, Ed’s arm and leg) in their attempt to bring their mother back to life. They wish to regain their bodies through use of the philosopher’s stone, but once they learn the price of making the stone (it requires living human beings), they nearly give up on their wish before becoming determined to find another way to achieve their goal. Sakura likewise questions her original wish of regaining her memory feathers when she sees how much pain her desires are causing everyone around her, although she ultimately decides that she is willing to pay for her sins if she can recover clone!Syaoran’s heart. Syaoran and Watanuki both have to pay a heavy price (the former to continuously travel from world to world, the latter to permanently remain in the shop) to continue existing thanks to Syaoran’s wish to turn back time, which created Watanuki and destabilized both their existences and the space-time continuum. (Or something.) Both series deal with the pain of conflicting desires and what happens when the strong desires of two or more individuals come into conflict with each other, and some of these lessons are paralleled or delivered through the adult co-protagonists, most of whom have dark backstories and who serve as aids and foils to the younger protagonists. This theme, along with the many other philosophical themes that entwine throughout the stories in these series, is part of what makes them so fascinating to ponder and explore.
Apparently xxxHOLiC is now over. I had mixed feelings about reading scans online after I had caught up with the published books, but I desired to see the series all the way through to the end before another couple of years had passed until all the books are released over here in the states. I was honestly not expecting it to end so soon - I read the last chapter without realizing that it WAS the last chapter and then had to go back and reread it in context of it being “the end.” I’m…still not sure how I feel about it. I had purposefully avoided making predictions except for anticipating something ambiguous and bittersweet (after all, this is CLAMP), but I did have hopes that it would resolve some of the outstanding questions left over between it and Tsubasa. I suppose the ending fits the tone of the series, but I will confess that the part of me that grew up reading Western literature that (generally) wraps up all of its plots in a more final matter wishes for something a little more concrete. Or at least something that tells me in a little more detail what happens to all of the characters I’ve grown to care so much about. But it is what it is, and it remains one of my favorite manga. I’m currently rereading it to see if I can slowly come to understand it a little better. I had to laugh when I read Yuuko’s lines in the second volume where she is first explaining how the Mokonas came to be to Watanuki, who is, like us readers, rather confused: “This isn’t the kind of story where understanding makes you smart, or not understanding makes you dumb.” Thank you, Yuuko, for making me feel a little less stupid.
Rereading (several times) has helped me understand Tsubasa a little more, though I still don’t claim to fully understand what went on in that series. I honestly can’t think of a story that I’ve spent more time trying to wrap my head around, but I love it even though it though parts of it confuse the heck out of me. I understand why people love to curse at CLAMP, but I also understand why their works are so popular. CLAMP’s themes and ambiguous, symbol-laden storytelling take more than a little getting used to, especially for someone like me who is fairly new to the world of comics. It’s taken me a while to adapt to taking the time to study the artwork, layout, and expressions instead of just glancing to see which character was speaking as I read my way through the dialogue bubbles.
But even though Tsubasa contains some of the most confusing plot twists involving time loops and clones that I have ever seen and has more angst than seems probable, I love it. It puzzled the heck out of me the first time I read it, but I’ve grown to love it more each time I’ve reread it and seen the way bits and pieces of plot and foreshadowing and character development are all woven into the tangled mess that is the whole (“tangled mess” including xxxHOLiC and pretty much every other CLAMP series due to its crossover nature). Part of its appeal to me is the “traveling to other worlds” plot. I’m a sucker for stories that explore other worlds and that explore character’s reactions to worlds very different from their own. Even though there was a little less of this element than I would have liked (and this was a good thing - if there was as much detail as I would have wanted, the story wouldn’t have been anywhere near as tight), it still made it a lot of fun.
For me, though, the main draw to the series lies in the characters of Fai and Kurogane. Now, I love the entire main cast of xxxHOLiC - I found the characters and their reactions to and relationships with each other highly enjoyable. I adore Watanuki’s flailing, Yuuko’s mysterious-yet-playful personality, Doumeki’s snarking, and Himawari’s blitheness that overlays a dark secret. I also love both of the Mokonas - they manage to be adorable little mascot/team pet type characters without being horribly annoying (I’m sure Watanuki and Kurogane would disagree with me, but I enjoy the humor their teasing brings to both series). On the Tsubasa side, however, it could very easily be argued that Syaoran is a rather bland protagonist. He certainly has a lot less of a quirky personality than his “other self” Watanuki. I’m not as well read in popular shounen manga as I should be, but I’d say he’s likely a far cry from the “normal” modern shounen protagonist. He’s more like an old-style, clean-cut type of hero - polite, determined, book-smart intelligent, sincere, focused, driven, unwaveringly loyal to his love interest and willing to do anything to protect her. Indeed, his main personality trait is debatably his determination to do anything to protect Sakura. Sakura, especially early on in the series, is also arguably rather featureless (especially when compared to her CCS incarnation), though she does have the excuse of having lost all of her memories (and thus her personality). She does regain some spunk as the series progresses and even strives to make herself more useful to her traveling companions instead of being a deadweight damsel in distress. Both Syaoran and Sakura DO change some throughout the course of the series (although it gets even more complicated when you factor in the clones) - it would be impossible for them to escape unchanged after going through the events of an epically mind-bending story. However, I would argue that what is most important to both sets of the couple remains unchanged at the end of the tale - namely, their relationship with each other. What is important to Watanuki, Syaoran’s “other self,” DOES change: at the beginning of the series he wishes to no longer see spirits, but the catalysts of his various relationships change his wish to the point that he rejects the granting of this wish and instead chooses to retain his ability and make use of it as he waits in the shop to see Yuuko once more.
More relevant to Tsubasa, Syaoran and Sakura’s fellow protagonists, Fai and Kurogane, change drastically throughout the course of their story. It seems to be an interesting reversal of what I would deem conventional storytelling - usually the main protagonist’s dynamic change is measured against the more stable and static minor protagonists, but in this tale the side protagonists are the ones whose considerable change is contrasted with the main character’s relative stability (Syaoran does mature somewhat and grow in his abilities, but as I stated above, what is most important to him does not change). Through their interactions with Syaoran, Sakura, and, most important of all, each other, Fai and Kurogane undergo some fascinating parallel-yet-contrasting character development. I can’t think of another literary example of opposite characters that alter each other’s destiny that is executed in such a captivating manner. These characters are extreme foils of each other, even down to their backstories and their status as pawns in the tremendously complex plot games being played by powerful magicians mostly behind the scenes. Kurogane is a blunt, straightforward swordsman who actively fights to achieve his goals, who wishes to return home, who has been tasked with finding the meaning of true strength by the princess who sent him (unwillingly) on this journey, and whose most important item was the sword that symbolized his strength and was a link to his past as well as a bond with his princess. Fai, in contrast, is a seemingly cheerful but highly secretive magician (one who refuses to use magic even if his life is in danger) who passively goes with the flow, who wishes to run away from his home, who has been cursed and who believes himself to be cursed, who tries not to care about others and to not be cared about by others in return because of these curses, and whose most important item was the magical markings placed on his back to restrain his magical abilities. Over the course of their journey, Kurogane gradually begins to see through Fai’s teasing and his masks, Fai comes to realize that his fellow travelers care about him, and both of them grow to care deeply for the children in their care. Kurogane goes from being a person for whom strength was of the upmost importance to sacrificing strength in the form of his blood and his left arm to save Fai; someone who once had no problem in taking a life that threatened him saved someone who tried to kill him, having learned empathy in a way that echoes back to what his parents tried to teach him when he was a child. (The high price of “protecting” someone is one of the more interesting themes that is explored in this series - in so many stories, the big strong man promises to protect the frail girl, but the consequences and responsibilities that protecting entails are not always so realistically addressed. Both Kurogane and Syaoran have to live with the rather costly responsibilities of protecting another’s life.) Through Kurogane’s sacrifices, Fai is able to move on from his rather horrific past (I don’t think I’ve seen a more angst-ridden past in anything outside of books about the Holocaust) and learn to value his own life. (I also find the theme of sacrifice for others as explored in both Tsubasa and xxxHOLiC interesting, as both feature instances where one character has sacrificed for another in which the character who had been sacrificed for was not at all pleased with the character who had made the sacrifice for him. The Jorogumo’s lines to Watanuki are especially memorable, as typically in stories sacrifice for others is seen as noble and a good thing regardless of the hurt it causes others who worry about the one who did the sacrificing.) At the end of Tsubasa, what was most important to Kurogane and Fai has changed because of their journey and their interactions with each other (and, to a lesser extent, with others) - Kurogane casts aside his sword at one point to rescue Fai, and Fai embraces his magical powers once he regains them and utilizes them even though he no longer has the restraining markings. Their changing desires and personalities provide a captivating contrast with Syaoran’s steadfastness.
On a completely different (yet thematically related) note, after the recommendations of many, I finally read Fullmetal Alchemist. I yet again caved into my desire to finish the story and read the rest of it online after I had finished all of the volumes that my local library had (volumes 1-23 all on the shelf at the same time with none missing - it was obviously hitsuzen that I read this series). It was definitely an enjoyable series, and I’m sure that I’ll reread it someday and perhaps get around to analyzing it properly, but I found some interesting parallels between FMA and Tsubasa/xxxHOLiC that intrigued me. Equivalent exchange is a big deal in both series, both in alchemy and in Yuuko’s system of granting wishes. The fact that the dead can’t be brought back to life is also a major theme. In FMA, the protagonists (as well as select others throughout the series) are the ones who attempt to bring the dead back to life, and they pay a horrific price for their endeavor. In Tsubasa, the villain is the one attempting to bring someone who has died back to life, and he’s willing to break space, time, and reason to achieve his wish. Speaking of villains, the main antagonist of both series is a created being, and both villains were created from individuals who work mostly behind the scenes to thwart said villain. (Hohenheim’s blood was used to create the homunculus in a flask, and Hohenheim plots for centuries to subvert the homunculus’s plan. Fei-Wang Reed was, presumably, accidentally created by Clow Reed when he had a fleeting wish that Yuuko open her eyes once more. [I assume that he was a created being because the way he shattered/dissolved when killed was the same as the clones, who were also created beings.] Clow, though dead at the start of the series, along with Yuuko, set up quite a lot of the plot in an attempt to stop Fei-Wang Reed.) Both villains have extremely strong desires and don’t care how many deaths are caused by their pursuit of their wish. Even though the “creators” of both villains have done a lot of the background work in ensuring the villains’ downfall, ultimately the protagonists of both series are the ones who deal the finishing blow.
The price of wishes and desires is also thematically explored in both series in that both protagonists pay heavy prices as a result of their wishes. Syaoran disrupts space and time when he wishes to save Sakura and is imprisoned by Fei-Wang Reed; Ed and Al lose their bodies (Al’s entire body, Ed’s arm and leg) in their attempt to bring their mother back to life. They wish to regain their bodies through use of the philosopher’s stone, but once they learn the price of making the stone (it requires living human beings), they nearly give up on their wish before becoming determined to find another way to achieve their goal. Sakura likewise questions her original wish of regaining her memory feathers when she sees how much pain her desires are causing everyone around her, although she ultimately decides that she is willing to pay for her sins if she can recover clone!Syaoran’s heart. Syaoran and Watanuki both have to pay a heavy price (the former to continuously travel from world to world, the latter to permanently remain in the shop) to continue existing thanks to Syaoran’s wish to turn back time, which created Watanuki and destabilized both their existences and the space-time continuum. (Or something.) Both series deal with the pain of conflicting desires and what happens when the strong desires of two or more individuals come into conflict with each other, and some of these lessons are paralleled or delivered through the adult co-protagonists, most of whom have dark backstories and who serve as aids and foils to the younger protagonists. This theme, along with the many other philosophical themes that entwine throughout the stories in these series, is part of what makes them so fascinating to ponder and explore.