anime: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle: Season 1 (complete)

[meganbmoore]

You know, I’m tempted to say “wow, I forgot how bad early Tsubasa was” but actually, while early Tsubasa was rather slow and often annoying, it was also often funny, often by the pure quality of Clamp’s melodrama. In contrast, the anime takes itself way too seriously (complete with Epic Serious and Tragic music), and I kept going “how did I survive the early manga?” And then there’d be Yuuko or Kurogane or snarky!angsty!(warrior king!)Touya, and I’d remember. There should be more snarky!angsty!(warrior king!)Touya in the world. I’m just saying.

The anime also has a bad habit of emphasizing some of the most irritating things about the plot, like Sakura’s earlier lack of personality (but lessening the pertinence of it) or how Syaoran’s sacrifice is for something to be taken from Sakura. Yeah, thanks, anime. I’d managed to mostly repress that until you went at it with a sledgehammer. The season also ends just after the Oto arc, and so before things actually get good and interesting. (I don’t really start more than passively enjoying the series until a couple arcs later when Sakura starts really doing things and we get the first Super Epic Angsty Origin and then the angst and gothic shoujo crack just kinda explode.) Oh, wait, we get “ZOMG! Look at One Eyed Spoiler Boy!” I am rather fond of One Eyed Spoiler Boy. *pets him*

On the flipside, this my first time going through some of these story points since falling prey to Clamp’s evil marketing ways and reading other Clamp stuff, so I appreciate a lot of the crossovers and references more. early!Mokona is also actually rather cute in the anime, instead of horribly annoying like in the manga.

Comments

[starlady]

I think I gave up on this anime somewhere in the second season. The manga is infinitely better. And so pretty. I could never really get behind the character designs in the anime.

I think Mokona is less annoying in Japanese, or else I'm just strange, because I've never found Mokona annoying. Though I do think the black Mokona is more fun than the white one. On the other hand, I don't think it's the white Mokona's fault that the black one has more fun.

[meganbmoore]

Yes, the black Mokona is more fun than the white one, but the black one picks on Watanuki and hangs with yuuko, and the white one goes "Ping!" a lot and annoys Kurogane, so those decks really are stacked.

MANGASOPRETTY! Even if Clamp's action scenes tend to be woefully incomprehensible.

[starlady]

I've read almost every manga they've made, and I've finally learned to parse what's going on in the action scenes most of the time. Mostly. Reading the physical books helps, I think, at least for me.

Yup, those decks are stacked completely. Especially later on when Mokona and Doumeki become Drinking BFFs.

[meganbmoore]

I've read or attempted to read everything but the School Detectives stuff (I may eventually) and Kobato (which isn't out in the US yet). I can tell what's going on because i'm used to it now, but...

[starlady]

Hmm, I haven't read Rex, School Detectives, School Defenders, and Watashi no Sukina Hito. I gave up partway through Wish and RG Veda. I may try to track down RG Veda in English, though.

[umadoshi]

The TRC anime lost me when they completely lobotomized Arashi in the Hanshin arc. :/