X/1999 Vol 9-10

[meganbmoore]

People kept saying “there can be only one.” It made me think of Highlander.

So…uhm…somewhere in volume 9, I think the book crossed from “melodramatic, but pretty genuinely tragic and angsty” and into “so angsty it’s almost unintentionally funny.” I blame the endless spreads with feathers and clockwork gears. Pretty, but also a little on the pretentious side.

I finally got to the head hugging and screaming. It no doubt says concerning things about me that I’ve been anticipating that, despite being very fond of Kotori. (Actually, I think things are slightly less interesting with her gone.) It remains a fine moment of screaming romantic angst, but thanks to Tsubasa (for the angst) and Claymore (for the head hugging) it doesn’t have quite the “oomph” that it did when I first saw it in the anime.

Kotori’s wings and the scene where she says goodbye to Kakyo were as gorgeous as the dreamworld spreads in previous volumes, but the other dreamworld spreads weren’t as pretty. Did I mention that they started getting a bit pretentious at about that time?

And why did they let Kamui keep Kotori’s head after bandaging him up? (Not that I’m complaining about the angst there…) And for that matter, how did Kamui survive getting stabbed with so much glass?

Karen is still lurking around, sitting on tree branches and showing off her garters. I do love Karen. I love Sorata saying that hiding the sword in a fountain is silly almost as much. Though even better was Arashi facepalming in the background when Yuzuhira said the secret chamber looked like a super-robot launching bay.

And the flashbacks! Kusanagi and Yuzuhira bonding over Inuki was cute, but I suspect it will result in my being scandalized by Clamp’s age-inappropriate pairing tendencies again. And there was wee!Arashi! So cute!

Oh, and wee!Fuma picked up his mother’s head and licked her blood off his fingers. I’ll get to work on banishing that one from my head now.
 

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yes. When I was preparing to dive into Clamp earlier this year (after bingeing on Tsubasa and xxxHolic) I asked what they hadn't finished, and was surprised at how few there were. Chun-Hyang, sadly, I suspect was sales or something. Legal Drug, though I haven't read yet, I wonder if they just thought of a way to do it that they liked more, resulting in xxxHolic. One theory I've heard about X/1999 is that they just got tired of it. Since all their other series are shorter, I wonder if that's true. Which makes me even more worried about xxxHolic and Tsubasa, but they also have regularly changing casts and (in Tsubasa's case) worlds, so I hope that helps if that was the problem.

[barnabascousins.livejournal.com]

I think CLAMP had a falling out with Asuka. At the same time X "went on hiatus" CLAMP's other series running in Asuka, Gohou Drug, also ceased publication. (I was subscribed to Asuka at the time and greatly miffed by both of them disappearing).

Nekoi still loves GD though, she often laments on her personal board about not being able to draw the manga, and draws the characters often on CLAMP's oekaki (http://kasumitodo.altervista.org/downloadarea_site/mangaka_clamp_album.htm).

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize X stopped publication that relatively recently.

[barnabascousins.livejournal.com]

It was 2003. You're gonna hate where it stops.

GD ran for a few more issues but stopped shortly after X did.