Sakura and Syaoran live peaceful lives in the desert country of Clow. Despite the King's disapproval of the budding romance between the princess and her archeologist friend, their days remain blissful if not a little dull. But that soon changes when Sakura appears in front of Syaoran in a trance with wings on her back. When the wings dissolve into feathers and Sakura loses consciousness, Syaoran is spurred to action.
Syaoran soon learns that he must collect Sakura's feathers, which have been scattered across many different realms, in order to protect her life. After making a deal with the Dimensional Witch Yuuko Ichihara, Syaoran teams up with Mokona Modoki, a creature who has the power to traverse realms. Also accompanying him on this journey are Fai D. Flourite, a carefree man fleeing persecution in his home world, and Kurogane, a swordsman forced to travel to refine his strength and character. Together, the bizarre alliance works to reclaim Sakura's feathers—no matter how impossible it seems to find them all.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Nenhum episódio encontrado.
Comentários
George47
I'll try to get straight to the point with this review. Before watching this series I had never read the manga nor had I ever seen anything about it beyond the wiki page for the show. I thought it looked decent so I began watching. The anime had a very promising first episode and the characters seems well thought out and reasonably likable. I found it entertaining and continued onward. It goes all downhill from there. The plot starts out strong and then begins failing very quickly. There is a massive amount of what I would claim is filler and you reallycannot see much progression at all in the story throughout the entire 1st and 2nd series. (I just found out that the third was canceled >_<)
Basically you could skip episodes 10-47 ish and still know whats going on. The part that really got to me was how often they would play a song while slowly moving frames across the screen to take up time during an episode. I know what the characters faces look like and I don't need to see close ups of them doing nothing for 10 minutes every episode. They never even bothered to come up with new songs, just replayed them.
If you can sit through 52 episodes of sameness and you enjoy that feel free to watch. I have nothing against the characters or the idea behind the show. It just seems to me that they never went anywhere with it. Maybe the manga is better, I wouldn't know. Hope this review is helpful and not seen as a hate thread.
VK11
Tsubasa RESERVoir Chronicle (TRC) - the anime - showed a lot of promise from its very first episode. However, because of the fact that TRC is aired during the children\'s hour in Japan, which limits exactly the kind of content they are allowed to put into this anime, as a result, have disappointed many viewers thinking they would be witnessing a story that was close to what was written in the manga by CLAMP. However, despite all of that, Tsubasa Chronicle still shapes up to be a relatively enjoying series, if you can get through a couple of the more slower arcs andhorrendous fillers.
First of, in case you did not know, CLAMP decided to \"recycle\" a lot of its characters from Card Captor Sakura and other anime in this show. In essence, you will see a ton of familiar faces, but that\'s all they are - faces. For the most part they have completely different personalities and histories. I don\'t know if that\'s because they ran out of ideas for completely new characters or not, but that\'s just the way it is. But don\'t get me wrong, it\'s definitely not a bad thing.
The animation, as usual from CLAMP, is up to par with today\'s standards and what today\'s viewers expect from an anime. It\'s very crisp and clean and very colorful. The relationship between Sakura and Syaoran is something you could shed a tear witnessing the trials they go through, but once again, the slowness of it all prevents a continuous enjoyment of that.
Yuki Kaijura has once again put together a very beautiful soundtrack to go along with this anime. From the very first time the piece named \"A song of storm and fire\" is played with the anime, that alone will urge you to keep watching this anime. However, this anime does progress extremely slowly at times, especially after the first arc and the fillers (you wouldn\'t think there would be fillers in a 26-episode season, but there are) are extremely boring, possibly with the exception of one or two filler arcs.
Even with all of that, its the animation and music that keeps Tsubasa RESERVoir Chronicles - the anime - alive and what keeps its viewers, in my mind anyway. The story has the potential (well, it does if you read the manga) to be amazing, but the fillers and slow progress prevent it from doing so. If you want to know what happens, pick up the manga and start reading it. You won\'t be disappointed. The anime is something you have to be patient with.
iamjoe
I will be firm in saying that nobody, NOT ONE OF YOU would have given this anime the time of day if it hadn't recycled characters from better anime. CLAMP, in a move of sweeping lack of creativity, decided to make another franchise by reusing their old characters. I gotta say, smart move, CLAMP--your cash cow is ready to be chopped up and sold. And this is what Tsubasa Chronicle is: a sell-out. The story is bland and boring. Dimension-travellers bound together for whatever reasons, but you know, viewers won't care because they get to see Sakura and Shaoran or whatever his name is gogaga over one another once again and two yaoi-fodder guys vacillate between passion and disgust of one another.
The art was mediocre. It wasn't good, wasn't bad. Nothing special. Like the sound.
I cannot give the characters a good rating because they aren't characters. They are just themselves from the old anime transported to a new one to serve a purpose. They aren't developed, they aren't deep, it isn't good.
I was yawning and scratching a lot while watching this--that can't be good.
Overall, this is unfabulous crap. Don't watch it. Unless you're a CLAMP fan and you won't listen to me.
Caleb_Marvell
"For all my life... I've wanted strength. I didn't want those things precious to me to be taken away from me anymore. But, to have strength means to invite disaster to come to you. And strength alone can't really protect you." Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles... took me a while to get into it. I don't really know why, but I feel like it might have just been because of the slow start, but it also might have been because of the slightly cliché story. However, once I started paying more attention, it got more interesting with every episode. The story unfolded a little more, the characters gotmore lovable, and the fight scenes got a lot better. So, without further ado, let's get this review started, shall we?
As I previously stated, the anime had a bit of a slow start, and the story was a bit of a cliché. It's about a boy and a girl. The boy being a villager, the girl being a princess. Both have been best friends since they were children. One day, the princess and the boy spend the day together, the princess having something supposedly important to tell the boy, but is not able to. That night, an unknown magic force calls the princess, and a ritual is performed. However, the boy saves her before the ritual is completed, but she looses every single one of her memories. The kingdom's priest then teleports the two of them to the Dimensional Witch, where they are also greeted by two others meeting with her, one a swordsman, and the other a mage. The Witch then tells the boy that in order to help the princess regain her memories, they must go dimension hopping, but at a price. In order to have the power to do that, the boy must give up all of the princess' memories of him. Even if they recover all of her memories, she will never remember him. He agrees, and the story is about the princess, the boy, the swordsman, and the mage as they all travel together, looking for her memories. As they go dimension hopping, they run into trouble nearly every world they visit, and help out the people of that world, involving overthrowing evil rulers, stopping a gang war, and fighting demons. Like I said, the whole "Girl loosing her memory" is a bit of a cliché, but their journeys together make it a lot better.
I liked the artwork a lot. The anime was made by Bee Train, the studio behind Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~, Murder Princess, and the .//hack series. The artwork in Tsubasa reminded me of all of the other animes that Bee Train made, so it felt familiar to me. For those of you who have watched those other series as well, if you enjoyed them then you're going to be satisfied with the artwork of Tsubasa.
I own both seasons of Tsubasa on DVD, so I own the English Dub. That means I have not seen the Sub version yet, but I thought it was fine. I liked Vic Mignogna as Fai, he was probably my favorite character. I also liked Monica Rial as Sakura, but the only problem I had with her was her singing. It must have sounded better in Japanese, but I didn't like Sakura's singing voice in the English version. Jason Liebrecht played Syaoran, and I enjoyed listening to his voice, as well as Christopher Sabat as Kurogane. Overall an interesting choice for the dub cast, but it could have been better in my opinion.
Alright, now it's down to the characters. To start off, we have Syaoran, the male protagonist of Tsubasa. He's calm, collected, a really good kicker evidently, and he's willing to risk it all in order to save Sakura. Sakura is the main female protagonist, and she is kind and caring to everyone. She's the kind of girl who would be totally worth saving, unlike a few other main female protagonists in certain animes... next is Fai. Fai was, in a word, awesome. He's funny, he's smart, and he's asking for a deathwish by calling Kurogane nicknames like "Kuro-poo". Speaking of Kuro-poo, he was my second favorite character in Tsubasa, just because he was so crazy angry all the time, and it makes for some pretty hilarious moments. Now, for the one character that I loath... Mokona. It probably has something to do with all of the annoying animal sidekicks in anime, but Mokona was probably the most annoying of all of them. It's the high pitched voice that makes me the most angry, but it's also how obnoxiously cute it is. Other than Mokona, I liked all of the characters.
I liked this anime a lot. If it were on TV, I'd watch it every week once a new episode airs. I liked it, but the slow start kind of gave me the wrong impression of it at the start, but if you want to understand the story, it's required of you to watch it from episode 1. After a few episodes though, it gets better, trust me. For those of you who enjoy animes with mostly enjoyable characters and good fight scenes, you'd enjoy Tsubasa. If you can't stand slow starts and annoying animal sidekicks, then steer clear. But overall, I'm liking this series so far. Now, if you'll excuse me, time to start watching Season 2.
Neko-Hoshishima
Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE is one of my favorite manga series. I was happy to discover that it had been made into an anime series, and after I stopped watching it after the first 16 episodes, I decided to pick it up again. I was only planning on finishing the first season, and after making my way through the last 10 episodes I needed to watch, I've definitely been dissuaded from watching the second season and just sticking with the manga, which I will be referencing throughout this review. (No spoilers though!) Story: The story is drawn out, and the series is riddled with fillers and randomthings that weren't true to the original manga. When it was true to the manga, it was plagued by slow pacing. Things were added that were just there to stretch out the episodes to the allotted 25 minutes, such as long pauses in conversations, flashbacks, and unnecessary, lifeless panning shots. The story itself is broken into arcs: as the main characters travel, each world they visit is its own arc, which is more or less self-contained. They're not too complex, and they all follow the same basic formula: the group lands in a world, a feather is somewhere in the world they landed in, some bad guys want the feather for themselves, fight the bad guys, move on to the next world, rinse and repeat. This persists until the end of the season, but not necessarily by fault of pacing - the manga followed the same formula up until the Tokyo arc, so it's hardly surprising that the anime followed suit.
Art/Animation: The animation itself is very... lacking. Tsubasa is a beautifully drawn manga, but the anime... not so much. The proportions, especially the facial proportions in particular, are wonky. Bee Train did not do a very good job of translating CLAMP's style of manga into animation. As far as the actual movement... there isn't much of it, and when there is it's still very stiff. Scenes that should've been dynamic weren't dynamic at all. In a word, it's underwhelming. Aside from the wonky proportions and the not-so-stellar animation, the character designs are solid. I am also fond of the color choices: generally bright, colorful, and pleasing to the eye.
Sound: The sound is the thing about this anime that really shines. The opening is good and the ending, sung by Maaya Sakamoto, is beautiful. The background music was penned by Kajiura Yuki, and you can't go wrong with her; her music gives the series a feeling of mysticism and magic. Overall, the soundtrack is absolutely stellar. As for the voices, after reading the manga for so long, hearing the characters speak out loud was a bit jarring, but I got used to it. Yui Makino in particular does a great job as Sakura, and is an excellent spiritual successor to Sakura Tange (who voiced Sakura in the original Cardcaptor Sakura series and was not working as a voice actress at the time Tsubasa was animated). I also enjoyed Tetsu Inada as Kurogane and Daisuke Namikawa as Fai. I only watched it in Japanese so I can't speak for the English dub.
Character: Call me a CLAMP fangirl, but I love it when they crossover their characters. That said, a majority of Tsubasa's character are, indeed, not original to the series. However, individually, they vary from world to world, so despite the bad impression that the phrase "recycled characters" leaves, there is diversity. However, with different sets of characters in each world, not much depth is given to the supporting cast. On the other hand, the main characters are well-written for what they were given. The characters' backstories - particularly Kurogane's and Fai's - were never animated, so their motivations and subtleties in characterization might be a bit unclear. But for what it was, it was done well. The main cast is diverse in personality and their dynamic is very good - they work well together both as comrades and as a makeshift family. One thing that did suffer, however, is the relationship between two particular characters (who I will not name so as not to spoil). As the series goes on, it appears that the writers decided to disregard all subtleties regarding one character's romantic feelings for another character. It really takes away from their development and it gives the impression that the writers just wanted to rush it and appease the viewers with a romantic relationship rather than have it develop more slowly (and much more satisfyingly) as it did in the manga.
Enjoyment: Lots of filler material makes this series feel very boring and stretched out. Like I said before, when two characters are having a conversation, it seems like they're going as slow as possible just to waste time. There are long pauses in between statements, even right in the middle of sentences! It made some parts very annoying to watch, and had me thinking, "When will this be over?" The pacing issues are a huge detriment to this series. On top of that, the fillers aren't even that interesting to watch. I was disappointed to find out that the last episode of this season is also a filler! I did, however, enjoy the Outo arc in particular. I still got some entertainment value out of watching the characters I love, but the pacing and filler dragged down my enjoyment of the show by a lot.
Overall: The only things really holding this series up are the characters and the music. Everything else about it, especially the pacing and filler, is painful. CLAMP themselves disowned this adaptation of their manga. But if you're willing to tolerate the constant filler, I say go for it. However, if you'd rather have your share of Tsubasa without all the filler, I recommend heading over to your local bookstore.
Nekokitsune
Remember the show ‘Cardcaptors Sakura’? You remember… The little Girl Sakura who has to find all the Clow cards! And her rival, Chinese boy Syaoran Li? Well, guess who’s back in this anime?! Tsubasa (Which means ‘Wings’) is CLAMP’s ultimate cross-over manga! Every single manga they’ve ever written is in this series! In this story, our little Sakura isn’t so little anymore, now a teen – and quite a rebel princess at times, she goes off to visit her childhood friend, Syaoran, a young archaeologist, at the Clow Ruins to finally proclaim her feelings for him. Unfortunately, Fate has a different plan for the two of them. Suddenly,Sakura loses her memory in the form of beautiful feathers and Syaoran vows to find them all.
Sorry to say that these feathers won’t be easy to find. They lie in different worlds, where people who find them first will either gain the feather’s great power for good… or for evil.
And so, Syaoran makes a pact with a space-time witch in order to gain the ability to travel through worlds – For a heavy price.
Gaining allies; one unwilling to return to his own world, the other who can’t wait to return to his, the group journey through many different worlds to find the missing feathers.
But, unknown to them… there’s a greater darkness that follows their every footstep along the way…
If you’re into action-packed stories, or ones full of romance, promise, hope, angst, comedy, or any genre at all, really… Tsubasa is definitely for you! You’ll be drawn to the characters immediately and absolutely adore little Mokona!
ShadowBlazer3000
So after reading through the manga, getting impatient waiting for the dub, I watched the series on Youtube. And I'm duly impressed. I had high expectations of this series, and so I when I heard about it I was skeptical (as my deep dark fantasy desire was to personally make this show my self) Of course being a fan-boy to Koichi Mashimo and and Yuki Kajiura It boosted my confidence more. The plot is well adapted. Anime has the double edge sword when it comes to adaptation, either it's a very very loyal adaption nearly 100% in which case there is no longer a point toread the manga, or it's so different that you wonder, did the writers just read the summary on the back of the book? But this is adapted in both differently while playing true to the Manga. The occasional sub-plots provide for some dramatic moments. Such as the plot of Chu'Nyan's (manga spelling) reunitment with her mother (I must admit I was crying during that point) and well other moments that proved to be not useless. Sub plots are tricky, you can milk them too much if you are not careful. Fortunately the play these out nicely. There aren't too many and they aren't entirely pointless. They provide for good character developments and expand the quest with out making it far too easy on the characters.
I'd have to say, at first I read some criticism about Kajiura's music score. But I have to say this is one of her finest yet. She has some very powerful, unique, and interesting melodies. Especially the opening piece. The opening scene is so powerful with visuals, and the music choice. I don't know Yuki to work a lot with bigger instrumental styles, but I do hear a lot. She seems to have a lot more orchestral than she does songs. Not like her usual motif. I'm impressed, very impressed. I love the opening theme. While this wasn't a Kajiura composition (Also unusual for a Mashimo-Kajiura work) It's an awesome theme.
Now many might complain about the long limbs. Frnakley I don't care. It's the same way in the manga, as it is in the Anime. As long as the Animation doesn't look like paper cut outs, I don't have any complaints. I think BEE TRAIN was actually trying to replicate the style seen in the manga which they didn't need to do but they went out of their way to do it. Minako Shiba has done fantastic with her character designers and the BEE TRAIN Staff shine the anime.
One of the biggest flaws is the constant flash back usage of previous episodes. I find my self fast forwarding through the episode as it slowly recaps what happened. And in these flash backs, they have real continuity problems. Unfortunately they get a little carried away with the flashbacks. It's very clear Mashimo doesn't fear a slow paced plot. Which has it's ups and downs.
Great acting from the Japanese cast. Particularly Yui Makino as Sakura. As for the U.S. cast I feel Monica Rial was not the best choice. She simply was not for this role, she's a good actress but this was just not the role I could see her in. Other than that the English cast is an all star knock out. Though I would have had some preferences for other characters. They do their best and that's all we can ask for right? I felt Vic and Sabat were fantastic choices for Fay and Kurogane, Savage not as much for Mokona.
I say see this series. If you are a CCS fan. Manga Fan, see this Anime.
klemon_qhap
Seeing as I haven't read the manga for this show (or any manga for that matter) I won't be referring or comparing these two (as I hear that the manga is "way" better than the show). Story: To me the story didn't seem to be very great from the start. Basically in the first episode everything was put together and it felt rushed and was a very lazy way to introduce the characters and plot. Then after I watched further into the show I got even more disappointed as I found out that the style of Tsubasa was just a bunch of mini stories making up theshow that didn't really develop the initial story. However, I did like how Tsubasa would come up with different ideas of the mini stories making it somewhat interesting to see what would happen next, except then I kept finding myself getting annoyed by the fact that none were very good and lacked interest.
Animation:
Well once again I still find that art/animation isn't very hard to accomplish with today's standards. Like most animes the animation was pretty much the same as any other anime. The characters were well drawn and the backgrounds were up to detail. There was one point where I felt I was watching an anime from the 90's because of the poorly drawn facial expressions and extras, but everything else felt normal as normal gets.
Sound:
This may be a little biased, but the sound was very corny at times. I know they were trying to be dramatic (or maybe romantic) by playing slow music during some of the episodes and it would have been good if they didn't do it for 5 times. After hearing it over and over again it became (to me at least) a joke. Like: "Oh god, now there doing a music montage and getting 10 different close-ups of everyones face." They could have done with a little variety of background music also, seeing as they were visiting different worlds that could do with more than just the same tune. As for theme songs I thought they were good and helped set the mood of the story.
Character:
Usually when I watch an anime there's always one character whom I wish would simply die and get out of the picture. In this show, although it was close at times, there wasn't really any characters I hated. When I first began to watch this show I already knew what the roles and personalities of all the main characters would most likely be and I was dead on for all of them except Sakura. I don't know if that is a positive to know what the characters would be like because then I easily predicted (and they were all so predictable) what each character would do and got bored of seeing the same thing happen. Predictability is no problem if the characters themselves are interesting which I found most to be. Also as a side note there were no supporting characters. For example if you see a new character and he/she leaves the picture then there outta there! FOR GOOD =)
Enjoyment:
I guess I could say this show had a bad start for me and if I would have only watched they first half then I would probably give enjoyment a 3. But then after a while I started to enjoy some of the episodes and thought that overall it was an ok if not good show to watch. Maybe its just me but, this show is too soft (this is coming from someone who likes gorey animes). Not great but not bad so I give it a 7. (6 to me is where I begin start to hating)
Mizilla
I enjoyed the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle manga immensely so when I found the anime I was very excited. But after the first few episodes I realized some major problems with the series. My two main issues being that they recap on the story far too often and the music doesn't fit the mood sometimes. And then the very last episode of the season ended with Sakura wishing for people who had died to return which goes against the whole theme of the manga. Overall I enjoyed this but I felt very frustrated while watching it at times.
Johnny_FBI
As Vladimir Putin has once said, "I'll be brief". I stumbled upon this anime after watching "Chobits". I was quite familiar with CLAMP and some of their works, so I decided to fill this particular gap in my aсquaintance with this series. People often say "No regrets", but I DO regret watching Tsubasa Chronicles. Why? Well, let me tell you. First - the story is your basic and "favorite" GONNA CATCH 'EM ALL!!11 (sad smiley) type of stories. Our heroes travel through different worlds trying to find Sakura-hime's feathers in order to get her memories and personality back. The premise is kinda promising, but the execution is very poor- the worlds are unimaginitive, plain and boring as cows. Or sheep (they're actually quite funny and cute, so I'll stick with cows). There was one TV-show called "Sliders" (sadly with living human beings), which had a similair premise with much better execution. In other words, the idea is not so unoriginal, but it could have been done better.
A few words about art & sound. I think the animators' salary was something about a bowl of rice, because graphics in this show are very dull and greyish. No bright colors, no decent animation, the show looks very cheap. Hell, I've seen some hentai drawn better than that!
Sound is little better, but it's still just average. The same musical tracks are repeated over and over, even when they don't fit the scene at all. Hey, but who cares? The animator guy ate the last bowl of rice, so our composer will have to work for an "arigatou".
One thing that made me hate this show is the characters. Yeah, Kurogane and Fai are nice fellows, but Syaoran and especially Sakura made my dinner go out of my mouth every time I saw them on screen. Syaoran is one of the most dull and uninspired shounen heroes of all the time. I think he has no personality, just this blind and exaggerated loyalty towards Sakura, who says nothing but "SYAORAN-KUN!" ALL THE TIME. Hell, in one episode she shouted it for about 9 times, on some occasions - FOR NO REASON. Yep, that's all she does in this show - being a helpless and a mentally challenged damsel in distress. It's not quite and makes you want to protect her, it's simply pathetic.
The story feels like it should've been made in 12 episodes, the plot moves sooo slow and it's too predictable. There's a glimpse of an intrigue in the last story arc, but it is resolved undescribably silly.
Just like the whole show - it's not fun, it's not original, it's not curious. It's just silly.
And boring, as a result.
Joe_Devaney
Note: This will be a review of both seasons, plus the OVAs. Overview: Due to the fact that I never watched or read "Cardcaptor Sakura" (apart from a few episodes I watched when I was a kid), "Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle", also called "Tsubasa Chronicles", is the only real impression I have of Sakura and Syaoran, and for the most part, it's a pretty damn good one. Simply put, "Tsubasa Chronicles" is a massive crossovers of many works from the manga writing team CLAMP, including "xxxHolic" and "Chobits" (both of which I have watched and will be reviewing in the future). While there are plenty of flaws, Istill think it will appeal to anyone who's a fan of dimensional travel stories.
Story (7.5/10):
The story revolves around two childhood friends, an archaeologist named Syaoran and a princess named Sakura. While visiting Syaoran at a ruin, Sakura falls prey to a mysterious symbol, which scatters her memories across dimensions in the form of feathers. Falling into a catatonic state, Sakura will die if her feathers aren't recovered, so Syaoran seeks out the mysterious witch Yuuko, who has the ability to grant wishes in exchange for a price. Simultaneously, the mage Fai and swordsman Kurogane, both of whom come from different worlds from Syaoran, also seek out the witch. However, while all three men have different motivations, their fundamental goal is the same i.e. they all want to travel to different worlds, and so Yuuko sends all of them on a quest together through dimensions to find Sakura's feathers and save her life.
It quickly becomes clear that this isn't your average shonen. In order to go on their quest, Syaoran, Fai and Kurogane all have to give up something dear to them, with Syaoran giving up Sakura herself, or more specifically her memories of him. Therefore, you always have in the back of your mind that no matter how many of her memories Sakura regains, she will never remember Syaoran or the time they spent together, so they're pretty much forced to rebuild their relationship from scratch. Additionally, while the series starts off fairly light-hearted, it gets noticeably darker with every major arc. This applies not only to the tone of the show, but also the characters, with several of their personalities revealing themselves to be highly abnormal or even twisted. The OVAs take the cake, however, as they gather just about everything that defined the series up until then, and completely blow it up in the viewers' faces. The worlds the group visit are also very interesting and varied, with some of them even resulting in a temporary genre shift.
Unfortunately, the pacing will definitely put off some people. The first two arcs alone cover 11 episodes including the first, which is more of a prologue than anything else, meaning that in nearly half a season, the group have only acquired two feathers, of which there are many. Granted, most of the subsequent arcs are shorter, but even that's marred by all of the fillers, where the group will travel to a certain world and end up finding nothing. The OVAs have a faster pace, but sadly there are gaps between both them and the anime. The story as a whole just feels very disjointed, and ends up leaving much unresolved.
Art and Animation (8/10):
The anime's art definitely leaves something to be desired. The characters are all unnaturally thin, even the inhumanly strong Kurogane, to the point that they sometimes look more like stick figures than people. The animations can be pretty stiff as well, particularly during fight scenes. There are some nice effects here and there, but not enough to rise it above any more than average. Thankfully, the OVAs look a lot better, which likely has something to do with the animation studio being changed from Bee Train to Production I.G.
Sound & Dialogue (9/10):
If there is one reason to watch the series, the soundtrack is a big contender. The music has this hauntingly beautiful feel to it that really fits the series for reasons I can't even describe. Songs of particular note include the first season opening "Blaze", the Tokyo Revelations opening "Synchronicity" and the recurring song "A Song of Storm and Fire". The voice acting is great as well; Jason Liebrecht, Monica Rial, Vic Mignogna and Christopher Sabat deliver great performances as Syaoran, Sakura, Fai and Kurogane, respectively and the dub features a strong supporting cast as well, including Colleen Clinkenbeard in a major recurring role, namely Yuuko.
Characters (7.5/10):
As usual, I will start with the protagonist of the series, in this case Syaoran. The fact that he is willing to give up the time he spent with Sakura to save her shows right away what a kind and selfless person he is, since it shows her life is what's most important to him, and he will do whatever it takes to save it. However, for all his kindness and eternal determination, he can also be innocently insensitive- he has a bad habit of keeping things to himself out of fear that this will worry his companions, especially Sakura, not realizing that this only makes them worry even more. Flashbacks shows that he was like this even as a kid, to the point that he was more concerned about the bills his adopted father had to pay for treatment than his own injury, and he sometimes wonders if he really is the right person to save Sakura. This inferiority complex helps flesh out his personality, and also makes for some decent character development. On a lighter note, since he's an archaeologist, Syaoran has a great passion for artwork and ancient artifacts, to the point that whenever he finds such an object, he can't resist examining it, which made me smile more than once.
Next up is the girl herself, Sakura. Although she starts the journey unconscious as a result of having no memories, she wakes up after her first feather is recovered and she becomes an official member of the group. She is generally very reserved and quiet as a result of having little strength, but also incredibly kind-hearted, more so than anyone else in the group. To elaborate, even as an empty shell with none of her memories, merely meeting her was enough to convince a violent gang leader to give up his violent ways and hand over his territory to the opposing side, though that's when the series is at its most light-hearted. There are also a couple of times when she sacrifices a way to make her quest easier to help others, though much like Syaoran, there are times when her selflessness can end up backfiring. Additionally, on occasion she almost begins to remember Syaoran only to end up forgetting again as a result of Syaoran's payment, which can be quite heartbreaking as the two slowly start to bond again. Ultimately, despite not being much of a fighter, she manages to not be annoying in the slightest, and the kind of girl you would actually want to save and risk your life for, making her my favourite character.
There's also the other pair in the group, Fai and Kurogane, who are in many ways complete opposites of each other. Despite being a mage, Fai doesn't use magic very often, due to giving up a crest that keeps his magic from going out of control as payment for travel, though thankfully he compensates by being a very skilled hand-to-hand combatant. Kurogane, on the other hand, gives up his sword, which forces him to rely on whatever swords he finds during the group's journey. Despite always smiling, it's clear to Kurogane that Fai is hiding something and is nowhere as cheerful as he seems, which is hinted early on and throughout to be the result of something horrible happening in his past. Notably, while Kurogane seems more visibly affected by his past, being very jaded and sarcastic and never smiling, he doesn't allow it to drag him down and is focused on the present and future, and accuses Fai of being stuck in his past, which is ironic considering Kurogane's goal is to return to his own world while Fai's is to never return to his. While both are great characters in their own right, I found Fai to be the more fleshed-out and developed of the two, though ultimately I didn't like either of them as much as Sakura and Syaoran.
Rounding up the main group is Mokona, a mysterious creature given to the group by Yuuko who serves as their source of transport through dimensions. She provides much of the comic relief along with Fai, and the two often team up in teasing Kurogane. She can be a bit annoying at times, but I still found her likable. However, apart from the main five, Yuuko and Tomoyo (a princess that Kurogane is devoted to and the group meet copies of in other dimensions), there really isn't that many characters of note. Notably, while the group frequently meet different versions of people that they've met in previous worlds they visited, they tend to act the exact same regardless of what world they're from, which I find to be a bit of a waste as I've seen plenty of interdimensional stories where clones of people from different worlds act slightly differently depending on their upbringing or other circumstances.
Enjoyment (7.5/10):
As interesting and enjoyable as it is, "Tsubasa Chronicles"'s slow pace definitely works against it more often than not, as there were quite a few times where I found myself very bored, with a couple of arcs going on for a fair bit longer than I felt was necessary. The fight scenes are also far from the most exciting, which certainly isn't helped by the average animation. The OVAs do fix this problem to an extent, but they come at the cost of being a lot more depressing, and the sudden shift in tone may put off some people altogether.
Overall:
Despite its slow pace and disjointed, incomplete story, "Tsubasa Chronicles" is a likable, unique shonen anime, with deep, layered main characters, interesting and varied worlds and a beautiful musical score. I have however heard many times that the manga is better in nearly every way, which is a pity for me as a non-manga reader. That being said, I've always been someone who takes what he can get, and ultimately this is an anime I do not regret spending my time on.
Score:
7.5+8+9+7.5+7.5=39.5/50=7.9/10
fr0z3nshad3
Story (7) - Very slow pace, with lots of fillers. There was 1 or 2 interstings story arcs, but the rest is disapointing. I believe it´s not the story itself, since the manga doesnt seem to have that problem. Its how it was develloped in this series. As i said in the start, the story lost itself between many fillers, long long conversations explaining things that didnt make any sense to be explained, while other important things were left behind undevelloped. So, only a 7 in this aspect. Art (8-) - Nothing really special, however, some good appointments in terms of character design. The rest in justenough to be considered good.
Sound (10+) - For me, the best aspect in the whole series. I liked the op and ed, and background music is just amazing. It gives a lot of atmosphere and fits very well with this type of anime. Character voices were also pretty well made, and in general, sound fits very well with the rest.
It is certantly not because of sound that this anime disappointed me.
Character (8-) - I liked them, in terms of image and role in the story. Its quite a good creation, but as it came closer to the end, i noticed that they are not that well develloped, and the relations between them seemed a little bit messed up.
Still, this is good enough, although i think manga seems to be much better in this aspect (comparing with what i already saw from the manga).
Enjoyment (6-) - I dont even need to be an expert to notice the big number of fillers in this anime. It turned most of the episodes (with exception of 1/2 arcs) boring, sleepy, and not interesting at all. Many moments with lots of conversation/lack of action, some long pauses, and aspects/information with not sense at all, clearly used to fill in time in the series.
Well, not everything was bad. One of the beginning arcs, and the last one gave some interest to watch (that was quickly replaced by an poor, really poor last episode :s) , but its too few for an anime wich i had some expectations.
overall (7) - I dont even need to see all the manga to find out why this is not a good one. It disappointed me a lot.
With the exception of the music aspect, wich i give the credit because it was really good, the rest was far below my expectations.
The fillers, lack of action and lots of conversations....and who knows, probably after reading more from the manga i will find some more negative aspects about this one.
PlatinuMan
Tsubasa Chronicle is a shounen title based on the manga from female mangaka group CLAMP. It tells the tale of Syaoran and Princess Sakura, two young adults who live in the kingdom of Clow County. Syaroan is the adopted son of Fujitaka Kinomoto, an archaeologist who introduces Syaroan to the world of mining. One evening, the ruins where an archaeological expedition are taking place glow with a mysterious power. Syaroan investigates this and finds Sakura there in a hypnotic state. Her memories are soon scattered from her to different dimensions (or worlds) in the form of feathers. Additionally, strange soldiers with elongated claws soon appearin Clow County and go after Sakura and Syaroan. With the assistance of Yukito, the high priest, Syaroan and Sakura are transported to the location of the Dimensional Witch, Yuuko. There they obtain Mokona, a small white rabbit creature who can teleport between worlds, to aid them on their quest. Also joining them are two others who have been teleported to the Dimensional Witch – Fai, a magician who’s escaping his home country in fear of a king, and Kurogane, a swordsman who was transported against his will to the Dimensional Witch and who wishes to return to his home world.
Tsubasa Chronicle is an interesting anime on account that it features characters found in CLAMP’s other works. Sakura and Syaoran, for example, are main characters in CLAMP’s famous manga Cardcaptor Sakura. The characters aren’t necessarily “reused”, as they have different backstories from their other material, but their personalities are roughly the same. As of this review, I am not familiar with the entirety of CLAMP’s character lineup, so a few cameo appearances may have gone over my head (such as Mokona’s excited reaction to knowing who the Amen’osa are in Episode 11). That said, Tsubasa Chronicle isn’t, to my knowledge, a sequel of any show nor depends on previous manga knowledge to watch, so they serve more as fan-service than something crucial to understanding the show.
CLAMP’s idea for the show is another point of interest. The concept of jumping between worlds has lots of opportunities to let creativity fly. Though I won’t say that wasn’t met (since this is really relative to whoever is viewing the anime), it left me feeling more disappointed than amazed. I would like to say the problem stems from CLAMP being overly ambitious in their pursuit, having a lot of ideas but not really knowing how to execute them. As a result, it left me trying to find ways to generate hype and excitement instead of it naturally coming from watching the anime.
Some of these problems lie mainly with the characters. Fai is running away from his home world, but it is really unclear why outside of that the king wants to get him. The king is shown trapped in some crystal at the beginning of the anime, but how he got there and what else is going on in Fai’s world is a mystery. Fai could be a traitor or maybe someone wrongly accused of something, but after 26 episodes, it still remains unknown. Despite Fai being known as a magician, he doesn’t use any magic in this series. This isn’t because he lost it, but more to the fact that with his “tattoo” gone, he refuses to use it. As the episodes progress, it seems Fai is more in place to be the “yang” to Kurogane’s “yin” – a balance in dynamics more so than an actual character. Kurogane is a more explicit example – in a flashback, it is revealed that he has a curse upon him by the princess of his land. Due to Kurogane’s violent nature, this curse’s effect is that Kurogane gets weaker with every person he kills. This is an idea that can be explored as a way of Kurogane learning about inner strength as opposed to just outer strength. Despite this, these opportunities are passed by – not once does Kurogane kill someone in this series. Considering his alarming backstory (killing countless people just to prove he was the strongest in the land), the fact that he’s so reserved in the present is a rather sudden shift. To me, it would be more effective to see the results in action (such as Kurogane losing against opponents we know he could defeat) rather than have a constant fear of what the consequences would look like.
Tsubasa Chronicle also has a heavy use of supernatural elements. These can add a bit of flavor to an anime but I’m not too fond of them here. The problems with the magical powers stem from how they’re used in each of the worlds. In the first world, animal-like familiars called “Kudan” assist the citizens in fights or day-to-day life. The main party also receives these Kudan, but because of the lack of depth they are given in this “arc”, they feel more like a way to resolve a plot or continue the story than the spiritual extension that they are supposed to represent. Consider Fai’s Kudan – it appears for one scene only and is only used to help Fai fly to the top of a building. That’s not the only time magical elements make a singular appearance. Supposedly, Mokona serves as a magical “translator” for the party so they can understand each other – when removed from the group, they cannot communicate with one another. This only happens in the first arc after Mokona is temporarily away from the party. Since the range of Mokona’s power is unknown, and also considering the party splits occasionally with no issues in translation, this feels like an issue that was forgotten and used to add tension to the one scene it was present in. You could argue that this feeling of false tension happens a lot in this series. During the tournament episode (which, according to what I’ve read, is a filler episode!), Fai warns the party that the fighters of this region can shoot lightning from their hands! Instead of feeling uneasy for our heroes, we see Kurogane brush off the attack like it was nothing and Syoaran dodging these wild shots with ease. No tension is truly felt because our characters don’t have to worry about the threat. It takes the idea of a tournament full of tough fighters and trivializes it. Perhaps Fai disqualifying himself and Kurogane for stepping out of the ring without an actual fight summarizes it best. These are but a few of the instances of Tsubasa Chronicle putting more stock in the fact that it has magic rather than knowing how to properly use it.
The animation studio for Tsubasa Chronicle is Bee Train. Though the backgrounds and scenery are pleasant as is, the animation quality is little more than mediocre. Long stills are used frequently in the first half and CLAMP’s style of drawing people (long limbed and thin people) can look rather goofy in some of the mid-shots or long shots. Even during key frames, there is still something to be desired. During most of the emotional or serious scenes, the characters display neutral or mute faces. This makes the characters look like they don’t care about what’s happening. There are times when some fluidity occurs in the animation, but it’s far and few between episodes. As for sound, the music is a bit sparse but it has a decent amount of variance. There’s a female chorale piece that wouldn’t sound too far out of place on the later Madoka Magica soundtrack, a sad string piece, and a moody jazz arrangement amongst one or two other tracks. They’re not bad, but the limitations are present and I fell out of favor with some of the music due to it being played too often (the female chorale piece in particular). Opening BLAZE is a mid-tempo pop rock piece with a piano hook while ending Loop by Sakamoto Maaya is an OK acoustic guitar ballad. The seiyuus don’t display a whole lot of emotion, which again hurts the heavier scenes and makes them fall flat. The way Makino Yui (seiyuu of Sakura) says “Syaoran-kun” sounds the same in almost every scene and at times even got a bit grating to hear.
Overall, I give Tsubasa Chronicle a 3.5/10. I was hoping to find more favor with this series as opposed to when I read Cardcaptor Sakura but it appears it was not the case. Perhaps those that are more familiar with the CLAMP-verse will enjoy it more than I did. Outside of that, I cannot recommend this title.
Do you like or dislike this anime? If you haven't watched it, are you encouraged to watch it or not? Leave a comment on my profile telling me what you think of the anime and/or my review.
Thanks for reading and have a blessed day!
YuyuiSakura
First I saw CCS, then I noticed a new anime called Tsubasa Chronicles. I thought it was a sequel, but it was a new story. And even when I first lay eyes on this anime, I fall for it ^-^ This anime is quite touching, even if it have action and fantasy in it. Two childhood friend who develop feeling for each other. Syaoran sacrifise the relationship between him and Sakura, so Sakura would live even if he knows that she wouldn't remember him.But as the story goes, Sakura once more fall for Syaoran, without the past memories of them.
I often tears whenever there's a flashback about them...
restivesilence
I went from Cardcaptor Sakura to this series, so overall I think I saw an improvement atleast in the maturity level. And though there were some things I found lacking I am going to continue to the second season. Likes: It is a really interesting story idea and I just love the chance to explore different worlds. The characters have some depth, unique traits and all set eachother apart nicely. Also, the interactions between characters is pretty amusing. Actually, the anime overall is pretty funny as well as being serious. It touches on issues that CC seemed to skirt around and actually makes you "feel" forthe characters.
Disklikes:
There was a lot of potential, but as the story moves on it almost seems to get less interesting. I saw this in CC as well. Each episode's format is repetitive and that started to cause me to lose interest. Also, sometimes the expressions on the characters faces drove me nuts... during certain scenes they would appear placid, when I felt there should have been more emotion.
Overall, this anime is something that I enjoyed when I was bored. It was not something that I obsessed over or had to watch constantly until I finished the season. Yet, it does have a unique story and is an easy watch. I probably will not ever rewatch it, but it is definitely something I don't regret watching.
Sky-e
The storyline is wonderful, the sound track is amazing and the characters all give an extra plot twist to the real storyline. Sadly, the anime doesn't really reach a point that it actually gets to the main storyline. Tsubasa Chronicle is a good show if you're a shoujo addicted fangirl, looking for some new anime. But it's certainly nothing good for the die hard CLAMP and TRC-manga fans. If you have no problems with reading the manga instead of watching the anime, I'm telling you, go read the manga. Animation is a disappointment. Art is also pretty screwed up. Even I, someone without eye foranimation quality could see it.
This anime = A no no.
The OVA = BIg yes.
The manga = to die for.
thekidd
i don't like writing long reviews because i feel like it's boring and would be a waste of your valuable time. Personally I think that this anime is one of the "greats". I've seen plenty of anime, and while the plot may not be extremly deep, it's still wicked interesting. Its basically about one dude who goes out looking for fragments ( feathers) of the girl he likes. now normally this plot would suck, but it doesnt. It's blended with tons of other stories and tons of other characters, and slowly you see how brilliant the story really is. I reccommend that youwatch this. the art may not be to what your used to in 2010, but it's good enough to look past. in fact you probably won't care because of the great characters and story, Ill admit that the anime has 1 achillies heel tho. and that's that it ENDS. well not ends but i should say doesn't get completed. it just kinda pulls you in, doesn't let go, and then kinda drop kicks you when you get to the OAV's.
well i guess this is kinda long, o well. So all in all, watch it. now. I'm promising you that your like it, and if you don't then your a ginger for you have no souls.I'm kidding, maybe.
DkClaude
There are 2 points-of-view when judging this Anime: -When you didn't read the manga. -When you already read the manga. These 2 points of view can lead to very different judgements, and that's why I'm gonna review using both of them. First one, is watching this anime without reading nothing from the manga. Here we go: Tsubasa is basically the story of Sakura, a princess who has a great power inside her, and her long-time childhood Friend Syaoran. After having her memores lost and spread around many different worlds, Syaoran goes in a quest the recover them all and save the princess, with the help of Fye and Kurogane,two other character that will have great importance in the plot.
The anime has almost no violence at all. Kinda like Dragon Ball Super: There are battles, minor injuries, but no blood.
Stuff like alchohol also don't make appearence.
The journey is fun to watch. The humor and the characters are really pleasurable to watch.
Is that kind of anime that you can prepare some coffee, sit on the chair and watch it just to enjoy the free time you got, you know?
It's kinda follows the same recipe until the end of the second season. No biggies here. When you finish the anime, you will probably be like:
"Ok, that was pretty good, but no ending. I wonder what happens after it."
And that's the moment You go and read the manga.... And everything changes.
Now, reading the manga, you will notice some different things here:
There are blood and violence in the manga (mainly in the later parts of it, wait until you get to the Tokyo Revelations arc), and also alchohol, for example.
And also, after an specific arc of the story, you will notice that the anime and the manga follow COMPLETE different plot-lines. And that's why I said that your opinion about the anime, changes deppending on if you read or not the manga.
That probably happened because the anime wanted to avoid the violence, and noticed it would be impossible at one point, so it decided to change it all, and that made the fans go really mad about it.
The thing is, that doesn't means that the anime is bad... it's just the the manga is actually better.
The manga has a really deeper plot and gets dark and a LOT interesting, while the anime keeps the bright and good mood all the time.
I watched the anime first, and really liked it. And I suggest you to watch it too.
If you wanna avoid disapointment, you can watch the anime and then, read the manga. Since it will only get better, instead of getting something good, then something worse.
ART: 10
I really love CLAMP art-style. It's highly niche, since there are people who hate it, and people who love it including myslef.
I find it beautiful and pleasing. It's unique and different from many other anime.
STORY: 7
The plot is fairly good. It is pretty simple, but still fun to watch it.
If you have already enjoyed the anime plot, the manga is a lot, and I mean a LOT more complex and deeper..
OVERALL: 7
I gonna resume the rest of the subjects here: it is good.
The characthers are attrative, unique and cool. The soundtrack is AMAZING, the songs are just epic. And the anime is pretty enjoyable and fun.
Final Thought: The anime is not bad as many says. I suggest you to give it a chance, because it IS good.
The only thing is that it gets completly smashed by the manga after you read it.
Don't worry with the "manga is better" thing, because taht doen't make the anime itself bad. It is still a good anime and you can still have fun watching it.
littlekitty441
I'd like to make this clear before I start. First of all, this review will be most helpful if you haven't read the manga. If you had, you might be a little disappointed in the anime. Second of all, to all of the haters, remember that this was originally intended to be a kids anime, not an teen-adult anime: meaning that sometimes it had to cut out some intense parts and dumb others down a bit. And I enjoyed it for what it was, not for what it could be. What really led me to give a 9 was because it was addicting. I hadn't watchedCCS or any other Clamp work. This was one of my first animes. Anyways, I first watched this when I was little(r) and I found it to be really enjoyable. This review will be for both seasons...soooo...let's go!
Story: Well there are a lot of interesting ideas out there. For example, strange monsters called Pokemon coming out of Poke-balls. Or ninjas that had cat whiskers (I'm looking at you Naruto). Some ideas were hits, others were misses. This idea was a hit for me. The story immediately drew me in, with two star-crossed lovers that had unfortunately fallen into some cruel fate. (Hituzen :) ) Cool idea, huh? The only thing that set the whole thing back was the pacing. The first episode--great. Then it dragged its feet for a bit, and then finally got to the meat of it all. The first 10 episodes were really hard to get through. However, it really got good towards the end, especially at Outo. That arc was honestly amazing. Though there were fillers, and the anime really differed from the manga, I really didn't care. I thought it was pretty interesting to see what Bee Train could come up with next. In the end, the story was great, except for the pacing that really killed it.
Art: After watching some more Clamp works, I really began to think: where did Tsubasa go wrong with the art? Ok, its better than a lot of other animes. But when Mokona (the magical bean bun of a creature) begins to change sizes, you start to wonder if some of these errors were just careless. For example, sometimes I just can't help staring at the screen because Fai looks so cute. But other times, I just can't help but slap the screen because they totally screwed up his face. However, the art was pretty decent, not as good as like Code Geass or Clannad, but good enough that I could tolerate it.
Sound: Oh yes. Ok, maybe they overuse some songs. AT LEAST THEY'RE GOOD SONGS! Yuki Kajiura, as usual, out-do's herself with A Song of Storm and Thunder and other various OST's, and Maaya Sakamota/Kinya Kotani are great OP/ED artists. I thought it was cool that Yui Makino even sang some stuff herself. Amazing music.
Character: OK, no spoilers here, but the character development was pretty good considering the circumstances. These first few arcs don't really allow a whole lot of development, but what did happen was pretty good. Most saw Fai's mystery behind his nonchalant facade, and Kurogane's steadfast qualities. You even get some foreshadowing for the next next season/OVA. Ok, maybe Sakura was a little Mary-Sue-ish, but I didn't really mind.
Enjoyment: Pssh, I was addicted to this anime when I was a kid. I stumbled on an AMV quite a while after and then got RE-addicted. This anime has this pull, even through all of its flaws. A kind of "let's see where this goes" kind of thing.
Appreciate this anime for what it was meant to be. This anime is an all time favorite (yes and I have watched other well-received animes like Clannad and Maid-sama) for me.
