Air Dates: April 9, 2005 – November 4, 2006
Episodes: 52
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Adventure
My Rating: **** (4:5 stars)
Last post i covered XXXHolic where is mentioned the crossover storyline with Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. He is followup to that! :c)
The main story arc starts after the soul of a girl named Sakura, who is the princess of the Kingdom of Clow, was taken in multiple other dimensions. This happened after a fight broke out when warriors from another dimension arrived through a portal into the Kingdom of Clow at a set of ancient ruins on the outskirts of town. Sakura was at the ruins with her childhood friend Syaoran who was helping to excavate them. During the fight Sakura and Syaoran tried to get away and ran deep into the ruins to an area that Syaoran hadn’t even really gone into. Somehow Sakura activated the ruins and it opened a portal to a dimension. During the activation her soul was separated from her body and turned into feathers that were dispersed out through other dimensions. After the happened she fell into a catatonic state leaving Syaoran devastated and willing to do anything to try and save her. He, along with the now catatonic Sakura, were transported to the Dimensional Witch in the XXXHolic dimension through the open portal. (In this anime she is referred to as the Dimensional Witch where in XXXHolic she is called Yukio.)
In the XXXHolic dimension they find one of Sakuras feathers. The Dimensional Witch explain to Syaoran what the true meaning of them are and shows him what to do with the feather (help her absorb it back into her body) which this one helps her to come out of the her catatonic state but with no memories or anything. Basically a shell of what she used to be. She tell him that they must travel through all the dimension to gather her feathers. Each feather has a bit of her memory and soul in it so when she absorbs it back in her body she will start to regain her memories and turn back into how she was before. Syaoran is given the shpeal about ‘if you make a deal me to help you recover the rest of the feathers, I in exchange I want something that is of equal value’. This cost is Sakuras memories of Syaoran. He is willing to do anything for her so he agrees knowing that Sakura will never know of their past and their relationship. The Dimensional Witch agrees to help Syaoran find the rest of feather and to help with this she assist with pulling two other people from two other dimensions into hers. The Dimensional Witch also helps by popping up from time to time throughout the anime to assist with issues in other dimension and creates the XXXHolic/Tsubasa crossovers.
First is Kurogane, a ninja from the world of Japan. Kurogane is the most powerful ninja/warrior in his world but was getting too cocky about it. The princess in his world, Tomoyo, sent him away to help him find his true strength, power and to knock him down a few notches. Of course Kurogane was pissed to all hell about this and made it very clear that he was not happy. Because he was not getting the hint the princess put a curse on him that if he was to kill someone he would lose part of his power and strength. When he makes it to the XXXHolic dimension he is forced to give up his sword in exchange for the use of the white Mokona Modoki which will help him and the others to pass from dimension to dimension. This is also how the Dimensional Witch is able to communicate to the group. Mokona is like a Skype enabled rabbit thing that they can see and talk to her and she can see and talk to them. (See XXXHolic to find out more about the Mokonas). Kurogane is reluctant at first to assist Syaoran and Sakura but soon realizes this is his only way back to his Japan and to the princess. Side note on this, I totally think that there was some serious love story between the two but they never really got into the whole thing. Only bits and pieces.
The next character to join the group was my fav, Fai D. Flowright! Fai, as he is called throughout the anime, is a powerful magician from the dimension Seresu. He unlike the others sent himself to the Dimensional Witch after he sealed away the king of Seresu. In exchange for the use of the Mokona he gives up the giant tattoo on his back that is the key to his powers. He still have some basic powers left but decides to not use them during his journey because of what happened in his dimension.
Together the four of the them along with Mokona are sent off to the first dimension to hunt down the feathers. They are given a warning along the way that other might also be after the feathers and not every world has one on it but it is there duty to try and find them. Throughout the anime they are sent from dimension to dimension looking for feathers and fighting off people and other sorcerers that are after the powers that Sakuras feathers contain. (There is yet another arc in the story where Fei-Wang Reed another powerful magician in another dimension is out to get Sakura and Syaoran and is putting up obstacles where he is can. This is one of the larger secondary arcs throughout the anime.) As the story progress the feather are found slowly but surely and Sakura starts to regain her memories minus Syaoran. This part was a bit odd since during each episode that she finds a feather they have a flashback moment to the memory it contains. If it was of her and Syaoran and she was talking with him, well it is now of her talking to herself or to the spot where he was. Craziness. The group gets closer also and begin to form a strong bond which helps them with each world that they travel too.
This is a great anime but it has a few drawbacks. One is that there are at time too many arcs going at once so the story line gets jumbled up. There are a TON of character in this that have recurring parts but there were too many to go into above. They all play a important part but again it goes back to too many arcs at once and it gets confusing. Next thing is that most of the worlds are entertaining and make great episodes. There are a few though that are so freakin boring that was surfing the net on my phone while the episode dragged on. The anime doesn’t cover the story as a whole so when you get to the end there are still some things that are not answered. From what I have heard/read, the manga goes into further detail. So I would almost say read the manga and not watch the anime or find where the anime left off in the manga and read from there. One of these days I will do that…
***There is a short movie that came out call Tsubasa: Reservoir Chroicle movie The Princess in the Birdcage Kingdom that was released on August 20, 2005 which is basically a 35min long movie. This was a ok movie but it really was just another episode that was few minutes longer than normal. There was of course some of the same crossover stuff with XXXHolic but nothing too special. This was also released on the same disk with the XXXHolic: A Midsummer Night’s Dream movie.
Anime With A Side Of Sarcasm! 