Well, I think that with the way this has turned out, I think that there’s a good chance for more OVAs of Tsubasa Chronicle to appear. I’m not going to write a full fledged review about this series, because I feel that my own bias is just too big, especially with the second episode. In any case, this episode was pretty good, even though it was much quieter than the last one.

In the end, my big gripe with Tokyo Revelation is that a lot of the character-development really came from nowhere. In this episode, it was Sakura’s turn to change dramatically, though I feel that the creators would so have profited from another episode, to get all of the developments right. Right now, I can understand how Sakura feels that she’s been incredibly irresponsible, and that she wants to change, but this doesn’t automatically make you able to be a fearless killing-machine, like she demonstrated in this episode.

One character whose character-development did get handled perfectly was Kurogane, though, and Fye too made very interesting progressions in this episode. I was also glad to see that finally the huge plot-twists of the previous episode made sense, and how the different characters of Kamui and his brother tied in with the overall story. The background art was also as lovely as usual, so there are no complaints there either.

Now this is more like it! This episode was much better than the first one. I still have a lot of problems with it, but at least the music has become much better. The amount of new plot-twists is also baffling. In one episode, the plot has been pushed forward as much as the original TV-series did in 52 episodes. Still, I don’t yet consider the Tsubasa Chronicle OVA to be better than the series.

That doesn’t mean that the series didn’t have its problems, though. What was Bee-Train thinking, putting such a dark story in the NHK-channel? I now also finally understand the reason why so many fillers were added. Bee-Train knew that there was no way to put some key-moments in this arc on the air, so they decided to just go with their own story and do what they were good at.

For me, the biggest problem with this episode is that it was really far-fetched. The battle underwater was already pushing my suspense of disbelief (how long can people hold in their breath anyway? And how can these guys flawlessly fight each other, just as easily as if they were on land), but that turned out to be just the tip of the ice-berg.

So, basically Syaoran was already as a kid a very talented magician. In there, he created a clone and gave this clone his eye. The task of this clone was to collect the feathers that would come out of Sakura in about ten years. In order to prepare for that, the clone-Syaoran got his eye sealed and moved to the clow-country where he made friends with Sakura, and later fell in love with her. For some reason beyond me, the original Syaoran was sealed away by Fei Wong, but he could see everything that the clone-Syaoran did.

To make things even more complicated, Syaoran is supposed to be a descendant of Clow Reed. Sakura is also the daughter of some king of the Clow-country, which gives us many hints that she too is a descendant of Clow Reed. It’s strange to think that I spent more than 52 episodes watching some very strange kind of incest-relationship… Also, Fei Wong turned out to be yet another descendant of Clow Reed, hinting that he’s either Syaoran’s father or some kind of uncle.

In any case, while clone-Syaoran is fighting under water, Fye jumps in and just starts using his magic from out of nowhere, even though he vowed not to use magic without his tattoo. Clone Syaoran then BITES the guy’s eye out, which turn out to be the source of his power. Strangely enough, Syaoran gains Fye’s powers by eating Fye’s eye. Syaoran’s powers, by the way, also increased greatly with this. Apparently, the seal on his eye was broken at this point (don’t ask me how or why), and now he’s strong enough to even pwn Kurogane.

In the meantime, the real Syaoran was helped by Xing-Huo (who was punished by Fei Wong afterwards (read: killed)), goes to Yuuko and is teleported to the Clone Syaoran. The two fight, but Clone-Syaoran is now much stronger than the real one due to Fye’s magic.

The feather turned out to be in the middle of a cocoon, in the middle of the pool. Apparently, this was the thing that kept the clean water flowing. Somehow, Sakura’s soul ended up in that cocoon. When Sakura’s body got near the cocoon, it disappeared, and I guess it ended up in the cocoon as well. She then prevents the real Syaoran from killing the clone-one. Clone Syaoran then cuts up yet another cocoon and the feather comes out. He gives it to Sakura and then walks off on his own, leaving her. Kamui, who I guess was unconscious for this time, magically reappears and pulls a person out of this cocoon. Apparently, this person was the reason why he was so protective of the water, and he’s glad that this person is okay. Seriously, the next episode has some real explanation to do, because both subplots need a lot of explanation to make sense to me. The more I think about it, the more questions I have. You can say a lot of Bee-Train, but at least they managed to make sure that everything in the tv-series made sense. Was the manga also so incredibly confusing at this point?

Oh, and there’s one character that I’ve really disliked in the new OVA: Sakura. Oh, how deep did she fall. First, she sleeps for more than an entire episode, then she wakes up, goes “Syaoran! Syaoran!”, gets overwhelmed by the new Syaoran, and falls asleep again. I seriously liked the lovable heroine from the TV-series much better.

Ah, finally! A year after the series ended, Tsubasa Chronicle gets continued. Let’s hope that the DVD-sales are high enough to give the creators enough motivation to animate the rest of the chapters of the manga.

Let me start with the bad points, though. First of all: the music. Let’s face it, it’s nothing when compared to the series. Yuki Kajiura made way for decent pop-tunes or recycled versions of the lesser tunes of the original series. The art style has also changed severely, and turned into a strange combination of the original one with xxxHolic, and its long limb. Mokona also has shrunk and Fye’s hair grew.

Another thing I didn’t like is how the creators just decided to ignore the fillers of the series, and just continued after the library-arc. It’s a shame, because while the fillers didn’t really progress the story, they did flesh out and develop the different characters a bit. The result is the most noticeable with Sakura: she turned from a growing heroine back into her useless old self who keeps sleeping.

One thing that’s more personal is how it took me a long time to get used to the fact that this series isn’t done by Bee-Train anymore. There’s no overabundance of still shots to build up atmosphere, the dialogue is kept short and to the point, there are no insert-songs and there’s a much larger attention to the different action-scenes.

And really… Shaoran must be some kind of machine or something. He basically stands for minutes at the same spot with an arrow in his leg without even flinching. I mean, doesn’t such a thing usually hurt? In this episode, the Shaoran-lookalike also awakes, though unfortunately I’ve already been spoiled about his true identity, which took away a bit of the surprise.

Okay, those were the flaws. Apart from that, I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. The world of Tokyo (wasn’t that were Kurogane grew up as well?) is totally opposite of what I expected it to be, and I like the idea of acidic rain, spoiling all of the water. I’m interested in how the people who live outside of the two towers get their water, if both sides refuse to give them any. Especially if the rain has been pouring down for fifteen years now. The character-animation may also be a bit buggy at times, but especially the background art is terrific, and they blend really well together.

The best part of the episode was the conversation between Kurogane and Fye, though, because finally Fye gets a bit of depth to his character. It really seems that he can’t just stop putting up his facade, even if he wanted to.

Of course, this was just the introductions, and something tells me that the best parts of this arc haven’t even started yet. I predict that my complaints for the next episode will only be 25% of the ones I had for this episode, because it’ll be easier to get used to the new art-style. In any case, I do like how the creators kept the long limbs into the character-designs, because that’s what I originally liked about them. Next episode will be up in January, and I’m looking forward to it!

Great news! It seems that my speculations about there not being a continuation of Tsubasa Chronicle were wrong. According to this site, a Tsubasa Chronicle OVA has been announced! The animation studio to handle it is still unknown at this point.

It’ll be interesting to see how this develops in the future. Obviously, an OVA won’t be enough to finish the story, as from the things I heard, the manga goes on for much longer. Still, this does show that CLAMP doesn’t give up after its debacle with Bee-Train. Perhaps we can expect more OVAs in the future, or perhaps even a third season.

And with this, the second season of Tsubasa Chronicle has ended. All that’s left now is to look forward to April, in which its third and final season will air. Fei Wong also had some interesting reasons for being involved in this arc. Because of Dhaos’ huge powers, they were able to locate Sakura and Syaoran again. If they could take this power, they’d be able to control Syaoran’s journey again. Chaos himself ended up being indeed a cluster of feathers, who developed a mind of their own. He indeed possessed a huge amount of feathers, meaning that the ones he fed Sakura were specifically created for that purpose.

There were a few strange things about this episode. Some things I didn’t expect. First of all, when Dhaos disappeared and turned back into the feathers, they actually scattered, instead of returning to Sakura. Only one feather found its way back to her, which also explains where Dhaos got his inspirations for the fake memories he created.

I also actually expected Fei Wong’s plan to succeed in the end. After all, then he’d get back in the picture again. I’m suspecting that he’s going to succeed somewhere in the third season. In any case, once he does, the fillers will be entirely over.

[EDIT]Okay, there isn’t going to be a third season, unfortunately. If a third season was planned somehow, then it would already have been announced.

Ah, fake feathers. That explains a lot. Chaos has his own feathers, which are much weaker than Sakura’s ones, but work in about the same way. When you combine a lot of these feathers, you do collect a considerable amount of power, and that was what Fei Wong is after. It also explains why this arc, even though not part of the manga, seriously disrupted the feather count, the reason Chaos went to travel to the Clow Country, as it never happened and why Chaos’ feathers coincidentally appeared to contain his memories. Still, it does not explain why he fell in love with Sakura. I think he fell in love with her because they’re both beings with a huge power.

Okay, only one episode’s left in this series, and the creators couldn’t have found a more fitting climax. Even though Chaos is proved not to posses the powers, equal to that of a god, he still has frozen both Sakura’s body and soul. I also loved Wei Fong’s role in this episode. It’s not yet clear what exactly he’s trying to do, but it’s great to see him get in action for once. The next episode should prove to be worthwhile. And after that, it’s waiting till April for the third season!

The episode started with the conclusion of the first battle against Chaos, which most obviously turned out rather bad for Syaoran and his companions. The rest of the episode was an intermezzo. Does that make the episode less awesome than usual? Of course not!

The identity of the bird/powerful entity also gets known: Chaos. He played both as bird, and he is someone who can travel through dimensions at will, and that’s why Fei Wong was behind him. The question then remains: which form is his true form? Is he really a bird who can take the form of a human, or is he a human who can take the form of a bird? Also, how did he get his feathers?

Another interesting question: when you travel through worlds, do you travel through time as well? Chaos case actually suggests this. He got his feathers after Sakura lost them, but he actually visited Sakura in her country, long before she lost them. Another possibility is that, while each country has its own timeline, there is always one time known as the present, and feathers are the only known things who can break through this cycle.

Anyway, Sakura and Syaoran were as cute as ever. For the first time ever, Syaoran is getting selfish, while Fay cheats a bit and uses magic and Kurogane gives him support, even though he doesn’t like it. It’s indeed a nice way to end the second third of the series. I’m also wondering whether the finale will consist out of only one, or two episodes.

Seriously, this was such an excellent episode. Thank goodness Chaos turned out differently from the subtle love rival. In fact, he wasn’t subtle at all during this episode. Apart from that, there was lots of more goodness, both from Sakura, Syaoran, Fay and Kurogane, as this episode delves a bit into the past of each of them. Definitely awesomely executed.

So, here’s the case: Chaos ran into Sakura when she was young, when he sought an audience with the king of Clow as the king of his world. At that time, he promised Sakura to accompany her in her travels some day, when she was allowed to travel. Apparently, over the years, this promise turned into an obsession. Like I said, he wasn’t very subtle in this. When he confronted Sakura with the truth, he just assumed that Sakura felt the same way about the matters as he did, and would go with him no matter what.

Syaoran, Fay and Kurogane, meanwhile, are confronted with a bit of illusion magic, which takes the form of a person, dear to them. In Syaoran’s case, it’s Seishiro. I think we’ve seen him at the end of the first season. Though his case is the least interesting of the three. Kurogane meets up with his father again while Fay actually sees King Ashura. Both their reactions were so awesome, and the background music really gave a helping hand in these scenes. ^_^

Well then, when Sakura refuses, Chaos reveals that all this is his doing. He calls Syaoran, Fay and Kurogane back, in order to show Sakura how powerless the three of them are, and thus how pointless it is to continue travelling with the three of them. And he actually takes out both Fay and Kurogane. Something that doesn’t happen often. Especially the cliff-hanger was very, very powerful.

Then, there’s also the case of Wei Fong. Apparently, they’ve located a huge source of power. At first, I thought it was the bird, though when Xing Huo (apparently Fei Wong’s assistant’s name) enters the world in person, she actually heads for a strange tower, instead of the bird’s liar. Furthermore, they also don’t know that Syaoran and Sakura are in that very world, do they? The question then also remains whether this bird actually exists or not. It could be a creation of Chaos, in order to trick Sakura and find a good excuse for Syaoran to be busy for a couple of hours. After all, Mokona never felt the huge amount of feathers on the bird. Rather strange, don’t you think?

I’m seeing a lot of people get turned off by the second season because of the huge amount of ‘pointless fillers’. But these fillers are actually far from pointless. They dedicate a great deal of time in fleshing out our main characters. In fact, I actually think that the entire second season of Tsubasa Chronicle was dedicated for fleshing out its characters. Wei Fong was put out of the picture for a while because of Yuuko’s work, and because of this, Syaoran and the others were free to choose the worlds they could travel to.

During these travels, each of the members of the main cast changed. Especially Sakura got a lot of attention, as she changed from the girl who couldn’t do anything to a girl who can make her own decisions, and think for herself. Fay changed in a more subtle way. He’s actually getting more involved with Sakura and Syaoran, and I actually think that he’s slowly beginning to show things of his real self. Kurogane got a full arc dedicated to his past, fully explaining the way he lived, and why he lived the way he did. Syaoran changed more subtly, though I could swear that he’s more talkative than that he was at the beginning of the series. And Mokona also showed his worth, in the couple of episodes in which the fate of our protagonists rested on his… erm… paws.

The fact also remains that there’s quite an amount of manga-material left in order to fill the third series. I’ve never read anything of the manga, so I’m not exactly sure, but things would have to move very strange if the third season would follow the same format of the second season. From the few things I’ve read, the manga is actually nearing its closure, which means that with a bit of luck, it’ll be over when the third season starts. This means that if all the second season has been doing is building up for the third season, the third season will probably be awesome, from beginning to end.

I SO hope I’m right, as this series is too awesome to ruin.

Ugh… this is annoying. Almost all of the good shows I’m watching come out on Friday and Saturday, while the other days are really quiet. So, yeah. Expect me to be really prolific on some days while rather absent on other days. ^^;

Anyway, I could be wrong, but I think we’ve struck another manga-arc. And it’s a very unusual as well, as there’s a huge amount of feathers at stake. It does make sense, though. Such a large amount of feathers will probably be enough to fill a huge gap in Sakura’s memories. And if the arc takes up four or five episodes, it’s also a nice way for Sakura to start the third season with nearly all of her feathers recovered. I’m really looking out for the third season, as it will mean the conclusion of this series, and it seems that things have yet to get serious.

I’m just a bit worried about Chaos. It seems that he met Sakura when she was young. As things stand now, he’s going to become a love-rival for Syaoran. I’m so hoping that the creators will either refrain from this, or develop this relationship in an extremely good way, as there’s nothing which can ruin a relationship as much as a suddenly-introduced love rival, who never made a chance of acquiring his loved one in the first place.

Yuuko also came with an interesting message for White Day. In return for eating Watanuki’s cake for Valentine’s day, she returns some advice for both Syaoran as Fay as Kurogane. Everything in this world has a beginning and an end. A good deed will lead to a good outcome. A bad outcome will await a bad deed. Why did Kurogane and Fay look so suspicious after hearing this? This will definitely be an important message for in the future. After all, it’s got to have the same value as a nice cake.

I can’t believe how awesome Sakura was during this episode! Even though this was another filler, it does an amazingly well job of fleshing out Sakura’s character. Seriously, this was an excellent episode. ^_^

The case is like this: Syaoran and the others land in a large, gloomy city. The feather is being sold in a shop, for a rather high price. The only solution for our protagonists is to work to get enough money to buy the feather. The only problem: the city has a huge rate of jobless people, and there are almost no jobs to be found in the city. That’s what Syaoran, Fay and Kurogane find out when they try to find a job at the Employment Center. They spend more than half a day in a fruitless search for a job.

Sakura, meanwhile, was told to stay in the hotel room, as the city is rumoured to be rather dangerous. Still, she goes out on her own, and she actually manages to find a number of jobs. I loved the little dose of realism tossed into this episode, as a lot of things go wrong for Sakura. During her first job, she works at a mobile distro, though then vehicle breaks down, forcing the owners to close their shop for the day. The second job involves driving a few logistics equipment, though that doesn’t seem to be right job for Sakura. Still, I just loved how she went and tried anyway. ^_^

Then with the third job, Sakura found herself a nice little cafe, in which she has to act as waitress. The reason the job was vacant was probably because the customers looked rather scary (which they absolutely are not, by the way), and the fact that the owner is being bothered by a couple of familiar punk guys. Still, Syaoran, Fay and Kurogane haven’t been standing around either, and they found a job at the same cafe, hired to scare away these punk guys. I also loved how the chair Kurogane broke actually had after-effects, as in that Sakura had to work longer in order to pay the cafe owner back for that particular chair. You don’t see that many times, do you? Most of the times, whenever a random object is broken, it disappears from existence. In the really lazy stories, you can just blow up a building and notice nothing of it in the aftermaths.

Sakura also absorbs two feathers this episode, and they contribute greatly to Sakura’s struggles in order to get money. When she was young, her brother used to take her to the market one time. Even then it seemed that Sakura liked to do challenging things on her own, as it seems that she asked a local market saleswoman whether she could work for her for a while. The way this also was presented in the anime was done brilliantly.

And a rather nice detail, I loved Kurogane when he referred to the woman they sold their small items to as someone from the information bureau, which indeed refers back to the Outo-world, where she also appeared. A rather nice use of coincidence.

The first half of the episode also was one huge chunk of atmosphere. The piano-music and insert songs worked perfectly, combined with the overall mood of the country they had landed in, and the extra touch of realism. Really, this was such a great episode. ^_^