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I'm not much of an expert but I'd still like my say,

Art:
about the art, in my opinion although they did do a good job, I found that I barely knew what was going, which is probably how it should be, but I was still disappointed, I had no idea where the characters were or how they were doing! In all honesty I did like the art in the beginning a little better since I knew what was happening and it gave enough detail that the pages were still stunning.

Plot:
I agree that the storyline is deep but after you reread things a few times things eventually make sense. I myself haven't read many of Clamps works, in fact I've only read Tsubasa, xxxholic, and cardcaptor sakura. But, luckily the story is still understandable enough for me to get enough out of the story for it to grasp my heart. In the end I love how much thought went into the story and many different twists and turns, however I have to say that it took too big of a sharp turn from a fun and whimsical adventure, to a dark, depressing, and heart tearing tragedy.

Setting:
The amazing part of Tsubasa is that the setting never seems to get boring. It always changes when the gang goes to a new world, and each is inspired by something almost completely diffent from the last. For instance at one point they are in a futuristic world of flying machines, and after that they ram into a london setting where all is surrounded by magic, only to be teleported to a post apocalyptic world afterwards.
All in all I can't bring myself to say anything bad about the setting.

Characters:
Just right off the bat I don't want anyone complaining about what I say about the characters. I have had way too much dissing from people just cause I don't like this or that about a certain couple. In this case I could not bring myself to truly love Sakura.

Sakura: Although she has to go through conflict like the other characters, she is much too flat, the original sakura from cardcaptors was a lot less flat than this version. When she made mistakes she didn't always rely on others to help her fix them, and she was fully capable of taking care of herself most of the time. Not to mention her relationship with the Syaoran in cardcaptors is a lot more interesting, with Sakura completely clueless about how he truly feels about her, and completely unaware most of the time about how she feels about him.

Syaoran: as I said before Syoaran ranks a little higher on my character list but is only above sakura. He definately develops more than sakura, but for the first part of the series he's fairly predictable. And even near the end it isn't that hard for me to figure out what he is thinking. I can't think of what else i could say about him, but at the very least, unlike sakura, Sayoran makes a huge contribution to the group with his knowledge of history and language.

Mokona: Who wouldn't love mokona? I have to admit that mokona is also preidctable, but at the very least he/she/it (never got that straight) could at least lighten the mood a little when the story gets serious. His 108 techniques come in surprisingly handy to our heroes. He is very perceptive about what the rest of the gang is feeling, and does his best not to burden anyone. One could argue that sakura does the same thing in trying her best to do what she can, but this only comes up as a hinderance because although she warms the hearts of everyone in the group she makes little or no contribution. The only time she really seems to come in handy is only when her feathers are involved. When the series gets dark and the search for the feathers is no longer a main point, she becomes a fairly useless character.

Kurogane/Fai:
Kurogane and Fai are a breath of fresh air and they both tie for my favorite character position. Kuroganes honorable code and warrior like personality is deep and interesting. While his knowledge for battle gives the group exactly what they need to survive harsh or dangerous worlds.
While Fai adds a certain pizaz to Kurogane that he can't possible have alone.
The onesided fights the two constantly get into during the first half of the series are perhaps the most prevalent of the comedy, while their relationship with each other is very intimate. They both started the journey not wanting to get too attched to their companions, they fail this miserably however as want to help sakura and syaoran constantly shines through.

In simplistic terms the two were more like a comedy duo in the first half of the series who became unlikely freinds, once the dark side comes around the two have more conflicts with one another once they discover the others dark secrets. However, they never seem to truly hate one another, and both would never imagine abandonig the other. To this affect, Kurogane becomes the wall that keeps Fai from letting go of his life, while Fai seems more like something that slowly grew on Kurogane as time went on.
All in all these two have the best personalities out of all the other characters (in my opinion mind you) and their strained yet tight freindship is one of the best relationships in the Clamp universe.

On a separate note I do not support the fan based Kurogan and Fai gay relationship. I admit that it is not past clamp to place such a relationship into their manga, in fact they've done it quite often. But it was always quite obvious and the two men involved practically admit it to one another. This is not so with Kurogane and Fai, and as such there is not enough evidence to say that they have that kind of relationship although it is fully possible.

Overall:
I personally think that more could have been done with the series. That and the romance between syaoran and sakura could have been a little more rocky, y'know they should have had some misunderstandings, fights, and the works.

But in the end Tsubasa remains a manga that has enveloped my heart, and I may never stop loving it. read more