Tsubasa Chronicle

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]

Flourite, Fai D. Main

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Syaoran Main

Irino, Miyu Japanese

Sakura Main

Makino, Yui Japanese

Kurogane Main

Inada, Tetsu Japanese

Modoki, Mokona Main

Kikuchi, Mika Japanese

Ichihara, Yuuko Supporting

Ohara, Sayaka Japanese

Chii Supporting

Nazuka, Kaori Japanese

Watanuki, Kimihiro Supporting

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Tsukishiro, Yukito Supporting

Miyata, Kouki Japanese

Li, Syaoran Supporting

Irino, Miyu Japanese

Clinkenbeard, Colleen Producer, Script, ADR Director

Cook, Justin Producer

Mashimo, Kouichi Director, Storyboard

Morioka, Hiroshi Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Oct 27, 2023

Joe_Devaney

Recommended

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, I ... still 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 being 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

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 21, 2020

Youzernaim

Mixed Feelings

Tsubasa Chronicle, one of the first anime I've seen as a kid. I had vague memories about it so I decided to rewatch it with my newly acquired grown-up wisdom.

First, the soundtrack is as powerful as I remember and the songs really give you the emotion you're supposed to feel. The opening is really good, the ending a bit less but it really is a strong point of the anime for me.
The concept of the anime is great too : we're following Shaolan and his companions on a quest to recover Sakura's memories. They travel trough worlds and I enjoyed watching them discover new life ... styles and resolving conflicts. As you expect, a big bad guy is behind all this with mysterious plans. Those plans aren't revealed in this season but it's no big deal. Action is mixed with humour and some feel-scenes, the whole thing is balanced.

I found myself a bit disappointed about the characters. Sakura is still attaching, Mokona is still cute, Fye and Kurogane are still cool, but Shaolan showed much less emotions than I remembered. It annoyed me as I found he only had 3 states : neutral, concerned about Sakura and determined-but-cold-blooded. Maybe it's just his character but I couldn't empathize with him. I also found that Sakura had A LOT of "princess in distress" moments but I guess it gets along with the anime fashion of the 2000s.

The real default for me was the story's pace. Some arcs could clearly have been one or two episodes shorter. There is a lot of frozen scenes with just the music, recycled animations, flashbacks of what happened literally 2 minutes ago (particularly in the second half of the season) and you can just watch the show at 1,25x or 1,5x speed and still get all of it. Sometimes, I even found the episodes better when accelerated.

For the art, I picked 6 because it was okay at the time but it obviously doesn't stand the comparison with today's art.

In summary, you may enjoy it if you're a beginner in anime world or if you watched it as a kid and have sweet memories, but I don't think it's a great show and it'll probably be boring for others. As for me, I found what I was searching : a clearer opinion about this anime's qualities and defaults, and a reason why it impacted me as a child.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Feb 20, 2018

PlatinuMan

Not Recommended

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 appear ... in 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!

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Do you recommend watching this adaption? monder_Killer17 - Aug 12	5 replies	by 5Reinheit »» Aug 13, 3:01 PM
	Poll: Tsubasa Chronicle Episode 2 Discussion Genevieve11 - Jan 9, 2010	11 replies	by portajohn »» Aug 12, 11:24 AM
	Help: Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE filler episodes? JoNuttanon1994 - Feb 1	2 replies	by Leashy-chan »» Feb 2, 2:04 PM
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	Poll: Tsubasa Chronicle Episode 26 Discussion Cloudy - Aug 31, 2008	23 replies	by Niveen_Sleem »» Apr 23, 2023 1:58 PM

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