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So... I can't decide whether you HAVE to be a mecha lover to like this - since it is only mecha battle after mecha battle - or whether you SHOULDN'T watch this as a mecha lover... since it's one of the weaker mecha shows I've seen. Honestly, not sure.

Story : 7

TTGL is pretty... nuts, frankly. It is basically split into two different stories: Part One is a stereotypical battle shounen with big power ups where the main characters attempt to throw off the limitations of their world - limitations placed on them by the Big Boss of their planet. Part Two is... a stereotypical battle ... shounen with big power ups where the main characters attempt to throw off the limitations of their world.... limitations placed on them by the Big Boss Race of their universe. The feel of both stories differ though, and Part Two is driven largely by Simon's wish to save the woman he loves. As a story, it's been done a million times over and is honestly nothing new. But, as always, it's entertaining.

Art : 10
INSANE art. Truly superb. Probably the reason I managed to finish this in the first place, since it is 10/10 quality and absolutely stunning.

Sound : 7
Good. Nothing outstanding but it complemented the anime.

Character : 7
I like a lot of the character tropes used, but honestly... it's basically a cut and paste job from every shounen ever- and sometimes even within TTGL itself. The creators have at least tried to deepen several of the characters by giving them meaningful relationships but they've basically failed at any kind of realistic character development. Even Simon, who starts off as a wonderful character in Part One, develops... into an exact copy of his hero. The anime doesn't even acknowledge this! But surely everyone IRL would be concerned if a boy, absolutely destroyed by grief, deals with it by essentially BECOMING the person he's grieving. By Part Two's end, 3-4 characters might as well be That Person's replicas. Anyway, I like that character so I shouldn't complain but when all the characters are starting to act the same...

Enjoyment : 8
Not gonna lie - almost dropped it a few times in Part One, but I'm a sucker for major space battles and mecha. The scale was absolutely insane and I loved it. Not realistic in any way or form, but fun.

Overall : 7
It was good. Nothing outstanding and I won't watch again but I'm happy to have seen it.

I'm pretty meticulous when it comes to choosing what to read, since I hate leaving things unfinished. Hence I went into this manga with eyes and ears open, having read a LOT of reviews. I thought I knew roughly what to expect, but without having particularly high or low hopes. Boy was I disappointed.

Story: 5

Obviously this is a cliché story about an unwanted princess who is forced to marry the enemy kingdom's prince for the sake of peace. The princess discovers she has an innate ability that gives her enough power to take control of her life and kingdom. It's incredibly cliché, which would be ... okay if her development was executed well. But the story is... stupidly simple, only made to appear complicated. Even the princess' power - the Arcana of Time - is loosely defined in the first place, and complex actions that would be near-impossible in real life are overly simplified - like (SPOILERS!) the act of simply "giving" an entire country to someone else, or migrating an entire race... I mean, at one point our heroine princess even has two husbands through some bizarre logic made up for the sake of the plotline...!? (/SPOILERS!) It's convenient writing for the sake of complicating an incredibly basic plot line that wouldn't have any direction or closure otherwise.

Characters: 7

The cast is as cliché as they come. I wasn't a big fan of the princess, but she was bearable and a host of minor characters kept me mostly interested. Loki, the princess' battle butler, was probably the main reason I kept coming back to the manga despite all my obvious issues with it (and I actually shipped the prince with the princess, not Loki). As a character he's written very tragically and right from the get go it's hard to tell who commands his true allegiance. Is it truly to the princess, who he protects with his heart, body and soul? There's a LOT of convoluted drama involving him, which crops up again and again throughout the story. While he doesn't necessarily appear to develop, I wasn't disappointed and liked the conclusion to his character development. I would suggest you only read this manga if you are drawn to Loki's story, but THAT in itself would be cruel - I know a LOT (if not most?) of readers have had an issue with his storyline.

Art: 6

It's usually pretty decent. Being nit-picky... a couple of characters look similar (Caesar and Adel, anyone?), the fight scenes were badly done, and there were some weird character design choices. But yeah: usually it's pretty decent, and the cover art is gorgeous.

Overall: 4

I'm being pretty harsh, especially considering the story, art and character ratings I've given so far in this review, but I can't in good conscience give a higher score. This is probably the worst manga I've ever read.

I've probably taken about 5 years to actually read this whole manga, but a month ago I decided I wanted to finally read it in full alongside its sister manga, xxxHolic. As a long-term fan of CLAMP, I knew what I was getting into - and yet I'm sitting here now, very breathless but kind of confused.

The first half of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle was absolutely amazing (up to and including Acid Tokyo, for sure). I could probably rate it 10/10 even if I included all the occasional arcs that felt a little too much like filler, as all these arcs were absolutely necessary to the ... storyline and (beautiful) character development that took place. I remain in awe that something so grand in scale could be brought together so easily, so concisely and so beautifully. Solid 10/10 for story, art, character and enjoyment.

In the second half of Tsubasa, however, the reveals start.. which is still all fine and dandy - you can't really be a fan of CLAMP without being a fan of twists and turns. But with ever more turns - and all at increasing speed - initially MINDBLOWING reveals become convoluted, elaborate and confusing. Still a technically superb manga, but more and more perplexing. I'm unsure if scanlation quality had anything to do with it, but I had to google chapters regularly to understand what was going on and my history is now full of weird and cryptic questions. This is where my enjoyment started to slip (from 10/10 to 8/10ish) and my reading pace drastically slowed down. Even now, having inhaled pages of commentary and analysis, I'm not entirely sure I understand EVERYTHING that happened. But I do know that I liked Tsubasa one hell of a lot and CLAMP are still my favourite mangaka group of all time. I don't know what to do with myself now, and that always says a lot.

I definitely think reading Tsubasa alongside xxxHolic boosted my enjoyment of both. They are long, emotionally draining and confusing series, so the ability to take a break from one whilst not putting it all down completely was a blessing. Note: this is easily done by basically switching which manga you're reading at every crossover scene that occurs. You can also read the rest of CLAMP's early works to understand who all the characters are in all the worlds, but I didn't find that as necessary - besides that odd feeling of nostalgia for old faves.

To summarise this review: Just read it, but don't rush it. Do not rush it.