STORY: CLAMP's ever so popular (And probably my favorite CLAMP title) massive cross over manga series, Tsubasa, continues on it's second anime season.
With it's likable main cast: the determined Syaoran, the kind and sweet Sakura, gruff swordsman Kurogane, the goofy but mysterious Fai, and of course the mascot, Mokona all in toll, most fans are expecting another enjoyable (and hopefully with a faster paced story) world(s) traveling adventure as they continue to collect feathers in order to return Sakura's lost memories.
And from what I can tell, that's exactly what the producers were hoping for, that the fans love the characters just enough to watch this season, so they can get away with very pointless episodes, and with little actual story material only follow about three story arcs from the manga that barely cover half of the animes episode span, and the rest of it becoming boring filler episodes (With nine straight filler episodes until its end).
It's not that these episodes are the most absolutely terrible things in the world, it's just that the writers, unfortunately, seem to have taken advantage of the traveling to different worlds concept for the sake of being a cash in, with no effort on expanding the story.
And what's the worse side-effect of a mostly filler season? Little to almost no character development at all.
The cast are simply boring husks of themselves, they don't develop, they don't do anything different, they just stay the same.
Going further into laziness, this anime constantly rehashes all of it's side characters from various other series created by CLAMP, which is another concept that got taken advantage of from the manga, that even fans of other CLAMP titles will tire of these recurring characters. Which was something manga was charming and famous for.
Another noticeable fact is the series main antagonist does little to nothing at all in the story (Less than what what he did in the manga I mean) except a few chats with his female subordinate or a few speeches.
And in the end, hardly any progress is made in the story, that ended up becoming just a waste of time.
ART: Constant low budget animation, that sometimes have obvious quality issues, and Tsubasa deserved better than this, even flipping through pages of the manga looked better than half of the anime, which only adds to the disappointment.
SOUND: But unlike the animation, it appears that they had put effort with a bigger budget for the background music, though there are some techno background music that sounds totally out of place, and the theme music is nothing special compared to season one's.
The english dub in the first season suffered a lot from the voice actors having to get used to their roles in a slow start up feel, but thankfully in season two it's not the main problem anymore.
The english cast itself is quite an impressive line up with big name voice actors Vic Mignogna, Chris Sabat, Monica Rial, and Jason Liebrecht voicing the main cast.
Especially Chris Sabat who is well suited for Kurogane and Monica Rial was an excellent choice for Sakura.
But even with the improvements to the english dub, it is still underwhelming.
OVERALL:
The Good:
+ The Tsubasa crew enters in its "second season."
The Bad:
- Almost no character development at all.
- Very boring filler episodes make up the majority of the season, taking advantage of several concepts the manga has in order to make these episodes.
- Bland theme music and a sub par english dub.
- Disappointing animation.
I feel that by the end of the season many fans will feel that they wasted their time, but not completely hate it, just feel very disappointed that very little of manga's story made it's way to the anime's "second season".
