#CLAMP drawing cute art: in 4-5 years this is going to be SO painful!

[completeoveranalysis]

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Chapitre 180 - A Place Where a Princess Is

OH NO CLAMP MUST WE?

ARE WE REALLY GOING HERE?

We’re revisiting the cover from Chapter 14 but worse!

Here’s that previous one:

The splash text THIS TIME reads something like: He always believed that, as long as they had one another, that wish could be granted…

The past tense tone implying that this has now been proven incorrect. Considering that, you know, he was the one who ended up stabbing her. :’) 

The splash text from Chapter 14, by contrast, read: I wonder what did you wish that night? So much sadness that flows lovely through the stars. 

BUT NOW THE WISH HARDLY MATTERS DOES IT? SINCE THE FACT THAT THEY WERE TOGETHER DIRECTLY LEAD TO HER DEATH. 

Interestingly these covers are both 100% different nights, confirming that Syaoran and Sakura did this on a regular basis. While they both wore long sleeves in the first cover, now they both wear shorter ones, with different patterns, and the blanket is different too - but the lamp is exactly the same. While they were both excited to see the sky before, sharing the activity together now only Syaoran is looking up, with Sakura asleep beneath him, leaving him alone like he is in the present. 

They’ve visually switched places now too, since before Sakura was the one actively making a wish, but now she’s asleep - matching the fact that she isn’t exactly making wishes anymore in the present. She DID Succeed in her big overarching wish and has SAVED Syaoran’s soul, but now she’s dead. But with Syaoran back he can safely reclaim the memory of this moment, since it happened to him, and he’s still alive to remember the moments like this that even Sakura herself would never be able to recall. 

I’m SO glad they brought this back literal moments after Sakura’s onscreen death c: how lovely.