#THE FLASHBACKS FROM SYAORAN’S POINT OF VIEW?

[completeoveranalysis]

[7]

Ooh I will say the expression of dark rage on Evil Wolverine is MAGNIFICENT here. They really went all out. This is gorgeous. 

Considering I hate looking at the man THIS looks fantastic! 10/10 Evil Wolverine panel, maybe only beaten by the one where he gets stabbed. 

And I suppose if you were going be mad about anything, being stabbed through the chest is a pretty reason.

Oh!

I mean yeah, I guess that is how it works. You stab a man and he wants to stab you back. 

On a side tangent I love that he has the same Pull-Sword-Out-of-Hand magic that Fai used on Kurogane before they went to Seresu. I’m a fan!

Fai and Kurogane are markedly less excited to see it come back this way but I think it’s neat!

MEANWHILE try not to think about Kurogane, who has spent his entire life haunted by the image of Evil Wolverine stabbing his mother with that sword, is now watching Evil Wolverine pull out the same sword to stab his son. 

I am interested in the hands in the final panel though let’s see what that means. 

OH. 

Oh. 

Yeah I suppose this too would also happen. 

If anyone WAS going to be stabbed by Evil Wolverine here it WOULD be Syaoran jumping in the way to save Lava Lamp. 

We get the whole reversal of Syaoran stabbing Sakura in Nihon, but now he is now defending them and being stabbed in return. 

Potentially foreshadowed in Outo with Syaoran being stabbed by Seishirou there as well. 

(As well as when Evil Wolverine kills Xing Huo, who ALSO betrays him while working for him, who ALSO got stabbed all the way through with the same sword, ALSO IN THE SERVICE OF SAVING LAVA LAMP)

And Syaoran closing the loop of, like… Lava Lamp defending Syaoran by giving him half his soul to protect him from Evil Wolverine, and now Syaoran defending Lava Lamp by protecting him physically from Evil Wolverine. The giving of a soul and the giving up of a soul to save each other from the same man.

IT ALL LINKS UP. 

[haro-hawayu]

CCS: Clear Card Ch. 60

New chapter!! It feels like it's been forever!! The latest chapter is currently available on CLAMP-net’s YouTube Channel. Also please check out @meimi-haneoka's post on the latest chapters for EN-JPN translation differences and insightful reads/reactions. It appears there are many differences this time around, so best get that cleared up!!

Links for previous chapter reactions can be found here.

Live reactions~

Colored Clow looks very very nice.

I wish there was a close-up version instead.

But it's nice to see him with his whole outfit too.

Flashback right off the bat??

BABY Kaito and Akiho-mama!!

Baby Kaito reminds me of younger Syaoran... from early CCS days XD

Just throwing it here for now--I have a feeling Akiho's mom was that first person to get the stone rolling (re: soften Kaito's heart, or uncover it), and then probably her death that propelled it...

Two strongest magicians within their groups, yet not in whatever important meeting that is going on now between the groups...

AHHH Aki-mama brought goodies!

I love that they're in those balloon-things, so cutee!!!

Aki-mama <3

I know Kaito's totally "get away from me" but there's also that (good intentioned, but not showing it) "maybe you should watch out for yourself" warning for her

Ohhhhhhh! AKI-MAMA! DREAM SEER/YUMEMI!

Montage!!

Kaito, are you sure that you hate it? Or that you hate that you like it? Or...??

Aki-mama still excited that he has opinions at all aside from "I don't care" tho, so she still counts it as a win XD

EMBARRASED KAITO covering himself with his collar is so cute and endearing!! omgsh XD

Ohhhh the ring! The one on Momo's ear, it was a gift from Aki-papa?

A lot of talk on dreams... important stuff here.

Flashback ended... poor Kaito TUT

AKI-MAMA IS LILIE!

So... those magicians know who Momo is... =_= does Eriol?

THE QUOTE! "Once it's begun... you can never go back." !!!!!

~ THOUGHTS ~

Wow, there's just soooo much going on... where do I start??

FLASHBACK: Okay, so like the whole thing between Lilie and baby-Kaito was so nice to see! We got to learn more about their personalities (at least, more of Lilie) and how they are next to eat other. I was getting a lot of Fruits Basket Kyoko & young-Kyo vibes during their entire exchange!! We have a younger kid whose worldview of things (is not so good) SLOWLY changes (just slowly tho because at the "present time", not much has changed except for that "one" thing) over the course of many meetings with the mom. Also, the mom imparts a very important message/life-sesson for them. I'm also willing to bet that the death of the mom also causes something very major to change, which results in future actions that make the audience go "NO! THAT'S NOT WHAT SHE MEANT YOU DUMMY!!" Pretty sure that whole thing, which applies fo FB-Kyo, fits the bill for CCS-Kaito.

+1 YUMEMI: Lilie joins CLAMP's group of Yumemi! They need their own LINE Group Chat or something, and I wanna know what they talk about LOL. I get that at this point, Kaito just views Sakura as a tool or means to an end (to achieve what he wants), but at the same time, I want him to witness (from Sakura) the same kind of resolve that Lilie told him about (re: how she reacts and acts while knowing the future)--that will make him like snap out of it a bit and be like "Oh. Oh, so that's what she meant that time when she said that..."

MOMO & THE QUOTE: And Momo! I'm so so curious about what she is really. What I'm understanding is that she's a being that all those higher-ranked magicians know about, and being the power-greedy people they are, no doubt they would have sought/fought to have greater influence/power to have control over (powerless) Akiho just so that they can get Momo's powers.

Also the quote! "You can never go back!" IDK, I still can't help but think of the CCS anime again when I think about this line. In the anime, it was a male's voice, which kinda debunked it being either mom's... could it be Clows? Aki-papa? Maybe Momo's true form?? Someone ever more greater/powerful in the magical... world???? I'm pretty sure that Ohkawa probably went over with voice director regarding that line, so it had to have been purposeful that they went for a male voice instead of a female voice... oh... the mystery.

[kurogabae]

Tsubasa: Trainwreck Chronicles

And Why Bee Train Has Failed Me Not Only as a Company, but as a Concept in General; an Essay by Popular Demand

part 1 -- part 2

In part 1 (linked above) I spoke about the anime adaptations of the opening/introductions of our main cast through Jade and our first filler. These were episodes 1-16. Out of 26 for the season and 52 for the series. I don’t feel like my time has been wasted with pointless, endless, literally 30+ second long shots of characters staring at each other or into the distance for no reason. No. Not at all. Those moments added a lot of needed and organic tension and suspense.

Really.

But Sakura gazing longingly at a giant fish aside, we’re going to get into what is probably my most hated canon arc of the anime - Outo. Now, I loved Outo in the manga, it was an amazing world and it really kick started a lot of character and plot developments in TRC, not to mention that it was just generally a lot of fun. It was the longest world thus far and it had had the most characters in it as well. Outo was great. It’s one of my favorite worlds, right along side Piffle and fanon!Yama. 

Bee Train did me dirty guys. Real dirty. 

Outo:

So the animation swings wildly in this arc from “yeah that’s not so bad” to “Fai is that your hair or a giant yellow spider eating your head?” - pretty par for the course as far as the anime goes. Mostly. But then we have the changes to plot, both for the sake of the Children(tm) and... Just Because? It’s also in Outo that we start really noticing that whoever was in charge of directing the music usage was really just throwing music at the animation and hoping something stuck. 

I’ll try to keep this linear but I make no promises.

We start off pretty normal - arrive, greeted by The Ladies, whisked off to City Hall. Fai gives them all their delightful Outo names while Syaoran looks on in a mild panic. They buy the cafe and get attacked - and here I have my First Issue.

For some reason, probably to make me hate them more than I already do, they change the events of the Oni attack just enough that Kurogane doesn’t grab Sakura out of the way of the ambush, iirc Fai grabs her. This might seem like nothing, but the anime has kept Kurogane and Sakura’s interactions to basically zero and if someone were to only watch the anime they would miss out on a lot of very small but meaningful moments between those two. Also, it’s important to me okay!

Morning comes and plot is still basically on track - Syaoran and Kurogane become oni hunters and Fai and Sakura open the cafe. 

Now, when the family gets their costume changes, things get a little odd and the music is to blame. Sakura wakes up and goes to greet the family, who are all wearing what they’ll be sporting for the rest of Outo. As her view pans (ba-dum tss) over each of them a weird smooth jazz sort of music starts to play. I don’t know what to call it, but the tone makes it feel vaguely sexual/romantic, or at least like that’s what the intent is. Now if this had happened over Syaoran alone it probably wouldn’t have been weird, but funny. It doesn’t just happen to Syaoran though, Kurogane gets the music too (Fai is the first she sees and the music only starts playing as Sakura begins to look away). It’s a really strange music choice for this moment.

When Sakura changes into her cafe maid outfit and the boys see her it isn’t just a Sakura and Syaoran moment, which would be fine. If they weren’t playing that music again. And also Kurogane hyuus. At Sakura.   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It was all very weird. I didn’t like it. Could have been just me.

Night one of oni hunting is here and so is another change that I don’t understand? Before when they added characters to the scene it was Sakura and I assumed it was them trying to give her more screen time, but Sakura is very much left out of this whole bit while Fai, who should be back at the cafe with her preparing to open up a business, is with Kurogane and Syaoran. Why? “I like to watch you at work, Kuro-sama.” (Which would have been simply amazing foreshadowing if we were ever going to so much as glance at Fai’s backstory in the anime, which we aren’t. Hell, at this point we don’t even know what it is because Celes hasn’t been published yet, so Bee Train is pulling this out of their ass. What a waste.)

Syaoran and Kurogane kill some oni, there’s very vague talk about Syaoran’s blind eye (they never outright say he’s blind in it, just that he “has trouble with it”), and we get to meet Yuzuriha and Kusanagi. Syaoran does not fawn over Inuki and I am once again personally insulted. It’s here that Kurogane learns about the names.

Fai manages to make it all the way back to the Cafe alive before Kurogane corners him. Also, even though Fai was gone all night with the puppies he still has a chocolate cake made and ready to serve to Yuzuriha and Kusanagi after they follow his and Kurogane’s immature murder trail home. Which is frankly bullshit. I know Sakura didn’t make that cake.

Syaoran and Kurogane don’t have to fight to prove their worth to the information seller, which is whatever I guess. Probably just trying to save time and budget, but that didn’t really help you now did it Bee Train?

Now, surprisingly, I actually liked the change they made to the bar scene/the fight before the bar. Fai and Kurogane don’t have their Moment in the bar, since this time they’ve missed Oruha and will have to come back. And instead of fighting on the way to the bar, the oni attack them on their way home. The song “Kaze no Machi he” plays over not only the KuroFai vs oni fight, but also sweet moments between Syaoran and Sakura in the cafe, effectively setting a very nice parallel between the two couples while still contrasting them. It’s a wonderful scene and it’s part of what makes me so extra mad at Bee Train for how they treated the whole series, because they clearly know how to do their jobs, they were just too lazy to give TRC the effort and care it deserved. 

It was a really great scene and I would suggest watching just that couple of minutes, even if you don’t watch anything else from the Bee Train anime, simply because of how well it’s put together. Was it all just a happy editing accident? Maybe, but it’s one that I love.

Of course, like all things I love, Seishirou soon shows up to ruin them. This time with bad special effects.

This is of course after a pretty much canon-compliant intro to Ryuu-ou and Souma, complete with Kurogane dropping his freshly injured boyfriend on the ground in shock. Followed by pouting that I will take as a personal apology.

It’s not enough to make up for the lack of drunken shenanigans. Not even close.

Syaoran’s learned that not all of life’s problems can be solved by kicking. Sometimes you need to stab them. He asks Kurogane to teach him, but unlike in the manga where this is a sweet, if somber, moment between just the pair of them, Fai is, again, on the scene where he shouldn’t be. He’s also acting rather bitchy and tells Syaoran that if Kurogane teaches him to use a sword he needs to be ready to kill with it. Now this new dialogue is fucked up on a couple of levels.

Firstly, this is the same night Kurogane just lectured Fai about valuing his own life and admitted to killing more people than he could count in order to protect what he considered important to him. I’m sure we’re meant to read this as a type of semi-protective warning on Fai’s part towards Syaoran, but it comes off as petty at best and out right cruel at worst, to both Syaoran and Kurogane. Syaoran because he’s thirteen and he just wants to help save the love of his life who he is convinced he’ll never get back. Kurogane because he’s having this thing that’s pretty central to him at this point in his life thrown in his face with venom and treated like a danger towards his own adopted son. 

Second, and big spoilers, if you’re watching this after Tokyo and Celes have been published (which at the time of the airing they were not) Fai telling Syaoran to “be prepared to kill” is fucked up. It’s clear in Tokyo that Fai has known for a while (we don’t find out how long exactly until Celes) that Syaoran is a clone. He also has known that Syaoran is a very real threat, basically a ticking time bomb. Fai would not be egging him on like this. 

So, the whole exchange is very drastically changed in tone by giving Fai a small handful of lines, and in my humble onion it isn’t for the better. 

Do you wanna know what is better though? The quality of these weapons compared to the everything else that’s been seen in Outo so far, and we don’t get better. The animation takes a noticeable dip from here on out. It’s especially noticeable because Bee Train has gotten into the habit of padding episodes with flashbacks and recaps of things we saw only a few episodes ago like they’re fucking Naruto and when you cut from one of the decently animated flashbacks to the current shitshow it’s really jarring.

Quality aside (for the moment) the puppies finally get their swords but before they had left, Sakura asks Syaoran about what he and Kurogane are planning to do during the day. It’s a fair question since they’re heading out early, but no oni can be hunted until night. For some reason he doesn’t tell her they’re going to get weapons? Or that he’s going to train with Kurogane? He just says “It’s nothing to worry about” and like... why? 

On several levels why. First we have the whole why have Sakura ask if Syaoran’s not even going to tell her anything - maybe to add tension, as if they didn’t have enough, maybe to add angst, as if they didn’t have enough. He’s got no reason to hide this. She knows he hunts oni, telling her he’s going to better arm himself would only be a good thing, hell if he really wanted to avoid saying that he was going to get a sword he could have said that he was going with Kurogane to get one since Kurogane’s broke the night before. Second, Syaoran not answering only makes Sakura feel bad and worry more and I’ve never been so frustrated in my life. Yes, Syaoran tries to keep things from hurting Sakura but in the manga he doesn’t treat her like spun glass.

And then Mokona just tells her anyway so honestly the entire exchange was 95% meaningless and I demand to know who made these choices so I can meet them in the pit!!

Really the purpose is probably to waste time and pad the episode, but there’s enough in Outo that they really shouldn’t need to do this? But hey, what do I know? I’ve only read this series 10 times and done I can’t tell you how many analysis essays on the characters and plot. Surely some hacks who probably only glanced over the material know better.

So now Kurogane is throwing rocks at Syaoran. Not a whole lot is different for a while - we throw rocks at Syaoran, we blindfold Syaoran, we leave Syaoran all on his own to wander the city, Ryuu-ou stops Syaoran from getting his ass kicked by oni that he’s too focused on puzzling out to dodge, they flirt, they flirt so much. 

Ryuu-ou takes Syaoran to see the Biggest and Prettiest cherry blossom tree in Outo, because Ryuu-ou goes big or not at all and he’s got a boy to woo. 

Meanwhile, Fai has gotten a piano for the cafe that he can’t play and Sakura can speak to musical instruments, kinda. After another TouYuki cameo where they don’t recognize Sakura, Fai leaves Sakura to look after the cafe for reasons I can’t recall but that are probably dumb. Oruha shows up and she and Sakura have a Magical Musical Moment where Oruha plays the deus ex baby grand and learns all about how Sakura can’t remember Syaoran and somehow sees all the memories that Sakura can’t see/doesn’t have and folks I could not tell you what this adds to the story other than more confusion to people new to the series and frustration to people who have read the manga.

Let me break it down - Sakura doesn’t have these memories. Yuuko literally took them away as payment, they no longer exist. If they try to exist Sakura goes through a soft reset as seen earlier in this arc. Oruha should not be able to access them, super special VR powers be damned. The memories aren’t there to access. 404: Childhood Friendship not found.

This is all without touching on the creep factor of someone casually rooting around in Sakura’s head without her knowledge or permission. Hasn’t she’s lost enough autonomy?

Magic Music Memory time over, Oruha leaves and we’re spoiled and shown that Outo is VR and not actually the world we think it is, ruining both a really neat reveal and the weight of Syaoran and Fai’s “deaths” later in the arc. Do you want suspense and angst or not Bee Train?!?!

After reading some notes I had on the anime I think Fai left Sakura alone to go drinking with Kurogane because it’s now that they have their Moment in the Clover bar and finally meet Oruha (who stopped at the Cat’s Eye, sang with Sakura and read her mind, and then popped back to Clover because fuck you). 

So. The dads are drinking and gathering info, the boys are flirting, and Sakura is doing what she did in Hanshin - where she enters zombie mode and autopilots towards her feather. Yuzuriha appears in the nick of time to stop Sakura from meeting Seishirou and for this I think she should receive a medal of some sort in all honesty. 

As the girlfriends make their way back to Cat’s Eye Seishirou summons a Giant Deku Baba (seriously, Nintendo should look into copyright) and attacks the boyfriends. Ryuu-ou has to, once again, pull Syaoran out of harm’s way as he stands there aghast at the sudden turn of events. Things get a little too close to becoming a very uncomfortable tentacle based hentai and everyone escapes with their lives and virtue intact.  

Syaoran tries to defend Seishirou’s honor because he thinks Seishirou has honor to defend, but no one is buying it. We also get a brief look at our resident Lava Lamp Dweller (who I might remind you all we never get answers about in ANY form in the anime) before we are swiftly moving along to another moment between Syaoran and Sakura where he’s pretty much lying to her face about things he doesn’t need to lie about and Sakura ought to chew him out. 

Why? Why Bee Train? This is so OOC. Rewrite this fanfic. 

It’s Tower of Terror time and Kurogane is Delighted about the 3% chance of survival he’s been handed. So far we’re back on track. Except we’re not.

Manga readers will remember looking back on this as one of our first Big Hints about Kurogane’s past - his hang ups about the demons leaving behind no bones or bodies of their past victims, implying that they’ve been eaten whole, and how that seemed to bother him. There’s the vaguest of hints that Kurogane still has a personal grudge with demons here in the anime, but it’s a lot less impactful and I don’t know how much meaning it would have to someone who didn’t have prior manga knowledge to fall back on. I feel like it falls a bit flat (especially once we see how Kurogane’s past has been sterilized for a younger audience).

Aside from that, the tower is more or less the same, bad hentai jokes and all. 

Things also go very similarly at the cafe - Sakura works herself up into a tizzy and passes out, Fai feels the first emotion outside of Guilt and Horny he’s felt in upwards of a century, and Mokona tells him that he’s fine and that no, that’s not heartburn it’s affection. 

Enter King Trashface. He’s holding the feather in some sort of weird space disco ball? Not the worst thing, just an odd choice? He and Fai exchange words (starting with Fai telling Seishirou to fuck off in the most polite way ever) - during which Fai’s animation makes it seem that the closer Fai gets to “death” the more his face distorts, which is terrible and hilarious. 

Before Fai gets turned into demon chow though, Seishirou calls him out on being Mr. Deathwish, especially since Fai is fighting without using magic that could very possibly save him. At this point Fai flashes back to his and Kurogane’s “how about we don’t die” talk earlier and Fai says that he might want to live after all. Which is like. Bullshit at this point in the journey. He doesn’t want to live, he really really doesn’t and the very fact that he’s not using his magic is proof positive of that (see: Le Court). Though also, even with a bum ankle he thinks he can take Seishirou until he pulls out the feather. At which point Fai basically tells Mokona to pay attention to how he dies so she can tell the others about it. Which is so... against what he just said?

This is well before we ever see even a manga version of Fai with anything resembling self preservation or a proper will to live, but we have enough of his character for the anime writers to know that this is a very big leap for him to be taking so soon. I feel like if they wanted to give him a hopeful outlook (which is what I think they were trying to do after coming off the scene with Sakura and Mokona) they could have had him seem more wishy-washy about it, or phrased it as a curiosity. “Something I didn’t expect has happened and I wanna see where it goes” is a much better way for him to have made the same statement. At least in my opinion.

Anyway, he dies and I find his death scene really funny because you just see his legs dangling slowly and it’s so... idk it might just be me but I couldn’t stop laughing. 

Now I am pretty sure Seishirou causes this but Outo starts glitching. Everything starts going full Matrix rainbows on us and all the NPCs vanish. Souma is worried about the game falling apart and Ryuu-ou and Yuzuriha are both worried about their potential love lives new friends.

Here we come to a few things I very much HATE that were changed. Once Fai is dead Sakura goes zombie again and starts to follow after her feather/Seishirou before the puppies get home, so only Mokona is there waiting. This means I have lost yet ANOTHER FATHER-DAUGHTER MOMENT!! It also means that when Syaoran runs after Seishirou and gets murderized she not only sees it happen but... dies? with? him? Because she hugs him while the game is transporting him out? I dunno. It’s bad and dumb and I hate it. 

So Kurogane thinks they’re ALL DEAD, which is great. It’s not like he isn’t already having a bad enough day. Not that you could tell by looking because the animation doesn’t have him emote at all. He looks basically bored as Mokona tells them that Fai is dead while Syaoran is a step away from a full on meltdown. @beetrain you do know that Kurogane has emotions other than anger and Fight Me(tm) right?

And now Seishirou is idk posturing? Bragging? He talks about how there’s no one left to oppose him now that the 13 year olds are dead, completely ignoring the pissed off ninja murder machine that has nothing left to lose that’s coming for his sorry ass. I don’t remember him being that cocky in the manga? Am I misremembering or did the anime somehow make Seishirou even more unlikable? Either way, Kurogane finds the slimeball and, to my extreme annoyance, only asks if he killed Fai and Syaoran - not Sakura - even though he believes all of them to be dead. The anime keeps doing this and I have ranted about it so much I’ll spare you the retyping. For now.

A quick list of minor things that happen that I dislike:

Fai’s coat and Sakura’s cloak both pull random appearing and disappearing acts between episodes

No one is even a little surprised when Syaoran’s sword sets itself on fire

The pacing could kill a man. Unfortunately Seishirou lives.

My soap opera isn’t real and this is

Seishirou knows Syaoran is a clone and drops hints about something we are never getting resolution to

Oruha, after allowing Seishirou to fuck off, just, you know, tells Sakura that she has missing memories of Syaoran

Memories that she somehow was able to access even though they no longer exist within Sakura

If Yuuko says no memories she means NO MEMORIES!!!

FWR watches the demon rampage across Edonis. He’s probably reminiscing. Like an asshole. 

Outo wraps up and is it the worst of the arcs? No. But am I bitter about the things that were done to it because it changed a lot of fundamental things about the characters and the plot? Yes. 

See you next time, where I’ll probably talk about more than one arc. Until then, have this.

[part 1] [part 2]

[haro-hawayu]

CCS: Clear Card Ch. 56

Finally, I have time to read this chapter ; u;

Chapter 56 is currently available on the CLAMP-net’s YouTube Channel. Also check out @meimi-haneoka's post on the latest chapters because they're amazing and I always look forward to them when it's time to read the latest chapters.

Links for previous chapter reactions can be found here.

Reactions:

COLORED SYAORAN for the COVER!!

Syaoran <33333 I love the look on his face :3

It 1000% screams "I will protect Sakura with my life."

Right we left off with Sakura actually REMEMBERING!

And Syaoran can finally be free from the spell to spill the tea.

LOL this scene of figuring out Kaito's magic is playing out like... after a class exam, everyone is comparing/sharing their answers/thoughts/views on it.

Momo~~so cool :3

Okay, even though Kaito should've have been doing this, it's a little sad to see all his work kinda falling apart like this, given that he's literally risking his life using all this magic.

"Moving time" "Time moving forward" Holic flashbacks ><

FINAL ACT (@meimi-haneoka's post points out translation should be "final act of the story" and not "your story" so big big big difference in meaning)

WHAT FINAL ACT??? WHICH FINAL ACT?

Sakura seems to be onto something (re: Akiho)

SYAORAN! OMGSH.

Awwww pouty Syaoran from old days <333

HAHAHA the expressions on Yue & Kero's face!!! XD

LOL Kero-chan so tsun tsun about Syaoran :3

Okay, I love this Guardian's Group here. I wanna see more of their meetings and interactions, they're so adorable together.

Ahhhhhh I wanna hear these songs they are singing.

TWIN ALICES!

THE PLOT! Alice 1 who is lost in a world of dreams and Alice 2 who can't find her way back to the world she came from!!

~~~

Thoughts

Twin Alices: I KNEW Sakura & Akiho would end up getting involved in a more important way for the play. I'm also even more certain now that the climax or the ultimate "showdown" will be happening during this play--where it's literally Sakura & Alice experiencing the true reality of their roles. Also the description of the Alices is very interesting. The one that stood out to me was the Alice "who can't find her way back to the world she came from" because it reminded me of some chapters past where that mysterious voice was giving that "You cannot return/You can no longer go back" warning to Sakura. Which makes me wonder if that second Alice is referring to Sakura. But at the same time, the Alice "who is lost in a world of dreams" also sounds like something that can happen to Sakura too because "wandering in dreams" sounds very much like the yumemi/dream seers that have been featured in many other CLAMP series. Those can visit dreams of other people--so like the various characters in X/1999, and then some from xxxHOLiC/TRC. Also, both Alices are essentially "lost" if you think about it... so they both do not sound very good for either of the girls... TuT I want them all to be happy.

Sakura's Powers: Sakura is growing stronger and stronger. She has clarity, now that she has seen through Kaito's magic---hopefully this actually means it won't affect them, as Momo has shared. Also, Sakura was able to sense something in Akiho. I wonder if that means that there's something inside of Akiho that is kept lock away which prevented Syaoran and the others from sensing magic in her.

Do I have more thoughts on this? Probably but still processing them in my tired brain XD

[completeoveranalysis]

Chaptire 145 - World Falling Apart

Or: The Unraveling World

I assume Clamp’s original version of this didn’t have the funky fuschia text but I’m kind of into it so I’m not gonna look up alternate versions of this. Enjoy!

This is the partner image to this other cover, and they go very well side by side. It’s like a fancy gothic party that the entire main cast was invited to (except Mokona, who never gets invited to these parties </3). (No wait I’m pretending Mokona is the one taking the photos. There, fixed it. You’re welcome CLAMP) 

The splash text is relatively straight forward, giving us another glimpse into Sakura’s determination to find our lost Syaoran. And it’s so good to see that Syaoran again, even if he doesn’t quite seem himself. He has Fai’s eye and his expression is darker, with none of the gentleness we can see in Lava Lamp. His position behind Sakura is great, too, because at this point in the story he’s constantly haunting her. She can’t see him, but he’s right there, behind every decision she makes. The arm draped around her throne points towards everything he’s stolen from her at this point too (if while on Auto-pilot) and also shows just how much he’s controlling her destiny, both by taking her feathers through violence and also by forcing Sakura to spend all her time and energy trying to find him. The ridiculously untidy state of his clothes is also kind of perfect. There’s no real self-awareness in Syaoran right now. It’s all just wild instinct, and while he’s dressed up as the Syaoran we know, he’s not really in there. For now. 

Sakura and Lava Lamp are pristine by comparison. Sakura is seated in her rightful place and Lava Lamp kneels before her. I want to compare their poses to this cover here, which was stiff and forced, neither of them enjoying the experience - and that really captured the essence of their relationship at the time. In the cover we have now everyone looks a lot more relaxed, because it’s no longer an incomplete picture. All three of them are together now. It’s a view of how things should be, in an ideal world - or at least, according to Sakura. Following this train of thought, both Syaoran’s hold one of Sakura’s ribbons in their hand. Both are tied to Sakura. She has a strong connection to both of them, and if they are a proxy for the ‘red string of fate’, then it’s interesting that they both get that connection to her. It’ll be interesting to see just how it pans out, in the end. (Unless it’s going to be as tragic as I think, then replace “interesting” with “heartbreaking”)

Here are a few fun things that might not mean anything, but might mean something later: Lava Lamp kneels in loyalty to Sakura, but is actually looking entirely away from her (so is everyone, but still, he did this in the previous cover too); Lava Lamp touches the ribbon much more loosely than Syaoran, as if he’s merely holding it rather than keeping it; Lava Lamp’s other hand is mostly closed, while everyone else’s are open (he’s holding a lot back); and Sakura doesn’t actually wear the crown she’s entitled to. That last is a neat fact that wouldn’t mean anything if this wasn’t on the tails of all the other covers where the symbol of the crown was ever present and always important. If it means anything at all, it’s because it comes directly after THIS cover, where Syaoran had the same imagery going. Ie, the image of the crown hovers just over their head, but it’s not actually theirs. It was very straightforward for Syaoran (because obviously, the crown belongs to Sakura) but if we apply the same logic here then is there a reason Sakura’s crown is only an ornament, rather than the real thing? Is this Sakura the one that the crown belongs to, or is there another? Which Sakura should be in that throne, and would we be able to tell the difference if we saw it?

On a side note, if we compare this to the cover with Fai and Kurogane I actually love that Fai is, just, sitting on a tall windowsill like the ridiculously dramatic man he is. There are probably other seats in this castle, Fai. You could have sat anywhere. But the fact that he chose to be framed by the window calls back to a lot of previous imagery we’ve seen of with him being trapped in fancy settings like these. Here’s one example. The other would be that brief flashback at the end of Acid Tokyo where we got to see Child!Fai in prison. Like the window, his past is still very much what frames him as a person, and it will continue to be extra relevant the more we go forward. 

All up? I love these cover images so so much, but the upcoming tragedies are slipping in more and more and I’m very nervous.