Tsubasa Chronicle.

CLAMP is a team of very deranged women who make comics in Japan. They're gaining popularity in America as well. They're known for the rather epic Magic Knight Rayearth, the overtly erotic Miyuki-Chan in Wonderland, and the fan-favorite, cute-yet-compelling Card Captor Sakura. Card Captor Sakura is considered one of the best comic/cartoon series to ever come from Japan ever - it's kid-friendly yet deep enough for adults to enjoy. Some folks think modern-day Nickelodeon-fare shows like Avatar are like that. They're full of shit.

In fact, Card Captor Sakura got a brief run on Saturday Morning in the United States, albeit in a horribly edited, cut, censored, and dubbed form. Avoid it like the plague, stick with the Japanese language releases.

Moving on, CLAMP can churn out one hell of a story when they want to, but they can also grind out some smelly turds from time to time.CLAMP Campus Detectives, X:1999, and especially Chobits are absolutely horrible. My opinion on this matter is completely beyond reproach and if you don't like it, you can kiss my ass five ways to Sunday.

CLAMP's latest project (in fact, it should be finished in 2009) is one of their most ambitious ones. They taken characters from just about every comic they've made for as long as they've been around (20+ years) and threw them into a giant, but workable mashup known asTsubasa Reservior Chronicle. The stars of the story, unsurprisingly, are the two main characters from Card Captor Sakura, Sakura and Syaoran. Sakura is a princess in a familiarly-named kingdom, and some evil bad guy steals all her memories, which are in the form of feathers. All these feathers are spread around many different parallel universes, and Syaoran has to go find them. Joining them on their adventure is Mokona (from Rayearth), and two new characters, Faye the magician and Kurogane the samurai.

It's important for me to explain the characters and their initial motivations here. Sakura is the same, but somewhat older other-worldly version of the character fans grew to love in CCS - same with Syaoran, the serious but good-hearted hero. Mokona can talk now, and is still a form of comic relief. Faye is somewhat effeminate, a jokester, and a sweet-natured guy; his straight-man is the killer Kurogane, whose since of loyalty and duty override his entire character. This is a good, time-tested formula, right?

Let's continue. For over two seasons, Tsubasa Chronicle has aired episodes detailing their hunt for the feathers, and the bond that grows between the characters as they travel to different worlds, sometimes even meeting or seeing doubles of themselves or other famous CLAMP characters. There's some violence, but for the most part it's pretty family-friendly stuff with lots of CLAMP in-jokes to keep the basement-squealing hambeasts giggling with glee. Kurogane uses his brute strength to overcome some obstacles, Faye does this as well with his cunning, and Syaoran keeps going on courage alone. Standard, but well-done stuff. Like I said, two seasons worth of this. The soundtrack is really nice too.

After the second season ended, it was announced that Tsubasa Chronicle was then going to be released on video. It was around this time that CLAMP must have handed the reigns of Tsubasa Chronicle over to Oliver Stone, because everything you know about this show has just took huge damn U-turn.

Violence and blood become commonplace, but that's not half as disturbing as to what happens to the characters. As it turns out, the heroic Syaoran that's been traveling with Sakura and Company this entire time was a clone of the original Syaoran. An evil clone. Evil as in he rips out Faye's right eye and fucking eats it. Faye's no sweetheart himself, turns out he was just using the group in some bizarre retribution to his twin brother (it's so convoluted that I'm not even going to explain it) and he turns into a vampire. Then, Sakura abandons the group to head out on her own to retrieve her feathers. Kurogane gets his arm cut off, and then digs up his father's own grave to retrieve the sword buried with him. The real Syaoran shows up bent on saving Sakura and killing the evil clone. As it turns out, the real Syaoran never grew up around Sakura's castle, he was born on modern-day Earth in Japan. Guess who his mom was?