Tsubasa Vol. #3 (of 6)

By: Bryan Morton
Review Date: Thursday, January 31, 2008
Release Date: Monday, January 21, 2008



What They Say
In the midst of a quest that may well be endless, Syaoran and his companions seek to help those they encounter along the way. After planting the seed of revolution among an oppressed populace, the heroes travel to a new world - a snow-covered realm, at once both haunting and haunted. A crumbling castle lurks on the village edge, from which the townsfolk suspect a royal specter emerges to roam the streets at night, stealing children. When Sakura disappears into nocturnal silence, the truth proves even more chilling than the legend... Nothing is as it seems as a tale that has spanned the centuries seeks its end.

Episodes Comprise
11 – The Chosen Tomorrow
12 – A Warm Smile
13 – Advocate of Illusions
14 – Truth in History

The Review!
More problems for Syaoran and his friends to solve on the way to finding Sakura's missing feathers – this time, a mysterious uninhabited world is followed by a world where a ghostly woman is kidnapping a town's children. Could Sakura really be responsible..?

Audio:
Two audio tracks this time around, with Japanese 2.0 and English 5.1 tracks being provided – I listened to the Japanese track for this review. Audio comes across as clean & clear, particularly the background music (another excellent soundtrack by Yuki Kajiura), although there’s not too much direction apparent in the dialog. There were no obvious problems.

Video:
Video is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, and is another good-looking release – colours are nice & bright and backgrounds well-detailed. There were no obvious encoding problems.

Packaging:
Fei takes centre-stage on this cover, with a young woman who looks suspiciously like Chii (from Chobits) embracing him – although she's not featured in any episode on this disc. The rear has the usual screenshots, summary and technical information.

Menu:
Menus are a simple static affair – the main screen re-uses the image of Fei and his woman from the cover. Options are provided for Play All, direct access to each episode, language setup and extras. With no transition animations to sit through, it’s all pleasingly quick and easy to use.

Extras:
There’s a good selection of extras this time out – along with the usual creditless versions of the opening and closing sequences, there’s a character guide (which helps get those alternate-universe characterisations out of the head) which includes production lineart, a World Guide that explains the setting and includes more production artwork, and a CLAMP Cameos feature, which this volume focuses on Princess Emeraude - originally from Magic Knight Rayearth.


Content: (please note that content portions of a review will contain spoilers)
Syaoran faces the lord, who has surrounded himself with townsfolk that are controlled by his hijutsu and who has taken Sakura and Cyunyan captive. For some reason, Syaoran opts not to fight, and ends up on the receiving end of a beating - but when he realises that the Sakura before him is an illusion, he finds a renewed will to fight, and with Cyunyan and her newly-awakened hijutsu powers at this side, he's soon in a position to retrieve Sakura's feather. The lord's facing more than a simple defeat, though, as the Princess of Shadows intervenes.

Later, there's a detour by a strangely empty world - some land surrounding a huge lake, and nothing else, except possibly in the lake itself – before they reach the snow-covered Land of Jade. Here, there is a legend of the princess who used to live on the edge of town, and who was once brought a mysterious feather by a bird, who promised that it would give her great power. After the deaths of her parents, she used the power of the feature to drawn all the children in the town to her castle, any they were never seen again. So much for legend - but now, the town's children are beginning to go missing one by one, so Syaoran decides to investigate in case one of Sakura's feathers is involved. That evening sees the ghostly form of a golden-haired princess walking through the town - has the legend come back to life..? The townsfolk certainly think so - and they blame Sakura...

Tsubasa sticks to its mini-arc pattern for most of this disc, with the end of one and the beginning of another. Episode 12 is a strange little diversion that really just gives Sakura and Syaoran a chance to get to know each other again, and allows Sakura to sift through the memories she's recovered already and learn more about herself. Interestingly, Syaoran has been edited out of the memories she has back – where he would have appeared, there are just empty spaces, and that's presumably the Dimensional Witch's warning that Sakura wouldn't remember the feelings she had for Syaoran taking form. I'm a sucker for flashbacks, though (where they're used to fill in the background of a character, anyway), so while there's nothing much that happens in this episode I enjoyed it anyway.

The end of Cyunyan's arc flagged something interesting up to me: for all the fighting that he's done, Syaoran has yet to outright defeat anyone. You know he has the ability to, but both here and in the first arc events have meant that someone else has finished the job. Here, it's the Princess of Shadows – a wonderfully evil character who has her own plans for our wayward lord, which you know will be far worse and far more long-lasting than anything Syaoran would ever do to him. Justice is served in suitably dramatic fashion, and our gang get to keep their hands clean, as it were, before moving on to their next dimension.

The new Princess Emeraude arc sticks with the feudal tone, and again lands Sakura in the middle of events as, with the first disappearances coinciding with the appearance of our heroes, the locals immediately assume that she's responsible. There's more to it, of course, and when Sakura herself goes missing the story takes a more serious turn. There are a few hints dropped as to what's going on, but with the arc only really getting into its stride by the end of this disc there's still a lot to be explained.

There's a lot to like about Tsubasa - I love the characters, the settings, and the underlying feel of the show – but I'm finding that the story arc take a little too long to get to the point, taking four episodes to tell a story that could be done in two or three. Take the opportunity to immerse yourself in the show's world and you probably won't mind – but I'm an impatient soul, and there are times when I can't help wishing they'd just get on with it. Every so often, though, you get a passage of story that just grabs you, and makes the wait worthwhile.

In summary:
Every piece of praise or criticism that I've given Tsubasa's previous volumes applies equally here – it's perfectly competent and enjoyable without quite being as good as I want it to be or actively doing anything wrong, and having that feeling floating around in the back of my mind while watching does spoil things a bit. On balance, though, I'd still have to say that it's worth watching.

Features
Japanese 2.0 Language,English 5.1 Language,English Subtitles,Character Guide,World Guide,Faces in the Crowd: Cameos for the Clamp Universe,Textless Songs

Review Equipment
Toshiba 37X3030DB 37" widescreen HDTV; Sony PS3 Blu-ray player (via HDMI, upscaled to 1080p); Acoustic Solutions DS-222 5.1 speaker system.