Showdown, Tsubasa-style!
Nov. 15th, 2009 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteSo, yesterday I went to the mall and got myself $165 or so of manga (and one book, "How to Read Novels Like a Professor"), including Vols. 23 and 24 of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles. Going months between reads means I forget some things, but I usually get a very quick reminder of the action somehow, and then lots of mysteries are either layered on one another or revealed.
The latest volumes? REVELATIONS IN SPADES. Obviously you shouldn't touch the cut if you haven't read at least this far, though I expect most "true" fans are reading from the Japanese raws or scanlations or whatever. Me, I'm going by Del Rey's speed.
So the Syaoran we've been following around (I THINK--maybe he's the image of the one? I'm still confused about who's the real Syaoran and who's the image) is the son of Syaoran Li and Sakura Kinomoto, a.k.a. Cardcaptor Sakura, who just HAPPENS to be the spitting image (not in the "Fei-Wang Creations, LTD" way, this time) of Dear Ol' Dad. And then Sakura gave up whatever Clow powers she had left to Yûko, because we've seen the Clow Wand (or rather, the Sakura Wand, I guess) in her Storage Room O'Stuff, and in the last chapter of Vol. 24, we actually hear Yûko say WHERE it's from! She also says she's never actually MET Sakura, so I'm wondering how Sakura could have given her "payment" without going to the shop (which would indicate she has a wish).
And I'm still a little confused as to what the connection between Syaoran and Watanuki is. Clearly they've both sacrificed the same thing: their memories of their "original" lives. The Syaoran we saw journeying with Sakura, Fai, Kurogane, and Mokona didn't remember his parents as Syaoran and Sakura Li, or the Sakura he was traveling with looking JUST like a younger version of his mother, or Sakura's mother looking just like his grandmother (kinda gives off a creepy incest vibe, actually), and Watanuki has been stated not to remember HIS parents or a life prior to working at Yûko's.
I'm thinking that Syaoran and Sakura Li couldn't just give up their son, even if they know he's destined for greater things (for his life to be lived out in another dimension, as the lover of another version of Sakura), and maybe Watanuki was the "image" created to live in his stead...but at a price--for whatever reason, he gave up his memories that he'd forged with his parents and friends. But whatever he gets out of it has a secondary cost: he ends up seeing ghosts, which drives him to go to Yûko a second time and wish to make them go away, which leads to him serving her and all the madness of xxxHolic.
Yûko's also been hinting (and in 24, more or less outright SAYING) that the store was created for a specific purpose: sounds like a showdown between her and Fei-Wang Reed. I'm really hoping it'll be some giant mega super-crossover where everyone who she's ever granted wishes to returns: their wish now is to protect her or the shop or Watanuki, whether they have the actual magical ability to or not. And of course, that would mean seeing older!Sakura and Syaoran Li, which would just be full of win and awesome.
I could be totally, 100% wrong, but man that would be epic. EPIC, I SAY.
The latest volumes? REVELATIONS IN SPADES. Obviously you shouldn't touch the cut if you haven't read at least this far, though I expect most "true" fans are reading from the Japanese raws or scanlations or whatever. Me, I'm going by Del Rey's speed.
So the Syaoran we've been following around (I THINK--maybe he's the image of the one? I'm still confused about who's the real Syaoran and who's the image) is the son of Syaoran Li and Sakura Kinomoto, a.k.a. Cardcaptor Sakura, who just HAPPENS to be the spitting image (not in the "Fei-Wang Creations, LTD" way, this time) of Dear Ol' Dad. And then Sakura gave up whatever Clow powers she had left to Yûko, because we've seen the Clow Wand (or rather, the Sakura Wand, I guess) in her Storage Room O'Stuff, and in the last chapter of Vol. 24, we actually hear Yûko say WHERE it's from! She also says she's never actually MET Sakura, so I'm wondering how Sakura could have given her "payment" without going to the shop (which would indicate she has a wish).
And I'm still a little confused as to what the connection between Syaoran and Watanuki is. Clearly they've both sacrificed the same thing: their memories of their "original" lives. The Syaoran we saw journeying with Sakura, Fai, Kurogane, and Mokona didn't remember his parents as Syaoran and Sakura Li, or the Sakura he was traveling with looking JUST like a younger version of his mother, or Sakura's mother looking just like his grandmother (kinda gives off a creepy incest vibe, actually), and Watanuki has been stated not to remember HIS parents or a life prior to working at Yûko's.
I'm thinking that Syaoran and Sakura Li couldn't just give up their son, even if they know he's destined for greater things (for his life to be lived out in another dimension, as the lover of another version of Sakura), and maybe Watanuki was the "image" created to live in his stead...but at a price--for whatever reason, he gave up his memories that he'd forged with his parents and friends. But whatever he gets out of it has a secondary cost: he ends up seeing ghosts, which drives him to go to Yûko a second time and wish to make them go away, which leads to him serving her and all the madness of xxxHolic.
Yûko's also been hinting (and in 24, more or less outright SAYING) that the store was created for a specific purpose: sounds like a showdown between her and Fei-Wang Reed. I'm really hoping it'll be some giant mega super-crossover where everyone who she's ever granted wishes to returns: their wish now is to protect her or the shop or Watanuki, whether they have the actual magical ability to or not. And of course, that would mean seeing older!Sakura and Syaoran Li, which would just be full of win and awesome.
I could be totally, 100% wrong, but man that would be epic. EPIC, I SAY.
