Nakama Britannica

I love CLAMP, I freely admit it. ‘Cardcaptor Sakura’ was the first shojo anime series I remember seeing on UK TV (before ‘Sailor Moon’?) and even in its mangled US version, I fell in love with it and went straight out to search for the manga. From the elegant art nouveau drawings on the Clow cards, through the sweet but not sugary depiction of friendship and first love, to the shadowy presence of Clow Reed, everything enchanted me. Surprising, really, that the next CLAMP series I read was ‘Tokyo Babylon’, as it made such a dark and doom-laden contrast to the cheerful optimism of Sakura and her friends. Then, of course, I had to collect ‘X/1999’ to find out what became of the tragic and ill-fated pair Subaru and Seishiro. Duly devastated by the terrible fates of characters I’d come to love and hate in equal measure, I consoled myself with the science fictional fairy tale ‘Chobits’ and the exquisite artwork of ‘Clover’. By the time the first volumes of ‘Tsubasa’ and ‘xxxHOLIC’ began to appear from Del Rey Manga, I was utterly hooked; what CLAMP fan could fail to be drawn into the whole ‘Tsubasa’ crossover concept?

Now, seventeen volumes into ‘Tsubasa’ and eleven volumes into ‘xxxHolic’, and with the first four volumes of the ‘Tsubasa’ anime series released from Revelation on Region 2, am I sated, or do I still want more?

Do you have to ask?

But the rose tints have faded from my spectacles a little, because I have a bone to pick with the talented and gifted four who form the creative team known as CLAMP. I know they’re not the only mangaka to be guilty of this manga-crime. I know that it hasn’t always been their fault, but a situation brought about by outside forces (sales figures, editors, magazines folding etc.) beyond their control. I’m talking about the Curse of the Never-Ending Series. ‘On Hiatus’. The two words you really don’t want to encounter when you’ve faithfully followed the characters from one crisis to another, watching the tension build unbearably only see it all hang suspended and unresolved. What were all those teasers so craftily introduced to hook the reader really about? Why put them in when the revelations are never going to be made?

Let’s take ‘Legal Drug’. Three excellent volumes so far and, in spite of promises, no hint of a fourth since 2003. Even though the two main characters, the young psychics Rikuo and Kazahaya, make a guest appearance in ‘xxxHolic’, the mysteries surrounding their true identities and the reason they have ended up working for clairvoyant Kakei at the Green Drugstore, may never be revealed, thanks to the folding of the magazine that was originally publishing the series.

Or ‘X/1999’. Even though the film and the TV series provided endings to the series, CLAMP have still to finish the manga. There were several reasons at the time that it faded out, not the least the feelings of CLAMP themselves that writing about the destruction of Tokyo was a little too close to harrowing events happening in real life.

There is also the fact that CLAMP are, as Lisa Cooper wrote so pertinently in the final ‘NewType USA’ , the mistresses of the tease. ‘xxxHolic’s’ Doumeki and Watanuki, ‘Tsubasa’s’ Fai and Kurogane, Kazahaya and Rikuo of ‘Legal Drug’. We’ve had scene after scene of emotional buildup, so would it be that hard for someone to confess? Of course it would; this is CLAMP.’

But are the teases, the unresolved relationships and mysteries themselves a significant part of the attraction? There comes a moment in reading a manga or watching an anime series when we don’t want it to be over. Because the instant the story reaches an ending, a resolution, it alters – and so does our attitude to it. The journey is over. What was once fluid and changing has become set in stone. All those plot possibilities that hooked us and made the characters’ predicaments so vivid or touching or agonizing have become certainties. There is no more room for the pleasures of speculation. And, even if you recreate the journey by re-reading or re-watching, it’ll never again have that unique element of surprise, because you know how it ends.

Of course manga and anime are one of the few narrative forms where there can be – and often are – more than one ending. Anime Insider runs a regular column that makes fascinating comparisons between the manga and anime versions of popular series, such as ‘Trinity Blood’ and ‘Chrno Crusade’. For this phenomenon is not restricted to the work of CLAMP alone. But, given the crossover nature of their most recent work, they’ve been able to give characters they’ve already killed off in one series a new life or lives in one of the many worlds of ‘Tsubasa’.

It’s worked for me. I’m still hooked. And even though Yuko-san has repeated the ominous words once said to her by Clow Reed (and what was their relationship? No, don’t tell me, I’ll wait to find out) ‘The dream must end,’ I’m convinced that it will be a while yet before Sakura finds all her missing feathers and the journey comes to a conclusion.