The journey for the Lost Feathers: a TRC manga review

A princess, an archeologist, a mage and a ninja, and a white fluffy bun -and the journey begins...

CLAMP are a group of female mangaka that have published some of the most popular manga of the past two decades, with works such as xxxHolic, Card Captor Sakura and Tokyo Babylon. They are extremely loved by fans all over the world. That kind of hype though is what always kept me away from their stories. A few years ago I bought and read The One I Love but I never went any further. That was all until about a week ago, when a friend tagged me in a Facebook picture to a CLAMP character (namely Syaoran) from their manga series Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. That was the initial reason I decided to sit down and read the story. In the beginning I told myself today that I would read four chapters, just to have a speedy start and be able to finish the whole thing in a month or two. Three days after I started, I had gone through all the chapters of the 28 volumes and I was officially owned.

Kokia: Bird of Paradise

This flower was used for the cover of her first album 'Songbird'. And how fitting this is indeed. Far more suitable than the hibiskus flower of her nickname.

Kokia is the nickname of Akiko Yoshida. Can you see her inventiveness? A-KI-KO -> KO-KI-A. It's spelled backwards, signifying also her birth flower, a species of hibiskus flower. She may be quite humble and not particular cute for the standards of the japanese song industry, but her voice is stunning and full of surprises. For almost 2 decades she has given us a rich repertoire. She's 35 now and often performs in Europe, basing her activities in Paris. As she was sent a couple of times in America during summer for music classes, she is one of the very few artists speaking so clearly and fluently English. She came to be known through her songs for anime and games.

Usagi Drop/Bunny Drop (Episodes 1-4)

This season, me and Mrs. Kitsune are watching a lot of good anime, we've already said as much in the First Impressions post.  Usagi Drop is here to give something totally different, a journey through the life of a young man named Daikichi, who finds himself the only person capable of raising Rin, a little girl who was left on her own after her father, Daikichi's grandfather, died. This is surely an idea that we rarely see animated, and the manga has earned some amazing reviews. So, after 80 minutes of anime entertainment, has Usagi Drop provided us with a result good enough to match our expectations?

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée- episodes 3-4

19th century: Europe goes Japanophile!

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée- episodes 1-2

...but a different language and the lack of communication in a common code can become a source of misunderstandings...

F: So here we are late as always... I kinda forced myself to go for this. I'm a bit lazy lately and without doing much, time passes away so quickly. It's not that I don't want to do it.It's that I always get carried away with screencaping and I struggle to keep posts short and unique. I convinced myself to go on, because having a series blogged you notice so much more and you remember more things from the series. I decided I won't do seperate episodes but bunches of them per 2. After some contemplation, I thought that just summarizing the series won't do. This is done by all blogs out there. What I'll do is after giving a short summary, I'll pinpoint the differences between the french and the japanese culture as shown from the episodes and I'll post images of situations not mentioned in the manga or only mentioned in it.

First Impressions Summer Season 2011

That's what we are watching this season: Mawaru Penguin Drum, Natsume Yuujinchou San, Usagi Drop and Ikoku Meiro no Croisee.

F: Mainly of the slice of life genre, except perhaps the first mindfuck multigenre one...As I've already written, I will try blogging the latter two. Though I am late again... I am so lame =.=

N: This season we have decided to watch many different kinds of anime. We have literally no time for anything more, because there are so many good stuff to actually watch this season.
Let's go see some general things about the series.

Hourou Musuko- 9. Cool girlfriend ~ Green eye

In the mirror: Takatsuki's girls' uniform she left behind.

I am not sure if the 'cool girlfriend' applies to Anna, because we don't get much of her this episode, but the green eye applies easily to many of the characters of Hourou Musuko for this episode. We have Takatsuki that crossdresses finally at school and the teacher sees this action mostly as jealousy towards Sarashina; then we have Doi who visits Yuki and seems kinda jealous of a guy that can look that beautiful (there are other feelings there, too) and so urges Nitorin who wants to crossdress, as well. Oh, I almost forgot Maho who is surely jealous about how her brother not only looks like her,but people find him so cute, that he gets attention.

Now that I'm thinking about it... if girlfriend is meant as a female friend, than this title applies firstly to Chiba, who is a good counselor to both Takatsuki and Nitorin in subtle ways, and then to the quirky Sarashina, who takes a bit of her time off job to talk with Nitorin about crossdressing.

The hot spot of this episode: the different reactions towards Takatsuki and Nitorin crossdressing due to their sex.  

Hourou Musuko - 8. Spring ~ Brand new me

After episode 6, a new arc begins that puts in focus the relationship of Nitorin with Anna and the one of Chiba with Takatsuki. The storyline evolves really smoothly, adding details each episode that complement what we already know. In episode 8 things start to move faster: it's a new school year, the group is separated in different classes, they share typical discussions about which class they are in, with whom, how is their teacher. With the new school year start Takatsuki's feelings for crossdressing re-emerge. Nitorin is going out with Anna (though their relationship can't really be defined as romantic, at least from Anna's part) and he really enjoys shopping with her. His desire to wear pretty clothes again are barely held back only by the fact he's in relationship.

Nitorin and Takatsuki remain distant. On the contrary, Takatsuki and Chiba have become pretty close again, at the point that Takatsuki grows her hair back, influenced by Chiba's request. Those four meet by chance and get better acquainted. With Chiba-san with them an almost quarrel errupted. In the end, things went quite well. The only ominent event is the reappearance of a former classmate of Nitorin from primary school, Doi. Doi had bullied him and now sits in front of him in the class. Soon, he seeks to get involved with Nitorin once more, with the motive of getting to know Yuki, the 'hot chick' he saw with Nitorin one day.

Hourou Musuko- 7. Rosy cheeks~ Growing pains

Growing pains refer of course to both Nitorin's acne problems but mostly to the troubles a love relationship can bring to the people involved and their friends.

Hourou Musuko- 6. Cultural Festival ~ Dream of a butterfly

I'm back! Exams ended back in June but there's much going on still now, searching for a job, studying for a public exam... and my laziness. I'm going to blog to episode 9 for the time being, since later in the summer and early fall the last dvd volumes of the series will be out with bonus stuff and episode 10 and 11 seperate and whole, unlike the way they got aired (due to noitama slot's restrictions).

As the title says, we finally get the festival day. The episode can somehow be split into 3 parts: pre-play (the preparations of last moment before going on-stage), play and after-play (comments from friends and family members to our little actors). And since the main actors are Chiba as Romeo and Makoto as Juliet, the episode centers around their feelings and reactions.