Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE: Spring Thunder – Review

Tsubasa Shunraiki. Basically this follows on from Tokyo Revelations. Basically the travellers are trapped in Celes Country after a certain event occurs. Forcing Kurogane to do something incredibly surprising to enable them to jump to Nihon Country. Unfortunately, the film is cluttered with to many flashbacks to events we haven’t seen, and likely never will, and it only leaves the viewer with a real sense of emptiness and endless plot holes that they won’t be able to fill unless they claw their way through god knows how many books there are now. The series was featured on FUNimation Entertainment’s Funimation Channel in 2008 and had been released on DVD previously in the US back in 2007. And the popular CLAMP series received its High Definition treatment in the Nov. 2009.

The blu-rays visuals are outstanding, yes.  But there is beauty here too, because the main theme is the power of love, of different shapes and forms, between the main characters. Character development is at it’s pinnacle, with Fai at his most fiercely, heartbreakingly maternal, and Kurogane embarking on an emotional rollercoaster as he’s forced into two separate no-win decisions, and Sakura truly coming into her own as she fights the limits of her endurance for a loved one. Both seasons of “Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE” features a race for Syaoran with Sakura, Fay and Kurogane to get the feather of Sakura’s memories before anyone else is able to and taking on various evils and encountering alternate versions of people they know in these different worlds.

Equally disappointing was Shunsuke Tada’s direction. Tada used way to many cuts and hardly got creative, except with the action scenes. Too often than not we are cut into long and pointless exposition scenes that some of us really just don’t care about. Though not as powerful and gripping as Tokyo Revelations, Spring Thunder animates the Nihon arc faithfully and has its own memorable and poignant scenes. The Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations OVA was my favorite of the two and it alone is worth buying the set for. $22 bucks for 5 episodes might seem a little pricy, but if you think of it more as a movie it isn’t all that bad.

All in all, as a SET these two film counterparts make a good package but as a stand-alone this film is very average. In short, keep up with the manga series and buy these, for they are wonderful. If you are only watching the anime, stop, take a break and pick up the manga. This is truly where it all changes for Tsubasa, and the OVA’s up the ante on the entire series.  It was CLAMP’s little present to their die-hard fans. It makes me think they should give it back to series director Koichi Mashimo and just make another season, or at least maybe go to the movie director Itsuro Kawasaki. Any future projects will likely remain as this, a nice bone for their loyal fans only. Overall, if you have followed the Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE anime series, you should probably pass on a purchase of “Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations/Tsubasa Spring Thunder”.