The Genre: Fantasy

The Format: 6 DVD Box Set from ADV

The plot: It's the year of destiny and 15 year old Kamui Shiro, a powerful psychic, has returned to Tokyo after a 6 year absence. He returns to protect his childhood friends, Fuuma, and Fuuma's younger sister Kotori. But destiny and fate are haunting Kamui and pulling in himself and his loved ones. It is his destiny to decide the fate of the world and mankind, no matter if he wants the role or not.ky's prone to crying fits, tirades, and flipping the class the bird.

This is about my third attempt to write this review.

It's also probably about my tenth attempt to write a review of something by (or adapted from the work of) CLAMP.

For those not in the know (is there anybody?) CLAMP are an all-female manga production team who, it could be argued, are some of the most successful out there. Certainly they have a massive and dedicated following of rabid fans both in Japan and around the world and there stuff always sells in buck loads.

CLAMP started life as a doujinshi group, producing fan manga. It's not a culture that really exists in the same way here, especially in the UK, so it may bare some explanation. Basically, doujinshi is almost invariably pornographic. Generally it involves characters from actual commercial anime and manga either in situations or displaying emotions/desires/actions that are pretty much uncharacteristic.

This is a convoluted way of saying it's all about straight male characters "gettin' it on" together and female characters getting molested.

Why am I saying all this?

Well, it's kinda by way of excuse. The point I'm sort of making is perhaps it's these things that keep make me not quite like Clamp's stuff.

Perhaps I'm not that open to these sorts of things as I sometimes maintain, and it's that undercurrent that bubbles up and means I end up not really liking Clamp's manga (or the anime adapted there from). I like to think I'm free thinking and the swathes of fans would seem to suggest that other people do like this stuff, so maybe it is just me.

Because the other alternative is that CLAMPS stuff, although admittedly very pretty, narratively is not all that good. And since this is my review and my opinion then (the above caveat not withstanding), that's where I end up.

I'll give you a fore instance that happens in X.

There are three core characters - Fuuma, his sister Kotori and their friend Kamui. As might be considered fairly reasonable as a plot device, Kotori is shown to have a thing for Kamui. Kamui is essentially shown to reciprocate those feelings.

All very normal. What isn't normal and what CLAMP does is kill off Kotori very early in the book. What's more - and if you're not expecting spoilers you're gonna get a shock - it's her brother, Fuuma who kills her.

Okay, so this isn't an entirely unreasonable plot device and it's not really this which I had a problem with. What I had problems with are why Fuuma's personality changes to such a degree that killing her is the logical thing for him to do, and also Kamui's reaction to her death.

Unless, and here's the relevance of the first stuff I was babbling on about, Kamui doesn't really love Kotori, but actually loves Fuuma. This is never explicitly stated and may be an inaccurate assessment on my part, but it could also be, as I've discussed why I have a problem with it.

The alternative is that it's just plain illogical.

Anyway, this is meant to be a review of the anime, not the manga, although the two are pretty much identical up to a certain point. This point has more to do with the fact that CLAMP never actually finished X (it's about Tokyo being destroyed by Earthquakes, and that's actually what was happening while they were doing it, so they decided it wouldn't be appropriate). As such, the anime does reach a conclusion.

Something else to say about the anime is that the animation is absolutely awful. At first I thought this might be because it was louder than I though, but it seems it's not that old, so I guess it just had a very small budget. The thing to look out for especially are the use and re-use of the exact same CG falling cherry blossoms, which give the game away entirely.

The Summary: Pretty boys, big destruction, huge dramas, but a bit disappointing as a story.

The Score: 2/5

The Pictures:

(click for larger versions)