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Tsubasa 1: Gathering Of Fates
01/12/2007 . Source: Phil Jones 
region2 DVD: pub: Revelation Films. FUN73300. 1 DVD 130 minutes 5 episodes plus extras. Price: £15.99 (UK). Buy Tsubasa in the USA - or Buy Tsubasa in the UK  check out website: www.revfilms.com
This is another series from the CLAMP universe. Yet again we see crossover characters from series such as Chobits and Angelic layer. The basic premise is we have a group of characters travelling through different dimensions bumping into various CLAMP characters. So on the face of it, if you're a fan of all things CLAMP, this should be one for you. It not essential that you are up to speed with these series but it does add to the enjoyment. That said, this is a 'new' series so if you are coming to it fresh you can still follow along.
Right onto the nitty gritty. Syaoran is an archaeologist continuing the work of his dead father in the desert world of Clow working on uncovering the mysteries of a huge ancient ruin. His work, though, keeps him away from his childhood friend and sweetheart, Sakura. The two teenagers still see each other but not as much as either would like. Sakura wants to tell Syaoran how she really feels but this is difficult especially as Sakura is a princess. They are just at the point of forming a more serious relationship.
Things though slightly awry when in her sleep, Sakura is drawn to and become one with the ruins. Syaroan tears her away but in doing so her memories become solid in the form of feathers which are scattered through multiple dimensions. With her memories gone, her shell only remains. Syaoran promises to restore her and is cast to another dimensional world, our 'Earth' to try and find the answers to help Sakura.
He is not the only one to arrive on our 'Earth', though. Arriving at the same location is Kurogane, a warrior who is almost unstoppable on his world, becoming stronger by fighting and killing. Almost in despair at what to do with him, Tomoyo, the princess of his world, casts him away to another dimension. As she does so, she casts a curse on him so as to control his killing.
Meanwhile, Fai on another world is in a bit of bother. On the run, he jumps dimensions to get away from his fate that awaits him on his world. We discover that two mysterious characters were the ones to manipulate powers with Sakura at the ruin with the intention to mould space and time to there own ends. So all four characters arrive on Earth to be greeted by the dimensional witch Yuko. Each gives their requests, but each has to pay a price for what they want. Syaoran wants to restore Sakura's memories and in doing so bring her back from the edge of death. The witches price for Sakura to lose all memories of Syaoran, his bond, in exchange for help to find the memory fragment feathers. Fai has to give up the tattoo on his back, of which we are yet to know the significance of. Kurogane has to Kurogane has to give up his sword.
The group are given two cute creatures, Monkona who is white allows them to travel between the different worlds in the various dimensions. Whereas the black one allows them to communicate with the dimensional witch. Monkona does his stuff and the are transported to the first world.
This covers the first two episodes and the rest are concerned with finding the feathers and group bonding. This is really where the problems lay. It's a bit on the slow side. CLAMP fans have the references to go at. I think even newbies to the CLAMP universe will have probably at least heard of Chobits. You would have or at least I would that each world would say take up one to two episodes but so it's drawn out so that you're still on the first world by the end of this disc.
There is some beautiful animation and some of the background and effects are lovely but sometimes it just seems to slip into long drawn out shots. Some of the early episodes seem to lack clarity and look overly soft focused at times. The music altogether is impressive if some what perhaps over baked at times and doesn't always gel with what's happening on screen. Sometimes it just feels a bit heavy handed. A bit more subtlety would have gone a long way.
The background story is OK with plenty of flashbacks being provided to get you up to speed. The characters once the quest begins proper, seem to come together well so that by the time you reach the last episode on this disc, there is a good team feeling between them all.
Funimation's dubbing is sometimes a bit, how shall we say, loose interpretation at times as we've seen with other series they've dubbed. On the whole, it's not a huge problem as it gets the story and characters across and is altogether well acted and produced. You can always resort to the sub-titles and Japanese soundtrack if you prefer.
There's quite a lot of extras. Mainly text backgrounds on characters, world and faces in the crowd which gives you a heads up on a character that's appeared in a previous CLAMP series. Along with trailers not a bad selection of extras.
The series so far isn't bad it just is a bit lacking in places. Hopefully, though it will pick up pace. The elements are all there it just needs a bit of tidying. One for CLAMP fans, others may want to try some other anime before dipping into this series.
Phil Jones
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